You Renew

I recently wrote an article about recycling your cell phone. I had mentioned that there were places that you could drop off your phone in person and that there are websites that will help you recycle your electronics.
One of these sites is www.YouRenew.com. YouRenew is a great place that will allow you to sell or recycle your electronics in a few easy steps. It also does not take long to complete the process; so with a little bit of time and some unwanted electronics, you could be making the world a better place and making money!
YouRenew was founded in a dorm office when two men, Bob and Rich, realized that they were losing value on their old electronics. They recognized that the rapid progression of technology often resulted in spending hundreds of dollars on items of technology that were soon outdated. From personal experience, I know that I bought the first generation iPod Touch a month before the second generation came out, and I had no idea that it was going to come out! Had I known that I would have paid less money for a better and newer iPod.
When people continue to buy the latest and the greatest, the older item often gets discarded or thrown into a corner–essentially a waste of X amount of dollars. A main cause of this is because there is no easy way to recycle electronics. Bob and Rich realized this and took action–forming YouRenew.
YouRenew receives thousands of items every month. They are able to resell 70% of these items, and the rest are recycled.
In a recent interview, the Director of Marketing and PR, Alysa Perry, provided us with more insight about YouRenew.com. Alysa stated, “We are committed to educating people on the importance of electronics recycling. E-waste is the fastest growing stream of trash in the United States and we’ve made it our mission to stop that.”
When you go to retire a piece of electronic equipment, first try to see if there is a place for you to recycle, resell, or reuse it!

A common practice that I have been seeing is cell phone recycling. While ten years ago cell phones were not something that most of the population had, we now see that even ten year olds are walking around with cell phones!
We know the three Rs of being green: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
What is better than helping care for our planet? Helping care for our planet and providing shoes to needy children around the world. The founders of GreenSoul Shoes plan to accomplish both of these goals. Formed as a venture by Alastair Onglingswan, Iris Chau, and Stephen Chen, their mission is to provide one pair of shoes for every pair of 100% recycled shoes they sell, with a final goal of donating 1 million pairs of shoes.

In recent years there has been a great deal of national attention focused on the improvement of industrial environmental standards. Even as we attempt to rebuild our economy, we seem to be focused on not only restoring industry, but also using this as an opportunity to do it in a way that is not environmentally destructive. This provides us the opportunity to improve all aspects of these industries, including the workplace hazards among workers and the health hazards affecting members of the surrounding communities that were all too common.
Yes, as the title says, there is a boat made out of plastic water bottles. This boat, called Plastiki, is made completely out of plastic bottles and recycled waste products. They plan to sail this boat starting in August 2009. When it is complete, Plastiki will be comprised of 12,500 2-liter plastic bottles that have been collected by Waste Management. The whole boat will end up weighing 9 tons and will support a team of 6 crew members.
Sponsored by National Geographic,