In between my main home and the small cottage on the Delaware River is one of my favorite places to stop called Bucks County Gardens.    The landscaping at both of my houses is pretty minimal; it’s more groves of bamboo, a hillside of ferns, fields of flowers and natural woods than manicured lawns and gardens.   But even with a low-maintenance lifestyle, I—just like anyone else–need gardening basics now and then that need to be picked up.  I can always count on Bucks County Gardens to have what I need and now and then, even be pleasantly surprised.

Over the holiday weekend, I saw these recycling bins set-up outside the store collecting plastic pots and trays.  Amazing!   

Another look at the collection bin.

Gardening can be a very green and healthful activity to do around the home, but the waste created from buying plants has always been a problem.  Since the type of plastic used for pots and trays isn’t commonly recycled (like the #1 and #2 plastics for curbside recycling), it has always been tough to recycle them.    Near the end of April, when you drive around my community after everyone has done their Spring plantings, it can be heartbreaking to see piles of these plastic pots and trays overflowing in trash cans for pick-up.

A peek inside….

The plastic pots and trays are recycled by grinding them down into small pellets, which are then sold to plastic recyclers to be made into plastic lumber, retaining wall ties and other plastic products.   

And for gardeners, plastic lumber can be a great alternative to real wood; it’s mold, mildew and rot resistant, can be drilled just like regular wood, and will outlast timber for many decades (traditional wood will last only about 10 years).

Of course, many smaller plants like vegetables, herbs and flowers are now going plastic-free entirely, like Bonnie’s Plant Farm line of plants.    The biodegradable peat pots do a great job of keeping plants alive during shipping and can be planted right into the ground when gardening.

But since larger, root-dense plants need the durability of plastic pots, seeing these recycling programs  (especially at my favorite store) is a step in the right direction for sure.

Dear Anthropologie,

Hello there!  You might know me as the crazy guy who stands in the middle of your stores watching your talented set designers put up all those elaborate displays.   Just watching, awing, wondering how these artists take everyday materials—like these water and soda bottles—and makes plastic flowers out of them.

You might also know me as the persistent guy who keeps trying to buy your displays.  Remember the animals made out of Chinese food takeout chopsticks I kept bidding on (even though I was told they were and will never be on sale?)   Or the snowy, wintery “terrariums” that I also begged to buy?   Yes, I am that guy trying to buy one dozen of these water bottle flowers from your Union Square store on Friday…

Still don’t remember?   I’m also that guy who went to the Duane Reade drugstore by the Rockefeller Center store, bought a pair of scissors, fished out a soda bottle from the trash and stood in your store trying to recreate one of these fantastic upcycling ideas.   Sure, shoppers stopped and stared.   Maybe a few of you thought “is this the new guy who’s working here?”    Still, I made it my mission to teach myself and create a tutorial on this ingenius idea.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a line and say hello and tell you the latest plastic flower upcycling window creations are brilliant.   Just please: post a tutorial on making them so we can all fish out discarded bottles just like you and create something amazing from trash.

Yours,

Danny Seo

The kind folks at Anthropologie (and a few of you, too!) forwarded me their February newsletter that outlines the four steps to make the plastic water bottle flowers.   I love the fact they are calling out the fact in the newsletter that there are billions of these bottles used every year and discarded into our landfills.

Score, Cut, Bend and Paint.    That’s it!

At the beginning of January, I flew up to Toronto to make a few appearances on behalf of Method to unveil our Method Laundry detergent.  The product was hitting store shelves in Canada first (and it’s now rolling out in the US in stores like Lowe’s, Duane Reade, Walgreens, Wegman’s, Whole Foods and Target) and I had the opportunity to be somewhat of a Method Goodwill Ambassador to the media on this trip.  

If I had to choose one word to describe Toronto, it would be this: COLD.   

So my venturing into the neighborhood did not take me far, but where it did take me was to the Mountain Equipment CoOp store, a unique shopping experience that is Canada’s leading supplier of outdoor equipment and gear.

Upstairs, as I was trying on sneakers to replace the shoes that were soaked in snow and mud, I saw this interesting landscape painting hanging by the railing.   Upon closer inspection, I realized it was made entirely out of intricately placed mountain climbing ropes.  Incredible!

A closer up shot of the ropes, all woven here and there to create the colorful landscape.

This board fascinated me and made me love the store even more: a gear swap board.  Yes, a store that sells gear is encouraging its customers to swap unneeded gear with each other.    Can you imagine a jewelry store trying this?   People swapping unwanted watches for bracelets or vice versa?  They would never allow it!  

In-store composting…

Their Share the Warmth winter gear collection is really inspiring.    I could feel first-hand how cold winters in Toronto got and could only imagine someone who didn’t have the proper winter clothes living up there.   This inspired me think of some ideas for my US retail partner—JCPenney–and see if we can do some kind of collection campaign.  I’ve got something cooking for Earth Day!  More to come on that…

They set-up a tent where people could despoit their donated winter gear and clothing.    Very cool!

For more information visit www.mec.ca.

Go, Gayle, Go!     Here’s the editor-in-chief of Better Homes and Gardens kicking off a denim drive in Des Moines, IA.   We’re collecting jeans to be recycled into eco-friendly insulation for homes. 

If you picked up the June issue of Better Homes and Gardens, you’ll notice my monthly column changed a bit to answer actual reader questions.  I’m hoping to help solve more dilemmas in future issues, because if you’re trying to figure out an eco-problem, I am sure there are countless others who are thinking the same thing, too.

Here’s the denim dilemma I solved for June:

Hi Danny,
I have a 6 and almost 4 year old boys who constantly get holes in their jeans. I have been setting all “holey” jeans in my linen closet hoping I can find a way to recycle them without throwing them away. Since these are all jeans with holes, I don’t want to take them to Goodwill. Is there a place you can mail them off to? I have heard about the denim insulation and wondered if there was a place that I could send them for making that? Any other ideas? Pretty soon they will be taking up too much space and I will have to decide what to do with them, and I’d rather not throw them away. Thanks! -Pam Ekker (Billings, MT)

First, don’t be afraid to donate ripped and worn-out clothes to Goodwill.  Clothing the charity is unable to sell in their retail stores are bundled together and sold to textile recyclers who then make them into industrial rags; either way, Goodwill makes money.    Another option is to recycle jeans into eco-friendly insulation.   The National Geographic Kids magazine is working to set a Guinness World Record for largest collection of clothes for recycling.  Send old jeans—any size and brand—to be recycled through the Cotton Inc. from  Blue to Green program,  which shreds the jeans into insulation and then donates it to families in need.   Send your denim (until June 30^th) to: NG Kids / Set a Guinness World Record, P.O. Box 98001, Washington, D.C. 20090-8001

A few weeks ago, I appeared on CBS The Early Show to do a segment on Earth Day freebies.   One tip I gave was RadioShack’s Trade In program that took your old personal electronic waste, appraised it, and gave you a gift card for the item’s recycling worth.   Everything from old IPODS to digital cameras to cell phones and camcorders could be looked up on their website and appraised instantly.   If you like the trade-in price, you can then ship it to RadioShack for free with a pre-paid Fedex Ground slip you print right off their website.

But to see how easy and lucrative this could be, I decided to dig up some old electronics in my own home and check out their worth.   First up: an old Blackberry I recently replaced and a Sony CyberShot digital camera I ruined with an iced coffee.

First, the Blackberry.  I looked up the model make, clicked next, and then answered some easy questions about it.    The worth was $10.52.  Not much, but $10.52 more than just tossing the Blackberry into a recycling box at my T-Mobile store.  So, I accepted and moved on.

And now for my unfortunate Sony CyberShot camera.  Picked the make and model from the list, clicked next, and answered questions here.  Turns out, just clicking “NO” on the question “is the unit fully functional” will lead you to one flat price no matter the condition or if you’re providing a charger/battery or not.    So, it’s worth $1.61.   Whoopee.    But given the fact the camera has been tucked away in the back of a desk drawer for 8 months now, I figured why not accept and add it to my Blackberry trade-in.

Then when I was finished, I typed in my address and it gave me a pre-paid Fedex Ground slip to ship Radioshack everything.  Once they get it, they’ll ship me a gift card to RadioShack worth around twelve bucks.

But imagine if you have a few good-working cell phones, camcorder and maybe a gaming device.  You could probably get more than $100 back, which is plenty of money to trade-up to something great in-store.   In my mind, $12 is better than nothing for these two obsolete things, so why not?