The electronic waste (e-waste) recycling program run by the Lower East Side Ecology Center allows New York City residents to dispose of unwanted or broken electronics in an environmentally responsible way and this September and October they will be holding 17 e-waste recycling events in all five boroughs.

They accept electronics from households, small businesses (less than 50 employees, please call ahead) and not-for-profits. A list of acceptable recycling materials can be found here, as well as answers to other e-waste FAQs. They do not accept home appliances such as microwaves, refrigerators or air conditioners.

All events will be held rain or shine and will run 10am to 4pm (with the exception of the September 20th event which will run 11am to 7pm). Directions to the locations listed below can be found here.

BRONX

September 25, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
VAN CORTLANDT PARK – Broadway between Manhattan College Parkway and Post Road

BROOKLYN

September 24, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
FORT GREENE – Habana Outpost – Fulton Street between South Portland Avenue and South Oxford Street

October 01, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
CARROLL GARDENS – Smith Street between President and Union Streets

October 01, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
WILLIAMSBURG – The New New York, N 11th Street between Kent and Wythe Avenues

October 02, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK, Pier 1, Furman Street between Old Fulton and Doughty Streets

October 15, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
PARK SLOPE – 8th Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets

October 16, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
PARK SLOPE – 7th Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets

October 22, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
BED-STUY – Restoration Plaza, Herkimer Street entrance between New York and Brooklyn Avenues

October 23, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
COBBLE HILL – PS 29 Schoolyard, Baltic Street between Henry and Clinton Streets

MANHATTAN:

September 17, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
CHELSEA – Tekserve, 119 West 23rd Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

September 18, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
LOWER EAST SIDE – Delancey Street between Chrystie and Forsyth Streets

September 20, 2011 | 11:00am – 7:00pm
UPPER EAST SIDE – Church of the Heavenly Rest, 5th Avenue and East 90th Street

October 22, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
UPPER WEST SIDE – Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Amsterdam Ave between West 96th and 97th Streets

October 23, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
STUYVESANT TOWN – 14th Street Loop, enter at 14th Street and Ave A

QUEENS

September 24, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
St. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY – parking lot, enter at Gate 4, Union Turnpike and 175th Street

September 25, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
NY HALL OF SCIENCE -  visitor parking lot, enter at 111th St. and 49th Ave.

STATEN ISLAND

October 02, 2011 | 10:00am – 4:00pm
SHOWPLACE ENTERTAINMENT CENTER – 141 E Service Road, enter at Victory Boulevard and Beresford Ave

The average New Yorker tosses 46 pounds of clothing and textiles in the trash each year, totaling 6% of our entire residential waste stream.  But with your help, landfills are going on a diet. More than 51,000 New Yorkers have helped NYC lose 1 million pounds by recycling unwanted clothing, linens, paired shoes, bags and more through GrowNYC’s textile recycling initiative.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Why a textile recycling program?

5.7% of NYCs residential waste stream consists of textiles like clothing and towels. All told, New Yorkers discard 193,000 tons of textiles every year in NYC, at a cost to taxpayers and our environment.

Where and when can I recycle my textiles?

Textiles can be dropped off weekly at 8 select Greenmarkets: 97th Street, Union Square (Mon and Sat only), Grand Army Plaza, Fort Greene, McCarren Park, Inwood, Tompkins Square and Jackson Heights.

What items are accepted?

Our collections accept clean and dry clothing, paired shoes, bedding, linens, hats, handbags, belts, fabric scraps 36″ x 36″ or larger and other textiles.  We do not accept rugs or carpeting.

What happens to materials donated?

Materials are sorted into different grades including usable/non-usable, cotton scrap, cotton blend scrap and synthetics. These commodities are then sold for reuse as clothing, linens, etc or to recycling markets that turn materials into wiping rags, fiber for car seats and insulation.

Is my donation tax deductible?

Yes! Your contribution to the program directly benefits Council on the Environment, Inc. d/b/a GrowNYC.

What if I can’t make it to these collections?

If you are unable to attend our weekly collections, contact Wearable Collections at 646-515-4387 or info@wearablecollections.com to see if you are eligible for a home pick up. Better yet, visit www.WearableCollections.com to find out how to set up a textile recycling program in your apartment building!

Can my business bring items to the drop-off sites?

NYC law requires businesses to recycle textiles if they comprise more than 10% of the company’s total waste stream. Visit NYCWasteLess to find a vendor.

ONE-DAY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

MANHATTAN

Saturday, September 10, 12pm-4pm
Tucker Square Greenmarket
Columbus Ave at 66th St

Saturdays, September 17 & 24, 11am-4pm
Tribeca Greenmarket
Greenwich St b/t Chambers & Duane

Saturday, October 15, 11am-4pm
Abingdon Square Greenmarket
Hudson St & West 12th St

BRONX

Friday, October 28, 9am-2pm
Parkchester Greenmarket
Westchester Ave & White Plains Rd

Wednesday, November 2, 9am-3pm
New York Botanical Gardens Greenmarket
Mosholu Gate on Southern Blvd b/t Mosholu Pkwy & Bedford Pk Blvd

ONGOING WEEKLY COLLECTIONS

FRIDAYS

97th Street Greenmarket, 8am-2pm
W 97th & Columbus

SATURDAYS

Union Square Greenmarket, 8am-6pm
Union Square Park, North Plaza (17th St.)

Inwood Greenmarket, 8am-3pm
Isham St b/t Seaman & Cooper

Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, 8am-4pm
NW Entrance to Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Fort Greene Greenmarket, 8am-3pm
Washington Park at DeKalb

McCarren Park Greenmarket, 8am-2pm
Union b/t Driggs & N12th St, Greenpoint

SUNDAYS

Tompkins Square Greenmarket, 8am-4pm
E 7th & Avenue A

Jackson Heights Greenmarket, 8am-3pm
34th Ave b/t 77th & 78th Sts

MONDAYS

Union Square Greenmarket, 8am-6pm
Union Square Park, North Plaza (17th St.)

NOTE: Ask a market manager if you cannot locate the clothing drop-off.  All collections are year round but may be suspended due to major holidays or extremely inclement weather. Please call or visit our website for updated information.

Got a stash of old cellphones, video game players, cameras, e-Readers, laptops or other electronic devices cluttering up your space? If you do, then now is a great time to do some Spring cleaning & decluttering and get cash for your stash at the same time. Online companies like NextWorth and Gazelle make it easy and convenient for you to get additional value out of your used electronics equipment, while being environmentally responsible by keeping them out of the landfills.

Here’s how it works. Go to the website, list what you have to sell and receive back an offer. If you like the price you’re offered and accept it, you’ll receive a check, a Pay Pal credit card or a gift card and your electronics will be refurbished and resold or recycled. Warning: remove all of your personal data from any devices you sell before sending them on their way to new users.

Anyone who reads a daily newspaper or watches the evening news knows that everyday all around the world people are caught in traumatic, emotional and transitional situations. It’s awful for anyone involved, but when innocent children are affected, it’s particularly heartwrenching.

Thanks to an organization called Stuffed Animals For Emergencies (SAFE), you can help traumatized children feel a little more safe in a too often unsafe world. SAFE is a 14-year-old non-profit run completely by volunteers. It has 41 chapters throughout the United States, Canada and Central America and is currently looking to expand worldwide. SAFE collects new and gently used stuff animals, toys, books and baby blankets and gets them to children during emergency situations such as fires, illness, accidents, neglect, abuse, homelessness and even weather emergencies such as tornadoes, floods and hurricanes. They also donate the items they receive to other children’s organizations, military organizations, libraries and even nursing homes.

If you’ve got items like the ones described above and don’t know what to do with them, SAFE is a great way to declutter, reduce, reuse and recycle them. Your donation can make a real difference for a child when they need it most.  Please visit Stuffed Animals For Emergencies for all the details.

Green gift bags are an idea whose time has come. (Click here if you want to read more about the eye-opening, negative impacts of paper gift wrap and disposable gift bags on the environment – AND ON YOU!) And when better to use green gift bags than at the holidays, which means right now.

Gift Bags Gone Green is a line of fabric gift bags created to help everyone take another step on the journey to “green”. The bags are washable, reusable, sustainable, time-saving and beautiful. They’re hand-sewn in the USA from a collection of fashionable vintage and remnant fabrics and there are five different lines in five different sizes to choose from. Use them to hold your own items or to wrap a gift; either way you are reducing waste and helping to save our planet. Gifts Bags Gone Green is happy to make custom, private label or special occasion bags (weddings, baby showers, birthdays) to fit your needs.

As an organizer, I love that you will be giving something that can and is meant to be regifted. That means less clutter, less waste and a great opportunity to help the environment. It’s a real win/win all around!

To honor its worthy mission, I would like to recommend Catalog Choice a free service that lets you reduce unwanted mail and choose how you hear from brands. Catalog Choice was started by three environmental groups – the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation and the Ecology Center, which runs Berkeley, California’s curbside recycling program – with the goal of reducing the negative impact on our natural resources caused by the mass mailing of catalogs.

So, if you have no need for paper phone books, want to opt out of receiving paper catalogs, stop pre-approved credit offers at home or unwanted mail at the office, register with Catalog Choice now.

Denim – known round the world as a symbol of American fashion – is actually a French import. The word comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called “serge”, originally made in Nîmes, France. Originally called “serge de Nîmes”, the name was soon shortened to denim. The contemporary use of the word “jeans” comes from the French word for Genoa, Italy (Gênes), where the first denim trousers were made.

Denim was introduced to this country by Levi Strauss in the 1850s in the form of work pants designed for the mining industry and we’ve have had a longstanding love affair with denim ever since. Comfort, fashion and durability are all words that come to mind when we think of denim, but INSULATION? Not so much.

Since 2006, Cotton Inc. has taken 270,000 pieces of denim and using a multi-stage process recycled them into UltraTouch™ Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation for 540 Habit for Humanity houses. (FYI – it takes approximately 500 pair of jeans to insulate one average-size American house.) Cotton Inc.’s efforts have kept 200 tons of denim out of landfills and provided an essential building material at the same time. Now that’s how to recycle and reuse!

Denim insulation costs about ten percent more than standard fiberglass insulation, but it’s safer to install (non-itch, no carcinogens, formaldehyde or chemical irritants), better for the environment, more energy-efficient and acoustically it provides 30% better sound absorption than traditional fiberglass insulation. In addition, it’s one of the only insulating products that contains an active mold/mildew inhibitor.

It’s spring, so why not do a little spring cleaning, make some space in your closets and help the environment at the same time. Donate your no longer worn or loved denim jeans, skirts or jackets and join the the COTTON. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.® call-to-action to give old denim new life.

According to the E.P.A., electronic waste contributes 70% of the toxins found in landfills, while only contributing 1% of the volume of materials in landfills.  Electronic waste contains many toxic materials including lead, mercury, cadmium, phosphors and flame-retardants. Recycling your electronics waste decreases energy and water use, reduces pollution, and keeps hazardous chemicals out of our air and water.

A recently passed law makes it illegal for New York City residents to dispose of electronic items, starting July 1, 2010. If you have electronics you no longer use or need, you can dispose of them responsibly by participating in an upcoming electronic waste recycling event. These events are co-sponsored by the Lower East Side Ecology Center and Earth Day NY.

What you can recycle (in working or non-working condition):

• Computers (laptops & desktops, servers, mainframes)
• Monitors
• Printers, scanners, fax-machines, copiers
• Network devices (routers, hubs, modems, etc.)
• Peripherals (keyboards, mice, cables, etc.)
• Components (hard drives, CD-ROMs, circuit boards, power supplies, etc.)
• TVs, VCRs, & DVD Players
• Audio-visual equipment
• Cell phones, pagers, PDAs
• Telecommunication (phones, answering machines, etc.)

PLEASE NOTE: no home appliances (microwaves or refrigerators) or electronics from businesses will be accepted.

LOCATIONS:

Brooklyn:
April 17, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Habana Outpost, South Portland Avenue and Fulton Street, Ft. Greene

April 25, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
PS 29 School Yard, Baltic Street Between Henry and Clinton Streets, Cobble Hill

Manhattan:
March 28, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Union Square, 17th Street and Broadway

April 10, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Tekserve, 119 W 23rd Street, Chelsea

April 18, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Morningside Park, Morningside Avenue between 113th and 114th Streets, Harlem

Queens:
April 11, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Travers Park, 78th Street between Northern Blvd & 34th Ave., Jackson Heights

Roosevelt Island:
April 03, 2010 > 10:00am – 4:00pm
Roosevelt Island, Good Shepherd Plaza, 543 Main Street, Roosevelt Island

For more information, please visit the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s website.

Started in 2003 by then MAJ Jim Barker, Beanies for Baghdad – a civilian organization based in Evansville, Indiana now in its 7th year – acts as a bridge between U.S. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, the children of Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan and people who want to help make the world a better place.

Barker, of Whitewood, South Dakota, was one of thousands of Soldiers in Baghdad when Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003. During that tour, Barker frequently interacted with the local population and noticed that he never saw any children with toys of their own.

“On one occasion, I threw a beanie baby named ‘Courage’ that my sister sent me into my bag. That day, we were at an elementary school. I saw a little girl about 4-years old named Sarah, and I called her over,” he recalled.

Barker gave “Courage” to Sarah and her reaction to the gift told him that he wanted to do more. From that simple act of kindness grew a nationwide effort back home to send Beanie Babies and other toys, clothing, toiletries and school supplies to American troops in Iraq so they could distribute them in Baghdad and other communities. Two generous individuals volunteered to publish a web site at their own expense and, on May 4, 2003, Beanies for Baghdad was born.

According to the Beanies for Baghdad website, “Children in general like the same things everywhere. Many of these children have nothing so anything is a big deal to them.” They would appreciate donations of the following:

•    Beanie Babies
•    Stuffed animals
•    School supplies
•    Frisbees
•    Balls
•    Sporting equipment in general
•    Small cars (i.e. Hot Wheels or Matchbox)

Items should be gently used and in good or new condition. No religious materials, please. Pack your contributions in a sturdy box, contact the charity at info@beaniesforbaghdad.com and tell them you have a donation to make. They will send you the addresses of two servicemen in need of beanies, etc. Choose an address, make a label and mail your package. Donors are responsible for shipping costs to the military postal service; military postal service is less expensive than overseas shipping costs. Both the shipping costs and value of the items donated are tax deductible.

Rather than having unused and unneeded items sitting in a drawer or closet somewhere just taking up space, please consider sending them to Beanies for Baghdad and helping U.S. troops and the young children of war torn countries who have suffered so much and have so little happiness in their life.

Personally, I’m a big fan of sending environmentally friendly e-cards, but lots of people prefer to give and receive paper greeting cards. If you’re one of them and would like a way to recycle yours, then consider donating them to the St. Jude’s Ranch for Children Recycled Card Program St. Jude’s Ranch serves “abused, abandoned and neglected children and families, creating new chances, new choices and new hope in a safe, homelike environment.”

The children living at St. Jude’s help adult volunteers make beautiful, new, “green”, holiday and all-occasion greeting cards cards by removing the front and attaching a new back. The children receive payment for their work and learn the benefits and importance of “going green”. Proceeds from the sale of all cards benefit St. Jude’s.

Send your used holiday, Valentine’s Day, Birthday, Thank You cards now through February 28, 2010 to:

St. Jude’s Ranch for Children
Recycled Card Program
100 St. Jude’s Street
Boulder City, NV 89005