December 21, 2007

During this Holiday Season
Make the Commitment to Recycle

The City has several locations for you to drop-off all of your holiday recycling; remember you can take all the packaging and wrapping paper from your holiday gifts to one of our City recycle centers. Christmas trees will receive special handling. Read below for instructions on how to recycle your tree as well as tips for recycling burned out light bulbs, appliances and how to have a greener holiday season.

Items accepted at the Neighborhood Drop-off Sites and Neighborhood Depositories:

The City has eight permanent sites and two alternate weekend sites where residents can bring recyclables:

For more information, visit the City's Solid Waste disposal web site at: http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/disposal.html.

As many of you know, December is Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) month in Houston . CFLs make perfect stocking stuffers, and are great gifts for a New Year's Resolution. Remember if you have old burned-out bulbs; be sure that you properly dispose of them, as they do contain a very small amount of Mercury. There are several places you can recycle your CFL bulbs:

• Westpark Consumer Recycling Center
  5900 Westpark
  CFLs from businesses will not be accepted.
• North Environmental Service Center
  5614 Neches Building C
• South Environmental Service Center
  11500 South Post Oak
• IKEA
  7810 Katy Freeway at Antoine
  10 am - 9 pm
• Roger Jones (a private citizen)
  11500 South Post Oak
  Houston 77035
  He allows residents to drop off CFL's every Tues-Wed 9am-3pm and every second Saturday 9am-1pm

Once you've enjoyed that beautiful Christmas tree, some may wonder what to do with it? Recycle it!

Log onto http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/christmastree2007.html to get all the details of when and how to recycle your tree this year.

Also, be sure to look at the holiday trash pickup schedule: http://www.houstontx.gov/solidwaste/holiday.html.

Did you get new appliances, electronics, or clothing for Christmas this year?

Be sure to drop-off your old ones to a reuse store, or if it is no longer working, email envcomments@cityofhouston.net to get specific details about recycling an item.

Tips for a Greener Holiday

• Look for holiday cards that contain recycled content or are actually recycled materials. You can also make your own cards out of scrap paper found around the house. You could use old cards as nametags for presents. Avoid cards with glossy, shiny or gold foil coatings since these cannot be recycled.

• Wrapping paper is often used once and thrown away. Try using colorful pages torn from magazines to wrap small gifts, and old maps or the Sunday comics for larger boxes. Avoid using paper entirely by using reusable decorative tins, baskets or boxes. If you do buy wrapping paper, look for ones made of recycled paper. Reusable cloth ribbons can be used in place of plastic bows. Finally, unwrap gifts carefully and save wrappings for reuse next year.

• If you go out shopping, bring your own tote bags and avoid coming home with an armload of plastic bags holding just one item.

• You are probably receiving piles of mail order catalogs at this time of year. Call the company's 800 number and ask that you be removed from their mailing list. Fortunately, magazines and catalogs can be recycled at our local recycling centers.

• For tree trimmings, try edible or compostable items like popcorn or cranberries on a string, gingerbread cookies or items made from "found" objects around your home.

Get Involved

Charlottesville , Virginia - NBC's "Clash of the Choirs" reality show (Dec. 17 - 20) pits celebrity-led choirs to gain a prize for the winning choir's home city. Choral Earth is upping the ante with its own challenge: Green the prizes in keeping with NBC-Universal's "green is universal" commitment. Choral Earth is encouraging audience members-and especially residents of the five "Clash of the Choirs" cities ( Philadelphia , Cincinnati , New Haven , Oklahoma City and Houston) -- to let their voices be heard. A group for the five-featured cities has already been set up for community members to make suggestions and discuss options at www.SingYourPart.com.

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