Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
NORFOLK -- Recycling has been around for years. You’ve bundled paper, collected aluminum cans and plastic bottles to keep them out of the landfill.
About seven percent of our landfills are packed with old clothing, bedding and shoes.
Now, in the City of Norfolk, you can recycle clothing.
"If they are non-reusable, and that is what we are really encouraging people to drop in here are non-reusable things, then they are sold to organizations that will refurbish those items and turn them into rags for additional distribution," explains Holly Carson with Keep Norfolk Beautiful.
If the used clothing is still wearable, officials recommend donating it to charities for re-sale in thrift stores.
"They bring the items to us. They are put onto donation carts and we have sorters that go through them and determine whether something sellable in the store or not,” says Joy Litton, Assistant District Manager for a CHKD Thrift Store.
What makes something sellable or not? No holes, tears, stains, not out of date, not something from the 70s, fashionable.
If it makes the grade, the items go into a bin for hanging, tagging and pricing. Then, they’re on the racks for sale.
If donated items aren’t good enough to sell, they still have use.
The clothing is loaded into a baler and it gets compacted. The bales are then sent overseas and sold so they can be used in Third World countries.
So remember, a trip to a donation center or recycle drop-off will extend the life of your favorite worn out t-shirt or shoes and it will ease the burden on our landfills.
