FREE COMMUNITY-WIDE RECYCLE & REPURPOSE EVENT FOR DAYLIGHT SAVINGS
‘Fall Back’ into Action to Clean Up and Green Up

The Michigan Green Consortium will once again produce a free community-wide recycle, repurpose and reuse event from 10am until 3pm on Sunday,November 7, 2010 at Parking Lot B in downtown Traverse City. The event is held twice a year, the morning following the time adjustment, and serves as a reminder to residents to renew their pledge to do their part to preserve the environment.

The Daylight Savings Clean Up and Green Up Event will be hosted by the Consortium and a dozen or more local area businesses that provide recycle and reuse services. The event is comprehensive, offering residents the chance to bring recyclable items to one location and at no charge for collection.

Area businesses will be on site that day to process a realm of household goods that have reusable or recyclable value. While not all vendors are yet confirmed, past vendors have included. American Waste; Bay Area Recycling, RecycleChicken, Rifkin Steel, L & B Recycling, Cartridge World, Goodwill, GT Profile’s Shredmonster, TC eWaste, Odom Reusable Building Products, Northern Michigan Garment Restoration, Evergreen Bottle Company, Team Elmer’s and Home Depot.

Michigan Green Consortium is a trade association established in 2008 to promote and support green and sustainable businesses; to educate the business and local community on what should be done to ensure a healthy environment and provides networking opportunities for green
companies. The consortium is funded solely by member dues and public contributions.
To learn out more about the Daylight Savings: Clean Up and Green Up event, call (231) 947-1688 or visit www.mgconline.org

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Many people are starting to can their own food at home recently.  The once thought to be out of date practice is seeing a regrowth lately.  Canning is extremely beneficial and can be a very fun project as well.  Many have turned to canning as a means to save money but there are also many other health and economic benefits to canning as well.  Along with saving money canning also allows you to reuse those mason jars over and over again.  Once you have eaten all of the great pickles, jams, and sauces you made in the first batch, simply wash, sanitize and prepare to refill the jars with your newest creation.  Canning Local has written a great article on the subject and has made some great points.

Canning is a great idea because:

• Excellent quality and taste – When you use quality produce and perform the canning process correctly, you will create superior products to those for sale at the supermarket. Many recipes for home canned food are delicious and literally the quality is something that money can’t buy.
• Control over the ingredients – With home canning, you will know exactly where your food is coming from. Ideal sources of produce are your own garden and fruit trees, local organic farms, and any local farm. From any of these sources you will be able to hand select your produce at the peak of ripeness.
• Support of the local economy – By directly buying produce from local growers, you are putting money into the hands of local people. Local growers love selling from their own farms or market stands because they are not at the mercy of the big commodity buyers who set prices. This also allows local growers, especially small ones, to remain profitable, which is good for the local economy.
• Sense of accomplishment – Once you begin canning food, you will be thrilled with yourself. You will feel like you did something very meaningful to your existence because you did!  Along with that you also have the ability to reuse those jars once they are empty to cook up even more delicious canned creations.

These are all great reasons to start canning at home. Your family will love the delicious food you have cooked up and canned goods are a great gift as well. From homemade pickles to jams, and even flavored vinegars, your friends and family will be happy to unwrap a jar of something you’ve made just for them.

There are many resources on the internet that can instruct you on canning as well as thousands of recipes available.  Canning can be a little overwhelming at first but once you have done a few canning projects you should get the hang of it and it becomes quite easy.

Below is a list of resources to help you get started.

• http://www.freshpreserving.com/
• Pick Your Own
• Mountain Breeze Canning and Preserving
• Canning Pantry
• Country Home Canning

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Make your own bowls and glasses out of empty wine bottles using a bottle cutter.  You can also etch the glass giving your glasses additional character.  Curbly.com has a few suggestions to keep in mind while making your own custom glasses and bowls.

1. The bottle has to be perfectly round to roll on the rollers
2. Clean off all of the labels, you can cut through painted glass just fine
3. Adjust to your desired length and firmly hold the bottle while you rotate it towards yourself.
4. Do not go over the scored glass more than once. If you go over your score more than once you will create deeper cuts that could result in pathways for the glass to take off on
5. Slowly roll your scored glass above a candle heating it up. The thicker the bottle the hotter you should get it. It should be too hot to rest your finger on.
6. Instead of rolling the score with an ice cube I found a better way. Get a bucket or something that will hold ice water tall enough to cover your score vertically. When you feel the bottle is hot enough place the bottle in the ice water vertically and pop the bottle will split almost perfectly every time.

• Now you have cut your first bottle. You now have to deal with the sharp edge. I simply took my hand sander and used a little water and wet sanded the edge.
• You can etch the glass by using vinyl stencils and a sand blaster or there are also chemical etching kits that are available from most craft stores.

These great suggestions come from Curbly.com

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This watering can lid turns an empty water or soda bottle into a handy watering can. It’s great for watering house plans. Just fill your bottle up with water, screw on the cap and you’re ready to go.

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Stuart Haygarth has taken old junk he has found at garage sales, flea markets, thrift stores, as well as items that have washed up on the beach near his home, and turned them into gorgeous works of lighting art.  Such things as glasses, random plastic toys and containers, and colored glass vases and jars have all inspired him to create amazing reused works of art.

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Here are some great ideas for creating beautiful furniture and lighting fixtures out of mismatched flea market finds as well as stuff you might have sitting in your attic or basement. Tea cups, milk bottles, and drawers are just the beginning when it comes to creating new pieces from things you might have thought about getting rid of. These pictures are great examples but RecycleChicken is sure that there are many more great things you could come up with to reuse other items you have sitting around.

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Laurence Brabant has taken empty wine bottles and turned them into some of the most amazing serving utensils and glasses RecycleChicken has ever seen.

Similar to the beautiful Transglass by Artecnica, wine bottles are cut and chamfered to make serving spoons and glasses. Handles are made of beech and the cork base for the glasses are “health treated”.

From Laurence Brabant Editions Cold Cuts Collection.

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The Green Baby Guide has several suggestions on how to reuse empty baby food jars to create great little gifts as well as ways that you can use the jars around the house to keep yourself and your household a little more organized.  Some of these crafts can be done on a larger scale as well by using larger glass food jars such as salsa, mustard, or jam jars.

• You can make a chair from baby food jars, but it looks pretty complicated.
• The larger jars are the just the right size for homemade jam or jelly.

• If you’re trying to fit healthy eating into your busy holiday schedule this year, use baby food jars for toddler snacks on the go or salad dressing in packed lunches.

• For the project person in your life, baby food lids can be screwed onto a board, equal distance apart, to create a nifty storage system.  It works for the garage, a craft room, or for desk supplies.  For directions, go here.

• They are a great way to package up homemade finger paints or powdered tempera paints as simple stocking stuffers for your tots.

• You can dry herbs from your garden, seal them in the tiny jars, decorate the lids and and use them as gifts.
• If garden grown herbs aren’t readily available, you can make a handy little spice selection for a friend by buying spices in bulk and packaging them up in decorated baby food jars.
• Create a purse-sized sewing kit for busy moms by filling a jar with buttons, safety pins, and a small piece of cardboard wrapped with thread and loaded up with a few needles.
• This site offers an extensive list of crafts that can be done with baby food jars, including tiny gardens, candles, and homemade berry ink.

Thanks Green Baby Guide for the suggestions.

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In Fort Bragg, California the forces of nature have taken what used to be a barren and disgusting trash heap and turned it into something truly beautiful. Glass Beach, just north of Mendocino, gained its unique name because of the tons of shimmering sea glass adorning its sand.

From 1950 to 1967, the land that is now Glass Beach was owned by a lumber company, but was used as an unofficial dump by residents. It’s hard to believe that just 50 or 60 years ago we found it perfectly acceptable to dump household waste, appliances and even cars right into the ocean, but that’s exactly what happened here. Though various cleanup efforts took place over the years, the beach would never again see its natural state. The sand was now overtaken with countless pieces of sea glass: pieces of broken glass worn smooth and lovely from the constant friction of waves and sand.

The site was eventually purchased by the state in 2003 for $2.48 million. It is now a public-accessible tourist destination.  The state does not allow visitors to take any of the sea glass as a souvenir. You may still see the occasional antique piece of garbage wash up on the shore, but for the most part, Glass Beach is a glittering stretch of sand full of history and, hopefully, a lesson: beautiful things can grow where desolation and filth used to thrive.

To add your business or location to RecycleChicken’s recycling/reuse directory, use this easy “Get Listed” form.

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this clever outdoor diy idea comes from erik anderson of gerardot & co.- a creative branding and design agency in indianapolis. erik was kind enough to share a fantastic project that turns an everyday bottle into a modern backyard tiki torch. i love the way these torches look and am dying to find a backyard to use these in- too bad the closest thing we have is a 2×2 foot fire escape. but for those of you with yards, i hope you’ll enjoy this project from erik. click here for more info on the project and click here to check out erik’s work at gerardot & co. thanks, erik!

1. Empty Wine Bottle (You can use any bottle you like as long as it’s glass and the neck is 1” in diameter. Be clever!)
2. Teflon Tape 1/2”
3. Copper Top Plate Connector (threaded for 3/8”-16 thread rod)
4. 1” Split Ring Hanger (threaded for 3/8”-16 thread rod)
5. 1/2” x 3/8” Copper Coupling
6. 1/2” Copper Cap
7. Two Hex Nuts (threaded for 3/8”-16 thread rod)
8. Two #10 x 1” Zinc Plated Wood Screws (if your mounting it to wood)
9. 3/8”-16 Zinc Plated Threaded Rod (I bought a 3’ rod and cut it down to 8, 4-1/2” rods with a hacksaw.)
10. Tiki Replacement Wick
11. Torch Fuel (For safety reasons, only use fuel made specifically for outdoor torches. i.e. Tiki brand)

Helpful Tools: Channellocks, adjustable wrench, hacksaw, power screwdriver, and a funnel

****Safety Note: This is for outdoor use only. Tiki brand recommends that the wick never be set higher than 1-inch, and I recommend that you exercise the same discretion and common sense that you would with any small open flame.*****

The Hanger

1. Decide where you want to mount your Recycled Bottle Torch. Position the Top Plate Connector on your mounting surface and mark the holes for where the screws will go. It’s easier to keep it level if you pre-drill your screws first.
2. Once you have your Top Plate Connector mounted you can screw in the 3/8”-16 Rod until it stops. Channellocks are helpful for this part.
3. Thread the two Hex Nuts on to the Rod and tighten one all the way down at the point where the Rod meets the Top Connector Plate. Leave the other Hex Nut at the front end so it can be used to secure the Split Ring Hanger.
4. Thread on the Split Ring Hanger just enough so that the Rod is flush with the inside of the ring. Turn the 2nd Hex Nut counter-clockwise to snug it up against the Split Ring Hanger.

If you’d prefer your hardware to keep its shiny, unweathered look you can always give it several coats of clear polyurethane before you mount it. Personally, I think a weathered patina will add a nice element of character.

The Bottle

1. Carefully and tightly wrap the 1/2” end of the Coupling with your Teflon Tape. You’ll want to keep each wrap nice and clean so that it creates a smooth, even surface. Continue building up the tape until it fits very snugly into the opening of your bottle. You obviously don’t want it to fall in.
2. Insert the Wick into the Coupling until it sticks out about 1/4”. The Tiki brand replacement wicks are about 3/8” in diameter so they fit really well. Once they absorb the torch oil they’re even tighter.
3. Unscrew the Split Ring Hanger on one side and position the bottle neck into the ring.
4. Flip the front half of the ring back into place and tighten down the Hanger evenly on both sides. You may need to loosen the other side to make sure both sides are an even tightness. (Don’t over tighten the Hanger. You don’t want to break the glass.)
5. Use a funnel to fill the bottle with your favorite torch oil. (I use Tiki’s BiteFighter because it’s clear and seems to do a good job of keeping the mosquitoes away.)
6. Insert the Coupling & Wick into the top of the bottle and twist it snugly into place. Give the Wick a few minutes to absorb the oil before you try to light it.
7. I typically just blow my torches out. Use the Copper Cap to keep the Wick dry when you’re not using your torch.

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