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Staying Green

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Sometimes staying green can be a very difficult task. It is more expensive to recycle an old cellphone than it is to chuck it and just be rid of it. The sad truth is, that being green can all add up in the end and sometimes be even more expensive. It shouldn’t matter as long as you are doing right by the environment and doing good for all of us involved in this planet.

Electronics such as cell phones contain lead and cadmium and mercury. All of these are harmful to the environment because they can leak and dissolve into the groundwater or even worse into the air if they were to catch fire.

When contacting a Junk removal Company to hire for services, always make sure that they recycle all E-Waste that can be harmful to the environment. Companies should usually state this as a badge of honor so you won’t have to look too much but in the case that it’s not stated it’s always a good idea to ask.

To save you the trouble, we have found one of the best Junk Removal Companies that deals with E-Waste and the recycling of most of the material that they will haul off. Contact them and be sure that your junk removal services will go smooth as planned.

Clean Out an Apartment

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I manage several apartments in the Northridge area. Northridge is a great section of the San Fernando Valley. It has a nice mix of families, middle class professionals and students. I rent mostly to students who go to Cal State Northridge. So I end up turning over units pretty frequently. About half my apartment units are vacant at some point during the year. So I spend a lot of time cleaning out apartments and getting them to rent again. 

If you manage or rent apartment units I’d highly recommend using a junk removal company in Northridge to reduce time spent turning over units.

I am pretty careful about who I rent to and most of my tenants are good, hardworking kids, but when they move out they always leave something behind. Without fail. And typically its big and heavy and impossible to put into my normal dumpster. This is the right moment to call a junk removal company. They’ll come in, remove all the junk and any trash from the unit, and after that its just a matter of sending in my super to clean and make any small repairs that need to be made.

I would estimate that junk removal companies in Northridge have saved me hours and hours of labor. And cut down my turn around time by days.

Junk Removal Questions

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A junk removal service pops up every day in Los Angeles. It is a business with a fairly low bar for entry. Really all you need is a truck and a strong back. But how do you know you are getting your money’s worth when you hire a junk removal service? Here are some questions to ask your junk removal service before hiring them.

1. How Do You Price Your Junk Removal Service?

Junk removal services in Los Angeles will generally charge based on volume (i.e. how much you fill the truck with) or a flat rate per load. You also want to find out whether their quote includes labor or whether they charge a separate fees for labor. Also you want to find out if a junk removal service charges more for electronics, like computer monitors, and large bulky items like appliances and televisions

2. Will Your Junk Removal Service Remove All My Junk?

When you call a junk removal service make sure you describe all the junk you want removed. Some junk removal services in Los Angeles will not dispose of certain types of junk. Some junk removal service may not handle certain small jobs, or large jobs.

3. How Will You Get Rid of My Junk? You can your junk recycled or disposed of properly at a local landfill. You don’t want your junk to be dumped illegally.

4. Are You a Licensed and Bonded Junk Removal Service? License and bonding is a requirement for most businesses operating in Los Angeles. Also a company that has a license shows a commitment to responsible business practices.

5. How Long Have You Been in Business? Junk removal services come and go in Los Angeles at a rapid rate. Finding a junk removal service that has been in business for a while ensures you are doing business with a junk removal service that has a long standing reputation.

Tips to Help Our Environemnt

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With all the landfills getting dumped on a daily basis you have to wonder how long we can last with all this trash. If you think about all the trash that gets dumped on a daily basis you might get depressed and think that there is no hope for humanity. That is one way of looking at things but have you ever looked in the mirror and decided that you want to make a change and help in preserving our future? There are many personal steps we can all take in order to help out our environment and ensure that our loved ones and their children have a planet to call home. Here are some easy steps you can make in order to reduce the amount of junk you dispose of everyday.

1.The first one is an oldie but a goodie. Recycle your cans and bottles! Nothing can be easier and in the long run pays off because you can get cash for all those bottles and containers.

2. Re-use those scraps of paper for various uses! Remember that not your loved one left you this morning? Well you can keep it and re-use by leaving another note on the back!

3. If you change your own oil, make sure you save it and take it to a location that can dispose of it properly. That one will really help our environment.

4. Turn off all your lights and appliances when not in use. This one is also a no brain-er as it saves you money when you aren’t wasting electricity.

As you can see there are many things you can do to save money and also help our environment and protect our planet.

Construction Debris Recycling

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Back in the old days most, if not all, construction debris was sent to the landfill. And the old days aren’t that old. Sending construction debris directly to the landfill was a pretty regular practice fifteen years ago. Now things are different.

General contractors use hauling services that recycle construction debris on a regular basis. What do these hauling services recycle? Wood can be recycle quite easily into other wood products. Recycled concrete is highly sought after by contractors who turn that concrete into aggregate. Even things like bathroom fixtures are frequently recycled. Items like faucets and fixtures recovered from older homes are often resold to people seeking an antique look in their bathroom or those seeking to restore a home to an original style.

How do you make sure your general contractor recycles? First and foremost ask if your general contractor uses a hauling service that recycles. You can also ask your general contractor to provide recycling receipts from the recycling centers they use to dispose of construction debris. 

Recycling construction debris isn’t just the smart thing to do, it can also save you time and money. Many larger cities are expediting permits and reducing the cost of permits for those who choose to recycle construction debris.

Cleaning Out Your Garage This Summer? Recycle, Don’t Throw Out

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Summer is here and its time to clean out your garage. If your garage is anything like mine you’ve probably got boxes piled to the ceiling and you just want to get rid of that stuff. And if you don’t want to do it there is an entire mini-industry based around garage clean outs (click here to find out more about junk removal and professional garage clean outs).  

But before you start hauling all your garage junk to the garbage STOP. Okay, now that we’ve got your attention, before you throw out the stuff in your garage consider donating to local thrift shops and charities instead. Why?

Donating Unwanted Items Keeps Them Out the Landfill

Donating items can keeps them out of the landfill and gives those items a second (and sometimes third and fourth) life. Less trash in the landfill means a better environment and less trash left behind for our kids and grandkids.

Donating Unwanted Items Helps Charities and Local Stores

Many charities depend on income brought in by associated thrift shops to fund their charitable efforts. Also charity thrift shops often provide dignity and employment to disabled individuals and provide valuable services to your community. 

Donating Unwanted Items Helps You

Donations to charity can provide you with a valuable tax write-off. Make sure you ask for a receipt from your charity.

Be sure you check with your charity of choice or thrift shop of choice before donating. Many charities have rules about what they will and will not except (some don’t take appliances older than a certain date for instance). Also be aware that thrift shops don’t accept paints and other household hazardous materials. You may also want to ask your thrift shop or charity of choice if they have an “Items Wanted List” and no doubt some of the things you’ve cleaned out of your garage are on them.

Disaster Clean Up…

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Natural disasters can strike at any time, during any part of the year. In some cases you may have some warning, in other cases you may have no warning and no time to prepare. Once the immediate danger has passed you are often faced with a daunting task: disaster clean up. 

The most important thing to remember when you are faced with a disaster clean up — whether flood, fire or tornados — is that you are not along. The American Red Cross can provide you help and support during a natural disaster. During major natural disaster you can find aid from FEMA and state governments. 

Your insurance company should be able to refer to a disaster clean up service that can help you clean up and rebuild. Depending on your insurance your insurance company should pay for most of the cost of a disaster clean up.

Be Careful with Your Chemicals

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When you buy paint, or car wax, or a computer you don’t really think of those things as toxic or hazardous. Hazardous materials aren’t sold in stores right? I mean, as long as I don’t go around swallowing paint this stuff can’t hurt me right? 

Items like used paints and cleaners do represent s potential source of harm to our environment. Think of a common scenario. Someone (we won’t say you because you wouldn’t do this) dumps a half gallon of paint down the drain after they’ve finished repainting t a room. That paint will go on to contaminate pipes, sewers, and possibly even drinking water for days or weeks. Motor oil that is just dumped out into the ground goes on to contaminate ground water, harming wildlife and plants. Even a computer that has been improperly disposed of can cause great harm by exposing both animals and people to lead and other contaminates.

So when you are dealing with household hazardous waste be careful. Make sure that you cap and store paints and cleaners properly. Keep them out of the reach of pets and children and away from heat sources that can spark a fire. When it comes time to dispose of these chemicals dispose of them properly.

There are many ways to dispose of household hazardous and e-waste. You can often trade-in small electronics for cash. You can take your household chemicals like cleaners, solvents, and paints to city drop off center or a hazardous waste disposal event. If you have a lot of hazardous materials to dispose of try calling a hauling service that specializes in disposal of household hazardous waste and chemicals.

 

 

How to Recycle Without a Recycling Center

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When people here the term recycling they think of recycling centers where people haul bags of cans or bottles to be recycled. But you don’t need to always use a recycling center to recycle. There are a lot of other methods beyond just hauling something to a recycling center. I used to work for a junk removal service and we found a million ways to recycle unwanted, unloved, or even broken items. 

1. Donation

Donation to local charities and thrift shops was one of the main avenues we used to get rid of other people’s “junk”. Many charities and thrift shops have items they are actively seeking. So I kept in touch with a network of local thrift shops and when an item they needed sprang up in your junk truck off it went. You can do the same thing, and even get a nice tax write off for it.

2. Yard Sales

This is a time honored classic, but a time honored classic that works. When I worked at a junk removal service he used to have biannual yard sales where we sold items we had collected over the previous six months and sold them. In turn our company donated the profits to charity.

3. Creative Re-Use

My then girlfriend (now wife) was an Art Major with a quirky side. She showed me that many conventional household items we’d normal throw away could be reused for fun, funky house decorations when she took a blender and repurposed it as a vase. 

Recycling is more about what you put in the blue bin. It’s a way of thinking about how you interface with the products you buy, the products you throw away, and the world around you.

What Junk Removal Services Do to Help Our Environment

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Junk removal services sometimes get a bad rep as just guys who throwaway and dispose of junk. But actually junk removal services do more to recycle and keep junk out of our landfill than most waste management companies. How?

Junk removal services recycle junk that would have been dumped in a landfill or worse still dumped on the side of the road. Junk removal services actually provide an alternative to illegal dumping. In major cities across the U.S. people have a tendency just to haul their junk and unwanted items to the nearest curb and leave it. Junk removal services take that junk and haul it away instead. 

Junk removal services recycle junk that is hard to recycle. A junk removal service for instance can recycle an entire mattress. They send the springs to a metal recycler, any wood framing to a wood recycler, and even take the stuffing to a general recycler. They also recycle by giving useable items away to charity. 

Junk removal services are actually the most environmental conscious form of waste management around today.