Tag Archives: recycling Los Angeles

Tips to Help Our Environemnt

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.

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

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.

How to Recycle Without a Recycling Center

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.

How Junk Removal and Hauling Companies Recycle

Most of the time we don’t think of junk removal companies and junk haulers as environmentalists. We often see those junk removal dump trucks roaming around your neighborhoods in Los Angeles and think, ew, just another garbage truck. But in reality junk removal services in Los Angeles are spearheading the way for garbage recyclers. Most junk removal services in Los Angeles actually recycle a majority of the items they haul away.

When a junk removal company hauls away household or commercial junk they don’t take it to the landfill immediately. A good junk removal company sorts through all the household and commercial junk they collect, organize it, and then separate it.

Most junk removal companies recover some fairly useable items. Many are things like small appliances, or old toys, or even clothes that can be donated to charity. Many junk removal companies in Los Angeles support local charities and those charities’ thrift shops by donating useable items to those same thrift shops.

In cases where something isn’t in any condition to donate to charity junk removal companies can and still do recycle. Take a box spring mattress for instance. Junk removal companies can recycle the wood and metal springs. Sometimes they can even recycle the fabric.

On average junk removal services in Los Angeles recycle between 50% to 90% of the items they haul away. Junk removal companies are blazing the path towards a greener, more recyclable and reusable future.

Welcome to Green Planet Junk Removal

We are the new Green Planet Junk Removal blog. This space will be dedicated to bringing you the best news and opinions from the world of recycling, trash removal, garbage disposal, and junk removal. We’ll mostly be talking about these topics in reference to the greater Los Angeles area.

Trash removal and disposal is a burgeoning problem for the United States. The average American produces hundreds of pounds of garbage and trash per year. This is true for every man, woman, and child living in Los Angeles today. If we don’t learn to control and reduce our trash output we will soon be a city, a state, a nation awash in trash. 

So what can you do to help? To change the course of events so our children’s future isn’t buried under a mountain of styrofoam cups? You already know the answer. Reuse, reduce, recycle. 

Reduce … your consumption. We don’t need half the items we think we need. We also can do without disposable cups, plates, and silverware. Instead of paper bags use reusable lunch bags. Instead of one time use plastic bottles, use multiple use stainless steel bottles that will last a lifetime.

Reuse … Before you throw something away, ask yourself, can I reuse it? Chances are the answer is yes. So reuse items like plastic bags more than once.

Recycle … Recycling is a lot easier today. Most of Los Angeles, including apartments, have a recycling program. Take advantage of these programs and recycle. You’ll be amazed at the things you can recycle.

These three simple Rs can help keep our city, the city of Los Angeles, clean and reduce our trash footprint, and preserve the Earth for the next generation.