As I mentioned, we’re cleaning out the office in order to make it a more useful writing/study space. Traditionally, it’s been the dumping ground for old things we didn’t want in the rest of the house—furniture, electronics, books, etc. A lot of this stuff is still useful, just not to us. So we’re selling it [...]

On Tuesday I talked about recycling our old cell phones. This came about because of a fall cleaning of our office, and the biggest piece of electronics that we needed to get rid of was our desktop computer. My tech guru, Jason, talks about how he prepared it for reuse. Our computer turned 10 this [...]

Earlier this summer I lost my cell phone in the river while kayaking, and we used this as an opportunity to switch to a different carrier. Since Jason’s phone doesn’t work with the new carrier, we’re going to recycle it, along with another phone that I’d been meaning to recycle for almost two years. I [...]

On Tuesday, I shared my conversation with Randi Mail, recycling director for the City of Cambridge, about Cambridge’s new single-stream recycling program. In the process we touched on some general waste and recycling questions that I thought I’d share here. If you have any other questions or want to attend the recycling facility tour, let [...]

On October 25, Cambridge is switching to single-stream recycling. Also called zero-sort recycling, this method allows residents to throw all recyclables into one bin, rather than separating paper and cardboard from plastic, glass, and metal. It’s a method that’s already been adopted by many urban areas worldwide, with great results. To find out more about [...]