Every year, I hand make a small number of cards which get sent to a select number of friends and family. In return, I sometimes get a Christmas card back. Every year, I go through the whole, “now what can I do with these Christmas cards” thing. This year, I thought I’ll take a quick look at different ways of keeping your Christmas cards out of landfill.

Cute Sock Monkey Christmas Card by sunsetgirl creations

• I love these flickr photos of cute little boxes and magnets made from recycled christmas cards
• Recycled ribbon spool ornaments – this one uses recycled christmas cards and old ribbon spools!
• Birdhouses from Greeting Cards – cute little bird houses
• Recycle and Reuse Christmas Greeting Cards – this is a great resource – lots of links to crafty projects you can do with your christmas cards, including creating gift tags, miniature gift boxes, magnets and more.
• DIY Holiday stars – takes a bit of time but fun looking holiday star, also good as a tree topper
• Recycled Christmas Card Ornaments – make christmas tree ornaments with your old cards.
• Recycle them in your yellow-lidded recycling bin.
• Donate them to your local child care centre, school or nursing home for their craft activities.
• Make them into new cards for the following year.
• Create a keepsake basket from your old cards

Plexiglass trees by Lauren Manning

Avent calendar cones by Francine Clouden

While this isn’t made from Christmas cards, I love this advent calendar made from paper lying around your house.

Any other fun ways to recycle your old cards?

In conjunction with the ACT Government and Queanbeyan City Council, Apple will be holding a community e-waste recycling event on Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th of August 2009, from 9am until 4pm.

Computers and other e-waste can be dropped off at:

• Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre, Mugga Lane, Symonston
• Mitchell Resource Management Centre, Flemington Road, Mitchell
• Park n’ Ride car park, corner of Cowlishaw and Anketell Streets, Greenway
• Waste Minimisation Centre, 5 Lorn Road, Queanbeyan

All householders and non-commercial organisations can take part by bringing their e-waste (computers, laptop, monitor, scanner, printer and computer-related, peripherals, TVs, video players, stereos and mobile phones) to the drop off locations.

Note that whitegoods, overhead projectors, damaged e-waste, contaminated equipment or other hazardous waste are not accepted through this recycling program.

For more information:

• Phone Canberra Connect on 13 22 81
• Visit www.tams.act.gov.au
• Visit www.apple.com.au/environment/recycling/program – more useful information through this link

Here’s the news article from Lioncom:

Canberra’s first technology recycling company (service established year 2000) is holding a free PC Recycling Day on the 13th and 14th of June 2008 for the Canberra community. Visitors to Lioncom in Fyshwick on the 14th of June 2008 will be able to drop off their unwanted and excess computer equipment at no further cost. Canberra business and government departments are also encourage to take advantage of the Lioncom offer with Friday the 13th of June 2008 available exclusively for the Canberra business community.

Unwanted computers and electronic goods are one of the fastest-growing types of waste in the world (five times normal waste rates) and is likely to reach 40 million tonnes a year. It is estimated that there are more that nine million computers, five million printers and two million scanners in Australian households and businesses. Over the next few years millions of computers will be turned off and disposed. It is imperative that we protect our local environment by ensuring all e-Waste is disposed off correctly.

PCs contain materials like metal, glass and plastic which can be recycled and reused. Computers harbour noxious chemicals and heavy metals that can leech into the environment if not recycled correctly. CRT computer monitors can include up to a kilogram of lead, while batteries are loaded with cadmium.

Sealed up, the devices are safe. But once thrown away and left to rot in landfill, chemicals and heavy metals can leech out into groundwater, posing serious health risks. Sufficient exposure to lead alone can damage the central nervous system – particularly in children – causing long term blood disorders and mental retardation.

Taking advantage of the Free PC Recycling Day

Simply drop off surplus computer equipment at the Fyshwick Collection Centre, located at 8 Pirie St, Fyshwick.

• For Businesses and Government Departments: Friday, 13th June 2008, 9:00am – 5:00pm
• For General Public: Saturday, 14th June 2008, 9:00am – 5:00pm

For further information:

Ph. 02 6239 3444

Fax. 02 6239 3445

Email. disposals@lioncom.com.au

Web. www.lioncom.com.au

Good on you Lioncom! I really appreciate local businesses who take the initiative to help green our city.

One of the things to be aware of is the difference between end-of-use versus end-of-life products. The first can be reused while the latter requires environmentally sound disposal.

Due to his enthusiasm for recycling and other green matters, my hubby was tasked with recycling these “e-waste”. What he quickly found was that it can be extremely difficult and expensive to recycle e-waste in Canberra, in particular, bulk loads of computer items. From a quick look through the items, I’m guessing that some of the items were end-of-life while others were end-of-use for their business (including good quality working 21″ CRT monitors that were surplus to their requirements as staff had upgraded to 30″ LCD monitors).

So if you’re in a similar situation of recycling bulk loads of computer gear, what are your options for getting rid of your unwanted computer gear legally (dumping of computer items is illegal in the ACT)?

Mitchell Resource Management Centre and Mugga Lane Landfill and Resource Management Centre

The Mitchell and Mugga Lane Resource Management Centres are located in Flemington Road, Mitchell ACT and Mugga Lane, Symonston ACT. You can drop your unwanted computer gear there. The computers are sent to Melbourne for recycling where plastics and other easily recycle materials are extracted.

Disposal fees apply as follows: computer box $15, monitor $22.50. Note that with bulk loads, the website states that it’s $30 per 10 kg. When hubby brought a trailer load full of computer items to Mugga Lane, they refuse to charge per 10kg. He was told that it was charged by the tonne. The Mitchell centre said that they didn’t do bulk loads.

More information over at www.nowaste.act.gov.au

Charity Computers

Charity Computers is a not for profit organisation and registered charity run by Canberra Christian Life Centre. Charity Computers receive donated computers in both working and non-working order. They don’t seem to accept bulk loads, unless it’s all computers than can be reused in a home situation (rather than the mix of business computer gear from hubby’s workplace).

For the donated computers that are working, these are repaired and reused. These computers are sent to individuals in need or not-for-profit organisations. Charity Computers are involved in training the unemployed for jobs and are also involved in charitable activities locally and overseas.

Disposal fees of $25 apply to Apple items, 14″ monitors, faulty monitors and monitors without stands. Disposal fees of $5 apply to printers requiring ink or are faulty, and dot matrix printers.

More information at www.charitycomputers.com/ nationally, or try the Canberra Charity Computer page.

Dell recycling

Dell offers recycling for any brand of computer, keyboard, mouse, monitor or printer. Dell will arrange to pick up the equipment at your home for a flat fee of $10 plus $13 per item in metropolitan areas or $15.50 if you are more than 40 km from your capital city. You can also take your PC to one of two drop off points in Sydney and Melbourne for $8.50 per unit. Contact Dell Recycling on 1800 465 890 or email recycling_dell_au@dell.com for more information.

Dell also offers free recycling for Dell branded products.

I’m not sure about bulk loads but it’s likely the same as the costs for the home recycling (i.e. paying for each item to be disposed).

More information at www.dell.com.au/recycle

Green PC

Green PC is located in Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT. It is a not-for-profit organisation that states its dedication to “breaking down the digital divide” that separates the information rich from the information poor. They refurbishes donated computers and make them available, at a price, to those that may not be able to afford a new computer system. They also provide IT services at affordable rates to registered charities and community groups.

At this point in time, they will only accept Pentium 4 desktops and laptops and LCD monitors.

More information at www.greenpc.com.au

Lioncom

Lioncom is located at 8 Pirie Street in Fyshwick ACT. They handle recycling and disposal of computers and are committed to a 100% No Land-fill policy.

They handle bulk loads (call to make an appointment). Disposal costs are $8 per computer, $18 for small monitors (can’t remember the price for 20″ and above monitors), and $1 for miscellaneous items like keyboard, mouse, cables etc.

More information at www.lioncom.com.au

Freecycle

An anonymous reader kindly provided the following suggestion:

On freecycle act (a yahoo group) working monitors are snapped up very quickly.

You can try the ACT Freecycle group or check the Freecycle website for other Freecycle groups around Australia.

EzyScrap

EzyScrap recycles metal in the Canberra region but reader Tiffany noted that they picked up and recycled her printer for free.

Printer cartridges

Printer cartridges (including both toner and ink based ones) can be dropped off at ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ boxes. View a list of ‘Cartridges 4 Planet Ark’ boxes in Canberra.

Geeks

Find a geek – geeks are a great people to pass old printers, mobile phones etc to. They can pull the items apart and use components for various projects. Usable components include LCD screens from your mobile phone, printer gears etc. Not sure where to find geeks? One option is to try the mailing list of your local Linux user group.

The verdict

Hubby ended up going with Lioncom as they seemed to be the only organisation that would accept bulk loads of computers. I was really surprised to find out how difficult it is to dispose of bulk loads at the Mitchell and Mugga Lane Resource Management Centres. They would have been my first choice for bulk loads, but it seems that it’s only worth going to the Mitchell and Mugga Lane Resource Management Centres if you have at least a tonne of items.

We’ll have to do another computer recycle and disposal run in a few weeks. Looks like Lioncom will be the choice again.

If you’re aware of any schools or other organisations that can make use of old unwanted computer gear (probably a mix of working and non working items and will possibly include server gear as well), please drop me a comment. I would have thought that there are schools out there who may want to have the opportunity to strip down a computer. Anyhow, drop me a comment if you have any other recycling/disposal suggestions or resources that I can add to this post.

DISCLAIMER: The prices above are provided as a guide. Please ensure that you check the websites mentioned for the latest prices.

Edit:

• Added Freecycle to the list.
• 5 May 2009 – Added ‘Geeks’, EzyScrap, printer cartridges and updated the Charity Computers information.

“Target 75″ is a plan to reduce Canberra’s water use from the average 118 megalitres to 75 megalitres for the day.

We should be aiming to reduce our daily water usage, rather than aiming for just one day, but it is raising the awareness of the water situation here.

More information over at the Target 75 site.