5 Holiday Recycling Tips

The holidays are a time of joy and celebration - But it can also be a time of waste. People often throw all kinds of things away during the holidays and create all kinds of trash that ends up in the landfills. A lot of this waste can be avoided.

Here are five tips to help improve your recycling come holiday season.

==> Tip #1: Take Your Batteries to RadioShack

Don't throw away batteries. Batteries contain chemicals that pollute landfills and poison land. Yet most people simply chuck their batteries in the garbage can when they're done. Worse yet, a lot of the toys and gifts exchanged during the holidays have batteries in them.

How do you recycle your batteries? Simple. Take it to RadioShack. That's right - They'll recycle your batteries for you, for free.

==> Tip #2: Recycle Your Catalogs

Holiday season is also catalog season. Chances are you're going to get a whole slew of catalogs in the mail, even if you never asked for them.

Don't throw them away. Instead, collect all of them and recycle them. Do this for all the papers, mailers and various scraps that'll come your way in the holiday season. This includes greeting cards that you don't plan on keeping.

==> Tip #3: Shipping Materials

If you're shipping presents to other people, pack your boxes with newspaper. It works just as well as Styrofoam, but doesn't destroy the environment. Not only is Styrofoam made of toxic chemicals that clog up landfills, the process to make them is toxic as well.

If you're receiving gifts in the mail, make sure you recycle all the shipping materials. Recycle your cardboard boxes and any packaging you can.

==> Tip #4: Buy Recyclable Gift Wrap

Not all gift wrap is recyclable. When you're shopping for wrapping, look for the recyclable symbol. The more people who buy recyclable giftwraps, the more likely stores are to stock them in the future.


Don't be shy about telling people you give gifts to that the gift wrap can be recycled. A lot of people just won't know.




==> Tip #5: Reuse, Reuse, Reuse

Reusing something is far better than recycling something. When you recycle something, be it plastic or paper, only a fraction of what you throw out can actually be reused. Recycling is also an energy intensive process. When you reuse something, you skip all of that.

Reuse your boxes. Re-gift presents that you don't like. Store your artificial Christmas tree for next year instead of throwing it out. Look for creative ways to reuse things instead of just tossing it in the trash or recycle bin.

These five tips will help you stay eco-friendly this holiday season. Get in the habit of asking yourself: "Can I recycle or reuse this?"

On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse, frequently referred to as the "Great American Eclipse", was visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts

See annularity and totality, Baily's beads, and other sights seen when the Moon blocks the Sun in thesepictures of solar eclipses from around the world.

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic.


While this statement may be a bit biased, planet Earth is pretty amazing. Over the course of time, Mother Nature has proven to be the ultimate artist and painter when it comes to landscaping the Earth. For example, in Fort Bragg, California, there is a beautiful beach known as Glass Beach. On this beach, you can actually find the garbage of the early twentieth century. But the water and sand has made the garbage turn into smooth stones, which lay upon the shores of Glass Beach. It is the most perfect and beautiful example of how Mother Nature can turn man’s trash into her own treasure.

Yesterday I drove over to Florence River Park, a small nature park on the far east edge of Florence, CO. As I sat in my car for a few minutes I spotted a hummingbird 20-25 feet in front of my car. It hovered a few feet off the ground then went down to the ground which piqued my curiosity. When I got it in my binoculars I was stunned to see that it was on the ground feeding its baby. And, ye gads, it was in the parking lot where it was could be run over by a vehicle, grabbed by one of off leash dogs that are common here or even stepped on by someone as it was difficult to see. So I got out to move it, or get to move on it's own if it was able to fly, to a safer location. The pics above and just below show the young hummer on the ground in the parking lot.
It quickly became apparent this was a nestling that was not ready to fledge yet. I called Nancy Kelly at Second Chance Wildlife Rehab in Pueblo to ask her advice. She advised putting it back in the nest which was not possible as the tree limbs were 30 or so above the parking lot. She then suggested making a nest box and tying up in a tree--that wasn't feasible either. So she said I should put it in a box and bring it to her. The pic below is the nestling hummer in the box with some paper towels and the stick it had attached it's tiny toes to. Actually the stick was about a foot long but I certainly wasn't going to pry it's toes off and it small it broke easily so I just lifted the hummer with it's attached stick into the box.
The nice thing about baby hummers is they don't need very large transport boxes. The pic below is the box I put holes in then put it in my car for just under an hour drive to Pueblo. It chirped every few seconds for most of the trip which apparently was it's calling to be fed. I did get it to the rehab in Pueblo. Nancy confirmed it was a very young bird, maybe a week or so old.
The pic below shows the parking lot where I spotted the nestling hummer with the red ball at about the location it was located--a very precarious location for a tiny hummer on the ground. I am really glad I decided to go to this park in nearby Florence so I could get it out of harm's way and to a rehab where it is safe. Fyi, I didn't see the mother well enough to confirm the id but I believe she was a Broad-tailed Hummingbird. SeEtta 8-19-17: Follow up from Second Chance Wildlife Rehab, here is a short video of this nestling feeding vigorously:

"Cats do not need their owners, the scientists conclude," another says. "Poor cats are always poor PR." As if it were not enough for Australia to declare The war on wild cats, we now have a study that says cats do not need their owners. "The University of Lincon's research adapted the test of Ainsworth's" strange situation, "developed in the 1970s to observe How much attachment to the children and, sometimes, the dogs (idiots), their caregivers. They found that when you put a cat in an unknown room does not seek the tranquility of its owner or does not seem to miss them if they are absent. The potential explanation for this, catches my eye: cats, unlike children and dogs (idiots), are territorial - put them in a strange room and will be too busy freaking out to seek tranquility. Of the independent cat that sees humans as nothing more than practical food dispensers is firmly ingrained. As a cat owner, I am deceived enough to think that my cat loves me. And I've been shaking my brain, and asking all that I know, to come to hard tests of this fact.





Your cat…
1. Greet you at the door. A colleague's cat recognizes the noise of her husband's car on a busy street and two other cats sit on the garden wall waiting for him to return from work.




2. Follows you around. Your cat comes and hangs out with you, in a kind of casual, hey what you're doing, oh taking a shower, well, I'd sit just then, way? That's love.




3. Look at you. Disturbing But cats only make direct eye contact with the people they really like.



4. Blink on you. A long slow flicker is a cat equivalent of a kiss. Do it back. But only if no one is watching.

5. Meows. Cats do not meow to other cats, only to humans. This is my best cat fact. Your cat is talking to you. Your cat is telling you that he loves you. Also: purring. Loudly.



6. Tolerates affection. My cat lets me kiss her, even though she clearly does not like it. She can dodge, but she does not run away, and I consider this a victory.

I spotted a small flock of about 9 or 10 of these Band-tailed Pigeons in a tiny unincorporated town called Greenwood which is south of Canon City about 20 miles (via winged flight). The homes in Greenwood are right up against the San Isabel National Forest and forests are the habitat for these mountain pigeons.
The white collar on the nape of this species can be seen in the pic above.  The broad pale gray terminal band on a darker upper tail (and below the light undertail coverts) is best seen in pic below.  SeEtta

I photographed these Eared Grebes at Lake Cheraw in southeastern Colorado as both parents (they were up at the same time) were busy feeding fish and maybe lake vegetation to this very young chick.
How do I know that the chick is less than 10 days old? Birds of North America online states, "Uncommon for chicks >20 d to receive parental care."
I am not sure what that small fish is but it zebra striped. And according to the Birds of North America chicks receiving parental care by both parents are more likely to be less than 10 days old.
While this chick mostly just waited for a parent to bring it food it occasionally would swim out to a parent to get fed as quickly as possible as shown in pic below.
And I did see it dive once but it didn't look like it caught anything.
Pics are best viewed more enlarged, just click on a pic to enlarge it. SeEtta