Wrap it up: we’re talking about the holidays.

January 4, 2021

Holidays happen all the time. So does gift giving. These tips are great for the great, grand holiday season we tend to celebrate in December each year, but they also work for thinking about gift giving year round. Birthdays, for example? Single-Use Wrapping Paper Alternatives Reuse your paper! One local family has been reusing wrapping […]

Recycle your Holiday Tree

December 28, 2020

As our Deschutes County Knott Landfill continues to fill up (it is anticipated to be full by 2029), we want to do our best to keep what we can out of it. And that includes your holiday tree! Trees can be turned into compost or mulch for reuse rather than rotting and decomposing into methane […]

Single Use Disposables. Are they actually better than reusables?

November 30, 2020

What’s better, paper or plastic? Single-use foodware made of petroleum-based or compostable plastics? A reusable canvas bag or a single-use plastic bag? A plastic-lined paper coffee cup or a durable reusable stainless steel Hydroflask? Many studies have been done comparing different product materials using what’s called a life cycle analysis or LCA. This is a […]

What do you do with broken crayon bits? Don’t toss ’em!

November 23, 2020

Ya know when you’re using a box of crayons and they break into little bits to the point where they are just hard to use anymore? Well Julie A. C. Wilson of Jactra Studios showed me a way to re-purpose or re-use them without tossing them. You could do it too! How to make new […]

Deadline Extended! Rethink Waste Community Waste Reduction Grants Still Available

November 20, 2020

Because of COVID and the holidays, we have decided to extend the grant proposal deadline to January 20! We would love to help your idea get off the ground with a $500-$2000 grant award to businesses, organizations, or individuals. We’ve seen such an increase in single-use disposables since the start of the pandemic and we […]

Use the WHOLE Bird!

November 18, 2020

I don’t know about you, but my Thanksgiving plans were thwarted by Kate Brown’s newest COVID-prevention orders. My outdoor buffet-style gathering of 7 from 6 different households is no longer ok. Sigh. And we already bought the turkey. In the spirit of #nofoodwaste, in honor of the life that was taken to feed me and […]

A few thoughts about waste, awareness, and November.

November 9, 2020

Imagine your perfect 4th-Thursday-in-November holiday scenario. What does it look like? In the year 2020 (an election year, at that), the economy isn’t doing great and many people have lost their jobs due to a global pandemic. It’s unsafe to travel and gather in large groups. And we are in the midst of the biggest […]

DIY Composter: How-to with TEC’s Youth Education!

November 4, 2020

Our Eco-Hero STEAM students got to make their own composters this fall! What is compost? Compost is decomposed organic material that can be used as a nutrient-rich soil amendment for indoor and outdoor gardens. This decomposition of organic material needs moisture, oxygen, and heat, which may not happen in a landfill: did you know a […]

3 Tips for a Low Waste Halloween

October 8, 2020

Halloween! Such a fun fantastical holiday when you can really be whoever you want to be: Storm from the X-Men? Willy Wonka? Or popular and scary Freddy Krueger? Well, even scarier might be the incredible amount of plastic waste generated during this holiday. One study estimated that the UK tossed over 2,000 tons of new […]

5 quick tips: how to reduce waste during construction

September 23, 2020

The EPA estimates that 548 million tons of construction and demolition (C/D) debris (concrete, asphalt, steel, wood products, drywall, brick and clay tile, etc) was generated in the U.S. in 2015 alone — more than twice the amount of generated municipal solid waste. The reduction, reuse, and recycling of C/D can be accomplished through deconstruction […]