create something beautiful

For a year and a half while I was in college, I lived in a big house with quite a few other college students, most of them guys, most of them on some sports team, all of them going to a different college than I. They had a tendency to drink a lot, both in the house and out of it, and thus accrued a pretty significant number of recyclable bottles and cans every week which none of them ever felt like returning for the nickel bottle deposit each one would return to them. Being pretty tight on cash at all times, I would very often take care of these bottles and cans and bring a big bag with me every time I went grocery shopping. Kinda like having a bunch of coupons, but smellier and requiring a little bit more work, but with an overall very rewarding feeling when you were done. I mean come on, it was FREE MONEY for RECYCLING!

Needless to say, I was extremely excited when I read about these services Cell For Cash and RecycleBank on Treehugger today.

Here’s the brief synopsis on how they work. Check out their websites to find out more detailed info and check out the Treehugger article to find out about a couple of other, similar services that reward you for doing good.

Cell For Cash: Recycle your old cell phones, get money for many of the models. Go to their website and look up your cell phone. They will send you a postage paid envelope to return the phone to them to refurbish and sell in developing countries. For many of the models, they’ll mail you a check for the amount listed on the website, but for some of the older ones they won’t give you anything, except the satisfaction of knowing you did a good thing of course. They make it soooo easy by letting you sort by manufacturer and then providing pictures of all of them in case you can’t find your model number!

RecycleBank: If you’re a homeowner, sign up for this service. They give you a recycle bin with a computer chip in it that tracks the weight of how much you recycle when the garbage man comes to empty your bin. You get to put ALL of your recyclables in there for Single Stream recycling, making it excessively easy. Based on the weight of your recyclables, you get 2.5 points per pound that can be converted to gift certificates good at tons of awesome retailers like UnCommon Goods, Starbucks, Amazon.com, GOOD Magazine, and hundreds more.