by Diane MacEachern, www.biggreenpurse.com, and author: Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World

In honor of the 12 days of Christmas, we’ve come up with 12 days’ worth of ways you can recycle almost anything in your house. That sure beats the alternative: 99% of what you bought this year will end up in the trash by the same time next year – unless you find a way to keep putting it to use. These tips show you how.

1. Clothes – In no more than an hour, go through closets and drawers and root out the shirts, sweaters, skirts, shorts and pants that are too old, too small or too beat up to ever wear again. But don’t throw them away. Salvation Army, Purple Heart , Vietnam Veterans of America, Goodwill and Value Village all accept used clothing that they re-sell at a very low price to their patrons. Why bother? Producing fabrics like cotton, rayon, linen, and wool is one of the most resource intensive industries in the world. You’ll keep those resources circulating by keeping them out of the trash. Read More »
2. Last year’s gifts you never used – The euphemism for this is “regifting,” but it could just as easily be called gift recycling. It’s a great way to save money, too.
3. Books – If you’re an entrepreneur, set up an account with Amazon.com, EBay, Cash4Books or Powell’s to sell your used books to a vendor who will happily re-sell them to a bargain shopper. Or join Paperback Book Swap to give and get books for free. If you’re feeling more philanthropic, round up all the books you know you’ll never read again and give them to your library, the neighborhood boys or girls club, or the community center.
4. Sports equipment Just because you or your kids have outgrown soccer cleats or a bicycle helmet doesn’t mean someone else can’t use them. Donate to Sports Gift or find your gear a new home using the Freecycle network in your community.
5. Electronics – Recycling computers, cell phones, PDAs and cameras couldn’t be easier these days. HP’s recycling program accepts HP equipment for free, and other brands for a nominal fee. Dell buys back old models of all types of electronics, regardless of manufacturer, and gives Dell gift cards to the customer in return. Want to make it easier still? Drop used electronics at the nearest Best Buy, which will “take almost anything,” according to the company website. Whichever way you choose, the payoff should make you feel great. “E-waste” may be responsible for as much as 70 percent of the heavy metals in landfills, including 40 percent of all lead. These and other toxic substances can leach from the landfill into the groundwater below. When you do your part to recycle, you’re actually helping to protect the water you drink!
6. Televisions – Since you’re already recycling things that have a cord, what about the old television you’ve replaced with a new plasma screen or digital? Use the Earth 911 database to find the tv recycler nearest you.
7. Wrapping paper, ribbons, bows – This is a no-brainer. Keep a bag handy Christmas morning so that, as people open their gifts, you can easily capture the wrapping paper to put out with your normal, weekly paper recycling. (If the paper hasn’t been ripped to shreds, you may be able to re-use it next year before you recycle it.) While you’re at it, you can recycle the bottles and cans from your holiday parties, too. And lest you wonder whether the effort is worth it, consider this: In 2007, 54 billion cans were recycled, saving the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil – America’s entire gas consumption for one day.
8. Toothbrushes, razors, snack bags, yogurt cups – Download a free label from a group called Terracycle. Send them your trash, and sign up to have them make a donation to your favorite charity. Does recycling get any better than that?
9. Incandescent holiday lights – Everyone loves these sparkly mini lites – that is, until they break because they’re so fragile, or just burn out because they’re not very efficient. You can recycle them here. By the way, rather than replace them with more incandescents, shop the after-Christmas sales for new LED lights that are more than ten times as efficient at their conventional counterparts.
10. Appliances – It should go without saying that if your appliance still works relatively well, donate it to a local charity like the Salvation Army or Habitat for Humanity. If it doesn’t work, you can recycle the steel that it’s made from by connecting with a listing in the Steel Recycling Institute’s data base.
11. CDs and DVDs - Since you got that new iPod or mp3 player, you may not know what to do with the big stack of CDs you’ve accumulated over the years. The Compact Disc Recycling Center of America makes it easy and cheap to recycle your CDs. An organization called Back Thru the Future will recycle DVDs as well as CDs.
12. Eyeglasses – If you wear glasses, you probably have several old pairs cluttering up your drawers or shelves. Let the Lions Club and Lenscrafters take them off your hands with their Gift of Sight eyeglasses recycling program. Drop your glasses off at LensCrafters stores; the Lions Club will get them to people in need in the U.S. and Canada.