We experienced a family crisis late last week, everything in our house started to break, our happy infrastructure was literally falling apart. First to quit on us was our fridge water dispenser, closely followed by the ice maker, then our clothes dryer decided to stop drying!

We easily managed without the ice maker and water dispenser but we quickly realized that the clothes dryer was a fairly critical piece of what makes our lives tick by so smoothly. Without our clothes dryer the pile of dirty clothes quickly reached new heights and a pile of already washed rugs started to stink up the laundry room with a rather nasty “sour” smell…

Our Old Washer and Dryer (In a Messy Laundry Room!)

But as the saying goes, for every cloud there is a silver lining, and our silver lining was the chance to upgrade our out-dated washer and now broken clothes dryer. We went to our local Lowes store and spent about an hour checking out the new features and ratings for the “high efficiency” front loading washer and dryers.

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As I was sat at yet another red light on my way home last night I noticed that the annoying red light was alot brighter than usual, and it seemed to be made of lots of tiny lights instead of the usual single bulb… I remembered seeing some stories about new traffic lights which use light emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of power hungry incandescent bulbs and the one I saw looked liked a group of LEDs.

Once I realized that the red light stopping me from getting home was in fact a new super efficient traffic LED light system I suddenly didn’t mind staring at a red light!

I Love Traffic LED Lights - Red but Green!

This new breed traffic lights is made from groups of LEDs which are literally electric diodes that produce light! They are extremely energy efficient and have a very long life. LEDs are very small (smaller than your little finger tip) so in order to get the required brightness for a street light there have to be lots of them grouped closely together. The old incandescent traffic lights were typically 50 – 150 Watts which means they consumed alot of electricity! There are numerous advantages to using LED traffic lights including;
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Have you ever wondered where all of our old computers and out dated electronics go? The shocking answer is usually that they go to a landfill but one company is making treasures out of e-trash and their waste electronic recycling is a wonderful thing!

Piles of E-Waste!

I have noticed a trend of e-waste products starting to hit our local stores in the form of circuit board picture frames etc, but I wanted to find an online store / company that sold them a little cheaper than the big retailers, that’s when I found “Terracycle”. All of Terracycles products are made from recycled items and their waste electronic recycling products are the best…

Waste Electronic Recycling by Terracycle

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Wind turbines silently turn as the sun sets on the first full day of Spring.

Wind Turbines Silently Turning Together

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It’s time once again for another Our Everyday Earth Green Competition and this month we are giving away a wonderful bracelet made from 90% recycled materials. Our Earthshop has our full range of recycled material bracelets and we would like to offer our readers a chance to win one;

Our Green Competition for November

Entering the competition is easy, simply leave a comment against this post telling us why you would like to win the Earthshop recycled green bracelet, leaving a comment against this post earns +1 point (comment must contain a valid email address);

You can earn bonus points in the following ways (Be sure to let us know which bonuses you use in your comment);

• LEAVE A COMMENT TO ENTER: Just leave a comment here and you will be entered to win the Earthshop recycled green bracelet
• VISIT OUR SHOP: Simply visit the Our Everyday Earth Shop and let us know which is your favorite recycled bracelet and why+1 point
• BECOME A FRIEND: Add us as a friend on Myspace or Twitter = +1 point each
  
• SUBSCRIBE: Subscribe to the Our Everyday Earth Newsletter = +1 point
• PRIZE: The Earthshop recycled green bracelet shown above (Approximate value $29.95)
• GIVEAWAY CLOSES: Monday, November 30th 2009 at 8pm CST
• NUMBER OF WINNERS: One – picked at random using random.org
• PRIZE SHIPS: USA or Canada
• THE USUAL: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. In the event of a tie the winner(s) will be selected using random.org and announced on Monday, November 30th 2009. Good luck!

You can read all of our competition policies here; COMPETITION POLICIES

I was recently invited to take a tour of a local Texas recycling center which is operated by the AbitibiBowater’s Recycling Division. Casey Gray is a “Business Recycling Consultant” and he gave me an amazing tour of the AbitibiBowater recycling center in Arlington, Texas. The division that Casey operates the EcoRewards Recycling program and they educate and encourage local Texas businesses to begin recycling as much of their waste as possible.

The AbitibiBowater "Arlington Recycling Operation" Building

I arrived at around 12PM on a sunny Friday afternoon to the AbitibiBowater “Arlington Recycling Operation” building and was immediately impressed with the high level of activity surrounding the recycling center. Trucks were constantly loading and unloading at the centers numerous loading bays.

I had always wanted to see how both domestic and commercial recyclables are processed and my tour of the Arlington facility gave me a fascinating insight into how the recycling process works;

1/ COLLECTING THE RECYCLABLES:

The first stage for any recycled materials is collection. Their are several types of vehicles which perform the recycling collections;

Various Recycling Collection Vehicles

There are three main types of collection vehicles, the Front End Loading (FEL), the Rear End Loading (REL) and the Roll Off type vehicle (RO). You might recognize one or all three types of collection vehicle, try to spot them the next time you take a road trip!

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We had lots of entries for our October giveaway contest and the lucky winner is;

Huguette English

CONGRATULATIONS! We will be mailing her favorite which was the EttaSays! collar with red stitching for her female dog named Bailey.

Our Winner Receives this EttaSays Red Stitched Collar