Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Ideas

We all know that Maine has had a bottle bill which includes paying a deposit on most bottles when purchased. When my sons were children one of their responsibilities was to count the bottles when the barrel was full and help return them to our local bottle redemption center. And, yes they’d get to keep the money.

Did you know that the Maine Returnable Beverage Container Law has been in place since 1978? It’s a real success story. Maine is one of only 10 states with a law in place. We all know that everyone doesn’t think this is as fun as my children did. We certainly see bottles on the sides of Maine roads periodically.

Collecting and returning bottles is one thing we can do to help out our community but, what about all the supplies and equipment when they outlive their usefulness? What happens to them? Below are some programs and ideas that I know are in place – I’m guessing that you know of others. Please email them to me at meartsed@gmail.com or share them at the bottom of this blog post so others can learn about them.

• Crayola ColorCycle program – Crayola and schools across North America are banding together to help kids understand the importance of their role in protecting the environment. That’s why we launched Crayola ColorCycle. Through this initiative, students in K-12 schools across the continental United States and parts of Canada can collect and repurpose used Crayola markers. ColorCycle is also a great opportunity for teachers and their students to explore eco-friendly practices. Specially developed standards-based lesson plans are available to enrich instruction and promote lively class discussions. Its easy to create an account with Crayola and send your used markers to them for recycling. For more information CLICK HERE. 
• Vietnam Veterans of America accept donations of used musical instruments and will arrange for pick up. For more information CLICK HERE. 
• Ruth’s Reusable Resources – Located at 39 Blueberry Rd., Portland. Ruth has been at this for 25 years and if you’ve never been to the store I highly recommend it. Their mission is to ensure that all students, from pre-k through high school, have the basic supplies and creative tools for literacy, STEAM, and health education through the environmentally-conscious distribution of donated business supplies. For more information CLICK HERE.
• The National Crayon Recycle Program – This “recycling” education, community service has made it possible to stop more than 120,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills with the help from schools, organization educators and kids across this country. For more information CLICK HERE. 
• MAMM (Maine Academy of Modern Music) will take used instruments off your hands. For more information email Jeff Shaw, Executive Director and Founder of MAMM at jeff@mamm.rocks.
• The Crayon Initiative collects crayon and recycles them into new crayons and sends them to children hospitals across the country.
• You can drop off used instruments that are in fairly good condition to MCMA (Midcoast Music Academy) in Rockland. They often use them with their students.
• Recycle crayons yourself