All King County and city residents can safely dispose of old car batteries, oil, paint thinner and many other household hazardous items at no cost when the Wastemobile comes through Redmond.  There will be a second "Special Collection" recylcing event by the City of Redmond on April 6th.
 
The Wastemobile

Where: Parking lot of the Home Depot (17777 N.E. 76th St.), 

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
 
About: Residents can drop off household hazardous waste items including pesticides, oil-based paints, automotive products (oil, antifreeze, auto batteries, etc.), fluorescent bulbs/tubes and other items free of charge.
 

Special Collections Event

When: April 6th

Where: Redmond Maintenance and Operations Center (18120 NE 76th Street )

About:This special collection event includes mattress recycling ($10), a paper shredding station, and electronics recycling. 

More information on the events can be found here: http://www.redmond.gov/Environment/GarbageRecycling/CollectionEvents/

Our friends over at King County have a very cool new tool to help you live more sustainably!  Localize Sustainability helps you calculate and improve your sustainability profile to save money, improve health, and lighten your environmental footprint.

We loved that you can compare Redmond and your neighborhood against other neighborhoods in King County.  Another neat feature was seeing the "real time" impact your lifestyle is having on not only the environment, but your health!  By incorporating a few of the website's suggested lifestyle changes we were able to see exactly how many calories, dollars, and pounds of CO2 we would save!  The website also has a great list of resources for residents looking for sustainable solutions.

Check it out and let us know what you think!  http://green.kingcounty.gov/localize/

Soon you'll be making that list, checking it twice.  You're gonna find out shopping local is nice!  Sorry, I had that little ditty stuck in my head all morning.  Think Redmond has a great list of reasons you should shop local this holiday season-and all year round!

When you shop in Redmond you will not only support the local economy, but our environment. In Washington, transportation is responsible for nearly HALF of the  greenhouse gas emissions we create. The number of miles we drive has a direct impact on emissions that contribute to climate change.  Shopping locally keeps you out of that horrific mall traffic, saves you from needing to fill up the tank, and keeps emissions from being created.  

One tip for drivers is to park and walk between all the stores on your trip.  In downtown Redmond, this easy to do.  Our downtown has at walkscore of 95, a "walkers paradise"! Walking between the stores in downtown or Overlake will help keep your miles low and give you a chance to soak in all of the holiday decorations. 

Redmond has such a great collection of locally owned businesses for you to choose from.  Head over to Think Redmond or the directory on Impact Redmond to get ideas for you holiday shopping.  And if you're going to join the throngs of shoppers after Thanksgiving, consider supporting Shop Small Business Saturday (which Redmond is a part of).

If you've ever seen "Gardening with Ciscoe" you know just how passionate the host, Ciscoe Morris, is about natural yard care.  He's teaming up with King County and Loop BioSolids to host a workshop on using recycled materials in your garden. 

Thursday, November 29

6-8 pm

UW Center for Urban Horticulture

3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle

Hosted by: Ciscoe Morris

RSVP: recycling.biosolids@kingcounty.gov

Saturday, December 15th

11am-2 pm

Brightwater

22505 SR 9, Woodinville

Hosted by: Tom Watson and Kate Kurtz

RSVP: recycling.biosolids@kingcounty.gov

According to Loop's website, using natural compost and other soil amendments are a great way to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions

1. For starters, some of the carbon we add to soil stays there for a long time, which keeps some of the finite amount of carbon on earth out of the atmosphere and buries it in a huge carbon sink – soil. This process is called carbon sequestration and it’s an approach to mitigating some of the problems associated with climate change.
   
2. Adding Loop to soil makes plants grow bigger faster which means more plants can take more carbon out of the atmosphere via photosynthesis. These plants not only store carbon in their tissues but eventually they’ll drop leaves and branches on the soil surface, helping to store even more carbon in the soil.
   
3. When gardeners and commercial growers use Loop they are usually using it instead of synthetic fertilizer. Synthetic fertilizer takes a tremendous amount of fossil fuel to manufacture. In contrast, the production of Loop is a source of energy rather than a waste of it. From the anaerobic digestion process used to make Loop, King County treatment plants capture and use renewable methane gas instead of natural gas or electricity. Using Loop helps us avoid the greenhouse gas emissions associated with synthetic fertilizers and instead supports a renewable, carbon-neutral energy source.