Boxed In

"We recycle absolutely EVERYTHING!"

My friend Heather was, as usual, trumpeting her green-ness at me long distance. Heather is very green. Heather and husband eat nothing that was produced more than 100 miles from where she lives (not counting the Imported German beers and fine Italian wines they favor.) Heather does not wear fur (fine leather shoes and bags do not disturb her conscience, though.) Heather sorts her recycling into seven separate bins, each with its own little name tag that she stenciled herself on recycled paper.

I strive to be that green, although without the attendant smugness. And though my entire apartment is about the size of Heather's kitchen, I actually did manage to get myself a nice little recycling scheme recently. Those cool cubes that Target sells at back-to-school time make fantastic recycling sorters, and since they stack, I can have them in a corner of the kitchen and take up very little space.

I figured out I wasn't going to be able to recycle EVERYTHING. Mainly because the public recycling area I can get to doesn't take everything. For example, corrugated cardboard is okay to leave, but the shiny cardboard that forms the outer wrapping of virtually every other product in the grocery store? Nope, sorry...that's garbage.

Unless you can turn them into something useful, like...gift boxes! Check out this instruction guide and use up all those stray Corn Pops boxes. After all, Christmas is coming.