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Technotrash and a green ride to the airport
by JANE BOGNER
SUNDAY, February 25, 2007

Our lives are filled with lots of little stuff and sorting it out to find a proper home instead of the landfill has been the challenge of A Sorted Affair. What to do with used Compact Discs (CDs) has been a frequent question. VALCORE has transformed them into Earth Day invitations, Thank You cards, Holiday ornaments and hung them in our garden to repel pests.

According to GreenDisk (www.greendisk.com) more than 90% of Technotrash is not recycled. Some is thrown away, but most remains unused sitting on desks or taking up storage space. The EPA reports that the plastic in Technotrash can last for 450 years in our landfills. Now you can recycle them. GreenDisk was started in Sammamish Washington on Earth Day 1993 by high-tech industry veterans who had a passion for the environment. They saw a need to provide secure disposal of information stored in computers and on floppy discs. Initially they focused on companies wanting to dispose obsolete software. Today they have an innovative program for all businesses.

GreenDisk’s solution is a collection box called a Technotrash Can for used CDs, diskettes, DVDs, ink cartridges, cell phones, videotapes,pagers, PDAs, and all "byte-sized" Technotrash. Reusable discs are erased, formatted, labeled and environmentally packaged for resale. All other materials are recycled. Full Technotrash boxes are shipped to GreenDisk for processing and a Certificate of Destruction is returned to the business. With the ongoing threat of identity theft, this service has value.

As a side bar, I can’t throw old picture calendars into the recycling bin. This year, I’ve cut them into a simple CD sleeve for my photo CDs and as gifts to friends. Calendars and old maps can also be cut into envelopes to add a little art to your mail.

Following suit from my last column about mitigating our carbon dioxide footprint, a new company will give you a green door-to-door ride to the airport. Started in Boston and recently expanding to the Bay Area, PlanetTran (www.planettran.com, 888-756-8876) uses the hybrid Toyota Prius to shuttle passengers to the airport. The typical customer for the Prius is three adults with bags for a week-long trip. The Prius can carry skis or golf clubs by folding down one half of the back seat. PlanetTran said that a traditional limousine can produce 80,000 pounds more carbon dioxide than a hybrid car. So, even if they have to send two cars, they are still more fuel efficient that a traditional limo service.

I searched the web and found another company expanding its fleet to more efficient vehicles. The Airport Commuter (www.airportcommuter.com, 1 800 496-7945) told this writer that they are in the process of getting livery permits for hybrid cars. Granted, door-to-door service is an expensive luxury, there are other less expensive mass transportation alternatives that are good for the environment.

Evans Transportation (www.evanstransportation.com, 707 643-8432) operates a regularly scheduled bus from Napa that stops in Vallejo on the way to the Oakland and San Francisco airports.

A fun but longer ride involves the Vallejo Ferry or Bus (www.baylinkferry.com, 707 64 Ferry or 511) to a BART station for a train ride to either airport.

SUSTAINABLE MONEY

The US Mint released a gold colored dollar coin last week. Considering that the typical dollar bill has a life span of only 21 months, using dollar coins could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year in printing costs.

This is the first US coin with the symbol "$1" instead of "one dollar" included in the coin’s design making it easier to use. Ask for them the next time you get change for your purchases..

VALCORE Recycling Board Member Jane Bogner's "A Sorted Affair" is published every other week in the Times-Herald, Community Outlook Section. For recycling information call her at 645-8258 or visit www.VALCORErecycling.org.

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