This week’s post comes from our intern Maddy, a student at USD. Maddy and her mother are preparing to clean our their garage and want to remind San Diegans to use our one stop recycling resource, WastefreeSD.org, when getting rid of stuff this spring!
It’s That Time of Year Again – Spring Cleaning!
As the rain clears up and we get back to the normal, sunny San Diego weather, I feel as if I have a new spring in my step – and rightfully so. Today, March 20th, marks the Spring Equinox and the beginning of the spring season. It’s time to wear floral dresses, read a great book in the backyard, soak up some desperately needed vitamin D in the sun and unfortunately…clean out our garage.
I’m not sure who made spring-cleaning a necessary evil, but nevertheless, it’s a daunting task that we all feel a need to take on once the new season arrives. This year, we’re taking on the garage and I’m a bit fearful of what that might mean. Like many individuals, my garage is filled with junk from the past – obsolete electronics, bags of aluminum cans I haven’t had the energy to recycle yet, way too many gallons of old paint, an odd mix of cleaning supplies, a lawnmower from the early 1980s, my favorite Disney movies on VHS tapes and storage containers filled with arts and crafts supplies from when the kids were little.
As an environmentally conscious individual, I understand that many of these items aren’t just something I can throw away. I need to be responsible and find designated businesses and organizations that will take these things off of my hands, so I jumped on I Love A Clean San Diego’s recycling and disposal website, WasteFreeSD.org. Since I have more paint than I know what to do with, I thought I would start with that. I just plugged in my zip code, scrolled down to my specific community, found what type of waste I was looking to get rid of, and viola! WasteFreeSD.org told me exactly where to take my excess paint. Could it really be any easier? Now I don’t have any excuses holding me back from creating an organized and clean garage.
With the help of this resource, I’m positive that I can finish my spring-cleaning project within the next couple of weeks in an environmentally friendly manner. It’s important that we don’t just throw away toxic materials, like old paint or various containers of cleaning supplies, but that we dispose of them properly, so we do not endanger the health and safety of ourselves and the planet. So as you’re embarking upon your own big spring cleaning project, I encourage you to use ILACSD’s one stop recycling resource, WasteFreeSD.org.
You can visit WasteFreeSD online at www.WasteFreeSD.org call I Love A Clean San Diego’s bilingual hotline at 1-800-237-BLUE (for incorporated county residents) or 1-877-R-1-Earth (for unincorporated county residents).
The sooner you finish cleaning and recycling your old items, the sooner you can sip lemonade on the front patio with your favorite book and soak up the San Diego sunshine. Because like always, don’t we all love a clean San Diego?
