Bales of cans for recycling - Photo copyright SIFT.

Happy Friday. The sun is shining on a really warm Autumn day and we are busy organising new projects and checking up on how current projects are progressing. Next Tuesday and Wednesday we will be attending the WasteMinz Workshops in Auckland so we will be a little quiet on the blog front for a few days but will return with lots of stories, photos and WasteMinz goodness.

In the meantime here are a few waste related goodies to make your Friday.

• Christchurch City Council is removing 150 rubbish bins – apparently the ones that hardly get used or are being misused – good or bad?
• What’s the most recycled product in the US? Not what you would think.
• Need to recycle a Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb and not sure where you can do that? Here are all the Christchurch places that will recycle them.
• Go inside to see all the different parts that make up a machine – here on JunkCulture.
• It’s all about love on Earth Day from Beth on FakePlasticFish here.

Have a great weekend.

Ordance Survey Womhole - Lucy Martin via How to be a Retronaut

Today is Earth day – a day to recognise our home, how we live in it and how we can take care of it. I spent the morning visiting a couple of key players in the Canterbury recycling industry to get a first hand account of what people are doing and will post about those visits later. But, for the moment it is time to take a deep breath in and look around at our environment, our life support and how we can make it healthier. Recycling, reducing our consumption to reduce our waste, positive sustainability actions in your local community and taking a moment everyday to be on Earth are just some of the ways that you can live Earth Day everyday.

Here are some pre Friday Favourites links just for Earth Day:

• Here is a link to the Earth Day Action Centre where you can have your green action counted and get lots of other ideas.
• Re-Nest – 10 items that we could all live without.
• Add the Earth and all its resources on your #GratitudeList from No Impact Man.
• Look to reduce your carbon emissions by 10% in 2010 – we can all do it.
• Need more earth friendly living ideas – check out Project Litefoot.
• For local resources and education check out the Sustainable Living organisation.

The first step is to recognise where your resources for living come from (local, national, global), how you use them (efficiently?, share?) and then what happens to them when they become waste (where does the waste go? what impact does that have?). Start wondering and asking questions. At every point in your life you are having an impact on the Earth and it is time to reduce that impact and improve the health of the planet for the generations to come.

Happy Earth Day!