Recycling in the kitchen: bringing a stale biscuit back to life

Last Saturday, I brought home a biscuit that had been part of my breakfast at a local Bob Evans restaurant. (The kitchen’s only going to throw it away — why let it go to waste?)

Today I decided to eat it along with the bowl of soup I was having for lunch. I took it out of the refrigerator and tried to break it in half, and found that I’d need a hammer and chisel to get inside it. I considered just dunking it into the soup, like coffee and donuts, but the soup was quite thick, and the biscuit probably wouldn’t absorb enough liquid to make it soft.

A little moisture softens a stale biscuit. (Photo credit: Lou Sander)

I tried wrapping it in a napkin and microwaving it for a few seconds, on the theory that the shortening in the biscuit would soften, but it was still rock-hard. So I moistened it with a little water, just with my fingertips, lightly, on the top and bottom, rewrapped it, and nuked it again for ten seconds.

Success! It hadn’t returned to its original wonderful fall-apart flaky state, but it was as tender as any biscuit I’d pull out of my own oven (I make hockey pucks), and it broke nicely into smaller pieces that went into the soup.

I know this isn’t a Big Thing — one biscuit, more or less, isn’t going to solve the world’s food waste problem. But I ended up with a delicious accompaniment to my lunch, the biscuit didn’t end up in the disposal, and I don’t have to feel guilty about wasting food.

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Community Shred Days in Cuyahoga County

Residents of Cuyahoga County can take advantage of one or more Community Shred Days offered by the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District and many Cuyahoga County communities. During the Community Shred Days, residents may bring documents to a designated site for shredding and secure disposal.

Shredding services are provided by All Ohio Secure Shred, which shreds the documents on-site and recycles all shredded documents.

A calendar listing communities with their shred locations, dates, times and contact information is posted on the All Ohio Secure Shred website. Many communities place limits on the quantity of documents they’ll accept and limit the service to community residents: check your community’s website or contact the community representative listed on the calendar for more information.

In addition, the City of Cleveland Division of Waste Collection provides free document shredding for Cleveland residents Mondays through Fridays year-round at 5600 Carnegie Avenue, and offers free mobile shredding services at community events. For more information about City of Cleveland shredding services, download the flyer (click on the word “more” under “City Offers FREE Document Shredding Year-Round!”) from the City of Cleveland website.

Protect your identity: shred your documents and keep them out of the landfill.

Want to stay in touch with the latest recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page, or subscribe to my Examiner.com page.

Free Cuyahoga County Workplace Recycling/Waste Contracting Workshops

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District will again present its popular workshops, “Waste and Recycling $ense for Your Business,” in 2013:

Learn how to use recycling to improve the environment and help your bottom line: it makes $ense.

• Thursday, June 27
• Friday, September 27
• Friday, November 1

What the workshops cover

In these half-day workshops, businesses and non-profits can learn how to start or improve a workplace recycling program and how to contract for waste hauling or recycling. The staff of the Solid Waste District walks participants through the steps to launch or expand a successful workplace waste reduction and recycling program. The workshops cover:

• Starting a recycling program or improving an existing program
• Recognizing different recyclable commodities
• Commercial composting
• Waste sorting (aka “dumpster diving”) and analysis
• Choosing proper indoor recycling containers and selecting appropriate signage
• Making the recycling program sustainable
• Educating employees, students and visitors on the program
• Choosing a waste hauling and recycling company
• Terms and conditions of waste and recycling service contracts
• Types of contracts, fees, and how to structure an agreement to best suit a business

Who should attend

Any business with an interest in effective management of waste and recycling can benefit from these workshops. Last year’s attendees — large employers, small businesses, startups — included:

• Public venues
• Hotel chains
• Manufacturing facilities
• Universities and schools
• National parks
• Places of worship
• Non-profits
• Local government
• Property management and real estate development firms
• Hospitals

Curious about how the workshops might help your organization? Check out the feedback from last year’s participants (click here and scroll down to “What are attendees saying about the program?”).

Where and when the workshops are held

The workshops are held at the Solid Waste District offices at 4750 East 131 Street in Garfield Heights (map).

The workshops consist of two sessions:

• Session 1, Successful Recycling in Your Workplace: 9 a.m.–10:45 a.m.
• Session 2, Contracting for Waste and Recycling Services: 11 a.m.–noon.

Participants may attend either or both sessions.

The workshops are free, but registration is required. Online registration (click here and scroll down to “Upcoming Seminars”) is available through the Solid Waste District’s website, as is the Solid Waste District’s flyer for the workshops.

More information is available from Recycling Specialist Doreen Schreiber at (216) 443-3732 or dschreiber@cuyahogacounty.us.

Want to stay in touch with the latest recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page or subscriibe to my Examiner.com page.

More protection against identity theft: Carver Financial Services offers free shredding on Saturday, May 11

Did you miss the Mentor Public Library’s April 20 Community Paper Shred Day?

Not to worry: Carver Financial Services, Mentor’s nationally recognized financial services organization, has once again teamed up with Northcoast Shredding Services to help you get rid of those vulnerable, sensitive, confidential documents — the cancelled checks, health information, credit card statements and other records that are so attractive to the wrong people.

Shredded documents will be sent to a paper mill and recycled.
(Photo credit: Northcoast Recycling)

On Saturday, May 11, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., you can take up to three boxes of paper documents to Carver Financial Services at 7473 Center Street (map) in Mentor, where Mentor High School National Honor Society volunteers will help unload them from your vehicle. (Please, no binders, large metal clips, magazines, or newspapers.)

Northcoast Shredding Services will have a mobile shredding unit on-site. Once they have shredded your documents, the shreds will be sent to a paper mill and properly recycled.

The shredding service is free, but Carver Financial Services will be accepting donations of non-perishable food items for local food banks. For more information, see the Carver Financial Services website.

Want to stay in touch with the latest in recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page, or subscribe to my Examiner.com page.

Protect your identity: keep it safe, and Keep It Out of the Landfill.

Shop Recycled: Book sale at Mentor Library’s Read House, Saturday, April 27

Friends of the Mentor Public Library will offer all new inventory at their $5/bag book sale at the Read House, on Mentor Avenue next to the Main Library (map).

Read House, home of the Friends of the Mentor Public Library (photo credit: Mentor Public Library)

Book sale hours on Saturday, April 27 are 9 a.m.–4 p.m.

Proceeds from the sales help support library programs and facilities, and every purchase from a Friends of the Library book sale is an exercise in reducing, reusing and recycling.

Parking is available behind the Main Library (map) and in the library’s auxiliary lot at the corner of Sharonlee Drive and Mentor Avenue (map).

Shop recycled at the Friends of the Mentor Library book sale: Save money, pick up some great summer reading and help keep books and magazines out of the landfill.

Want to stay in touch with the latest in recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page, or subscribe to my Examiner.com page.

Learn about composting at Solid Waste District seminars

If you’re not already composting, now is a great time to start planning to give your garden the gift of homemade organic soil nutrition. You’ll save money you’d spend on chemical fertilizers, and you’ll keep food waste out of the landfills and sewage treatment plants.

Composted kitchen scraps become nutrient-rich soil additive. (Photo credit: Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District)

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District is offering Backyard Composting seminars at locations throughout the county during the 2013 growing season. These hour-long seminars include an extensive introduction to composting — what to compost, how and where to build a compost pile, problems to watch for and how to solve them — followed by a question-and-answer session.

For a list of seminar locations and dates, as well as a set of downloadable documents covering backyard composting, vermicomposting, and backyard food digesters, see the Solid Waste District web site. You’ll also find instructions for obtaining free horse manure to enrich your compost pile.

The Solid Waste District also offers for sale two sizes of compost bins and a kitchen collection container. These are available for purchase at the seminars and at the Waste Management District at 4750 E. 131 Street in Garfield Heights.

Composting: turns waste into food … keeps it out of the waste stream … keeps it out of the landfill.

FreeCycle, Free ReCycling Cleveland: Another way to recycle and shop recycled

If your spring cleanup has left you with a pile of stuff that’s still useful but maybe not the kind of thing resale shops want, consider using FreeCycle and Free ReCycling Cleveland. These sites will help you get rid of — or acquire for free — anything from a ceiling light fixture or a storm door to a guitar or a playpen.

If yard sales aren’t your style, use FreeCycle and Free ReCycle Cleveland to keep it all out of the landfill.
Photo credit: Pallawiki

FreeCycle is a grassroots nonprofit volunteer network of people who are giving away and getting stuff for free in their own towns — reusing and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Membership in local chapters is free. Members post notices that list and describe the items they’re giving away, or hope to acquire, without charge.

Free ReCycling Cleveland is a similar organization that operates only in Northeast Ohio.

Decided that this isn’t the hat for you? Find someone to love it on FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: hbrinkman

Give those discarded kitchen cabinets — and maybe that microwave — new life through FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: Tomwsulcer

FreeCycle

To join Freecycle:

• Go to the group’s website, www.freecycle.org, enter the city and state or the zip code for your community and click “go.”
• The search engine will return either an exact match (if any) for the zip code or a list of possible matches for a city and state.
• Click on the search result and you’ll be redirected to the local FreeCycle group’s page.
• Join your local group. Join more than one, if that works for you.
• You should receive a series of email messages from the local group — guidelines, disclaimer, “who we are, what we do,” etc. Read them.

While you wait for the emails:

• Read the FAQs (link at left-hand side of the top navigation bar).
• Read the Files (link in the box on the left side of the web page).
• Read some of the posts (click on “Messages”) to see how members use the site.

When you’re ready to start, click on “Post” to begin posting.

Got a new riding mower? Moving into a condo? Send the old push mower to a new lawn through FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: Halley from Boston

Free ReCycling Cleveland

To join Free ReCycling Cleveland:

• Go to the Yahoo Groups FreeRecyclingCleveland website, click on Join This Group and follow the instructions.
• Once you’ve joined, learn about the group: click on the Files link in the box on the left side of the web page. Read all the files — the documents aren’t long, and they’ll explain how your membership works.
• Read some of the posts to see how members use the site.
• Begin posting: “Offer” (what you want to give away) or “Wanted” (what you need). (Note that Free ReCycling Cleveland does not allow listing of pets.)

These sites are not intended as markets for buying and selling. For that, you have eBay,Craigslist, amazon and the rest of the web.

Take a look a some more ways you can use FreeCycle and Free ReCycle Cleveland to simplify your life:

You’ve stepped on the Legos barefoot for the last time — let FreeCycle and Free ReCycling Cleveland help you find the next victim. Credit: Priwo

Decided that Tiffany’s more your style? Brighten someone else’s life through FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: Joe Mabel

Whether it’s the magnets or the refrigerator you want to get rid of, let the world know through FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: Tweek

Find a new home for a pet carrier. And FreeCycle — but not Free ReCycling Cleveland — will help you find a home for the pet, too. Credit: Utente

Finally ready to give up your musical dreams? Find a new home for that drum set on FreeCycle or Free ReCycling Cleveland. Credit: Manowarwarrior

Use FreeCycle and Free ReCycling Cleveland to help you keep it out of the landfill!

Want to stay in touch with the latest in recycling news in the Cleveland area? Just click on the Follow button at the bottom of my blog Home page, or subscribe to my Examiner.com page.