Atervinning

For those non-Swedish folks out there, that means recycling.

A couple of years ago, it suddenly occurred to me that I probably shouldn't be throwing batteries in the garbage. I mean, they must be full of all kinds of gunk to be able to do their battery thing (how, in fact, they do their battery thing, I have no idea. I tend to run on the assumption that most things around me work via magic, but that's another post for another day...).

So, I got my little self on the computer, and googled alkaline battery recycling for Westchester. Nada. In fact, the Westchester government site actually said that they should be thrown away with the trash. (This has recently been changed, and they have added non-rechargeable batteries to their e-waste recycling days.)

So I saved all my batteries in a ziploc (even though we try to use rechargeables as much as we can, all the kids' toys came with batteries). This year, I organized battery recycling at the kid's schools, and once a month people bring in their batteries. This effort resulted in this:
which required a trip to another one of my kids' favorite places (this illustrious list includes Costco and various cemeteries) IKEA. We love IKEA. I am of Swedish descent, and this store always brings out my Swedish pride. Not only can you go there and pick up a Melbu or a Noresund, but you can tour beautiful rooms of furniture (which somehow don't look nearly as lovely when they're in my own home and covered in piles of crap) and purchase a really cheap lunch served on real plates. I even picked up some frozen Swedish meatballs to stick in the freezer for the kids.

But the best part of IKEA is that they are really environmentally conscious. You can bring in fluorescent bulbs, batteries, and cell phones to recycle. So, the giant bag of batteries got deposited, and we all enjoyed some lunch. And, I got out of there having purchased only my bag of meatballs and a Skoj to hang on my bathroom wall.