Counting Down to Earth Day 2013: 4.17.13

Welcome to Day 8 of my Counting Down to Earth Day 2013 challenge.

Today’s Tip: GET YOUR OLD READING MATTER BACK IN CIRCULATION

Your unwanted books or magazines could become someone else’s treasure.

Take your old magazines (a few at a time)… 

• to the gym and put them out on the reading table. Be sensible about this. If you go to a university gym, the alumni magazine won’t be too popular. Ditto for anything too nerdy. People, on the other hand, will be most appreciated.
• or to a nursery school. Primary school teachers appreciate magazines and catalogues with colorful photos (think travel and gardening magazines) that they can use in art projects. 

Donate your gently use books to a community book bank. 

The Book Bank at New Haven Reads gladly accepts all donations EXCEPT encyclopedias and magazines. The Book Bank is in particular need of children’s picture books.

Find a home for your National Geographic magazine collection. 

This is a tough one. I consulted a dealer who told me that no matter how good the condition, unless they are VERY old, these  magazines are very hard to sell. We couldn’t bear the thought of our beloved collection being cut into little pieces. We looked far and wide for someone to appreciate them as we had over the years. We settled on donating a full car trunk load to the Traveler Restaurant in Union, CT near the Massachusetts border. The restaurant’s claim to fame is that each diner gets to select 3 free books to take home. Approximately 100,000 books are given away each year! The restaurant was happy to accept our magazines — as a donation. I expect they were bundled by year and sold in the retail shop, where the best books are available for sale. It was a nice drive. on a gorgeous spring day We enjoyed a tasty lunch. We restrained ourselves and picked out just one free book each. We ended up a few bucks in the hole, and we made a bit of a carbon footprint, but we had found our National Geographics a good home.

Come back tomorrow for a new tip as we count down to Earth Day on April 22.

Love Your Mother (Earth). Pass it on. Together we can make a difference. Yes, we can!