Eco-friendly sites ready to help you

This week: How to make your business more environmentally friendly.

Colorado Recycles, a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, has been dedicated to the promotion of voluntary recycling activities throughout Colorado since 1983. There are no politics, no lobbying with this group, just a commitment to educate the public about recycling, waste prevention and reduction, and other related issues. One of its best offerings is its online recycling guide, where you simply click on the material you are interested in recycling (newspaper, aluminum cans, etc.) and follow the link to a page that provides access to the recycler information for your area. You can search for a dropf facility, a curbside program, a nonprofit recycler, a national recycler or a Colorado recycler who serves the entire state or a significant substate area.

www.colorado-recycles.org

A Cheyenne Mountain Zoo program offers the dual advantages of helping the environment while also helping the zoo. Started in 1999 to collect aluminum cans, the program accepts all ink and laser cartridges, cell phones and alkaline batteries for recycling. If you prefer, you can have prepaid mailers sent to you for cartridges at no cost from Recyclefree.com while designating the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo as the donation recipient.

www.cmzoo.org/recycle.html

www.recyclefree.com

The El Paso County Commissioners established The Solid Waste Management Fund in 1990 to deal with issues concerning the environment and recycling in El Paso County, and to promote the philosophy of "reduce, reuse, and recycle." All of the programs and recycling information online are offered free to county residents, including a downloadable, 24-page recycling directory, "Closing the Loop."

adm.elpasoco.com/solidwst/default.asp

Within the environmental section of its Web site, Colorado Springs Utilities offers a variety of business products to help you run a more efficient -- and profitable -- operation. It makes the point that "small changes you make to wisely use your energy and water can make a big difference in your bottom line."

www.csu.org/environment/index.html

Electronics can be the trickiest items to get moving in the recycling pipeline, so Green Online has put together an extensive set of links to help you do the right thing with all your computers, monitors, telephone systems, communication equipment, automotive components, printed circuit boards, VCRs, TVs, terminals, cable equipment, ferrous and nonferrous metals.

tinyurl.com/afdbq

New technology developed by AVC Corp. of Torrance, Calif., will allow companies to custom-package their products in a 100 percent renewable resource, the first greenhouse-gas neutral plastic polymer. The Environmental Packaging Solution is made using polyactide, a corn-based plastic, that assures that even discarded retail packaging does no environmental damage.

www.avccorp.com

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