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By Diana Sullivan, Disability Rights & Access Specialist

This month, as the weather warms up , we’re usually pretty happy to say goodbye to a long winter that has fooled us more than once.  The birds start singing at 4:00 in the morning these days, and often wake me up with their sweet melodic songs. It’s a time when we have a greater appreciation for the awesome transformation of the seasons – especially when we see the budding of our tree-lined streets, or smell the hyacinths in bloom. We recently celebrated Earth Week and we see people raking old leaves, and cleaning up wind-blown paper, plastic and all kinds of other stuff to make way for a cleaner and nicer-looking environment.

Here at IndependenceFirst we have a Green Team that is interested in helping our organization understand that it’s important to make the lightest footprint of consumption – to try to keep our waste and energy at a minimum. The city helps us out too. They provide recycling bins so that we can limit the waste that goes into landfills. They also provide drop-off places that will take more difficult waste like oil, paint and other “hard to get rid of” stuff.

One recycling program to help you at IndependenceFirst is our Computer Recycling Program – we take donated laptops, computers and computer accessories, and follow a strict identity theft prevention protocol including shredding hard drives.  Then, we provide people with disabilities who otherwise couldn’t afford to purchase a PC with a computer and training options. Keep it in mind!

 (Image Courtesty of Stu Nami)

Also, recently IndependenceFirst merged with another organization that is dedicated to recycling mobility and other equipment that people with disabilities use. The organization used to be called The Wheelchair Recycling Program. It’s now the IndependenceFirst Mobility Store. People donate their used medical equipment and, through a collaboration with a state prison program, the Mobility Store brings wheelchairs, scooters, rollators and other equipment close to their original shine and usefulness. People are able to purchase needed items for a fraction of the cost of new equipment. It’s a great way to save some money and also space on this land!

As I was picking up our parking lot last week, I remembered some of the things that our family has done to help keep that landfill footprint small. Our daughter Alison was fed by G-tube. Every day I would open up a plastic bag that contained the bag that we poured a can of her feeding formula and fresh carrot juice into. I kept each of the plastic bags and I gave them to a neighbor, who used them to clean up after her family’s dog. Eventually, of course, the plastic bags did go to the landfill, but at least no new bags were used for that purpose. After Ali died, her leopard skin motif wheelchair and other equipment were donated so that they could be used again and maybe recycled many times. I even considered giving unused tubing and other supplies to an artist co-op to see if anyone there might find a creative use for it.  Why not? There seem to be so many ways that we can reuse, repurpose and recycle the items we use in our daily lives. 

Do you repurpose, reuse or donate your medical equipment and supplies? Do you have some recycling or repurposing ideas that you’d care to share with folks who read this blog? Write us back and let’s share ideas about how we can be proactive in our efforts to reduce our landfill footprint and give Mother Earth a little break. She’s had to keep it together for a really long time. Think of it as a Mother’s Day gift of sorts.