What about this? What about that?

Guest Blogger - Jeanne lives in Greensboro with her husband Tom and two children. She publishes The Green Samaritan, an eco-friendly blog. You can follow on Twitter @greensamaritan and become a fan on Facebook.

Besides our local city or county wide recycling program, we often here “but what about this?” “What do I do with that…yogurts cups, eyewear, packing materials, etc.?”

So in an effort to lend a hand, here is a quick initial hit list for those other items you are just not sure what to do with.

Yogurt cups and other #5 plastic: Most local recycling programs don’t seem to take #5 plastic, so what’s a struggling recycler to do? Through Preserve’s Gimme5 program, a partnership with Stoneybrook and Organic Valley, you can drop off those containers at any Whole Foods location or mail directly to Preserve. Preserve then recycles and turns them into products like razors, toothbrushes and tableware.

Bottle caps: Aveda haircare has just launched its Recycle Caps program which encourages individuals and schools to take bottle caps, shampoo caps, ketchup caps or any type of threaded cap to an Aveda location and it will repurpose them into new caps and containers.

Makeup containers: Through Origins, you can bring old makeup tubes, jars and bottles (any brand) to an Origins counter and it will recycle or use for energy recovery.

Eyeglasses: With more than 250 million people suffering from poor vision worldwide, you can donate your old eyewear to OneSight. Search for a drop-off location like Sunglasses Hut or Sears Optical in your town and OneSight make sure it gets to someone in need.

Plastic Wraps: These include bread wraps, cereal liners, ziplocks, toilet paper and diaper wrapping, and dry cleaning and produce bags. From a recent article at Simple Steps, major retailers like Barnes & Noble, Whole Foods and Wal-Mart as well as many local grocery stores have collection bins for these types of plastic bags and wraps.

Boxes: Just moved and have a mountain of boxes or are you looking for boxes? At Boxcycle, you can buy and sell used boxes in your local area. Just list your items and it takes care of the rest.

Packing Peanuts: Uggh! How horrible is this when you open up the box. To help us out, the Plastic Loose Fill Council offers more than 1,500 drop-off sites so that these things can be reused again. Also, any Kinko’s, Fed Ex, UPS Stores or other pack and ship locations are good places to recycle. Here’s also some other creative ideas on how to reuse these little buggers.

Let us hear from you and we’ll keep adding to this list.

© Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. The Green Samaritan.