Monthly Archives: February 2012

Vitamin Shoppe in Mentor: They Get It

Posted on by Lenore Collins

Lately when I’ve made a purchase at the Vitamin Shoppe in Mentor, the cashier has asked me whether I want a bag for the product.

I have yet to say yes.

Even though I routinely use durable woven shopping bags, they don’t always make it out of the car with me, and while I try to remember to ask that a purchase not be bagged, I do forget. So, like most of us, I have a never-ending, and growing, supply of wastebasket liners.

That’s why I’m grateful to the Vitamin Shoppe for giving me a choice.

The last time this happened, I asked the cashier whether this was a Vitamin Shoppe policy. It’s not a company-wide policy, he told me, but something the store’s staff have been doing on their own. And about half their customers do turn down the offer of a bag.

That’s a lot of plastic that’s not going into the landfill.

Way to go, Vitamin Shoppe!

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Government That Gets It: Seneca County Keeps a Building Out of the Landfill

Posted on by Lenore Collins

The Sunday, February 12 News-Herald included a wire-service report about the Seneca County (Tiffin), Ohio County Engineer’s purchase of brick and stone from the county’s recently demolished 127-year-old courthouse.

Under ordinary circumstances, the company hired for the demolition work would pay to deposit the debris into a landfill. But before demolition began, Seneca County Commissioner David Sauber suggested that County Engineer Mark Zimmerman look into purchasing the debris.

Zimmerman found that doing so would save the county considerable expense. The materials from the demolition would cost the county $3.60/ton, but that would offset the need to purchase and haul stone from a quarry, at about $20/ton — a substantial savings to Seneca County’s taxpayers.

The demolition company trucked the 6,500 tons of debris from downtown Tiffin to the County Engineer’s garage, where the demolition company will crush it into stone for driveway applications and fine gravel for use in roadside berms.

More information about the courthouse demolition (and the attendant controversy over its historic status) is available here.

Free CDs Saturday, February 11 at WKSU

Posted on by Lenore Collins

Radio station WKSU(FM 89.7) is making room in its music library. On Saturday, February 11, the member-supported NPR station is giving away the misfits from its CD collection.

Some of the CDs are just not WKSU’s kind of music, some are duplicates of songs already in their library, but all of them are looking for a new home. They’re free for the taking at the WKSU Broadcast Center at 1613 East Summit Street (corner of Summit and Loop) in Kent (map here). Doors open at 10:00 am and the event closes at 1:00 pm.

While there is no charge for the CDs, the nonprofit suggests a $5.00 donation to attend the event — how can you beat that for a bargain?

These Guys Get It: Morley Library

Posted on by Lenore Collins

I spotted a flyer today at Morley Library in Painesville for an event, Tea & Tomes, on Friday, March 16. The event offers tea, snacks and the opportunity to share a mystery or two with the Dial M for Morley Mystery Book Discussion Group. (More information about the event is available here.)

This is the part that captured me: the last line in the invitation is “Please bring your own tea cup.”

I’ve loved libraries all my life, and not just because they feed my reading habit. Libraries help the environment by making books, magazines, DVDs, and even paintings and parlor games available on loan, so people don’t have to buy (and eventually dispose of) them.

And now Morley is even keeping styrofoam cups out of the landfill. My kind of people!