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BANG FOR THE BITE
Just an example: If 10,000 Biters buy a vintage gold ring off eBay instead a new one, we'll avoid 30,000 tons of waste created during the mining of the gold.
COCKTAIL FACT
The newest eBay craze? Several women have auctioned off ad space (in the form of temporary tattoos) on their pregnant bellies.
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home › tip library › Recycling Made Easy With Auctions
Why won't Sotheby's return our calls?
The Bite
We think our velvet Elvis painting is worth a million dollars, but our not-so-significant others don't. So instead of letting it rot in the attic, or worse, in a landfill, off to eBay it goes.The Benefits
- Decrease the demand for virgin materials. Buying a vintage t-shirt on eBay avoids the 1/3 lb of fertilizers and pesticides that go into making a new cotton T-shirt.
- Less clutter, more cash. Even if mom's old artichoke-shaped candle holder fetches just a couple bucks, at least it's not wasting away in your basement, right?
- Just for the thrill of it. Checking your listing to see how many bids you've racked up is fun.
- It's easy - you don't even have to be fluent in auctioneer's gibberish. And if you're buying, no need to leave the house for everything from organic cosmetics to sustainable baseball bats.
Personally Speaking
Toshio got addicted to listing his stuff and woke up one day to realize that in a selling frenzy he'd auctioned off all of his jeans. Whoops.Wanna Try?
- eBay - get started now.
- Rethink - eBay's guide to getting rid of your old electronics without resorting to the landfill.
- iSold It - drop off your stuff and let the #1 seller on eBay do the dirty work.
- Auctiondrop - send them your lux goods and they'll take care of the listing for a fee.
- Ideal Bite's Freecycle Tip - come to terms with the fact that no one's gonna shell out for your B&W TV? Someone might take it for free at Freecycle.
- Biter Auction Alert - we're auctioning off our popular Biter bottle - but wait, there's more... Every team member has signed it (no, that doesn't DE-value it, thankyouverymuch). The opening bid is just $1, and we're giving the proceeds to the Bozeman Humane Society for their new indoor shelter.
Oct 16,2006
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Biter Bottle Bandwagon
In honor of my newly adopted kitty, Snack-who-might-get-his-name-changed-to-Harry (stay tuned for photo albums), we are donating all proceeds from our auctioned, signed Biter bottle to the Bozeman Humane Society shelter.
So - get to http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300038625070 and bid on the bottle today! Everyone's doing it...
-Heather... off to play with Snack-maybe-Harry. Who knew that laser lights were so much fun???
Biter Comments...
I'm not sure I agree about the E-bay tip. When you buy or sell things on E-bay, the environmental impact goes up in direct proportion to the distance said item has to travel to get from the seller to the buyer. In terms of sustainability, it is much better to use programs like cheapcycle and freecycle, or even local Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, than to use E-bay.
I have to agree with the previous post: While using eBay does reduce the need for new material, the cost of transporting a single item half-way across North America could very well negate the benefit. Other options include craigslist and your local buy & sell's.
Rhiannon & John - we love craigslist and Freecycle. A friend of mine was picking up posters via craigslist one day and actually got a date out of it. Check our past tip at
http://idealbite.com/tiplibrary/tip.php?tip=20050912
Pets Unlimited is great. At first, I was a little off-put by all the hoops they make you jump through to get a pet, but if you think about it, it just makes sense. So many people rush into it without thinking about the commitment involved. In any case, they are all rock stars over there, and they take a personal interest in making sure every pet gets the right home. All in all, Snack and I are VERY glad we found them at petfinder.com.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Victoria E | October 15, 2006 at 07:11 PM