Month: September 2017

One of the most serious problems we are faced with today is climate change. As global warming is already changing our world, it is of utmost importance to educate children on ways to reduce their carbon footprints and help make our planet a safer place for future generations.

If you have kids, now is the perfect time to start talking to them about current environmental issues and introduce them to preventive measures such as recycling.

1. Start the Conversation

It can be difficult for a young child to understand climate change and its effect on the environment. Kids may not know how to deal with information about natural disasters or the extinction of animal species, so you should probably avoid overwhelming them with such challenging topics. Instead, use language and terms they can easily understand.

2. Take the Conversation Outside

You may want to begin this conversation while you are outdoors while your children are enjoying the natural world around them. If you have a garden, show your child the basics of gardening, giving them child-friendly tools and other items to explore the surroundings. The better connection your child develops with nature at a young age, the more likely they will do their best to preserve it when they are older.

3. Make Recycling Bins

Once your child has built a bond with nature and understands how recycling can make a difference in the world, it is time to take action. Together, you and your child can make recycling bins for paper, plastic and glass. Let your child personalize the bins – they can decorate them with stickers or paint images of the materials that should go inside each. This will make the initial introduction to recycling more enjoyable.

4. Recycling Can Be Fun

There are many ways to use old paper or plastic to teach your kid that recycling can be fun. Turn your old plastic bottles and recyclable materials into toys or other useful household items, showing your child first-hand how old stuff can be reused over and over again. This is also a great opportunity to demonstrate that you don’t have to buy new things when with a little creativity you can make them on your own.

5. Develop a Rewards System

Set up goals for your child, with rewards each time they achieve one. This will further motivate your child to recycle. You can also play a game whenever you take the children shopping for groceries – encourage them to read product labels to find items whose packaging can be recycled. The more items they find, the greater the prize.

6. Adopt Eco-Friendly Habits

Teach your child how they can save water, electricity, and energy on a daily basis by turning off lights when leaving the room and water while brushing teeth. It is also crucial that you adopt these habits as well, as your child is more likely to imitate your behavior, especially at a very young age.

Call 123JUNK

When your children have collected enough items for recycling, call 123JUNK and watch your children dance with glee as one of our big red dump trucks arrives at the house. They’ll see how recycling works firsthand, and if they ask really nicely, one of our uniformed professional junk haulers might just take a moment to explain how 123JUNK is doing its part to save the environment with its three-pronged donate-recycle-dispose philosophy.

When you have items you no longer need or want, and live in the Virginia, Maryland or Washington D.C. area, call 123JUNK!

Nowadays, with all the creative, fun, and innovative items found in stores and online marketplaces, shopping has become more exciting than ever. You can purchase amazing things for yourself, your family, and your home at often more-than-amazing prices. While shopping certainly has its advantages, it does come with one major downside: all this stuff creates clutter!

You’re probably like millions worldwide who have stuff they don’t really need cluttering up their homes and offices. But did you know that too much household junk can actually harm your health in more ways than one?

Here’s what clutter can do to your health:

• Create a perfect breeding ground for germs and other bacteria, which can cause illnesses or worsen allergies
• Result in stress
• Make it more difficult to maintain a healthy weight, as research has discovered a link between buying too much stuff and eating too much food
• Increase the risk of falls, injuries, and other home accidents
• Cost you money, as you may purchase items you already have but can’t find
• Have a negative effect on your social life and career, as you may not always be able to locate important things such as your car keys or certain documents

You might need a Decluttering Challenge.

Creating a Decluttering Challenge

A decluttering challenge can transform tedious, time-consuming housework into an enjoyable activity for the entire family. Yes, even the kids can take part in it and actually not hate it.

The first phase: planning. Depending on the size of your home and your schedule, split the challenge up into a few days or even a couple of weeks. Not having to do it all at once will enable you to focus on one area of the home at a time, minimizing stress and negative feelings.

Once you’ve made your decluttering plan, talk to your loved ones about each person’s responsibilities for the challenge. As it is a real challenge, develop a rewards system with little rewards at checkpoints for a job well done, which can be especially motivating for the little ones (or the big ones). You can also set up a prize for the whole family to enjoy after successfully completing the challenge.

Here are some tips to help structure your Decluttering Challenge:

• Create a list of the areas in the home that need decluttering, starting from least cluttered places to those that need the most work
• Declutter one room or one area at a time for optimal efficiency
• Set reasonable completion times or dates for each area, allowing yourself more time for particularly cluttered places such as the basement or garage
• Develop a sorting system; for example, use color-coded boxes or trash bags to differentiate between stuff you want to throw away, recycle, donate or keep
• Take before and after pictures for measuring your progress and additionally motivating the whole family

Call 123JUNK, Your Junk Hauling Experts

Once you have your finished decluttering challenge, celebrate! Then if you’re in Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C., call 123JUNK. We are happy to haul away broken items and junk, and recycle perfectly good and reusable items to our charity partners. Your only challenge with us is what day to schedule your pickup appointment.

Jiminy crickets, Baltimore MD and Washington DC have ranked #1 and #2 on the 2017 Orkin extermination company’s list of top cities with bedbug problems. That’s too close to home for our comfort.

What are Bedbugs?

Bedbugs are small, flat insects about the size of an apple seed that feed human and animal blood, and are often found in areas where people sit or lie down, such as upholstered chairs and beds. They cannot fly, but can move about quickly over floors, ceilings, and walls.

How Do I Know I Have Bedbugs?

One way to detect bedbugs is to look for rusty or reddish stains on your sheets or mattresses. These are caused by bedbugs that have been crushed. Also, look for small dark spots that indicate bedbug excrement. Check especially along seams of cushions or mattresses and under the plastic corner guards for their pale yellow eggs or eggshells. Even wooden furniture can contain cracks and seams where bedbugs can and do hide.

Many people discover they have bedbugs because they are experiencing bites, or see bite symptoms such as itchy welts on their bodies when they wake up.

How Do I Help Get Rid of Bedbugs Myself?

• Clean your bedding frequently in hot water and dry everything on the hottest setting.
• Use a stiff brush, especially along mattress or cushion seams to dislodge bedbug eggs, then vacuum the area thoroughly. Immediately place the vacuum bag into a sealed bag and dispose of it in an outdoor garbage bin.
• Encase your mattress in a bedbug-proof mattress cover. Keep in mind that bedbugs can live up to a year without food.
• Declutter and repair wall cracks or other niches where bedbugs can hide.

Simply throwing away your mattress may not eliminate your bedbug problem. They not only live on your bed; after feeding, they can crawl into dressers, clothing, floorboards, behind switchplates or into other dark and snug places to hide and digest, emerging again when they are hungry.

Experts recommend wrapping your mattress and other infested furniture completely in thick plastic, sealed with duct tape before removing it from the home. This helps keep mature bedbugs and their eggs from dislodging and falling onto other furniture or into the carpet. The mattress should also be clearly marked with the words “BED BUGS.” You may even want to slash the mattress and cushions to prevent others from picking up your disposed-of item for their own use.

Once the infected items have been removed, you will need to treat your home to prevent bedbugs from reappearing. Simply replacing the items will not ensure that you are free from the pests.

123JUNK Cannot Haul Bedbug-Infested Items

As a junk hauling company, 123JUNK is always vigilant about protecting our workers—and the general public—from further bedbug infestations. That means we cannot accept items for hauling that are infested with bedbugs. In fact, if we know that your property has been infested, we can require documentation from a pest control company that states that bedbugs, fleas or roaches have been exterminated.

We also empower our employees to decline a job if they feel their health is at risk from insect infestation once they arrive at a job site.  Even though our guys are hardy and we are not afraid to go into some tough environments, we won’t put our staff at risk.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause to our clients throughout Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.