If you were at the BlogHer conference, you know about Zwaggle, a site for parents who want to trade kids’ stuff — because Zwaggle ran the recycling room for unwanted shwag at the BlogHer Conference last week. At that time, Zwaggle wasn’t quite sure how they were going to recycle all the items, especially since the company didn’t know what shwag people would be getting.

Post-conference, Adam of Zwaggle sent me an update. It looks like the recycling efforts were a huge success! If you’ve been curious about what happened to those trial DVDs and magic 8-balls, here’s your answer:

>> A few items — including the Quickbooks and Raggs DVDs, free panty offers, and CFL bulb recycling kids — went back to the sponsors.

>> The Magic 8-balls, Boca burger magnets, T-shirts, and some DVDs were donated to Create Now, an LA nonprofit providing creative arts mentoring to kids. The shwag’ll mainly be given out as prizes at talent shows or put in gift bags.

>> Must of the rest — including magazines, fliers, and water bottles — were recycled.

What remains, according to Adam, is just a “4 lb box of random one-offs (lotion, pens, small block, stickers)” that he’s still trying to find homes for. This reduction’s a grand feat, since the recycling room was very popular with Blogher conference attendees. I guess a lot of people really hate seeing all the shwag go to waste at other conferences!

Writes Amy Lenzo of Beauty Dialogues about the recycling room: “To me, this is a very good sign, and I’d love to see the practice adopted in all conferences.” Stimey of The Junk Pyramid too loved how the recycling room helped her de-junk. Others, like Ariel of Inside Voice vowed to de-shwag further in the future: “Next time I’ll be more judicious about what exactly I take home. Until then, anyone want a DVD of The Closer?”

All of this has me thinking about last year — and how much more we can reduce the amount of plasticky trash generated at BlogHer. This year’s greening efforts were a tremendous improvement over previous years, but many attendees still were bothered by all the one-use plastic containers and other items used and tossed at the conference.

Got a suggestion about how we could make BlogHer Conferences even greener? Comment or email me at greenlagirl@gmail.com with your ideas, and I’ll compile them into an action plan of sorts as well as send on the suggestions to the organizers.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

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