To Ima Sierra- Ima, while your idea is enlightening, it is also very self defeating. While your carbon footprint is almost zero some days, it is larger other days. Perhaps you could skip a sick day, work, and donate your profits to conservation groups. One great thing about living is it's making the world better, rather than merely not being a burden. Keep fighting the good fight.

My community has a second hand bookstore that funds hospice services. They gladly accept donations of books and magazines. If I must purchase something, I go here first. When I'm done, I donate them back to the bookstore. Did I mention that they charge 50 cents or less for the magazines? It just doesn't get any better!

I spent most of last year with my mom while she went through treatment and recovered from an illness, which means that we spent many hours hanging out in waiting rooms, etc. We got into the habit of taking magazines we were currently reading. The ones we finished we left, and now we are in the habit of collecting all of them and dropping them off at the hospital and clinics whenever we go even just to pick up a perscription or on the way to somewhere nearby.

Every three weeks I choose two days that I turn my phone off, pull the fuses in my apartment, call in sick at work and sit in the dark in my bedroom for two days. This way I am not a burden to the planet as my carbon footprint is almost zero. It is still on the plus side as I am still breathing but I have not found a way to deal with that yet.

I'm not retired yet, but my mom is. She attends some activities at the local Senior Center and recycles magazines there. Others who live and visit the center enjoy everything she drops off. My husband finds magazines at a library where he stops in. Many are current - the week they came out. He brings them home, then sends them with my mom to the seniors for a total of at least 3 reads!

RE: Sharing Nature Conservancy Magazines: Magazine Swap. I do not use a laundramat. When I was working, I dropped my used/read Nature Conservancy magazines off in the lunch room. Now I am retired. I tried to give the magazines to elementary schools, but the schools did not want them. Local hospitals and nursing homes do not want them because they have too many already. Seems like the major problem is that all possible organizations already have too many magazines, including The Nature Conservancy. Any other ideas?

My magazines go to the laundramat down the street. I put a post-it on them saying "Free -please recycle responsibly when you're thru with this magazine".