Environment - Step 13: Switch to Online/Auto Bill Payment

I admit it - for a long time, I've been too lazy and even a little skeptical to sign up for any of the numerous online bill payment options available these days. However, I made it one of my 2008 New Year's Resolutions to get over it and to finally set up as many of our bills as possible to online or automatic payment. So, over the past couple of weeks, I finally got off my ever-expanding fanny (ahhh, the joys of pregnancy!) and got things set up. And, while I was at it, I signed up for paperless bill notification wherever it was available. This whole process will result in a number of benefits, both financial and environmental:

1. A minimum of 1 sheet of paper & 2 envelopes (1 for sending the bill & 1 for sending the payment) are being saved for every bill I'm now receiving through email. I'm also saving 1 paper check for each bill I'm paying online.
2. I'm saving about 47 cents per bill per month (42 cents per stamp, plus 5 cents per check) for each bill payment that I make online. For my 10 bills that I set up for online/auto bill payment, I will save $56.40 per year!
3. I'm saving time - it's so much quicker to pay bills online (and no time for auto payment bills) than to pay manually via check & postal service.

So, if you haven't signed up for online/auto bill payment, do it - you'll save time & money. If you have already done this, but haven't signed up for paperless bills, make sure to update your accounts to utilize this option - it will save precious environmental resources! Also, keep checking back with companies who did not have online payment options in the past - more and more companies are expanding their billing services to include this option.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 12: Donate Your Used Bikes for Use in Africa

First, I'd like to apologize for not posting in many, MANY months. I have a really good reason - I'm expecting my 2nd child in late October and I've been SO tired. Any spare time that I've had has been dedicated to napping! That's not totally true - I have been doing a lot of research on environmental issues, especially how to be more green without spending a fortune. I'll be talking more about what I've found in future posts.

But first I'd like to talk about a donation program that I've just been introduced to. My husband is an avid cycler (in fact, he's watching the final stage of the Tour de France right now). His cycling club recently paired up with Bikes for the World (www.bikesfortheworld.org) for a bike drive. This organization collects used bikes in good condition for distribution in developing nations; they also collect any related bicycle parts. My husband had upgraded his road and mountain bikes in the last couple of years, so this drive provided an excellent opportunity to get rid of his old bikes. The organization also accepts contributions (suggested amount: $10 per donate bike) to help differ shipping costs. Tax receipts are given documenting all donated items, plus any donated funds. So far this year, Bikes for the World has distributed 6700 bikes!! They have drives scheduled in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland through the end of this year and there is a list of associated bike collecting organizations listed on their site. Hopefully, you can find a drive near you and put your unwanted bike to good use!

One last note - Bikes for the World is looking for adults' and children's bikes (excluding tricycles); children's bikes are used by children who must travel a long distance to get to school each day. So, if your kids have outgrown their bikes, please donate them to Bikes for the World or an associated organization - it would help a needy child so much!

Take Care,
Kara

Giving - Step 5: More Ways to Raise Free Money for Needy Charities

After hearing about Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/), I started to wonder if there were other ways that I could raise free money or materials for needy charities that I hadn't heard about yet. So, I did some searching and found a group of charities that are looking for people to click on their site once a day in order to raise funds for needed supplies and services. These charities can all be reached from one web site: http://www.greatergood.com/. Through this site, you can help the following charities:

1. The Hunger Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, 1.1 cups of rice is donated to feed the world's hungry.
2. The Animal Rescue Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, 0.6 bowls of food is donated to feed an animal in a shelter.
3. The Rainforest Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, you help raise money to protect a portion of the rainforest.
4. The Literacy Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, you help raise money to give books to children who don't have any. These books are distributed through the First Book and Room to Read charities.
5. The Child Health Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, you help raise money to help prevent childhood diseases. These funds go to the following charities: Mercy Corps, the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Helen Keller International.
6. The Breast Cancer Site - Every time you click the "Click Here to Give - It's Free" button for this charity, you help raise money to pay for mammograms for low-income, inner city, and minority women. These funds go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
7. Ecology Fund - This site contains numerous places to click, all of which help protect our environment. Some buttons help raise funds to plant different tree varieties, some help protect different endangered territories. Make sure to click all of the buttons on their site!

Please note that only one click is counted per person per day. You can sign up for daily email reminders so that you never forget to click on these sites. Or make it part of your morning ritual: coffee, email check, charity clicks! Either way, make sure to help these charities raise much needed funds. Not only is it fast and easy, but it's FREE! So, there is no excuse to help out!

Take Care,
Kara

Giving - Step 4: GoodSearch/GoodShop

An easy and FREE way to give to a charity of your choice is through GoodSearch (www.goodsearch.com). For every internet search that you do using the GoodSearch search engine, your selected charity will get a minimum 1 cent donation to their cause. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but it is free money and it does add up as more and more people use the engine if support of your cause. For instance, if you perform, on average, 10 searches a day, you would raise $36.50 for your designated charity over the course of a year. If 100 people did that, it would raise $3,650! All for doing something you normally do anyway. You can make this as painless as possible by selecting GoodSearch as your default search engine in your IE, Firefox, or Mac Toolbar - visit http://www.goodsearch.com/Toolbars.aspx for instructions on how to set this up.

If you don't already know of a charity that you can support through GoodSearch, you can search their database of participating charities at http://www.goodsearch.com/CharityList.aspx. For example, both the Clinton Global Initiative and Oprah's Angel Network are registered charities; you also may find your local schools, churches, preschools, day care centers, etc. in the list. You can even find charities based on different categories, like environment, poverty, children, women, and politics. Find something that captures your heart and start raising some extra cash for them.

Once you pick a charity, you can raise additional funds for them through GoodShop, GoodSearch's web mall. All you need to do is click on the web store that you want to visit and a portion of your purchases is donated to your selected cause. If you do a major portion of your shopping online, this could raise some serious FREE cash for your charity.

So, check out the GoodSearch site for all of the details on using its fundraising services. Also, tell your friends and family about it - it's an easy way to help a charity in need while sitting at home doing your work on the computer!

Take Care,
Kara

Giving - Step 3: Join the ONE Campaign

You've probably already heard about the ONE campaign - I know that I had. But I never really understood exactly what it was about, so I wandered over to the web site to check them out.

The ONE campaign (www.one.org) was started a few years ago by Bono, the lead singer of U2, to band people together in the fight on the apedemics of AIDS and world poverty. On the site, there are 2 actions you can take right away to help their cause:

1. Sign the ONE declaration at http://one.org/declare/index.html, indicating your agreement with the goals of the ONE campaign. To date, almost 2.5 million people have already signed.

2. In just 7 days from today, the US Senate will be voting on the 2009 budget, which has an entry to remove billions of dollars earmarked for the fight on world poverty. Sign ONE's petition against eliminating this funding at http://www.one.org/2009budget. I did. Here is the note that I added to my electronic signature:
"Of all the things that we can do with our money - all the programs we could fund, all the issues we could help fight - this is one of the most important crises that we, as one of the most powerful countries in the world, can easily do something about. Otherwise, we will continue to confirm what the rest of the world thinks of us - that we are a greedy and selfish people."

Other ways that you can take action are listed at http://www.one.org/takeaction/.

You can even support ONE's efforts and get some eco-friendly water bottles all in one shot. The ONE site sells Nalgene 32 oz water bottles with the ONE logo for $12 each (they normally sell for $9-$10 on Amazon, so at least a couple of dollars is going to the ONE cause for each bottle purchased). The ONE site also sells white wristbands and a variety of apparel, the proceeds of which also support is operations and projects.

Visit the ONE site and find another outlet for helping the world's poor get the help that they need!

Take Care,
Kara

Giving - Step 2: Help End World Hunger 20 Grains of Rice at a Time!

For all of my good intentions for making the world a better place, I still have some bad habits. Like reading People magazine (yes, I even have a subscription). In my defense, People is the least raggy, trashy magazine of all the rags at the checkout line. One regular column that they have in each magazine is "Heroes Among Us". This week, the featured person is John Breen, the founder of the site Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/). Breen is a father of son who is preparing for the SATs. Going above the call of duty, he created a program for his son to use to practice vocabulary words in preparation for the test. He then took it one step further, launching the Free Rice web site, which pairs his vocabulary testing program with corporate advertising. So, where does the free rice come in? For every vocabulary word that you correctly match to its synonym (out of 4 choices), 20 grains of rice is donated to the U.N. World Food Program; the rice is purchased from the proceeds of the corporate advertising. I just played for 20 minutes and was able to get 2,000 grains of rice donated - and I found out that I know the meaning of more words that I thought I did. And this program is designed for all ability levels - ESL speakers, middle & high school students, college students, job interviewees, etc. To date, 21.5 billion grains of rice have been donated, which equates to feeding about 1 million people for a day. Not too bad for a web site that launched only 5 months ago!

So, whenever you get a few extra minutes on your hands, go over to Free Rice and brush up on some vocabulary. Not only will you help a needy cause, but you'll even get a little smarter!

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 11: Stop Buying Plastic Water Bottles

When you buy one liter of bottle water, you are actually causing 6 liters of water to be used - 1 to fill the bottle and 5 to cool the plastic which holds the water. The bottle itself is made out of petroleum and requires energy in its manufacturing. Imagine if you could stop the wasting of all of these non-renewable resources? You can - by switching to reusable aluminum or plastic bottles.

When deciding to switch from plastic disposable bottles to something more environmentally friendly, there are a lot of nice choices to select from - SIGG, Klean Kanteen, Nalgene, New Wave Enviro, Foogo (Thermos' kids' bottles), etc. We decided to go with Klean Kanteen (http://www.kleankanteen.com/) due to cost (just $15.90 for a 27 fl oz bottle on Amazon) and easy cleaning (top rack dishwasher safe). SIGG bottles have such a narrow opening that they must be handwashed and cost between $19 to $20 for a 1-Liter bottle (33.8 fl oz). Plus, we like Klean Kanteen's simple design - just 100% stainless steel, which can be recycled if needed. We bought the 18 fl oz bottles for our daughter, with the sippy spouts and adaptors. She loves them, because now she's drinking out of water bottles just like Mom & Dad.

We still get Deer Park delivery water (we like having water stored in our house just in case anything should happen to our water supply), but you could also switch from delivery water to using muncipal water with a water filter - either facuet mounted or as part of a pitcher you store in your refrigerator. At a minimum, think about investing in some environmentally-friendly water bottles - this little change can go a long way to helping the environment.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 10, Giving - Step 1: Donate Your Unwanted Wedding Dress

Okay, this may be asking a little much from the sentimental women out there, but if you happen to have a wedding dress you no longer need or want (say, from a previous marriage, as in my case), there is an organization that you can donate it to! Bride Against Breast Cancer (http://bridesagainstbreastcancer.org/) is a fundraising arm of the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation (http://makingmemories.org/), which grants wishes to men and women loosing their fight against breast cancer. BABC collects donated gowns, mother of the bride gowns, bridesmaid gowns, flower girl/boy clothes, veils, slips, shoes, and jewelry for sale during their sales events held all over the country. They are looking for items that were purchases during or after 1995 (so that nothing is too dated looking); they do have periods of time where they will also accept antique/vintage gowns, but they are not doing so at this time. I had been carting around the dress from my first wedding, wondering what I was going to do with it - when I found out about this organization, I jumped at the chance to help out and find a good use for something that held no more meaning for me (and that I spent WAAAAAY too much money on).

If you have any wedding clothes that are great condition, but you no longer need, donating them to BABC may be the perfect way to give them new life and help out a great cause.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment: Step 7 Revisited

On my previous post about using reusable bags when doing your everyday shopping, I mentioned a site called One Bag At A Time (http://www.onebagatatime.com/). At the time I published this post, One Bag At A Time was having security issues with its online ordering system. I'm happy to report that the security issues are fixed! I've ordered and received my bags from them and they are great. Unlike some other reusable bags, they are marked as being recyclable plastic #5, so when they wear out, you can just throw them into the recycling bin.

I wanted to take a moment to share the statistics that were listed on the tags attached to my new bags (courtesy of One Bag At A Time, of course):
* 14 plastic bags contain enough petroleum to drive a car a mile.
* 380 billion plastic bags or wraps are thrown away in American each year.
* Making a paper bag emits 70% more global warming gases than making a plastic bag.
* 0 paper bags biodegrade in landfills due to a lack of oxygen.
* Cities spend up to 17 cents per bag in disposal costs, wasting millions of tax dollars.

If you haven't gotten your reusable bags, hopefully the above statistics convince you to do so.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment: EcoWise Column in Washington Post

After my post on reducing junk mail, I was asked which newspaper had made the mention of ProQuo. It was the Washington Post. In the Sunday Source section of their Sunday paper, there is a column called EcoWise, which covers one environmental topic per week. You can find an archive of the EcoWise columns at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2007/07/05/LI2007070500812.html. You will have to create a free account in order to access this part of WP's website, but it's worth looking around to see if you learn anything new about protecting the environment.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 9: Save Paper When Printing

Even though computers where supposed to transform us into a paperless society, we all know that that hasn't been the case. As a society, it seems like we use more paper than ever! Here's a couple of ideas that I've come across that can help you save some paper while printing in your home office.

The first idea is the main goal of the "Change the Margins" campaign (http://www.changethemargins.com/). The whole purpose of this grass roots movement is to have as many people, companies, and university change the default margins on their computers to .75" on all 4 sides. This is such a simple idea but, if implemented on a large scale, can add up to paper and energy savings. I always narrow margins on all of my documents, but I learned from this site how to change the default margin setting on all of my new documents. For directions on how to do this on your computer, go to the Change the Margins website & click on "How to Change Your Margins". The site also has statistics on how much paper, fuel, and money can be saved by adopting this change. And you can even sign a petition on the site, imploring MicroSoft to change MS Word's software so that the default margins are 0.75" when Word is installed on new computers.

The other idea is to use the software tool GreenPrint (http://www.printgreener.com/). This tool helps save paper and money by eliminating the accidental printing of the "wasted page" - a page with just a URL, banner ad, disclaimer, or other useless data. When I previously checked this site out, you could get a free, trial copy of the GreenPrint World Version SW for 30 days; now, this SW is FREE for all home users! You can get a Home Premium version for $35. The major difference between the two is that the World Version has imbedded advertising, which helps cover the costs of providing the product for free. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I'm definitely going to check it out!

One final thing you can do is use the back sides of printed pages you no longer need. Examples include making grocery lists, take telephone messages, and use as drawing paper for children.

Good luck with your paper saving!

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 8: Participate in Earth Hour on March 29th

On March 31st of last year, an event was held in Sydney, Australia called Earth Hour. The point of this event was to turn off all of your lights for one hour - from 8pm to 9pm - in order to save energy, make a dent in global warming, and raise awareness of environmental issues. The event was such a huge success that this year's Earth Hour is going to be a global event. Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour will be taking place on Saturday, March 29th. Our family has registered for this event and so can you! Go to the official Earth Hour website at http://www.earthhour.org/ and enter your name in the growing list of people and businesses who will be participating in this wonderful event. For more information about Earth Hour, you can visit their website or watch the video posted at the bottom of our blog.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 7: Stop Getting Plastic Bags at Stores

You might have heard in the news recently that Whole Foods will phase out use of plastic grocery bags by Earth Day this year (if not, you can read about it on their web site here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/byobag/). Or, you may have heard that China has banned free plastic bags, which litter the entire country (see here for more details: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080110-AP-bags.html). You might be asking yourself, "What's so bad about plastic bags?" The first thing is is that they are items that are disposable in nature - their sole purpose is to take the items that you purchase from the store to your home and then be thrown away. The second thing is the sheer number of bags used and disposed of every year - upwards of 380 billion bags (yes, that is a 'b' before the "illions") a year. The third thing is that since these bags are disposable, tons of petroleum/oil (which the bags are made from) and energy (used during the manufacturing process) are being used and discarded, only having a very short lifecycle. The final thing is that these bags take 1,000 years to break down in landfills and the resulting particles are hardly organic.

My first thought about all of this was, "Well, I save my bags, take them back to the store, and put them in their recycling bins, so I'm not contributing to this problem." Well, after a little researching, I found out that I was wrong. Just because the resources are being reharvested, it takes energy to recycle these bags and the profits gained from recycling these bags, if any, are small, making it unattractive economically for recycling businesses to even bother. And in many cases, the bags aren't even recycled - instead, they are shipped over to developing countries, where they are burned for fuel. If you want more details on the plastic bag problem, visit the following links:
* http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php?id=5
* http://www.onebagatatime.com/index.php?page=misc&section=problem

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I counted how many plastic bags I used to cart my purchases home; the total came to 14 and that was a light shopping day. I would guess on average that I would need 20 bags to get my typical supplies home from the store. Given that I shop weekly, that comes to 1,040 bags a year for just my family. I do occasionally reuse bags - to hold my Freecycle items for those who will be picking them up, to contain dirty diapers (which, fortunately, I'm not longer in the business of handling!), to pick up dog poop when my parents come with their dog, etc. But that would still leave about 900+ bags that I was returning to the store with the thought that they would be recycled.

So, I recently decided to get reusable bags. There are tons of companies out their that make bags for this purpose - made from plastic to cotton to hemp - but I wanted to find something that was as cheap as possible (I'm not a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination, so I don't require grocery bags with cute sayings or in latest spring colors), but that I knew what they were made of. The bags that I have settled on are sold at the following site: http://www.onebagatatime.com/. They are made of #5 plastic, fair trade certified, machine washable, and recyclable when it has started to fall apart. And they're cheap - about $1.60 per bag. Currently, the site is having issues with their sales security - the site owner says that they are currently working on the problem and should have it fixed soon. Once they do, I'll be ordering mine. If you have a bigger budget for your reusable bags, check out Reusable Bags (http://www.reusablebags.com/), which have a large selection of bags from a number of different manufacturers.

I'm also looking for a reusable bag that easily folds up (or, more accurately, can be wadded up and crammed), so that I can have it in my purse, ready for those on-a-whim purchases or quick trips to the store to get those few forgotten items. When I find one that I like, I'll pass the info on!

Since I'm fundraising co-chair for my daughter's preschool, I'm always looking for ways to combine school fundraising and environmental causes. And, surprisingly, I've found a couple that combines plastic bag recycling with fundraising. The first one is sponsored by Walmart, which gives $5 for every 60 gallon bag full of plastic store bags (NOTE: this program is already underway for the year and is limited to portion of the US); for more details about this program visit http://www.kidsrecyclingchallenge.com/docs/handout_english.pdf. Another program allows schools to pair up with participating retailers to collect bags, which are used to make trash bags (NOTE: this program also has a limited geographical area as well); for more details, visit http://www.envirobag.com/.

Remember that getting reusable bags is one of those green things you can do which is public - and, in being public, may influence others to become more green themselves. You never know - the checkout person or the couple behind you in line may see your bags and rethink their approach to the environment!

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 6: Recycling Unwanted Electronics thru Fundraising

Each year, American discard millions of unused cellphones, printer cartridges, and other electronics. Now there are ways to keep these items out of the landfills and to raise money for your local school or organization. There are many different programs that allow non-profits to collect these castoffs and turn them in for money. I'll outline a couple of them below.

EcoPhones
I'm the fundraising co-chair of my daughter's preschool. I have to admit - I hate fundraising, but I was hoping to find some way to tie this position in with some kind of environmental fundraiser. I was so happy when I found EcoPhones while searching on the web one night! EcoPhones (http://www.ecophones.com/) is a company that allows organizations to send in not only ink jet cartridges and cellphones, but digital cameras, digital picture frames, laptops, DVDs, and other electronics in exchange for some much needed cash. And they accept items even if they are not working (albeit for a reduced price - but it still gets the item recycled and out of the landfill!). They even pay the shipping costs, so all the organization has to get are boxes to ship the items in and newspaper to cushion the items during shipment. For new items, EcoPhones actually refurbishes and resells them; older items are broken apart and recycled. We are kicking off our first collection drive this coming week; I'm excited to see what we collect! I have a cell phone and a bunch of ink jet cartridges to donate myself!

Staples
Staples offers a program called Recycle for Education, which offers $3 per qualifying printer cartridge to registered preschool and school programs. To find out more details, visit http://www.staplesrecyclefored.com/.

Others
Here's a list of a few other programs that you may want to consider:
*Cartridges for Kids (http://www.cartridgesforkids.com/) - which also collects various unwanted electronics besides printer cartridges.
*Cartridge Fundraising (http://www.cartridgefundraising.com/)
*Funding Factory (http://www.etcep.com/) - which accepts cellphones & printer cartridges

What better way to raise money for your school or club than by keeping unused electronics and printer cartridges out of our landfills!

Take Care, Kara

Environment: Step 3 Revisited

While reading last Sunday's newpaper, I found out about a junk mail reduction site that offers its services for free! It's called ProQuo (http://www.proquo.com/) and it offers a way to manage exactly which businesses can still send you mail offers, while eliminating tens of pounds of unwanted junk for your mailbox. Since I had already signed up for Green Dimes service, I haven't spent any time checking ProQuo out. But, if you have little to no money to use for environmental causes or if the additional benefits of the Green Dimes or 41Pounds service are not how you want to spend your environmental budget, ProQuo could be the answer for you! Now everyone can stop unwanted junk mail from coming to their house, thereby saving their own time and the Earth's resources!

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 5: Get Rid of Unwanted Stuff in an Enviro-Friendly Way

When I was in my mid-20s, I bought my grandparents' house - as is. And by "as is", I mean with most of their stuff still in it. My grandfather had had a second stroke that left him wheelchair-bound, and my grandmother, at 87, was in no position to take care of him or their house by herself. So, they moved into a senior community that had independent living facilities through nursing home care. My grandmother moved into an independent living apartment that only required a few pieces of furniture to fill it; my grandfather went into a nursing home room that already equipped. Everything else was left behind in the house. Relatives did take some stuff, some stuff I knew right off the bat that I wanted to keep, and I got help gathering up all of the leftover furniture and putting it into the garage for the Salvation Army to pick up. But, there was small stuff lurking everywhere in the house. But since I had space to store it, I didn't agressively go through it and purge unnecessary things. Then my husband and I got job offers in another city and had to move all of this crap with us. And our new house didn't have nearly as much storage space as my grandparents' house had. So the time had come for me to actively go through this mess. And I did it through these 4 environmentally friendly ways:

eBay
Hey, why not recycle and make money at the same time? There were a few books of my grandfather, mostly textbooks over 60 years old, that I researched on eBay and found that there was a market for them. Not only did I sell all but one of them, I knew that books that my grandfather loved (but I had no use for) got into the hands of people who would love them, too.

Garage sale
Our development holds a bi-annual garage sale and after sorting through all of the stuff and determining what we didn't want, we found that a large portion of it was sellable. So, we registered with the HOA to be a participant in the garage sale and got lucky that a lot of people came out shopping. We made around $330 that day!

Donation
The remaining items that we didn't sell, we donated to local charities (we made sure to keep detailed records of what we donated so that we could claim these items on our taxes). If you live in the DC area, a number of charities will actually pick up your items right from your doorstep, which is not only convenient for you, but also saves on CO2 emissions (since the charity's truck will pick up items from all donating homes in your area, instead of each separate home driving to drop off their items at the charity's HQ). These charities include the Lupus Foundation of America (http://www.lupuspickup.org/) and Vietnam Veterans of America (http://www.vvapickup.org/). You don't need to be home when they pickup your donation; you just need to place your items on your front porch. They will leave a donation receipt on your front door knob.

Freecycle
For those items that are highly usable, but not accepted by charities, I use Freecycle to find them good homes. The types of things I'm talking about are unused, loose diapers; unused food; leftover shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, perfume, etc; candles; used binders and other office supplies; and the list goes on. To find a Freecycle group near you, go to http://www.freecycle.org/. There you will find links to all of the local groups' Yahoo! groups, which you will need to join in order to participate. Once you join, you will receive an email from the group moderator about format and content guidelines for posts. You may be thinking, aren't you afraid about meeting up with perfect strangers to give them stuff? I was, but I never meet in person to hand stuff off - I just put the stuff out on my porch and let them pick it up when it's convenient. Plus, the people who are part of my local Freecycle group are focused on trying to get good stuff! To date, I've posted 60 items/groups of items to Freecycle, with all but a few being taken.

So, the next time you need to get rid of some stuff, try to use one of these 4 ways which get the items reused by those people who need or love them.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 5: Recycle Dry Cell Batteries

I've been saving all of my used dry cell batteries for a while, hoping to find some place to recycle them. Some electronic stores, like Radio Shack and Best Buy, used to accept them for recycling, but now these stores only accept rechargeable batteries. After looking around for a while, I found Battery Solutions, Inc. (http://www.batteryrecycling.com/). For $0.85 per pound plus shipping charges, you can send all of your dry cell batteries to Battery Solutions for recycling. Not too shabby.

I know, I know, I should be using rechargeable batteries and I was for a while, but they didn't work out very well. It seemed after a couple of recharges, they really didn't hold their charge that well. Nothing like having a screaming kid with a toy that ran out of juice AGAIN! So, I switched back to dry cell. It's so expensive to change to rechargeable batteries, so I really want to research all of the different options before I try them again.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 4: Give Sears a Piece of Your Mind!

Did you know that Sears (and Land's End, which they now own) is the leading catalog distributer, sending out approximately 425 million catalogs each year? And that these catalogs contain almost no recycled content? There's an organization who is working to get Sears to change their ways - Forest Ethics. Through their Catalog Cutdown campaign (http://www.catalogcutdown.org/), Forest Ethics is getting the word out about Sears and its deplorable environment policy. Forest Ethics previously completed a successful 3 year campaign to get Victoria's Secret to make changes to its catalog production so that it was more environmentally friendly (though, I hear that Victoria's Secret can still be a royal pain about stopping the distribution of their catalogs to your house). What can you do to send a message to Sears about changing their practices? First, you should stop their catalog from coming to your home through any of the junk mail elimination services I talked about in the previous post. Next, go to the following link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/281/t/3931/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=13412 and send an email to the CEO of Sears. The site has a set message that you can send either unedited or with personal statements added. I added the following paragraph to the bottom of my email:

"I am posting a link on my blog to let my family and friends know about your poor environmental practices and to ask them to cancel your catalogs and send you an email. Hopefully through the sheer volume of our collected voices, you will finally hear what the consumers are asking for. If you do not change soon, I will be forced to boycott your store."

Finally, tell your friends about this problem and get them to send an email to Sears' CEO as well. You will actually be asked to do just that after sending your email to the CEO - the Catalog Cutdown website has a convenient form which you can use to send a pregenerated email to 5 friends and family members.

If you want to say thanks to Victoria's Secret for changing its policy, you can sign a petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/273837425. The deadline for the petition has passed, but let your voice be heard anyway. Hopefully the additional signatures will be sent to the CEO of Victoria's Secret at a later date.

While its not possible for many of us to join demonstrations to protest the many injustices being done to our planet, here's one way to protest from the comfort of your own home.

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 3: Eliminate Junk Mail!

I absolutely hate junk mail! I get so much in the mail that it has become a part-time job just to sort through it and recycle it. I've always wanted to get rid of it, but wasn't sure how - then, I found a few different environmental sites which provide junk mail elimination services. I was so excited!! The first site is Catalog Choice (http://www.catalogchoice.org/). Catalog Choice allows users to eliminate all unwanted catalogs from their mailbox for FREE! All you need to do is create an account, individually select the catalogs that you would like to cancel, and let Catalog Choice do the rest. You can even eliminate catalogs still being delivered to past residents. If the catalog that you need eliminated isn't listed on the site, you can request that they add it - they will contact the company to see if they are willing to be added to the list. And did I mention that this is all done for FREE!! So, everyone out there, even if you don't have any spare money to sign up for some of the other services that I'm going to mention, please, oh PLEASE, sign up for this service!

Now, Catalog Choice is great, but it only eliminates catalogs, which is only a fraction of my junk mail problem. I swear, I get about 3 credit card offers every day, plus solicitations from non-profits that I will never donate money to. I was wondering what to do about this problem when Oprah (man, you gotta love her) gave me the answer. She recently had a rerun of her Earth Day show (for more details, go to http://www2.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200704/tows_past_20070420.jhtml), during which she played a clip of Matt Damon recommending Green Dimes (http://www.greendimes.com/). Green Dimes offers two levels of service - Free Me ($20), which is their basic junk mail elimination service (eliminates mail for both current & past residents), and Green Me ($42 including shipping), which includes the Free Me service, plus a mini environmental starter kit of 2 CFLs, an environmental kids book by Mercer Mayer, a t-shirt, and a reusable grocery bag. By signing up for one of these services, you can eliminate up to 90% of your junk mail and have between 5 to 10 trees planted on your behalf. Right after signing up, Green Dimes gets you removed from many of the major junk mail lists and plants 5 trees for you. Then, you can request specific catalogs and non-profit solicitations be cancelled - Green Dimes will plant 5 trees for your first 5 requests (10 trees - a nice start to offsetting your annual carbon footprint).

Similar services are provided by 41Pounds (http://www.41pounds.org/). For $41, 41Pounds eliminates your junk mail for 5 years and donates approximately a 1/3 of your fee to a non-profit environmental group of your choice. The main difference between Green Dimes and 41Pounds is that 41Pounds will not cancel non-profit mail for you (which is a big reason why I decided to go with Green Dimes - not only do I hate sorting through all of the requests, but I don't want to see a non-profit waste its precious dollars on these mailings).

If you don't think junk mail is that big of a problem, get your eyes on these stats:
* 19 billion catalogs (yes, that is a 'b') are mailed out each year in the US, which uses up 53 million trees (because almost none of the catalogs utilize recycled content)
* 5.2 million tons of CO2 is released into the environment just in order to make the paper for these catalogs - that doesn't even count printing, collating, delivering, recycling, etc.
* Each US adult receives an average of 41 pounds of junk mail each year.
* $320 million of local taxes are spent to dispose of junk mail each year instead of providing parks, libraries, health care and other valuable services
(resources: Catalog Choice, 41Pounds)

In the age of the Internet, there really is no need to keep receiving catalogs and junk mail. When people need goods and services or want to donate to a special cause, they just hit the computer and search for them. Do your part - sign up for one of these services today. Not only will you help save the Earth's resources, you will also save time by not having to sort through all of that unwanted junk mail every day!

Take Care,
Kara

Environment - Step 2: More about your carbon footprint & Carbonfund.org

After figuring out my carbon footprint the other day, I thought I had a good idea of what my impact on the Earth was. Wrong! As I was researching different ways to reduce or offset this footprint, I found out that the carbon footprint that I calculated is only related to my family's direct energy usage and only accounts for 40% of our total carbon footprint. What comprises the other 60%? Our direct & indirect economic exchanges. So, in order to tabulate your family's entire CO2 output, you need to multiple the number generated by the calculator on American Forests website by 2.5. For instance, my family's impact based on our annual energy usage was 31.2 tons; therefore, our entire footprint would be equal to 78 tons CO2. Wow, that's a lot!

In order to be what's called "carbon neutral", our family would need to reduce or offset our entire carbon footprint, all 78 tons of it.

Now, you may be asking what it means to offset your carbon footprint. This means funding projects which eliminate an equal amount of CO2 which you are responsible for emitting. This can be through tree planting or funding alternative energy generation projects (e.g. wind towers).

While my family can't afford to offset our entire carbon footprint all at once, I decided that we would offset it over the course year. First up was offsetting the annual CO2 output from our cars. There are a number of sites that you can use to purchase offsets, the two most popular being Terrapass (http://www.terrapass.com/) and Carbonfund.org (http://www.carbonfund.org/). I decided to go with Carbonfund.org mostly based on price - I was able to purchase offsets for both our cars for $54. You can purchase offsets for any portion of your carbon footprint from Carbonfund.org; their going rate is $5.50 per metric ton of CO2 to be offset. For instance, since our two cars had an annual CO2 output of a little less than 10 tons, we were able to purchase offsets for $54.

I know that paying for these services can be difficult, so think about reducing a little of your footprint each month through offset purchases, instead of doing it all at once. If we don't do it, the Earth won't be left for our kids.

Thanks, Kara

Another New Year's Resolution - the Enviroment! (Step 1)

My husband and I have been slowly trying to reduce our impact on the environment, but I have decided that this year I'm really going to face this issue head on. I'm going to be posting tips on here about things you can do to reduce your energy needs, to clean up toxins in your home, and to cut back on your usage of our natural resourses.

The first step to getting a handle on the environmental issues that are literally choking this planet is to understand your part in hurting Mother Earth. While there are a number of ways that we all contribute to polluting the planet, one part of your contribution that you can easily tabulate is your Carbon Dioxide (CO2) output or "footprint". To get an idea as to your family's CO2 footprint, you can use the Climate Change Calculator on American Forests website (http://www.americanforests.org/resources/ccc/). If you do not know your annual usage for one of the emission sources, the calculator can fill it in with the national average for you. I did this yesterday to find out what my family's CO2 emissions were; below is the data I entered and what the calculator tabulated:
* Electricity: 12044 kWh/year (2006 total from electricity bill) = 18066 lbs CO2 = 27 trees
* Natural Gas: 993 Therms/year (2006 total from gas bill) = 11659.8 lbs CO2 = 17.4 trees
* Garbage & Recycling: used national averages = 7971.5 lbs CO2 = 11.8 trees
* Mower: 30 gallons of gas = 750 lbs CO2 = 1.1 trees
* Vehicle 1: used national average for minivan = 11210.7 lbs CO2 = 16.8 trees
* Vehicle 2: used national average for midsize sedan = 10168.3 lbs CO2 = 15.2 trees
* Air Travel: 5 flights/year (husband traveling for work) = 1824.9 lbs CO2 = 2.7 trees
** TOTALS: Annual CO2 emissions = 31.2 tons Need to plant 93.6 trees to negate

Needless to say, I was shocked. But, it's better that I know so that I can do something about it. And I will post here what I'm doing to help the environment - hopefully you can adopt some of the ideas yourself! Because we all want to leave our kids a beautiful planet!

Take Care,
Kara

Happy 2008!

Wow, we can't even believe that it's a new year. Unfortunately, a lot of things have been going on in both of our lives that have made it difficult to really start writing our book. So, while I have nothing to report on the book, I'd like to take the time to talk about our New Year's resolutions for this year. Both Melinda and I have decided to loose weight this year and get back into shape after having our kids. We've both joined the Oprah/Bob Greene One Million Viewer Challenge. I'm not sure what Melinda's goal is, but my goal is to get down to 130 pounds, which means loosing about 25 pounds. My exercise of choice is walking, so my husband, my daughter, and I went sneaker shopping since I was in desperate need of good walking shoes. I've been wearing my pedometer for the past 3 weeks and have been shooting for 10,000 steps a day. If I haven't been able to go outside to walk, I set aside some time to walk in this loop pattern that I've created inside my house. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to do start doing the steps in part one of Best Life diet (you can read these at: http://www.thebestlife.com/ms/mvchallenge/challenge_1.html). I already do a number of these steps, but I need to start doing all of them (like skipping the weekend glass of wine and stopping the late night snacking!).

While my husband and I have been eatting more healthy options over the past year, I want to go even further, plus start logging what I'm eatting. I also need to get my daughter eatting healthier as well - I'd actually be happy if she ate anything other than chicken nuggets, fries, and pizza! She is the finickiest eatter and I need to find some way to break that.

I also want to get exercising more - both with and without my daughter. A new family yoga studio opened up in our development that has classes for parents & children to go to together. My daughter just loves yoga and is so excited about going to an organized class, so we will be trying that out this year. She will also take swim classes this summer & fall. Not sure what else we will do with her, but I'm going to be looking!

Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's celebration and is looking forward to an exciting 366 days (leap year this year!).

Take Care,
Kara