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
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
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
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
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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
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
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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
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
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
Sunday, February 10, 2008
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
Take Care,
Kara
Friday, February 8, 2008
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§ion=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
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§ion=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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
