ECOSiZE Me

Up for a Challenge: Weekend Without Oil

Feeling competitive this weekend? Try this challenge on for size...a weekend without oil. On August 21st and 22nd, can you, will you commit to 11 actions that reduce U.S. oil consumption? According to weekendwithoutoil.org, even though the U.S. is the largest consumer of oil, few of us really realize just how much oil the activities we engage in and the products we buy and use require.

Here is what we can do to make a difference this weekend or on any given day:

• Walk or ride your bike
• Enjoy the outdoors
• Use reusable bags (avoid plastic)
• Be conscious about your diet
• Avoid buying new make-up (that is petroleum-based) and do research on the brands
• Get back to the tap
• Make your electronics last
• Avoid buying new dvd's
• Skip the new clothes (borrow or shop vintage)
• Visit the library and read online
• Talk to your friends. Share your knowledge. Spread the word.

For more information and to take the pledge, visit www.weekendwithoutoil.org.

Terracycle Back2School Giveaway

There are lots of easy ways to get your green on this back-to-school season.

Reuse what's leftover from last school year first. Check out resale shops and yard sales. Do a clothing and school supply swap with friends, neighbors and relatives. Refurbish used backpacks and personalize them with patches and fabric markers for a creative, unique style. Look for and purchase recycled content school supplies. Look for and purchase upcycled school supplies (such as those supplied by Terracycle for our giveaway). Plan on and pack waste-free lunches. Avoid overpackaged products.

What are you going to do to get your green on? Leave a comment below telling us how you and your kids are going green this back to school season for a chance to win a Terracycle back2school kit that includes the following: 

An Honest Kids Messenger Bag 
A Capri Sun Lunch Box
3 - 2-pocket folders
2 - Capri Sun pencil cases

(*disclaimer: the picture shows a pack of paper pens. These are no longer avaiable and are not included in the giveaway pack).

One winner will be chosen at random on Wed. August 25th

Driving While Under the Influence--of Trash

This article from Aol Autos, Your Next Car Is Full of Trash, describes how car manufacturers are reducing their carbon footprint and closing the loop, using both pre and post consumer recycled materials in car parts. Materials that would otherwise end up in landfills are being made into shrouds, fascias, brackets, acoustic backing and seat fabric. When you get behind the steering wheel of your next vehicle, you may just be driving while under the influence...of TRASH.

The full article from Aol Autos/Translogic can be found here: http://bit.ly/car-full-of-trash.

Bag the Box: Terracycle & Malt-o-Meal Provide Opportunity for Zero Waste

Cereal bags, without the box, create 75% less packaging to dispose of (compared to cereal packaging that includes both boxes and bags).

Terracycle, an upstart up-cycling company that turns packaging material into affordable and high quality items, has teamed up with Malt-O-Meal, the largest family owned cereal company in the U.S. By recycling Malt-O-Meal brand cereal bags through Terracycle's Recycling Brigades, consumers have the opportunity to create zero (cereal packaging) waste.

The Recycling Brigades provide charitable organizations, including schools, an opportunity to help reduce our impact on the environment while earning some extra cash for the charity in exchange for the effort.

If recycling brigades are lacking in your community, be the change you want to see...sign up your organization or elementary school for one or more of Terracycle's Brigades and begin providing new opportunities for recycling items not otherwise available.

Encouraging Disposable Lunches: How Not to Be Green

My daughter brought home instructions for the last day of school field trip. Plans have been made for a combo park-bowling outing. Since there are several classrooms joining in on this field trip, groups will be rotating between the park and the bowling alley. During the "park" time, kids will be having fun playing, enjoying the out-of-doors and having lunch (that they pack and bring from home).

Let me preface the kicker of the story by reminding you that the elementary school in which my children attend has achieved the Michigan Green School status three years and running. Now back to the story...

The important reminders that came home regarding the field trip include this: children need to bring their own entirely disposable lunch. Yes, entirely disposable. But we are a Michigan Green School and we encourage recycling and waste reduction. We gave out hand-made reusable fabric snack bags to each and every student on Earth Day. If we can GET the lunches TO the location, why is it that we then cannot get those same containers BACK to where we started? If anything, the times that our students are out of the building are precisely the times to showcase the fact that we are a designated Michigan Green School and we care about our environment. Instead, we are encouraging some 100 students to needlessly dispose of garbage at a city park when we could have encouraged reusable containers and left little trace of ourselves at that park. 

By encouraging a disposable lunch for the field trip, we have just taught our children that when the going gets tough, it's okay to throw it away.

Being a Michigan Green School doesn't mean that you are such only when it's convenient. At least it shouldn't mean that. And, I do not believe that is the premise of the institution. Instead, the Michigan Green School program is about building a foundation of understanding and apathy for the world around us. It's about learning to appreciate and respect our environment. It's about being a leader in the conservation of our natural resources and an environmental superhero.

Let's ask ourselves this...are we green only when it's convenient or are we green because that's what we value, despite a little extra effort?

The green committe at my children's elementary school plans to tackle the issue of disposable lunches on field trips when school resumes in September.

Air Drying Laundry: International Clothesline Week

Promoting sustainable living, International Clothesline Week encourages people to lower their carbon footprint, by air-drying laundry instead of using an electric or gas-powered dryer.

Appliances account for 17% of a household's energy consumption. At the top of that list are refrigerators, clothes washers and clothes dryers. Dryers alone cost nearly $100 per year to operate unless you choose a nearly-free alternative: air-drying!

Did you know that...

More than 90% of single family homes in America have clothes dryers compared to less than 4% of Italian households?

By washing your jeans in cold water and letting them air-dry, you can reduce their full lifecycle carbon footprint by nearly 50%?

For more information and statistics, visit Project Laundry List.

So, why do you air-dry your laundry? To be green and lower your carbon footrprint? To save money? Out of necessity? For the fresh scent of laundry dried outside? No matter the reason, it's a good thing to do.

Lend, Borrow and Get in the Thingloop

Reduce, reuse, recycle...then lend and borrow and get into the Thingloop. Thingloop is a new social tool that's all about saving money, saving the planet and reducing our carbon footprint through the lending and borrowing items with friends instead of buying new.

The uniqueness of Thingloop is that it takes it a step beyond the everyday lending of items between friends and neighbors. For example, we own scaffolding...2 sections, 2 platforms, 5x7 with casters. This is not a topic our everyday conversations and not something that most of our friends would even know. However, by us listing it on our Thingloop profile as an item we are willing to lend, now all our friends and groups know that it's available should they have a need for such.

It's really very simple and fun as well. Go to Thingloop. Join. Invte friends to join, create groups. List stuff that you're willing to share. The bonus is that Thingloop keeps track of who has your stuff, so you don't need to. It also tracks the monetary value of the items your willing to share so you get a sense of the potential savings with lending and borrowing instead of buying new. Now, if Thingloop would just track the resources saved by lending/borrowing items...we would really begin to understand the extent of our lifestyles on the planet.

In a society of overconsumption, Thingloop is a refreshing tool to help curb our purchases and our impact on the planet. Thingloop provides us with access to the things we need by promoting lending and borrowing, and it creates the opportunity for reducing our carbon footprint, reducing waste and conserving precious natural resources.

Poll Results: Killing Paper Receipts

 

A True Shade of Green: Having An Eco-Friendly Birthday Party

My son turned 10 this past weekend, a significant milestone in birthdays since it's the beginning of double-digits. To celebrate, we had some friends over for a small party. Often times, birthday parties are synonymous with consumption, overpackaging and lots of disposables. We made a real effort to keep it green and did so in these ways:

• Sent emails as invitations
• Used our own reusable plates, cups, bowls and utensils.
• Avoided store bought decorations and other disposable party supplies. Instead, the festivities included the boys playing  "nerf gun war" and using sofa cushions and blankets to build forts. (At this age, it's much less about a "theme" and moreso about hanging out with friends and having fun.) We took a walk to a nearby park to get some outdoor time and the boys played a game of "man on rocks" (i.e. tag). We returned to the house for cake and ice cream and a little down time watching a movie.
• No treat bags but a "craft" project doubled as a party favor. Each boy decorated and personalized a white t-shirt with fabric spray paint and fabric markers, graffiti-style.
• The "greenest" part of this celebration...informing our guests that "to continue our efforts to be green and curb our consumption", this was a gift-free party. I was pleasantly surprised and proud of how well my son accepted this part of the party plan. Most friends made cards. One made a booklet of pages to color from their favorite tween websites. Two friends did give gifts...a WII game (in a reasonable amount of packaging) and a personalized bat from the Louisville Slugger factory (made in the USA).

In the end, lots of fun was had by all and I confidently can say that I felt good about the impact, or lack thereof, we made on the environment.

Zipping Up Recycling: Terracycle Adds A New Brigade

Terracycle is a revolutionary company with a mission of creating eco-friendly and affordable products from materials that would otherwise go to a landfill. Chip bags, glue sticks, juice pouches and candy wrappers for example, are "not fit" for collection by municipal recycling programs. Yet, Terracycle sees these (and many other items) as valuable raw materials waiting for a second chance at being upcycled into folders, binders, trash cans, kites and much more.

Terracycle is zipping up recycling even further with the introduction of their newest collection brigade--plastic storage baggies and containers! Accepting any brand baggies and storage containers, in any condition, Terracycle's storage brigade is exclusively being offered to schools. Schools now have another unique opportunity to reduce waste, earn money and obtain a "green school point" (if you are participating in the Michigan Green Schools Program).

Check out Terracycle's brigade page to find out how you can start collecting recyclables and earn money for your non-profit organization. This is one step in the loop of taking trash to treasure. Remember it's important to close that loop when you are out shopping by purchasing items made from recycled content materials.

If you aren't familiar with Terracycle, take time to acquaint yourself with them and all the good that they do.