Recently in Environmental Action Category

Since we're supposed to get new kicks every year or every 600 miles if we're dedicated runners or walkers, what do we do with the pairs we replace?  Most clothing you can give away, but crusty, old pairs of athletic shoes--not so much.

That's where Nike's Reuse a Shoe program comes in.  You can simply drop off your sneaks at a Nike store near you--they can be any brand, by the way as long as they don't contain metal or spikes--and they'll put them to good use.  Ground up, your old shoes make excellent sports surfaces for kids like playgrounds and basketball courts. Over 21 million have already resurrected.

No matter how daunting the challenges we face, we can always do one small thing to help make ourselves and our world a better place.  Really.

And focusing on just one thing helps prevent overwhelm and exhaustion.

What's one thing you want to do to make a difference?

If there is one, you can join the One Thing Revolution add your own simple action here.

In these times, you and I aren't the only ones touting reuse.  The option of getting creative and finding a new use for an old item is not only economical and environmental, it's downright fun.

ReadyMade if full of these kinds of projects.  Like this one, a piece on what to do with old belts.  

Use a belt as a handle for a drawer or storage box, as a jewelry hanger (love this), or a bunch of them as a seat for a stool or chair.  Brilliant.

Here are some other around the house creative reuse ideas from real live people. (I always use old PJs for rags, hoard packing material sent to me, and never recycle a piece of paper with only one side printed.)

Feel free to share yours.

Should you need last-minute information on how your local candidates fare on environmental issues, look no further than the League of Conservation Voters and its Scorecard that gives the record for any U.S. senator and or congressperson on issues that go beyond red and blue--green.

Just enter your state and zip and get to it.

Then, make sure to find out where your correct polling place is and get any information on local measures at Vote 411.

See you at the polls.

I am notorious for bringing my own food places and creating picnics.  In order to bring your own though, you've got to have the right gear.  So, to help you forego the to-go packaging and plastic bags, I thought I'd give you a few recent finds of mine that I think would do the cook, wrap and carry job beautifully.

I've just ordered a couple of Thermos stainless steel food containers.  They keep food insulated for a number of hours and don't have plastic!  Perfect.  There's a 10 oz. and a 16 oz. and even a Hello Kitty version that's just too cute and Batman's face on another for fun food-lovers. 

The stainless steel numbers also work if you're going to a restaurant to eat out and carry out but don't want to throw out anything. Simply have the folks there put your order in your own container versus Styrofoam and you're good to go.

For a true picnic, or just lunch for more than one, I really like Lug's picnic box/tote that's insulated and under 30 bucks--not bad. (There's a little cube version too for 22.00). 

If you're brown-bagging for just yourself, my pick would be the fugu lunch tote from Built NY. It's sleek (kind of Batman-suite-esque actually), lead and PVC free, and has insulated pouches for both lunch and bottle.  Very clever and only around 20 bucks.

So, what is gray water or grey water?  It's all the water you use in your house that will find its way to the sewage treatment plant and, eventually, out to sea--that's dishwater, bath water, washing machine water.

And if you're a true gray water guerilla, you just may be up for a home project that diverts it to your yard.

There are simple, low-tech ways to do this.  I have a watering can in my kitchen which I fill with discarded water from my SIGG bottle, tea pot and kettle, and vegetable steamer. Once its full of grayish liquid, I water the plants with it and begin the process over again.  You can do something similar in your tub as you wait for your shower stream to warm up.

But going beyond that doesn't have to be too daunting.  Susan Carpenter of the L.A. Times spent one weekend and $312 to divert her washing machine wastewater to her xeriscaped (drought-tolerant) yard. You can read her DIY inspiration and tools here.

And, if you're ready to dig in and get your hands dirty, consider contacting or surfing The Greywater Guerillas site.

In the meantime, a watering can, shower bucket, or rain catcher barrel can be an easy, excellent start.

This site, GlobalRichList, will tell you your rich-rank in terms of the world.  If you find that you're actually richer than you thought--most Americans are probably in the top 1-10% and the rich are now 82 times richer than the poor-- it gives you ways to give a little to help out somebody who's way farther down the list than you are.

Living large just may be going out of style in these times.  And it could be a good thing.  

According to David Wann in Simple Prosperity, the "average American's 'ecological footprint' (the land needed to provide the materials supporting his or her lifestyle) is 30 acres, or roughly thirty football fields of prime land and sea, year after year--which is roughly twice what the average Italian or German thrives on." 

Unfortunately, our fair share should only be about 4.3 acres if we want everybody to have a piece of the planetary pie. If we pare it down a little, maybe we can help spread some of that around and help save the planet while we're at it.

It's blog action day!  This year's theme is poverty and I'm taking a watery approach--as in, writing about providing clean, safe drinking water for more people who don't have it. We can get pretty used to turning on the tap and having lovely, lush fluid come flooding out.  But many parts of the underdeveloped world simply don't have the water they need to drink and do simple tasks.

It's also the decade for water through the UN and the Water for Life program.  Here are some statistics from their site:

1.1 million people don't have access to clean drinking water (that's 18% of the world's population or one in six of us).

2.6 billion don't have access to basic sanitation (that's 42% of us).

Water use increased sixfold in the 20th century, 60% since 1960 and half the world's wetlands have been lost.

And things could get even more dire with our population expected to rise by a billion by 2015.

Here's where we come in.  

Next, we can support orgs doing things that have a farther reach that our own faucets and sprinkler heads.  Like charity: water.  This appears to be an absolute gem of a place that raises funds to train folks in Africa and elsewhere to drill wells and do other water projects and uses 100% of its donations to cure a specific place's water ills, providing clean, safe H20 from deep underground. One dug well can provide water for 400 people for 20 years. It has 629 well-like projects going right now.

Then, you can volunteer.

Patagonia's Vote the Environment is an excellent resource for citizens of all environmental stripes.

Or buy a t-shirt that supports HeadCount, a voter registration non-profit (30.00).

I enjoyed this article on WorldChanging.com about the idea of tracing products backstories, in other words, that convoluted path of steps a product took going all the way back to where its materials first originated.

It reminded me of the Consumer Reconnection Project. And, it reminds me of how we can ask companies where things came from and how they got here, from the chard on the dinner plate to the fabric on the hanger to the metals and plastics in those hard to open containers.

The news on this is a little late, but always applicable.  In the tradition of Life Less Plastic, one woman in Britain decided to go a whole month without plastic. 

She started with a plastic audit--a tool I was introduced to in the education department of TreePeople and find truly useful--that revealed that she had created 603 pieces of plastic waste in one month. If we think we've got less, it helps to know that 67 of them were filmy plastics that had contained her bread and cheese and the like. I shudder to think what mine would be.

And look back at her anti-plastic blog journey here. (She got it down to 116 items, cutting out almost 500 pieces!)

Here's an example of a recycling audit for a college campus in case you decide to audit an area of your own life be it how much is recycled at your home or office or how much waste (in pounds or pieces) you actually throw out.  

I also like the project of carrying around all your waste (excluding toilet paper!) for a week.

These economic times are a good time to get serious about simplicity.  So many simple, green living practices actually save money, creating more abundance and less fret.

I recently read Simple Prosperity by David Wann, and the time is certainly ripe to take his principles seriously.

Here are some simple scrimping ideas that might pay off in all kinds of ways.

Buy good quality items that will last.

Repair things, from blenders to shoe soles.

Get clothes and furniture at your local thrift stores (I'm currently scouring the racks at mine for a warm winter coat).

Cut your cleaning sponges in half.

Buy in bulk!  Bringing apple sauce jars and cloth bags to a bulk bin saves packaging, major oil and resources, and money.  There, you can buy beans, grains, pastas, baking soda, dried fruit, nuts, oil, agave, sugar, flour, and all manner of things sans plastic, plus savings. Cooking things like beans and whole grains will have health benefits while using less energy during the week for cooking small bits of things.

Make meals at home and carry them with you.  Check out wastefreelunches.org for ideas.

Turn off, unplug, or switch off appliances connected to a power or smartstrip when not in use.

Grow some of your own food, even if it's just an herb garden.

Get books from the library and get the ones you want to own from swaptree (the perfect system for keeping your shelves clutter-free, too).

Use Dr. Bronner's fair trade, natural liquid castile soap for all your soap containers in the house (it works for clothes, too).  You can dilute it and it lasts and lasts. 

Refill your pens.

Change your printing margins and follow other paper and ink saving printing tips.

Turn off lights, take short showers, use CFLs--all the usual resource saving behaviors.

That's all I've got for now--please share any of yours with me!

The destruction Hurricane Ike has swept over the Gulf Coast may bring new meaning to this weekend's annual International Coastal Cleanup Day, this Saturday the 20th.

The way we treat our coastline has a huge effect on how bad its storms are as wetland areas--those marshy places between ocean and land--are not only incredible habitats for birds and other wild creatures, but they act as buffers, helping to slow and diffuse angry hurricanes.  Unfortunately, 25-35 miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands disappear every year according to Medill Reports. (I also hear that in my state, CA, we've lost 90% of ours already.)

And, finally, 10 things you can do to help wetlands (if you live in a coastal area, contacting your local watershed protection agency/nonprofit is certainly number one).

Lush cosmetic company is standing up for sharks!  In its UK stores, Sea Shepherd flags are flying, salespeople are dressing like pirates, and the store is getting the word out about the massive number of sharks being finned and discarded so that we can slurp some soup.  (As I've posted about Sharkwater, sharks are quickly headed for extinction--90% are gone already--a huge change in the ocean ecosystem that's sure to brew trouble.)

A project of Forest Ethics, the Do Not Mail registry (similar to the national Do Not Call service) helps you reduce the mail you get that ends up in the recycle bin, for free.  Let's stop this cycle before it gets started.

If, like me, you've every tried getting the addresses or phone numbers of junk mailers and sending numerous letters their way, you know what a pain it is.  At this site, you just enter your info and it produces a handful of postcards for you to sign, stamp, and send on their way.  A huge help indeed!

Re:Vision is sponsoring a competition that ends September 15th.  The task: to re-imagine the building industry by thinking up a new way to build a common structure.  Be it toilets, walls, light fixtures, bookshelves, or whole houses, be it a new, sustainable way of making something.

If you've already got an idea kicking around or have been a closet inventor tinkering with recycled coat hangers and pliers each evening, there's still time to enter.

This is an organization that focuses contests on five sustainable city issues: construction, transportation, energy, commerce, community.  From all the winning ideas, it's planning on developing an entire sustainable city block.  Very re:markable indeed.

It's videos like this one from goveg.com that make impassioned teenagers become vegetarians.  For good reason.

Even if you're not a vegetarian (admittedly, I'm not after going that route for a couple of years and being frankly quite ill from it--having said that I know many a thriving, robust vegetarian/vegan), choosing where your meat comes from makes a huge impact on the planet, the animal, and, ultimately, you.

By treating our farm animals cruelly, we're setting ourselves up for trouble.  How can eating animals that have been fed food they aren't meant to eat, drugged up with hormones and antibiotics, penned up and barred from doing any activity that biology dictates they do, poked, prodded, starved, and the like not have consequences higher on the food chain?  Aside from any spiritual karmic effects, there's just no way that meat is going to be truly healthy when it arrives on your plate.  I believe it carries with it all that suffering and stress and it goes straight into our own bloodstream.

In addition to only getting meat that comes from people raising it sustainably and humanely, consider exploring companies raising heritage breeds (most of our farm animals are the same breeds, meaning that they're crowding out genetic diversity.  Learn more about heritage breeds here.

Orion had a wonderful article a few months ago on how we got to where we are with our out of control consumption--much of it we're not really to blame for.  Machines have churned out more stuff than anybody could possibly use since the Industrial Revolution--perhaps we've felt an obligation to buy it all.

Yes, we have been preached a message telling us that we never have enough.  

The only way to keep getting stuff is to keep working (a married couple works 500 hours more a year than they did in 1979).  And as everybody knows, many of us are spending more than we earn.  The solution?  Producing less, using less, and spending more time and energy on things that matter. It could be a doctrine that will save us.

Find out more by reading "The Gospel of Consumption" here. 

In the 80s, Jaws solidified humans' fear and loathing of finned creatures of the deep.  It turns out though, that you're more likely to be hit by lightning than attacked by a shark and that elephants kill more people every year.  

It also turns out that we're the real predators, killing sharks at an alarming rate and putting the oldest creatures around very close to extinction.

Why should we care?  Because when you mess with the top of the food chain in the ocean, the whole ocean shifts and in turn, the whole world.  

After talking with a local aquarium about shark conservation, I finished my research by watching Sharkwater.  If you get past a few design and writing flaws, it's a really important film that details the how, what, why, and what now of shark fishing.  100 million sharks are killed annually just for their fins. 100 million! This movie will make you want to donate to the Sea Shepherds who, like modern-day principled pirates, monitor illegal fishing, and never, ever eat shark's fin soup again.

If you know all about Colony Collapse Disorder--the plague wiping out commercial bees faster than you can say honey-- and  want to go beyond eating Haagen Dazs Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream in solidarity, you can watch a Nature doc on PBS to get the full scoop.

Other actions you can take to help promote local bees a buzzing?  The National Resources Defense Council has some ideas: plant natives to attract and feed wild bees; don't use pesticides; support local, organic agriculture; and, for a gold star, build or buy your own beehive to draw some honeybees to your backyard.

Bees pollinate a good deal of what we eat, like almonds, raspberries, apples, and oranges, so the more we can do for them, the better off we'll be.

  

Reviving the old ways of bartering with objects is not such a bad idea.  And in a climate of just plain too much stuff while there are still people who need it--why not just throw it their way?

Throwplace makes it easy, giving you tools to find places to throw your stuff, places other than the landfill!

You can find a good home for unwanted belongings at charities here and abroad and with individuals looking for just that thing.  All you have to do is sign up.

It's no longer bottles, cans, and paper we need to recycle, it's also ipods, cell phones, and TVs among other digital gadgets or so called e-waste (electronic waste). In fact, e-waste is the fastest growing component of municipal trash (Earth 911).

For many years, e-waste was simply shipped off to other countries where villagers, often very young ones, would sift through the toxic materials, burn it while inhaling horrible pollutants, and sell the remains--copper and other heavy metals--for some cash.  While this still happens, there are outlets who are beginning to deal with this stuff more humanely and safely.

So, if you're not getting a digital converter box--which the government will help fun--when things go that way in '09 (I tried one with my antiquated TV, but to my disappointment, it didn't work) and are opting for a new TV, it's imperative to recycle it.  There could be a huge influx of lead, cadmium, and other scary stuff to landfills if we all don't. Read more on that from Utne here.

Earth 911 can help you find a recycling center that takes TVs here.

I've bemoaned here before that my landlord recently put in grass in the front and back yards of my apartment building.  In Los Angeles.  During a worse than the usual drought. Luckily, there are lots of people out there doing something different.

Lawns have some very good qualities, like soaking up runoff and providing a place for wee ones to roll around, but they don't in any way measure up to planting native plants or fruits and veggies.  

Consider this from Eartheasy:

30% of water use on the East Coast goes to watering lawns.

On the West Coast, it's 60%!

Suburban lawns get way more chemicals dumped on them than farmland, up to 10 times more.

Lawn tools emit more carbon that automobiles (the worst offender, the leaf blower, dishes out 34 times as much).

If you already have grass and want to keep it, you can always use a push mower, water less, and use techniques like grasscycling to make it more environmentally-friendly.  Read more on that here.

But if you want to tread the road less often traveled, you can go beyond grass and actually have your yard space certified by the National Wildlife Federation as a bona fide Wildlife Habitat.  It involves planting native plants and providing water and cover for critters in your neck of the woods--an adventure, but a manageable one, for sure. And the payoff is that you get to provide a sanctuary for wild things that are struggling to find mates and homes in the face of a changing climate and more and more development.  You also get to watch them frolic.

Start your own Wildlife Habitat certification process here.

According to 350.org and, more importantly, former NASA scientist James Hanson, 350 is a magic number.  It is the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide we need to get to in order to, literally, save the planet and curb global climate change.  

Yes, we've already tipped the scales past that.  Yes, this org. thinks we can get our weight back down.

We know some of the nitty gritty we can do around the house to help.  But I'm starting to think that while I will continue to step up efforts on the homefront, real change will happen with a loud voice and leaders who take action and listen.

But why not have some fun getting there?  350 is sponsoring a crafty contest to get the word out.  You design something, anything, with 350 on it and submit it during the month of August.  (You might even win a craftilicious prize!)

Find out more here.

You may have heard (here or elsewhere) about the North Pacific Gyre, a trash island comprised of mostly plastic that is twice the size of Texas.

Sea turtles, birds, and other marine mammals eat bits of plastic and end up washed ashore.  It's pretty much a bad situation all around.

Even Time Magazine is talking about the dangers of plastic for those of living on dry land--after all, it's in our food packaging, lotion bottles, cell phones, computers, baby bottles, dinnerware, storage containers and all manner of things.  Read more here.

To feel that you're doing your part and to make a small difference in your patch of home, whether inland or coastal, you can take Oceana's Plastic Pledge.

It's as simple as toting your bag and drinking container and not littering (for extra pledging, you can even pick up other people's litter).

And read more plastic-freeing tips from one Chicago plastic maverick's Life Less Plastic blog.

more (action)

The first, Blue Vinyl, the story of the filmmaker's parents replacing the siding on their house with vinyl (polyvinyl chloride or PVC) for its durability, cost, and promise to stand the test of time, and the filmmaker subsequently gathering information from all over the world, with a strip of the blue vinyl siding in hand, on why it's not such a good idea in hopes of getting them to replace it.

She visits Lake Charles, Louisiana where a large PVC factory pollutes the air and water and visits with a lawyer there who works on behalf of factory workers who've died of rare cancers associated with PVC and to Europe, where the same thing is happening, and where a scientist first figured out why.  

It's not just Louisiana workers who have to worry though.  Dioxin, a chemical released from PVC is showing up all over the environment and in our own bodies as PVC has been considered a wonder plastic for the last forty years.

As is this filmmaker duo's trademark, they combine irony, serious research, and hilarity with action.  

You can buy a copy of Blue Vinyl to support them.  Or, visit My House is Your House and join the green building, consumer action revolution.

(The Center for Environmental Health and Justice has some great information on PVC and ways to help, too).

The second, more recent film, Everything's Cool, is a must-see if you want to know some history on global warming findings, find out how it's been made into a faux debate and covered up for too long, and what a handful of truth-tellers and everyday activists have and are doing about it

Buy Everything's Cool here.  Or, find out how to get involved.

Remember Smokey the Bear?  Well, he's still around, but he's been updated a bit.  However, the message is still the same: 9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans and only you can prevent another one from sparking. 

With droughts across the map and sever fires blazing in Northern California, the message is prescient as ever.

Check out Smokey's site here. There's a great section for kids to explore, too.

What's one of the best materials to soak up oil after messy, environmentally-disastrous spills?  Hair.  Human hair.

Just like when we neglect shampooing for a few days, we  (I anyway) end up with greasy tresses--that stuff is absorbent.

There are thousands of oil spills every year, not any as extensive as the Exxon Valdez in 1989 (which recently got wrapped up), but damaging nonetheless.

Matter of Trust partners with hair salons who sweep up their customers' brittle ends and send them to a facility that makes the hair into oil-soaking mats for clean-up efforts (creating green jobs while it's at it).

It's such a great idea, and the perfect opportunity to pass on to your stylist or barber next time you're in for a new do.  According to the organization, hair salons end up with about a pound of hair every day.  At over three hundred thousand across the country, that's a lot of lovely locks doing more than going to the landfill.

You can also sweep up your own and send it their way in an envelope.

President Bush called for an end to the moratorium on offshore oil drilling last week.

Offshore drilling is a bandaid to our dependence on, price of, and depleting supplies of oil.  Plus, offshore drilling (aside from being unsightly for our coasts), can increase the likelihood of spills and causes such loud noise and disruption that sea creatures' habits and habitats can be adversely affected.

more (reflection)

The solstice can be a difficult time for the body as we transition from one season to the next, but it can also be a reflective, spiritual time as well.  So, even if you didn't take part in any parties or ceremonies, this time of year can be a good time to check in with ourselves (like at winter solstice/new year) on how aligned we are with our goals, ourselves, our intentions, and the like.  

For me, summer is also a time of renewed energy for things like new projects, further purging of stuff, and taking on new intentions like spending more time in nature, making a move or some kind of transition, or committing to even more walking and getting a good bike so I can spend even less time in the car--after all, the weather's not frightful at this time of year.

more (free, sustainable ingenuity)

But, if you don't want to spring for brand new organic cotton or hemp cloth napkins at the moment, or new ones in general, it's so easy to snip and clip and make your own.

When my friend C and I were having lunch last week, I noticed her napkins and was supremely impressed.  She just took some fabric and cut it up.  That's right, if you have fabric lying in your sewing basket, old curtains, or a t-shirt or dress or the like that doesn't fit or has seen better days, cut it up. How freeing is that?  Cut it up and voila, you have napkins.  (You can get fancy and sew them up on the sides too though it's not necessary.)

Reusable cloth napkins never go out of style.

Then, use them at home and bring them with you when you pack a lunch, or if you have to grab something at a takeout joint, at least you can forego the disposable paper!

more (urban green)

It all started with one guy and has grown into a whole gaggle of people who go around London transforming vacant, overgrown, or run-down spaces into gardens, all under cover of night, or at least without any official permission.