The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Does anyone remember the funny Staples commercial?  It makes me smirk every time, and now  at Christmas when I hear the original tune, I think of the commercial ;)

Well, the "most wonderful time of year" when the kids head back to school and hit the books, is just a few days away.  So why not send them back with a few eco-friendly school supplies?  One of my favorite green pens is the Pilot Bottle 2 Pen or B2P.  It's the "world's first pen made from recycled bottles", writes nice and smooth, and the kids can brag that they are using a pen made from 89% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.   

It's hard to believe but my youngest is about to begin his last year of elementary school.  A few things almost all elementary school teachers ask children to bring are crayons, colored pencils, and markers to school.  For years my top pick has been Crayola.  Not only do I like Crayola's products, but I'm thrilled with their green initiatives.  Crayola is committed to using renewable energy, reducing waste, and "helping protect the environment, so children have a cleaner, greener planet".   Crayola's initiative to harness the power of the sun, and build a 30,000 panel solar farm on 20-acres of it's land is impressive.  According to Crayola, the panels produce enough power to make 1 billion Crayola crayons and 500 million markers a year.  Not only are their markers made with solar power, but they are manufactured with re-ground plastic scrap from marker production.  Although the entire marker is not recyclable, the #5 plastic caps can be recycled, and if the tip and reservoir are removed, the marker barrels can also be recycled.  Finally, Crayola's colored pencils are never made from endangered or rainforest wood, but are made from reforested wood; for every tree used, another of the same kind is planted. 

When it comes to paper, there are many eco-friendly options as well.  Staples sells Eco-friendly composition books and wirebound notebooks made with 80% sugarcane waste and printed with "eco-conscious vegetable-and-water based inks."  Other options, available at Target are the trendy and cute Greenroom products made with soy inks and recycled paper; recycled paper notebooks, recycled 3-ring binders, tree-free notebooks made from banana paper, recycled file folders, and recycled journals.

Even pencils, a staple for the school-bound, are now more eco-friendly.  For precision pencils, there are Pentel EnerGize-X Mechanical pencils made of 84% recycled plastic and making them more eco-friendly is the fact that they are refillable.  For traditional pencils think "green"...not only are the Paper Mate Earth Write pencils green on the outside, but they are also green on the inside and made with 100% recycled wood.

So send them back with some guilt free eco-friendly products and as they board the bus and you wave good-bye, go ahead and smirk as "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" commercial plays in your head.  

F is for Footprint...Carbon footprint

The original idea for this blog came from wanting to help my family learn to reduce our carbon footprint, and the goal is to take babysteps to get us there.  Some of the steps have seemed painful to my kids, but they are getting a little bit more "greenwashed" each day.  

 According to Wikipedia, one's carbon footprint is:
"the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organization, event or product" ^[1]. For simplicity of reporting, it is often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs, emitted."

The goal of many, including myself is to reduce the carbon footprint of an individual, family, company, town, country, or the world.  The development of alternative energy projects to promote carbon offsetting, such as solar, geothermal, wind energy, and reforestation, are ways to reduce one's carbon footprint.  On a smaller scale, not idling the car while in the carpool line, or riding your bike for local errands will also reduce your carbon footprint.  

When you think about it, every choice we make can have an impact on our carbon footprint.  For example, whether I choose to buy produce that is trucked or flown from far away (this results in emissions and thus my carbon footprint), or buy from a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or grow my own vegetables does impact my carbon footprint.  And although I am only one person, who is trying to teach the other 5 family members, and who chats about the changes we've made to family and friends, I'd like to think that the ripple effect of positive changes will make a difference.  

If you are interested in finding out more about CSAs in your area, Google CSA + your town or state, or check out this link  http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml  You can't beat fresh local produce, it tastes better, you support your local economy, AND you are helping to reduce your carbon footprint!  Every little green babystep counts! 
 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint, July 19, 2010

C is for clothesline...

C is carbon footprint, compost, cleaning supplies, and clothesline...

Growing up, my Mom had a free-standing umbrella-style spinning clothesline, and I can remember standing on my tippey toes and helping her take the clothes off the line.  When a friend asked if I'd greened my laundry yet, I had to admit that the only thing I'd done so far was to use cold water instead of warm or hot, and I've switched to eco-friendlier laundry detergent.  But I know we can do better!  

I checked out some info on the net, and found some pretty interesting info.  Here are 10 reasons to use a clothesline from www.laundrylist.org

Why line-dry?  For starters, dryers use 10 percent to 15 percent of domestic energy in the US.

10. It saves money — more than $25 a month on electric bills for many households.
9. Clothes last longer when line-dried.
8. Clothes and linens smell better without exposing your body and the environment to potentially toxic chemicals in many detergents, bleaches and fabric softeners.
7. It can conserve energy and the environment, while reducing climate change.
6. It is moderate physical activity that you can do indoors or outside.
5. Sunlight bleaches and disinfects.
4. Indoor racks can humidify in dry winter weather.
3. Clothes-dryer and washing-machine fires account for about 17,700 structure fires, 15 deaths and 360 injuries annually. The yearly national fire loss for clothes-dryer fires in buildings is estimated at $194 million.
2. It is fun. And it can be an outdoor experience that is meditative and community-building.
1. Line drying clothes demonstrates that small steps can make a difference.

With these reasons fresh in my mind, I began looking into installing an old fashioned clothesline to dry the clothes with the power of the sun instead of paying for the electricity :)  There are basically two types,  the umbrella-style spinning clothesline which is typically installed on a post in the ground with cement  (I did see one at Lowe's) and the pulley-type of clothesline (which is much less expensive, and the materials area also available at Lowe's).  I decided I wanted a pulley-type, and we found out what hardware and supplies we'll need, and went so far as to buy the items.  But then the project stalled as life got more hectic than usual and we had an ah-ha moment that I'm glad we had before doing the project.  We realized that the distance from the house to the tree, is pretty long and that traditional cotton clothesline will sag and stretch a lot as a result.  We thought back to a dog run we had at one point that went from the house to the same tree, and decided we'd have to get creative and instead of traditional cotton clothesline, we will have to use coated wire to support the weight of the laundry over the distance similar to the dog line.  

There lots of different options for installing outdoor clotheslines too.  I found some good info on the following sites:
http://www.clotheslineshop.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=C

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,1558520,00.html
www.laundrylist.org
I'm very  excited to see how it helps to decrease the electric bill and the yummy sunshine smell of sun-dried laundry!    Stay tuned and I'll let you know how we make out...

Let there be LIGHT!

Let there be LIGHT!...Light research or solar research that is...MIT has a new research center called the  Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center where 21 faculty members are working to bring us clean energy sources that are affordable!  The goal of the center is to "fundamentally transform how the world produces and consumes energy", which in my humble opinion is long overdue.   Any chance for clean energy that reduces our use of fossil fuels while meeting the energy demands,  protects the planet from further degradation and climate change, AND is affordable is a no-brainer, a win-win, and much needed!

The Center is being funded largely by the Italian energy company Eni.  Eni's chief executive Paolo Scaroni has invested because current technology is too inefficient and expensive, and his company is looking to the future.  The MIT Center's scientists will work to make solar cells that are less expensive, and with materials that are more flexible.  Plants will provide inspiration to the scientists, as they model their work on the way plants use photosynthesis to convert sunlight to fuel by using water to store collected sunlight and convert it to energy.  Another promising engineering advancement is a parabolic solar panel inspired by the Mars rover which increases efficiency by reducing dust from settling on panels.  


In addition, the Center is working on other groundbreaking technology such as light bulbs with nanoscale crystals and experimenting with solar cells on paper.  Imagine if their research results in affordable solar for all, and extremely efficient bulbs?  That would be solar "flare" we'd all be happy about.  I can't wait to see how the "light at the end of this tunnel" turns out :)