I've seen many articles and blogs which contain eco-friendly holiday gift ideas. I wanted to place some of them here to be of little help to some of the late shoppers who are trying to get something nice for themselves or their green friend. These suggestions are better than giving fruitcakes. However, I do hear that many fruitcakes have been reused and regifted, so I guess that is pretty eco-friendly.
Go Green this Christmas - gift ideas
Green holiday gifts can bring joy, save money
Joy of green giving: High-tech, environmentally friendly gifts
Inexpensive Christmas Gift Ideas: Save Money and Go Green with Cheap, Earth-Friendly Gifts
Christmas Gifts 2009: Do It Yourself!
Last minute Christmas gift ideas {green products and services}
Happy shopping and have a great holiday season!
My tomato plants have done their job for the year. No more good
tomatoes or blooms are on the vine so today I picked off all of the respectable
tomatoes and heaved my tomato plants into my compost bin. Alas, colder
weather is near (in Kentucky anyway) and this is just one of the things to do to
get ready for autumn. My tomato plants won't be lonely, a lot of leaves
will be joining them very soon.
Don't fret, I made sure there were no bugs or diseased areas on the plants.
You don't want to spread disease into your compost bin. That just wouldn't
be good for your compost bin at all. Speaking of compost bin, mine has
seen better days. It has gotten pretty sad looking. I made it around 8 years ago out of wood.
It has done its job, but I plan
to get or make a new one for this coming spring.
Don't have a compost bin and don't know how to compost, and would like to?
Do It Yourself Composting At Home
I just saw the movie 'Away We Go' with John Krasinski (of "The Office") and Maya Rudolph (of "Saturday Night Live") are expectant parents who go in search of the perfect place to start their family in this low-key comedy from director/producer Sam Mendes ("American Beauty" & "Road to Perdition)". I thought it was a really good movie and I would recommend to every adult. It is rated R for a reason; especially the opening scene. You'll see what I mean. The cast also includes Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton. The story and the actors caught my eye, but also the Special Features of the DVD. It mentioned the eco-friendly things that Sam Mendes did on the set of the film.
From the FilmInFocus website:
Away We Go’s achievements can be broken down into four main areas: energy, transportation, catering/craft/water, and waste. Specific achievements include:
* For energy, biodiesel fuel was integrated into generators, using blends ranging from B-5 to B-99, resulting in substantial emissions reductions at point of combustion as well as through life-cycle analysis.
* For transportation, hybrid vehicles were driven 45% of the total miles driven during the production, and also reduced carbon emissions through their reduced idling policy and charter flight avoidance policy.
* For catering/craft/water, the production shifted its sourcing to local and organic sources for more than 50% of their meals and craft services, and eliminated plastic water bottles from their set.
* For waste, the production redirected 49% of its waste from landfills into recycling and composting.
Other achievements included consolidating shooting locations so as to reduce travel miles, adopting sustainable habits in the production office, and eliminating all those wasteful little plastic water bottles. The production switched to branded reusable bottles and, when it came to dinnerware, served with corn and sugar-based utensils.
Filmmaking while being eco-friendly is possible. Let's hope that other directors and producers get onboard and become more eco-friendly. With all of the movies that are made these days, that could make a huge impact. If you don't see this movie, I urge you to see a movie soon. Movies are a great 2 hour escape. And don't we all need escapes?
Many people have closets similar to the one above. No, you may not have a robe with duckies on them, but you probably have at least one closet that needs to be decluttered. Don't just dump all of your unwanted clothing into the trash, however. You have the opportunity of doing something green, get yourself a little more organized and receive a tax deduction. How cool is that?
You can combat a messy closet by going through your used clothing and put them into four piles.
1. Clothing you still wear and that you will keep - this will be clothing that you have worn in the past 12 months or you know you will wear in the next 12 months
2. Clothing you don't wear, but is in good condition which you can donate - there are many great choices when it comes to donating your clothing. Just a few are:
3. Clothing you don't wear, but may be cleverly reused - find out some ways to reuse used clothing here
4. Clothing that is falling apart, which can't be worn or reused and needs to be thrown away
Clothing donations are needed by many of the 600,000 homeless families in the United States. But the need doesn't end there: more than 28 million children living in low-income families and their parents could also benefit from donated clothes.
Clothing donations should be clean, undamaged, and reasonably wrinkle-free. Clothing can be folded and packed in sturdy boxes or bags; avoid hangers. Items that come in pairs (shoes, gloves, socks) should be kept together (shoe laces can be tied together, gloves and socks can be stuffed inside each other). Pockets should be emptied and any belts should be securely fastened to their appropriate items.
For tax purposes, you should keep a list of the clothing you donate. Donation centers usually give you a tax receipt, but if you mail your clothing or shoe donation to a charity, also send a self-addressed, stamped envelope so it can send you a receipt. Shipping costs are tax deductible as well.
Take all the time you need: whether it be two hours or two weeks. You'll be doing something great and eco-friendly for yourself, your spouse and possibly your local community.
Wikipedia defines litter as "waste that people unlawfully dispose of out of doors. It can be packaging or other unwanted items. Litter can be vandalism, carelessness, or inadvertence. Litter is a form of visual pollution. It can harm health, safety, and welfare. It adversely affects wildlife and environmental quality." That’s a pretty darn good definition.
A couple of times on the Ways2GoGreen twitter account I have posted this little phrase about littering:
Don't litter. Ever. I mean it. I will find you and rub your nose in it. Seriously.
Note: In the above quote, I’m only half kidding.
I usually get a lot of re-tweets from this post which tells me there are many others who feel like I feel about littering. I think that littering is the ultimate in laziness and is such as selfish act. However, some people seem to feel that everywhere is their personal wastebasket. I can't tell you how many times I've found trash in my front yard from passer-bys who throw what they just finished eating or drinking from their vehicles.
Not littering is about as easy of a green activity to get in the habit of doing as there is in this world. If you are a habitual litterer: Stop littering! Put your trash in the proper trash receptacle. If you do litter, remember the above quote. We are watching.
I recently went to my local Half Price Books and sold some of my old books and bought a couple of recent novels for half price. I was new to the store and wasn’t informed on the eco-friendliness of the store. For instance, Half Price Books was named in the EPA’s Top 10 Green Power Retailers. I did a little research and I thought I would share.
Half Price Books began in 1972 and now has many locations in 16 states across the Unites States. For the nearest store near you, go here. If you like to own books, not just borrow from a library, this is the place. They carry best sellers, used books as well as classics. And that is just the books. They also have CDs, LPs, text books, DVDs and more. Most of these sell for half price or less. If there is a location near you, I urge you to visit a store and see for yourself. I will definitely be returning soon.
From the Half Price Books website:
Things we believe no one should waste: paper, knowledge, trees, words, time, and money. Half Price Books is the book recycler. We buy books you've already enjoyed. So if you have more books than shelves, bring yours to us today. We pay the most for recent best sellers and collectibles. But we're also interested in your children's books, mysteries, music, movies and games. We donate all our overstock inventory to nonprofit agencies around the world.
So let's work together and help save our Mother Earth. When you visit Half Price Books, you'll save trees, books, and of course, money. We are committed to the community and preserving our environment. We operate every day based on the convictions of our founders to waste not and read a lot. Every day is earth day at Half Price Books.
Half Price Books has a website called b(eco)me, which details their green effort, has green tips as well as b(eco)ming bagless.
I recently went to the Mega cavern in Louisville, Kentucky. As the sign on the right states, which is just inside the entrance of the cavern, the mega cavern is dubbed as a large and green ‘building’. So what exactly is a cavern? A cavern is simply a man-made cavern.
So what makes this such a green place? From the official Louisville Mega Cavern website:
It was created by a massive limestone quarry—with miners blasting out a mind-boggling amount of rock for over 42 years during the middle of the 20th century. It was acquired in 1989 by private investors who saw the potential to develop a portion of the cavern into an environmentally-conscious high security commercial storage facility. For the past 17 years, a massive amount of recycled concrete, brick, block, rock and dirt were (and continue to be) off-loaded at the cavern to fill in the holes and create floors and internal roads. Construction to carve out offices and storage spaces is ongoing, making just a dent in the more than 4,000,000 square feet of space. Even though it’s underground, the Louisville MEGA Cavern is actually the largest building in the state of Kentucky—and by tonnage is the largest recycling center in the state. Now you can experience all the wonder and adventure of this unique attraction.
In addition to that is the worm recycling which occurs deep inside the cavern. The photo below shows this. On a simple bed of shredded paper, paper towels and other miscellaneous other goodies for a multitude of worms to feast on. The worms loves this stuff. They eat their own weight every day resulting in a lot of waste. Well, their waste makes great organic fertilizer.
There are numerous interesting facts about this cavern. One of the most interesting is the fact that MGM has a storage room. Among its many items in storage is the original film of The Wizard of Oz. One of the other more interesting factoids is it was designed to be a bomb shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The below photo showing the replica that was made showing the many people who could have lived down there until it was safe to get back out. It was kind of creepy to me. Mannequins and dummies bother me. Am I alone in that?
Most of the cavern in directly under the Louisville Zoo. Anyway, it was a pretty cool experience and if you are ever in the Louisville area a visit to the Louisville Mega Cavern should be discussed.
The Louisville Mega Cavern preview
For more information or to visit, go to the Louisville Mega Cavern website
