Be a Good on Your Own Block

Make a list of small things you can do around your house and place of work to conserve energy

and water, stop waste, and increase the recycling. Then start doing them!

How You Can Spare the Air

Here are some things that you can do starting today:

*Support our scientists by letting our elected officials know we need fossil fuel alternatives-wind power, solar power, and wave power.

*Choose more Earth-friendly transport, which also reduces smog-causing emissions.

*Recycle, conserve energy, and support the work of Environmental Defense and other environmental organizations.

*Go to environmentaldefense.org and get involved.

Be a Pre-cycler

Try to recycle all the product packaging that an item comes in, from the cardboard box to the plastic sleeve. Buy fewer, but better-quality, products to ensure you won’t end up with a makeup drawer filled with stuff that doesn't live up to its promises. And finally, check out companies like TerraCycle (terracycle.com) that offer recycling programs for things like mascara tubes and lotion bottles. I am very proud that on my business card, alongside my title of “Publisher,” it also says “Office Composter” because I set up a full-scale recycling and zero waste program. Visitors dig it!

Be a Good in Your Hood

Pick up and recycle or compost loose garbage as you walk. Sidewalks are meant for safe walking, not weaving through someone else’s abandoned bottles and crumpled up take-out bags. Take pride in the area you live and help contribute to keeping it clean and safe. One person helping can inspire many others to do the same. I vowed to do this 15 years ago while living in the Lower Haight in San Francisco. By the end of each week, I usually had a big bag to take to the HANC recycling Center. In the last couple of years, I have gotten some puzzled glances and even laughter when I am dressed up for a meeting while walking down the street and picking up garbage, empty bottles, and what-have-you. I will occasionally say, “This is my service to the earth. Recycling is my religion.” And it is. I have the planet’s back!

America Recycles Day

According to 50 Ways to Help the Planet (50waystohelp.com), “Recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20% and related water pollution by 50%. If it isn’t recycled it can take a million years to decompose….20 recycled aluminum cans could be made with the energy it takes to manufacture one brand new one. Every ton of glass recycled saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil needed to make glass from virgin materials.

Walking Your Talk (I Am a Bag Lady)

• Keep a compact, reusable bag in your purse for those spur-of-the-moment purchases.
• Refuse a plastic bag for five items or less.
• Fit purchases from different stores into the same bag wherever possible. There’s no reason to have eight shopping bags with only one item in each.
• Put your cloth bags back in your car as soon as you’re done unloading groceries. There’s less chance of forgetting them at home that way (and you’ll be one step closer to using them!). Keep them on the front seat, rather than in the trunk. If you see them, you’ll be far less likely to forget them.

Green Day

If you are able to, walk or ride your bike to school, work, or wherever you need to go. By not using your car, you are helping to reduce greenhouse gases while burning some calories at the same time! You can also use public transit or carpool with a friend-this also gives you the golden opportunity to bond with your coworkers or get to know more about your friend.

Good Neighbor

Every Sunday night, when you go to take out your own garbage and recycling, knock on your neighbor’s door and offer to take hers out, too. You might even be invited in for tea and cookies, as I was!

Making the Most of a Rainy Day

Get a rain barrel:

• Install the rain barrel at least six feet from your house. Locating it near an area you’ll be watering the most makes for convenient use later
• Ensure that your rain barrel has an overflow at least as large as your inflow-for example, if you have rigged it so that water is collected directly from your eaves’ trough downspout, your overflow valve should be as large as your downspout as well. This will allow your rain barrel to get rid of excess water as fast as it collects it, which might be necessary if you live in a city with crazy, unpredictable weather like my brother does.
• If you are using the rain barrel to water your garden, consider using a soaker hose. You can attach the hose to the rain barrel and then run it through your garden so that it covers the area you’d like. Now, every time you see a rain cloud, you’ll get really excited!

Be a Freecycler

For me, the coolest of the online free resource sites is Freecycle (freecycle.org). The Freecycle Network initiation started in Tucson in 2003, when Deron Beal sent out the first email to 30 or so friends and local nonprofits letting them know about the items he had to give away. Freecycle now has 4,738 groups worldwide and an amazing 6,690,000 members. Just think about how many wonderful free treasures have changed hands and the sheer tonnage saved from landfill.

Bravo, Mr Beal!

Freecycle’s mission is to save good stuff from the landfill, promote environmental sustainability, and imbue life with the spirit of generosity, creating stronger local communities in the process.

The steps to join a Freecycle group are straightforward. If there isn’t a group in your area yet, you can start one. Once you have joined your local group, you can begin to post messages for what you want and what you have to offer. Freecycle is administered by volunteers and has the advantage of not needing a physical location-Freecycle’s easy-to-use listing website makes it nearly effortless to use. Some posts are for significant items such as computers, bicycles, televisions, stereos, and even cars. Offering your surplus and finding what you need for free are both gratifying experiences, and ultimately, they alleviate a lot of stress on our precious planet.

Save Seeds

My Aunt Ruth in Flat Rock, West Virginia raised me to save seeds. A child of the Great Depression, my aunt Ruth was teaching me the virtue of thrift when she showed me how to harvest, dry, and save seeds from veggies and flowers. Thrift was an important survival skill for that time and I see it as a forgotten virtue whose time has arrived once again. I remember being very impatient about how long it took for spring to come so I could sow the marigolds, alyssum, and four o’clocks that I had collected.

Be a Good on Your Own Block

Make a list of small things you can do around your house and place of work to conserve energy and water, stop waste, and increase the recycling. Then start doing them!

Recycling Saves the Rainforest

Here are some other things you can do to save the rainforest.

• Don’t keep tropical birds or reptiles as pets. Let them live in nature.
• Buy items made of sustainable wood. Hardwood teak and rosewood encourage logging and deforestation.
• Recycle all your cans. Bauxite is mined from the ground in tropical countries and is the source for aluminum.
• Buy local, organic food whenever possible. Conventional agriculture is exhausting our forest’s resources.
• Support any organization that is legitimately working to protect the environment in developing countries and in precious rainforests.

How You Can Spare the Air

Here are some things that you can do starting today:

• Support our scientists by letting our elected officials know we need fossil fuel alternatives-wind power, solar power, and wave power.
• Choose more Earth-friendly transport, which also reduces smog-causing emissions.
• Recycle, conserve energy, and support the work of Environmental Defense and other environmental organizations.
• Go to environmentaldefense.org and get involved.

More Ways to Avoid Plastic

• Jars. So many jars. For salads, soups, sauces, juice, opened packages of things. Justy jars. Lots of jars.
• Aluminum foil is a great stand-in for plastic wrap and can be easily recycled or saved for reuse.
• Wax paper is great for wrapping sandwiches. So are reusable sandwich pouches you can make or purchase. Many close with velcro and are easy to launder or wipe clean.
• Reuse empty yogurt, sour cream, or cream cheese containers. You’ve already got them and you have to wash them before tossing them into the recycling bin anyway, so you may as well use them again.
• Invest in reusable lunch containers like bento boxes or tiffins to avoid waste when sending off your little one (or yourself) with a bagged lunch.

Be a Good in Your Hood

    Pick up and recycle or compost loose garbage as you walk. Sidewalks are meant for safe walking, not weaving through someone else’s abandoned bottles and crumpled up take-out bags. Take pride in the area you live and help contribute to keeping it clean and safe. One person helping can inspire many others to do the same. I vowed to do this 15 years ago while living in the Lower Haight in San Francisco. By the end of each week, I usually had a big bag to take to the HANC recycling Center. In the last couple of years, I have gotten some puzzled glances and even laughter when I am dressed up for a meeting while walking down the street and picking up garbage, empty bottles, and what-have-you. I will occasionally say, “This is my service to the earth. Recycling is my religion.” And it is. I have the planet’s back!

Let’s Not Contribute to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

I don’t know about you, but photos of the big patch of plastic and garbage floating in the ocean scares me more than almost anything else. Nearly 90% of plastic bottles are not recycled, instead taking thousands of years to decompose. If you are used to toting around your green tea, juice, or iced coffee in plastic, get a cool-looking thermos instead. This is a great choice for the environment, your wallet, and possibly your health. You can guzzle as much as you want and still be green.

America Recycles Day

    According to 50 Ways to Help the Planet (50waystohelp.com), “Recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20% and related water pollution by 50%. If it isn’t recycled it can take a million years to decompose….20 recycled aluminum cans could be made with the energy it takes to manufacture one brand new one. Every ton of glass recycled saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil needed to make glass from virgin materials.