Recycling bins for work...

Today I went and picked up 12 of these from Office Depot. I took them to my office and put them in everyones offices and in all the meeting rooms. I paid for this out of my own pocket because I want everyone at work to take full advantage of the 8 Yard container that a local company is suppling us for free. I have wrote about this before, but the short of the story is, I found a local company that recycles paper to make insulation material for homes. They are willing to supply us with a container and pick it up every week. This is great because all the waste disposal companies in town want to charge us money to recycle and this local company has agreed to do all of this for free.



Cool stuff. I will be updating my companies website soon to include a We Recycle link.
Feel free to share with us your recycling stories.

Read more...

happy earth day!

After work today, I finally put together the Earth Day goodie bags. These included a reusable polypropylene tote bag that easily folds into a small zipped rectangle (perfect for stashing in the car or purse for shopping trips), a SIGG water bottle (no more styrofoam cups and plastic containers), local preserves, and a CFC bulb. Oh, and we cannot forget the CMC button to help spread the word.

I didn't have enough scrap paper to create the scratch pads, so I "scrapped" that idea - at least for now. I also needed to forego the bamboo item. Maybe next year.

So, on this Earth Day, I thought I'd share with you a couple links:

Treehugger.com - Information on how to green your home, a green gift guide, and how to get involved.

Polar Bear IQ Test - Beyond being endangered, what else do you know about these creatures? Take the test and find out for yourself.

Have a wonderful Earth Day - make a difference and make a lasting change!

Read more...

Recycling

Well it is finally here, Earth Day 08. It is good to see all the attention given to the earth today and last few weeks leading up to today. My hope is that some of the people exposed to all of the advertising and promotions surrounding this Earth Day keep it in mind all year. It is so important that we share and learn respect for our planet. Because in all reality how we take care of our earth is nothing more than a reflection of how we take care of our selves.
What I am doing for Earth day is shredding paper. Lots of it. I keep all of my junk mail, receipts, food packaging paperboard, boxes, any and everything you could think of that is paper based. I shred the paper and break down the paper board and cardboards. Stuff it all into large yard garbage bags and drop them off to be recycled. Since starting to do this I have saved a tremendous amount of space in my actual trash bags and only put one or two trash bags out a month. This in addition to all plastics, glass, and aluminum that I also recycle. So keeping it simple this earth day.
Other good news. The company that I contacted to help my office with recycling paper has finally delivered a huge paper dumpster to our office, so now tons and tons of office paper and packaging cardboard will be recycled every year instead of going to the landfill. It will take a while for everyone in the office to get used to not putting paper in the garbage but this is a great start. Also the company ends up saving money as well because there is less garbage and that means less removal. So its a total win win situation.
One by one people will start to see the benefits of thinking green. It saves money, its saves space in the landfills, and its saves in many indirect ways that we normally just do not even think of, Take the story of stuff for example.

Read more...

EARTH DAY IS HERE

Earth Day 08: Cool stuff

Of course Clean my city

Googles Earth Day

Nature.org Earth day

Remember how beautiful our home is:


The key to me is to reach more people and hopefully someone will realize and make small changes to their daily, monthly, yearly routine. Its nice to be proactive one day a year but think of the impact that you can have if you are proactive 365 days a year, even doing something as simple as not putting your junk mail in the trash, or your plastic and glass bottles in the trash. Just simple little things. If we had more people doing little things it would create an avalanche of positive change. Remember how we treat our earth is just a reflection of how we treat ourselves.

Take care and enjoy your Earth Day.

Read more...

saab 9-x biohybrid and biopower eco clothing

Recently, Saab revealed its 9-X BioHybrid Concept and Pure BioPower Eco Clothing collection, an environmentally-conscious fashion line made from 100 percent organic cotton. Here's a video clip of the saab 9-x biofuel / eco-clothing show...

Read more...

Honesty From A Clothing Maker...

I found this today and it opened my mind to a whole new level of waste that goes on behind the scenes.

The Footprint Chronicles Patagonia's attempt to open our minds and be up front about their environmental footprint.

This site takes us on a journey across the globe showing how Patagonia makes five of their products. It is very interesting because they show how much energy is consumed, how much CO2 is produced, the distance that the items travel, and the weight of the waste produced just to manufacture an item. Most companies would never have the balls to do something like this, in my opinion and I commend Patagonia for putting this info out there.

I hope that this inspires manufacturers and consumers to think about where products are coming from and to be conscious of the impact they have on our ecosystem. Even more reason to do everything we can as individuals to help fight back the tide of pollution and waste.

Read more...

Monthly Recap and Google blacks out...

Clean My City is now two months young and growing. In March we had just under 500 unique visitors stop by. More than half of them making multiple visits. That is really cool because the entire point of Clean My City is to spread the word about recycling, picking up, planting, and keep those ideas in our minds so that we will take more action.

Did anyone participate in Earth Hour 2008 last Saturday?

Earth Hour is an annual international event held on the last Saturday of March that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening. The event is promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Australia and the Sydney Morning Herald.

The first Earth Hour was held on 31 March 2007 in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm. The 2007 Earth Hour is estimated to have cut Sydney's mains electricity consumption by between 2.1% and 10.2% for that hour, with as many as 2.2 million people taking part. Earth Hour 2008 was held internationally on 29 March 2008 at 8 pm local time until 9 pm, marking the first anniversary of the event with many partner cities and individuals around the world participating.This also had a big impact on New Brunswick Canada. This hour saved 23.9 billion tons of CO2 emmisions. Earth Hour may also help reduce light pollution, and in 2008, coincides with the beginning of National Dark Sky Week in the USA. The 2009 Earth Hour will be held on March 28, 2009.

I participated, I turned off everything in my house for an hour, even so far as unplugging everything from the wall itself. I sat in the dark and played my acoustic guitar for an hour. No, I am not a hippy, but it was a good experience to get away from the TV, Internet, Stereo for an hour and just relax. I think this is a great idea and hope that more people find out about it and take part. The simple little things can make such a huge impact. Google showed their support as well by Blacking out their search page. They admit that this saved zero electricity but anyone that was on Google last saturday was exposed to the Earth Hour information. Good stuff google.

Read more...