Category Archives: issues

Yes, you can make a difference

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Jen| 2 Comments

Continuing with Enviro Girl’s post yesterday about how California did not ban plastic bags after all, Recycla has some easy peasy reminders for all Eco Warriors, regardless of where you are on the eco spectrum.

  • This should be obvious, but do not use plastic shopping bags!  If you’re only getting one or two items at the store,  you don’t need a bag at all.  Otherwise, keep reusable bags in your car/purse/bike basket.  [The Eco Women are partial to this bag.  It's well made, it's the right size, and any profits go to charity.]
  • Give your family and friends gifts of reusuable bags or wrap their gifts in cloth bags.  When Recycla and her family were on vacation this summer, they visited family and friends along the way.  Their hostess gift of choice was a cloth shopping bag filled with food and wine from their town in Virginia.  [See the Eco Women's favorite bag, above.]
  • Encourage small business owners in your town to either eliminate plastic bags altogether or at least charge people for them.  At the beginning of the year, Washington, DC implemented a 5 cent tax on plastic bags for grocery store customers.  DC residents immediately responded by using far fewer plastic bags — down from 22 million per month in 2009 to just 3 million in the first month after the tax went into place.   The monies generated by the tax will be used for environmental causes around the city, including cleaning up the Anacostia River.
  • Cut back on your plastic use in general.  This means don’t buy bottled water or produce wrapped in plastic.  Try to reduce your plastic consumption in any way you can.  You don’t have to be perfect, but please make an effort.

While this all might not seem like much, every little bit makes a difference.  And remember, plastic comes from oil — think of the Gulf oil disaster — and it does not biodegrade in landfills.

Tell the Eco Women:  What are you doing to reduce your plastic use?

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues

Environmentalists Lose Plastic Bag Battle–But the War’s Not Over

Posted on September 1, 2010 by melissawest| 7 Comments

Enviro Girl has long despised the plastic bag.  It’s the #1 form of litter she finds when cleaning rural ditches and fields.  It represents the ultimate form of single-use waste.  Heck, a lot of times she’s watched people purchase an item at a store and carry it to the door in a plastic bag before removing their item and throwing the plastic bag away before they’ve even reached the parking lot.  No kidding.  What a ridiculous thing.

Enviro Girl has watched with interest various efforts to ban the plastic bag.  Yesterday California voters had a huge opportunity to ban plastic bags–a ban that would have surely spread like smoking bans.   Effectively the ban would have been a ban on litter.  But the petrochemical industry’s lobby proved stronger than common sense. The ban was rejected and the “magnificent plastic bag” will continue to float free, traveling unabated to the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.

It costs us all less to reuse old bags or buy or make shopping bags.  The question of “Paper or plastic” is a false choice. It costs us all less to NOT have to deal with garbage and litter and beach clean-ups.  But the fear of inconvenience and false cost calculations won the day.  Enviro Girl is gnashing her teeth with disgust–a ban would have cost taxpayers nothing and had a tremendous environmental impact.

Team Plastic Litter–1, Environmentalists–0

The Environmentalists will have to knuckle down and keep fighting–like smoking bans, it looks like plastic shopping bag bans will have to start locally.  It’s not time to give up the good fight.

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues

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A Question of Milk

Posted on August 30, 2010 by melissawest| 22 Comments

Enviro Girl has long bought milk from Lamers, a local dairy, because she supports a family farm locally owned and operated.  The milk is rGBH free, which means her children aren’t sipping bovine growth hormones.  She buys this milk in returnable glass bottles to significantly decrease the amount of plastic in her household.  Every week Enviro Girl hauls her crate of empty bottles to the customer service counter at her local Piggly Wiggly and collects her deposit before she starts grocery shopping.  Every week she reminds the person bagging her groceries to load the crate in the shopping cart so they don’t have to lift it twice–glass bottles of milk are heavy.  But Enviro Girl’s committed to the environment and local businesses, so she shrugs off the little inconveniences of clanging glass and bottle deposits.

Last week she stopped in front of a cooler in the dairy section to pick up her family’s five bottles of milk for the week.  A sign alerted her to a new promotion: Lamer’s Dairy Organic Milk.  Organic milk!  Enviro Girl had never bought such a thing–it hadn’t been available from a local source before that day.  She picked up a bottle and glanced at the price.  $4.87 for a quart!  It was almost twice the price of regular rGBH-free milk!

Enviro Girl had a small moment of crisis beside the dairy coolers while holding the cold, heavy glass bottle of organic 2%.  On the one hand, organic milk is puported to have greater health benefits.  Enviro Girl knows that organic milk comes from pasture-grazed cows, which is healthier for the animals.  She also knows organic milk comes from cows fed organic feed–this harkens back to soil, water and air quality issues close to Enviro Girl’s heart.  The “trickle-down” effects of organic milk means fewer chemicals involved in the production process.  It means better care for the cows.  A demand for organic milk means a demand for organic feed, which means fields of grain and hay grown without pesticides or herbicides.

But $4.87 a quart!

Enviro Girl weighed the bottle in her left hand and the environmental economics in her right brain.  Her family has the means to pay for expensive organic milk.  She could cut costs elsewhere if pressed, paying nearly double for her family’s milk every week wouldn’t destroy their food budget.  But more importantly, Enviro Girl recognizes her family’s place in the system of environmental economics.   Demand increases supply and increased supply decreases cost as a general economic rule.  Her family can afford the organic milk now, and by choosing to buy it, they’re choosing to support the production of organic milk.  Their support (and demand) will increase the volume sold by Enviro Girl’s local Piggly Wiggly.  Enviro Girl’s weekly purchase could help increase accessibility and decrease the cost, making organic milk a viable option for more families.

At $4.87 a quart Enviro Girl paid for more than just milk.  She paid an endorsement to the farmer’s efforts, to support the production of organic milk.  Her $4.87 a quart paid for pasture-grazed cows and chemical-free fields of feed.  Enviro Girl paid that money today in the hope that a year from now the milk costs less, allowing more families the ability to enjoy it.

Tell the Eco Women:  have you bought organic milk?  Do you pay more to support locally produced or environmentally responsible products?

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Posted in food, issues

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What can you do?

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Jen| Leave a comment

This Saturday is Earth Overshoot Day — the day each year that human consumption outpaces what the earth can produce in a year.

Every year, the Global Footprint Network calculates “how much nature we have, how much we use, and who uses what.”

In other words, how much are humans consuming and how does that compare with what Planet Earth is producing? The bad news is that humans are burning through natural resources faster than they’re being produced.  The even worse news is that this year’s date is more than a month earlier than last year’s  and two months earlier than three years ago:

  • In 2007, Earth Overshoot Day was in October.
  • In 2008, it was September 23.
  • In 2009, it was September 25.
  • In 2010, it will be August 21.

Clearly, we humans still have a long way to go to correct our over-consumption and bring our lifestyles back into balance with what Earth can provide

The good news, however, is that this process can be reversed.

What can you do to help Planet Earth?  Take a look at the tab up top that says “Easy Eco Actions.”   Are you doing everything on that list?  Could you be doing more?

There is another way you can start to make a difference.  This weekend is Weekend Without Oil — two days in which you try to minimize how much petroleum you consume.  This goes beyond the gas in your car and the plastic you use; remember, petroleum is a hidden ingredient in a lot of common products, including makeup.

Some ideas include:

  • Parking your car and walking or biking places.
  • Carrying a reusable water bottle instead of buying water and other drinks packaged in plastic one-use containers.
  • Buying local foods and products, so that the amount of oil used to transport them is vastly reduced.

These are just a few ideas and the Eco Women encourage you to check out the Weekend Without Oil website for more ideas.

You’re probably thinking, “There’s no way that I can do all of that.” It’s true that going full-on Eco Warrior would be difficult, so think of the ways that you can reduce your oil consumption this weekend — don’t buy bottled water, drive less, download a movie instead of buying the plastic DVD in a plastic case, etc.

The important thing is to do something, anything.

Because this planet is totally worth it.

Tell the Eco Women:  What do you think you can do this weekend to make a difference?

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues

Just how eco was BlogHer ’10?

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Jen| 10 Comments

The Green Mommy and Recycla recently attended the annual BlogHer conference in New York City.  For those of you who are not familiar with BlogHer, this is a gathering of over 2,000 bloggers, mostly female, for two days of sessions and information gathering.

The Green Mommy and Recycla were excited to be at BlogHer; not only to learn new things but also because they were interested in seeing just how eco BlogHer ’10 would be.  There had been much hoopla about BlogHer’s Green Team, which worked to reduce the conference’s impact on Planet Earth, including offering a place to drop off unwanted swag (freebies) and offering an online-only (not printed) conference guide.

BlogHer ’10 was sponsored by dozens of companies, all of whom set up booths in the exhibition halls or elsewhere within the hotel.  Many provided products to the attendees that were either included in tote bags given to them when they registered or were delivered to their hotel rooms.  Yes, that’s right, new products were delivered daily to the attendees’ rooms.  Luckily, there was an option to not receive swag deliveries and Recycla opted not to have plastic toys and coupons and laundry detergent samples and more plopped on her bed every night.  (The Green Mommy is from New York and thus was not staying in the hotel.)

Recycla and the Green Mommy want to talk a bit about the aforementioned swag bags.  As mentioned, when they checked in at the conference, they were given large tote bags filled to the brim with a variety of products.  The bags themselves came from Freeset Global, which offers eco-friendly fair trade bags made by women who have escaped the sex trade.

The bags were filled — and they do mean filled — with a variety of products:

Among other items, the bag contained Play-Doh, a plastic water bottle, a mug, a plastic sandwich carrier, gum, a Jimmy Dean alarm clock, hand sanitizer, and more.  While Recycla and the Green Mommy didn’t weigh their bags, they estimate that they came in around 6-8 pounds.

This bag o’ goodies was indicative of the commercial aspect of the BlogHer ’10 conference, during which there were ample opportunities to get lots of free stuff and much encouragement for attendees to be as materialistic as possible.  The Green Mommy and Recycla found this to be quite off-putting and were repulsed by the rampant materialism gone amok.

Luckily, there was a swag exchange room, in which bloggers could drop off all of their unwanted freebies.  The Green Mommy and Recycla took this opportunity to unload their swag, including the fair trade bag and its contents.  While the bags were nice and well-made, they were simply too bulky for shopping and the burlap exteriors were rough and scratchy when carried.

The Green Mommy and Recycla took a lot of notes at BlogHer ’10 and have some thoughts to share with you:

Good Eco Actions at BlogHer ’10:

  • The conference guides were emailed to attendees, not printed.
  • Much less bottled water offered — Attendees were encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles and refilling stations were available at the conference.  There were also pitchers of water at the tables at breakfast and lunch.
  • Uneaten food was donated to City Harvest, a local nonprofit organization that helps New Yorkers in need.
  • The ability to opt out of some conference swag, as well as a room set aside for dropping off unwanted swag.
  • All utensils and cups at meals were corn-based (PLA) plastic.
  • The eco-friendly fair trade tote bag that bloggers were given to carry their swag.

Not-so-good Eco Actions at BlogHer ’10:

  • The presence of any bottled water.  Pepsi was one of the corporate sponsors and, even though there were pitchers of water on all the tables at meals, bottled water was still offered.
  • Sodas in plastic bottles — not more easily-recycled bottles or cans.
  • There were no obvious recycling bins for the corn-based plastic cups and utensils and it all appeared to go into the regular trash bins.  Corn-based cups and utensils will NOT decompose in landfills or even in home composters; they must be put in industrial composters  in order to break down.
  • There were not enough recycling options in general, particularly for attendees who stayed at the Hilton.  There was no recycling in hotel rooms at all and within the conference area, while bins were available, there could have been more.
  • The sheer volume of corporate product placement and constant, unending encouragement to consume more, more, more.
  • The availability of a shipping service for bloggers to mail their freebies home.
  • The earth-friendly tote bags mentioned above were shipped from India, which is not so earth-friendly.

Suggestions for BlogHer ’11:

  • No bottled water of any kind.
  • Offer real non-disposable plates, utensils, etc. and charge conference attendees an extra $5 or so to cover the cost of washing.
  • More recycling bins, including the option to recycle, for example, the snack cups of Jello pudding that were offered in between sessions.
  • Offer a place to drop off conference nametags and lanyards to be reused the following year.  This would mean that lanyards would not have corporate logos on them (since sponsors would change from year to year), but something basic with just the BlogHer logo would work well.
  • If BlogHer does offer free tote bags, don’t ship them from around the world and instead look for U.S.-made options.  Also, a bag that isn’t so bulky and would instead fold into a small bundle would be helpful.
  • Less swag, please!  And, of the companies represented, more green offerings!
  • No shipping options for swag — if they’re forced to deal with their stuff and haul it back home on airplanes, hopefully people won’t take so much crap

So these are the Green Mommy’s and Recycla’s suggestions.  They would love to hear more from other attendees of Blogher and other conferences.  They would also be happy to talk with the folks at BlogHer to brainstorm other ideas for the future.

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues

Eco Back-to-School: Greening the PTO/PTA

Posted on August 9, 2010 by melissawest| 3 Comments

Few organizations wield as much power in school districts as the parent/teacher organization.  They influence decision-making.  They affect morale.  They connect people–parents, teachers, administrators, communities.  PTO/PTA groups do good things, but Enviro Girl would argue that they can do good things with even greater environmental consciousness.  Positioned as PTA president for her kids’ elementary school, she has encouraged changes in how the parent organization and the school does business.  It only takes one parent to act as a catalyst for change at their child’s school.  Some take on curriculum, others become vigilant soldiers in the war for  playground safety, and Enviro Girl has become a one-woman show touting environmental issues at her kids’ school.  Below are just a few ways any ordinary person can become an Eco-Superhero and “green” their local PTO/PTA.

1) Keep fundraising event focused (Family Night Out, Brain Bowl, talent night etc.).  People have enough stuff, so quit selling it.  People enjoy events and events build community spirit and bring the focus on FUN instead of STUFF.   Enviro Girl’s PTA has done everything from donkey basketball to carnivals, sock hops to spaghetti dinners.  Her PTA’s biggest fundraiser is the Brain Bowl–participating students collect pledges and then get quizzed on questions designed by their grade level’s teaching team.  The Brain Bowl requires volunteers and 2-3 reams of paper.  The profit for their organization averages $8,500 a year.  Enviro Girl’s PTA keeps the Brain Bowl from getting stale by limiting who participates–only grades PreK-2 do it, so the participation rate never flags. Enviro Girl gets regular solicitations from companies begging her PTA to sell their pizzas and gift wrap and candles.  She gives them her standard rejection line, “Sorry, but we only do event-based fundraising.  No thanks!”

2) If fundraising must be employed, try to do this through local businesses.  Reject the magazine subscriptions from a company in Texas or candles shipped in from China. Gift certificates from the cheese factory up the road, spirit wear from a local seamstress and crafts from local artists are all acceptable “stuff” to sell.  Fundraising in this fashion keeps the money local and increases the quality of the products sold.   (Even though her PTA doesn’t sell them, those cheese gift certificates are very popular in Enviro Girl’s neck of the woods, especially around the holidays.)

3) Purchase exclusively from locally owned and operated businesses. Sure, treats for Student Appreciation Day cost less at Sam’s Club, but the guy with the local grocery store up the road is part of your community and hey, his price isn’t unfair.  It’s just a little more.  Plus you save gas by driving a half mile for treats instead of driving 20 miles!  By supporting local merchants, you reduce transportation costs and spread the local love and support that you ask in return every time you knock door-to-door soliciting silent auction donations.

4) Purchase and use a few big Igloo cooler/drink dispensers for events like the teachers’ luncheons and school dances.  Instead of buying bottled water, offer lemonade and water in the coolers. The cost difference is nil, the reduction in plastic trash and waste is significant.

5) Organize t-shirt swaps–instead of parents purchasing new school shirts each year for the early childhood field trips, coordinate passing along t-shirts each year. The same t-shirt swap can work for park & rec sports teams and Scouts, too!

6) Put money and elbow grease into the abandoned and decrepit Nature Center on your school’s property or create a native prairie or garden on that unused tract of grass in front of your school building.  With the PTA’s support and some grant money, Enviro Girl’s kids have a nature center used on a regular basis by classrooms and ecology has become a huge part of their classroom curriculum with the new resources made available.  One of the most popular summer school classes at their elementary school is Bird Watching!   The PTA recruited Boy Scouts to build an outdoor classroom in the Nature Center (and earn their Eagle rank in so doing) and now the space is even used by community groups!  Their nature center includes a butterfly garden, prairie and woods so students can explore a variety of ecosystems in one area.   The biodiversity of a schoolyard garden is healthy for the environment and provides the school with an excellent teaching tool.

7) Support the schools’ “healthy foods” campaign by offering yogurt and muffins in lieu of cookies and candy bars as a snack on test days.  If your school doesn’t have a “healthy snacks” rule, advocate for one.

8) Support TerraCycle programs by recycling drink pouches or any of the other packaging the company upcycles.

9) Show your teachers love and appreciation by serving them meals or buying classroom supplies.  Quit buying them coffee mugs and pens and plastic crappe.  Teachers really appreciate food and books, consumable and plastic-free.

10) Go paperless by setting up a website or Facebook group and emailing monthly meeting agendas and minutes.  Enviro Girl’s PTA has done so, creating less work and using fewer resources, resulting in greater parent participation.  Turns out everyone is on Facebook, few folks read the school’s monthly newsletter cover to cover.

11) Take on the environmental issues at your children’s school.  Request that the school busses turn off their engines while idling in front of the building at the end of the day.  Advocate for healthier school lunches.  Beg the school to use non-toxic cleaning supplies.  Demand that the school building meets air and water quality standards.  With the weight of a PTA/PTO behind a movement, great change can take place.

12) Support environmentally conscious curriculum.  Pay for a guest speaker or a school assembly like Shows That Teach or ECOSiZEME to educate students and raise awareness about environmental issues like pollution, trash, consumerism or water conservation.   Hire an artist-in-residence for your school to demonstrate how to use recycled trash to create beautiful things.  Buy books or magazines for the school library or classrooms that take on environmental issues.

Some of these ideas cost money, others are free or cost-neutral. The bottom line is this: one parent CAN make a difference by bringing one idea to the table and “greening” one part of a school’s practice.  What can you do this year at your child’s school to make it greener?

Disclaimer:  The Eco Women are not employed by any of the companies or groups mentioned in this post.

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Posted in 3 Rs, eco kids, issues, living green on a budget, school

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Eco Back-to-School: Environmentally Healthy Schools for Healthy Students

Posted on August 2, 2010 by melissawest| 3 Comments

Consider all the ways we insure our children’s safety.  Car seats.  Bicycle helmets.  Mosquito repellent and sunscreen.  Safety locks.  Flu shots.  Teaching them “stranger danger” and how to avoid being bullied on the playground.  Playgrounds with rubber mats and inches of mulch to pad falling children and prevent injuries.  Nationwide recalls on Happy Meal toys posing a choking hazard.

Despite all these measures to keep children safe, most of us think nothing of sending our children to toxic school buildings to spend 7 hours a day, 180 days of a year, for 12-13 years of their lives.

What makes a school a healthy learning environment for millions of  children attending them and the  teachers and support staff working in them?

“Green schools ” need to take things further than providing recycle bins in every classroom and installing energy-efficient light bulbs.  Most school buildings are industrial boxes with few windows and even fewer that open.  Older buildings, while not full of asbestos any longer, often have poor ventilation and high levels of pollutants.  Environmentally healthy schools provide a safe infrastructure and an environment that combine to produce healthy and safe students.


Green Schools, or  Environmentally Healthy Schools, by definition, should include:

*Daylight.  Simply having windows in classrooms alters mood and behavior and reduces electrical use, which saves money and energy.

* Transportation.  Efficient, safe, and emission free are good guidelines.  Safe walking paths are ideal since they leave the least environmental impact and give children a chance to exercise and enjoy fresh air.  Enviro Girl lives in a rural district and she simply asked her school’s principal to have the buses turn off their engines while waiting for students at the end of the day.  By turning off their diesel engines, the air is cleaner, there is less noise pollution and the bus company saves money on fuel.

* Good air quality.  Adequate ventilation and reduced environmental toxins mean healthier students.

* Temperature control.  A well-constructed building won’t have drafty classrooms or overheated classrooms.  Radiant heat is one excellent way to efficiently heat large buildings because it maintains even temperatures and uses less fuel.  If your school district is building a new school, chime in on the heating/cool system to maximize your taxpayers’ investment.

*  Water use.  Safe drinking water should be available at water fountains or spigots.  Low flow toilets and faucets reduce waste and use.

* Access to nature.  Fresh air, exercise, playground areas, “green spaces” for learning make children physically healthier and more able to think and learn.

* Healthy food.  The Eco Women could write a week’s worth of posts on this issue, but chemical free, unprocessed, locally produced, nutritious food should be available for students.  Many schools have instituted “healthy snack” policies and banned vending and soda machines.  This is a good start.  The bigger issue at stake is the food served on those cafeteria trays.  Many school cafeterias serve high-salt, high-sugar, high-fat foods like chicken nuggets and canned vegetables.  Enviro Girl was glad her children’s school began contracting with local farmers to make fresh produce available.  It’s a small step in the right direction, even though they have miles to go to make hot lunch healthy and palatable.

* No bad chemicals.  Chemicals are used all over school buildings–waste management, pest management, cleaning supplies, mold control, laboratory waste management.  Environmentally healthy schools adopt integrated pest management (IPM) and use nontoxic cleaning supplies.

* Curriculum.  Lessons in all subject areas should include environmental knowledge and awareness of environmental issues.  From Biology to Social Studies, Language Arts to Health, students should learn how their behavior and actions affect the world around them and how nature and people are deeply connected.  For teachers, Planet Pals and The Sierra Club are great resources.

These elements combine to make our students healthier and improve their ability to learn.  These factors also combine to make public education cost-effective.  According to Building Green Schools, the cost benefits include: energy, lowered emissions, and reducing illness.  Whether lobbying for nontoxic, biodegradable cleaning supplies, new ventilation systems, or improved lunch programs, there are many ways parents can advocate for a healthier school environment.  The majority of our nation’s schools don’t meet the healthiest, greenest standard.  These issues encompass more than the physical structure of a school.

Is your children’s school green?  Which of these areas might your school improve?

By coordinating parent support for these issues and lobbying your school board, your school’s administrators and your school’s PTA/PTO, you can make your school greener and healthier for everyone learning and working there.  By tackling one issue, one project, one area at a time, this challenge is less daunting and the payoff is immediate.    This year Enviro Girl will tackle the challenge presented by Wisconsin Green & Healthy Schools Program to increase awareness and accountability within her school district.  She’s going to appeal to her school board to look at this requirement chart and start complying.  What will you do to make your school greener?

All images are from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Green School Poster Program.

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Posted in 3 Rs, eco kids, issues, school

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Pay attention

Posted on July 29, 2010 by Jen| 3 Comments

Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.*

Recycla has had greenwashing on the mind lately.  It seems like every time she goes to the store, she sees some new product that has green claims on the packaging, such as a product is “natural” or that the company is supporting environmental causes.  Saying something is “natural” or “all natural” or “99% natural” is meaningless, as the word “natural” is not regulated.  Besides, just because something is natural doesn’t mean that it’s good for you.  Arsenic, lead, and mercury occur naturally, but you wouldn’t want those in your house.

Another good example of greenwashing is Clorox’s partnership with the Sierra Club to promote Clorox Green Works products.  Considering that Clorox is one of the world’s producers of chlorine bleach, Recycla finds this partnership to be disingenuous and, frankly, egregious.  She simply refuses to buy Clorox products of any kind.

The most offensive to her is when there’s a huge graphic on, say, a bag of chips that says “compostable plastic!!!”  Fellow, Eco Warriors, plastic is NOT compostable.  It does not decompose in your home compost bin and it lingers in landfills for pretty much forever.  Your better option is to avoid plastic whenever you can.

In related greenwashing news, the word is out that Walmart will soon be carrying Seventh Generation products in 1,500 stores and online.  While Recycla applauds the company’s inclusion of eco-friendly products in their inventory — thereby making going green a bit easier and cheaper for the average American — this masks the larger issue that Walmart is basically a gateway drug to rampant consumerism — the company encourages shoppers to buy more, more, MORE whether they need it or not.

Then there’s also the fact that Walmart is well known for its employees’ rights violations, including discriminating against women in promotions, pay, and job assignments.  So while Recycla applauds Walmart for providing Seventh Generation with a greater market share, she thinks this is a case in which Walmart is hoping this minor eco-friendly act will make people forget about the company’s other problems.  She will continue her personal policy of shopping elsewhere.

So how do you prevent being greenwashed?  By paying attention and being a savvy consumer.  Enviro Girl learned the hard way last year that you need to think about the claims you’re reading on a label and ask yourself, “Is this for real?”   Do your research and don’t get duped.

Tell the Eco Women:  What examples of greenwashing have you seen lately?

* Definition courtesy of Sins of Greenwashing.

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Posted in issues

Let’s Talk Trash.

Posted on July 14, 2010 by melissawest| 8 Comments

That is, the kind you leave on your curb once a week.

Gas prices go up, the cost of living rises, it seems obvious that taxes shall inevitably follow course. And local or county taxes, while the least of our “obligations,” provide most of the quality of life services we enjoy: libraries, schools, road repair, garbage pick up.

In town halls across America this year budgets will be negotiated and the cost of picking up waste and recycling will increase. Or will it? Here are a few ideas to present to your local council member or representative to keep the cost and impact of garbage pick up down:

* Pick up recycling every other week or once a month rather than weekly.

* Reduce garbage collection to every other week.

* Encourage and educate citizens to use less, reuse more and recycle more to lessen the burden on garbage trucks and landfills.

* Provide recycling incentives.

* To alleviate the wear and tear on garbage trucks that constantly break and accelerate, reduce pick up points. Have garbage picked up on only one side of a street or require that garbage is placed on every other driveway or between shared driveways. This will also save money on fuel.

* Use standard-size dumpsters on rollers to make garbage pick up automatic, faster and easier.

* Set aside a few dates a year for dumpster “overflow” pick up.  This forces people to think about their garbage volume.

* Eliminate yard waste pick up — require composting grass clippings and leaves.

* Or, as a less extreme measure, only collect large branches and brush and eliminate leaf and grass collection.

Enviro-Girl loves the men who collect her garbage each week. They are troopers, working in all kinds of weather from stifling heat (she would hate to collect garbage in hot, humid weather) to blizzards. They are devoted workers who toss her garbage can into the ditch on windy days so it doesn’t blow into the road. To show her appreciation, she always puts her recycling next to her neighbors’ and her garbage can next to her neighbors’ at the end of their shared driveway. This way they only make one stop and get on their way. She has reduced her waste and recycling so there is less to pick up. Shy of baking them cookies every week, she can’t think of any other way to make their job easier.

Any suggestions, readers? How would you make garbage pick up a more efficient process?  How does your municipality handle garbage and recyling?

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues

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Some good eco news

Posted on July 13, 2010 by Jen| 3 Comments

Recycla is just so sick, sick, sick by the continued bad reports coming out of the Gulf that today she thought she’d share some GOOD environmental news:

  • At the beginning of the year, Washington, DC implemented a 5 cent tax on plastic bags for grocery store customers.  DC residents immediately responded by using far fewer plastic bags — down from 22 million per month in 2009 to just 3 million in the first month after the tax went into place.   The monies generated by the tax will be used for environmental causes around the city, including cleaning up the Anacostia River.  Great work Washingtonians!
  • Last month, the California state government voted to ban plastic bags.  Shoppers must either provide their own or purchase plastic bags for 5 cents each.  The bags will be partly made of recycled plastic content.  19 billion bags are used each year in California, which is an average of 552 bags per person.  The bill has yet to be signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger, but hopes are high that he will.  If approved, the law goes into effect in early 2012.

So even though Recycla worries about plenty of other things, she is heartened to hear that plastic bag use in some parts of the U.S. will decrease in the coming years.

Tell the Eco Women:  What good eco news have you heard lately?

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Posted in issues