Category Archives: issues

Eco Back to School: Green Schools, Green Classrooms

Posted on August 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

We insure our children’s safety in a thousand different ways every day.  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 (emission free!) 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.  Encouraging car pooling is another way to reduce energy consumption.

* Good air quality.  Adequate ventilation and reduced environmental toxins mean healthier students.  Simply being able to open windows improves circulation.  This can also help reduce mold.

* 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.  Likewise, if your school buildings have extreme temperature fluctuations, advocate for an energy audit to discover if there are more efficient ways to heat/cool the school.

*  Water use.  Safe drinking water should be available at water fountains or spigots.  Low flow toilets and faucets reduce waste and use.  The greenest schools encourage students to bring their own water bottles and refuse to sell bottled water and soft drinks out of vending machines during the school day.

* Access to nature.  Fresh air, exercise, playground areas, “green spaces” for learning make children physically healthier and more able to think and learn.  Trees provide wind, dust and noise barriers while creating shade.  Gardens and native plantings can educate students in a range of topics, including nutrition and biology.

* 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 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.  Most schools have hired out the cafeteria to a large corporation (like Aramark).  Aramark does provide healthy meal options to customers demanding them.  It’s a small thing to rally parents to put fresh fruit and vegetables on those cafeteria trays.

* 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.

All of these elements combine to make our students healthier and improve their ability to learn.  These factors also combine to make public education cost-effective by reducing consumption.  According to Building Green Schools, the cost benefits include: less electrical use, lowered emissions, and reduced 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.    It’s about a cleaner planet AND our children’s safety.

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

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Posted in 3 Rs, green around the world, health, issues, living green on a budget, school, transportation

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Eco Back-to-School: Make Your PTO/PTA a Greener Organization

Posted on July 25, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Few organizations wield as much power in school districts as parent/teacher organizations.  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 held donkey basketball games, carnivals, sock hops and 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.  Consider the time/money/energy you save 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 or Little League sponsors.  It’s hypocritical to beg the local businesses to help out your group when you never patronize them.

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 with sleeves of paper cups. 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 needing Eagle Scout projects to build an outdoor classroom in the Nature Center 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 these days, while few folks read the school’s monthly newsletter cover to cover.  (Enviro Girl’s PTA still provides paper copies of all communication per parent request.)

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.

13)  Recycle for cash! Enviro Girl’s school just earned $1,000 by holding a paper drive–community members dropped off 2 industrial dumpsters full of their paper for recycling which the PTA then sold to a local paper company.  This is probably the easiest and least invasive fundraising the group ever did and it was good for the planet because it concentrated on reusing and recycling instead of consumption.

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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Crafty Kraft Sneaking Veggies into the Mix

Posted on July 18, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Enviro Girl read this news piece recently about Kraft adding cauliflower to their trademark macaroni and cheese recipe.  Reportedly this move is a response to consumer demand to help kids eat more vegetables–by sneaking them into meals.  Apparently the cauliflower gets freeze-dried and then pulverized into powder before it’s added to the pasta flour used to make the noodles.

On one hand, Enviro Girl is a lazy mom who hates hates hates to make dinner and constantly battles to get her kids to eat healthy.

On the other hand, Enviro Girl scoffs at the notion that a half cup of pulverized, freeze-dried vegetables has any significant nutritional value.  Especially when combined with the salt, sugar and chemicals included in processed convenience foods like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.  Enviro Girl knows a clever ad campaign will convince well-meaning parents that this is a healthier option to feed their kids.  She also knows she’s not buying this line.  The best vegetables are plain old vegetables, raw, steamed, seared, pureed, sliced, diced, chopped or mashed.  She gets the veggies down her kids’ throats by setting them on the table and on their plates.  Hungry before dinner?  Eat carrots–they’re sitting right there, easy to grab and munch.

Part of the issue here is the perception about food.  Kids can be picky eaters, prone to wanting only grains and sweets when they’re young.  Does that mean we don’t provide kids with foods that are good for them?  Does that mean we quit putting a serving of vegetables on their plates?   Is it possible a kid might try eating cauliflower (or peas or beans or beets) simply because they’re prepared well and look desirable?  (Slightly grey and very mushy vegetables dumped out of a can and reheated don’t appeal to most kids, but a bright pile of seasoned steamed squash, peppers and zucchini could coax them into tasting.)

The emphasis in most families is on the main course–the meat and grain served at a meal.  Could the perception shift if parents asked “what vegetable should I make for supper tonight?”  Could the perception shift if more than one vegetable was offered as a side dish?  Would kids eat more vegetables if they weren’t already stuffed full of sugary carbohydrates?

Another issue is cost.  It’s amazing that a box of convenience food containing freeze-dried, pulverized cauliflower costs less than an actual head of cauliflower.  Consumer demand needs to push food producers to making healthy food an accessible and affordable option for everyone.  And if the heavy hitters like Con Agra and Kraft won’t do it, then we can take our business elsewhere–to the farm up the road, to our own back yards.

It’s possible, Enviro Girl thinks, for parents to reclaim healthy eating and affordable food for their tables.  But it’ll mean thinking outside of the box.

Tell the Eco Women, what’s your take on this issue?

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Posted in food, issues

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Greening your loved ones

Posted on July 12, 2011 by | 4 Comments

One thing Recycla has learned over the years is that while most people are fine with going green in theory, the reality can sometimes be different. For example, she spent years getting her husband to accept eco cleaning supplies — in theory, he understood that they are healthier to have around the house; however, in reality, for a long time he did not believe that they are as effective in dealing with dirt and grime. (Nonsense, says Recycla).

With all this in mind, Recycla has a short list of easy ways to get your loved ones into an eco mindset:

  1. Make it simple. Getting people to be green is about making it easy for them. For example, have recyling bins in a convenient location and clearly marked.
  2. Start slow. Instead of trying to change everything at once, introduce one new thing every week or once a month
  3. Pick your battles and get creative. What are your family’s worst non-eco habits and how can you fix them? If they leave lights on all over the house, invest in timers that turn the lights off automatically.
  4. Negotiate and experiment. Recycla’s husband didn’t like eco toilet paper, so Recycla bought different brands until they found some that everyone was happy with.
  5. Be patient. Eventually, they will come around, as Recycla’s husband did with eco toilet paper.

How are things in your house? Is everyone on board with getting a little more eco or are you having to work hard to convince some people?

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Posted in issues

A Dozen Eco Observations in the Outer Banks

Posted on July 11, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Recently Enviro Girl and her family took a vacation in the Outer Banks, North Carolina.  As she’s prone to doing, Enviro Girl noted how folks down there treated the environment and compared it to her own experience living Up North.  As it turns out, the Outer Banks (OBX) does a lot of good things.

1.  Enviro Girl NEVER saw paper towels in bathrooms–on their drive from Illinois on through North Carolina, she saw nothing but hand dryers which reduce landfill waste.  Bravo!  (She wonders if the preponderance of paper towels in Wisconsin is somehow linked to the paper industry there…)

2.  Ocean breezes combined with an outdoors lifestyle means people in the OBX rely on ceiling fans and screen windows to cool their houses and businesses.  When her family went someplace air-conditioned, the temperature wasn’t so cold it chilled them.   It was refreshing to see people enjoying plain old air in the summertime.

3.  All the detergents were phosphorus free due to a statewide ban.

4.  Local produce was available everywhere–from supermarkets to roadside stands to farm markets.  Any day at any time it was easy to find locally grown produce.  Clearly North Carolina takes a lot of pride in its agriculture industry.  Where Enviro Girl lives, it’s much tougher to buy local–the few farm markets are on Saturday mornings, severely limiting access to locally grown produce.  She also noted how most restaurants bragged up serving locally produced food.

5.  Holy thrift shops, Batman!  Enviro Girl saw an awful lot of thrift stores, leading her to believe that reuse/recycle is part of the mantra in North Carolina.

6.  There was no curbside recycling, much to their dismay, but later they learned they could bring their recyclables to stations for recycling.  Kind of inconvenient for people used to regular curbside collection…

7.  Garbage pick up was 3 times a week.  This seemed excessive to Enviro Girl, until she got a whiff of their own kitchen wastebasket on Day 5 of their stay.  She assumes that the sultry air makes frequent garbage collection a requirement for the purposes of reducing odors.

8.  It was great to see how huge swaths of dunes are protected.  Signs and fencing clearly mark beach access and even the house they stayed in had sand dunes beneath the front porch.  The ocean was very clean and the beach looked pristine.  People obviously take a lot of pride in the OBX.

9.  No doubt a result of a clean habitat, Enviro Girl saw tons of wildlife–birds, fish, animals enjoying a safe, healthy environment.

10.  Enviro Girl found she could bring her own bottles of water anywhere she wanted.

11.  Enviro Girl never saw so many people using canvas shopping bags at the supermarket.  It nearly brought tears to her eyes to see that BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) was the status quo.  Also worth mentioning:  the supermarkets used no plastic bags, only paper.

12. Biking and pedestrian trails were easy to access and could get you almost anywhere on the island.  While the OBX clearly has some traffic congestion, they wisely made room for alternate forms of transportation.  It looked like mostly locals used the trails, but still…

The development was startling to Enviro Girl, most of the OBX is built up, there’s nothing quaint about it at first glance.  Clearly it’s a popular spot, but Enviro Girl wonders what zoning is in place to balance people with the environment.  That said, she gives the OBX two thumbs up for wasting few resources and treating their environment with respect.

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Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, issues, transportation, travel

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Solar Lighting For Any Occasion

Posted on July 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Enviro Girl has seen lots of outdoor solar lighting options–they’re available at any Big Box store and through most gardening catalogs.  What she’s struggled to find is affordable solar lighting for indoors.  It seems like the only way to power your house via solar is by hooking into a big, expensive system.  Enviro Girl has long wondered why the technology for solar-powered calculators (around since the 1980s!) can’t be applied to other appliances.

Imagine Enviro Girl’s delight to discover a company bringing this technology to homes around the world to power lights and charging stations–Nokero has committed to the task of developing low-cost solar-powered technology.

Most interesting to Enviro Girl is the Nokero 200, a solar-powered lightbulb that costs $20 and gives up to 6 hours of light.  She’s buying a couple of these lightbulbs, one for camping and another for her sons’ tree fort.  She’s going to check her husband’s cell phone for compatibility with the P101 Power Panel, too.   Enviro Girl will watch this company with interest, she’s confident they’ll develop even more low-cost solar solutions for home use.

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Posted in 3 Rs, electronics, green around the world, issues, living green on a budget

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Slow down… and teach your children too

Posted on July 5, 2011 by | 5 Comments

Recycla has been working on a fun project with her daughters this summer: She’s teaching them how to cook. And by cooking, Recycla means cooking real food from scratch, not assembling pre-packaged ingredients.

While there are plenty of people who default to eating McFood or mixing up boxes of this ‘n’ that because they think it’s quicker or easier or less expensive, Recycla is here to tell that it’s not so. Every day across America, thousands of people make the same choice. They opt for convenience over nutrition, flavor, and cost.

There is a better option — slow food. And that is what Recycla has been teaching her daughters.

Slow food is good food.

Slow food is real food.

Slow food is healthy food.

Slow food is less expensive than fast food.

The Slow Food movement began in Italy over 20 years ago as a reaction to the culinary horrors of fast food and has since spread to nearly all corners of the globe. The objectives of the Slow Food movement include, but are not limited to:

  • educating consumers about the risks of fast food
  • educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
  • lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
  • lobbying against the use of pesticides
  • teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
  • and more

Slow Food is about bringing back traditions that sustained humans for centuries but that are now being lost to the conveniences of fast food.

What can you do?

The most important thing is not to eat McCrap.  Instead, prepare your own meals.  Easier said than done, right? However, even if you cook only a couple of nights a week, it’s better than nothing. And these don’t have to be lavish, multi-course affairs.  Pasta tossed with some chopped tomatoes and freshly-grated Parmesan will take 20-25 minutes.  Omelettes and frittatas take 20 minutes.  A Greek salad can take 15 minutes.

And that is what Recycla is teaching her daughters. While she has long involved them in the kitchen and the girls already know a lot, this summer the girls are helping her plan meals for the week; they are going with her to the go to the grocery store, farmers’ market, and/or local organic butcher to get the food supplies; and then they are cooking alongside her in the kitchen. So far, the girls have made dinners as simple as pasta tossed with frozen vegetables to the slightly-more-involved baked chicken and mashed potatoes to the even-more-involved spaghetti and meatballs. Each meal has involved simple ingredients — no pre-packaged foods — and nothing has taken inordinate amounts of time to prepare.

Recycla will admit that it’s a bit more work for her to show her girls step-by-step what they need to do than if she just does the cooking herself. However, all humans need to eat; therefore, they need to learn how to cook. Recycla is going beyond just teaching her daughters how to follow a recipe — she’s explaining to them HOW and WHY things are in the kitchen so that they’ll understand the basic processes of cooking. She’s also teaching them basic kitchen skills that everyone should know — for example, how to use a knife properly and safely. (By the way, Recycla highly recommends In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters, which teaches readers all the necessary basic kitchen skills.)

At this point, Recycla’s pre-teen daughters know how to do a lot, but there’s always more that they can learn.Eventually, she knows that they’ll be able to prepare a meal from start to finish without her input and she knows that day is coming soon.

In the larger scheme of things, Recycla is not only giving her daughters valuable life skills, she’s also creating memories with them — baking a birthday cake for their grandfather, inviting some friends over and working as a team to make ice cream and brownies for their sleepover, making their father’s favorite dinner and listening to him shower them with compliments for a delicious meal, and more. The girls are having a lot of fun, which is important because cooking should not be a burden.

Tell the Eco Women: Do you cook? If so, how much? How old were you when you learned how to cook?

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Posted in food, health, issues, living green on a budget

Prevent Alien Invaders

Posted on June 29, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Alien invaders are busy smothering and swallowing up native habitats and species across the world.  They didn’t come from outer space, they aren’t the byproduct of some mad scientific experiment gone horribly wrong and they’re not the malignant work of an evil government.  They’re displaced plants, animals, bugs, birds and fish that when put into new environments thrive with ample resources and no natural predators.  They compete with native species for food and other resources without any control for their growth, like predators or disease.  They breed and reproduce unchecked.  Invasive species have single-handedly destroyed the natural order of habitats from the Great Lakes to prairies to ocean shores to forests.

Currently a plant called Purple Loosestrife produces up to 2.7 million seeds per plant annually and spreads across an additional million acres of wetlands each year.   Reed canary grass has spread across fields and prairies unchecked, turning huge swaths of land into a matted carpet that continues to choke out everything in its path, destroying habitat and diversity, eliminating food sources for birds and animals as it spreads.  A fast-growing kelp from the Far East is spreading along the California coast from L.A. to San Francisco Bay.  It grows 6 feet long, creating dense underwater forests and choking off sunlight necessary for the native kelps that provide food and shelter for otters, fish and other marine life.  The seaweed was brought over by people cultivating it for use in popular Japanese foods, clueless people who didn’t know the seaweed spreads by releasing millions of spores that do not disperse in protected bays and marinas.

Marine species carried from place to place through ships’ ballast water are wiping out native species.  The tree-killing Asian longhorned beetle came into Massachusetts through imported packaging from Asia.  It has cost the state $25 million and 22,000 trees to date.  The emerald ash borer is determinedly destroying millions of ash trees in 12 states.  Wild boars are damaging native plants and crops while even posing a human threat in Texas.

What can YOU do as an Eco Warrior to protect the planet from invasive species?

1.  Learn about the invasive species in your area.  Not sure where to start?  The USDA’s National Invasive Species Information Center is a great resource, offering a state by state breakdown of invasive species and ways to control them.

2.  Control the invasive species on your property.  If every property owner did their part, the spread of plant species in particular would be significantly slowed.

3.  Volunteer to help clean up invasive species in public areas like nature centers and parks.  Many have “eradication days” when volunteers take to the trails to pull loosestrife, thistles, and mustard.

4.  Be aware of what you plant.  Learn whether your “exotic” might become “invasive.”

5.  Do not transport firewood or mulch — this is how a lot of insect species get a foothold in new forests.  Buy and use only locally produced firewood and mulch.  When camping, get your firewood at your campsite, don’t bring it in with you.

6.  Beware exotic pets — the Giant African Snail has become a threat to the environment.  In the mid 1960′s a young boy snuck 3 Giant African Snails into Florida.  He released them into his grandmother’s back yard.  Florida spent $1 million over 10 years to eradicate 18,000 snails resulting from his pets.  If you MUST get an exotic pet, do not let it go in the wild.

7.  Be a cautious boater!  Drain your boat’s live wells, bilge, and motor.  Remove all plants, animals, and mud from your boat and water sport equipment.  Dispose of unused bait in the trash.  Dry your boat and equipment thoroughly.  Aquatic invasive species like zebra mussels move from lake to river to lake by hitching rides on boats, trailers, and equipment.   Likewise, diseases threatening the health of many fish are transported the same way.

Tell the Eco Women, what invasive species are causing problems where you live?

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Reduce Your Energy Bills in Under 1 Hour

Posted on June 22, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Last Christmas Enviro-Girl and her husband gave Mr. D’s mom a healthy credit on her electric bill instead of another candle or Christmas sweater or cheesy framed picture of her grandchildren. Mr. D’s mom lives alone in an old farmhouse on a fixed income so any way they can help gives her freedom to golf a little in the summertime or buy an impulse item at the local supermarket. Enviro-Girl estimated that the credit with the electric company should last her MIL the entire year and next Christmas they’d repeat the deposit. She came up with her estimate based on her electric bill for her family of five living in a house about twice the size of her MIL’s. Imagine her shock when she learned recently that Mr. D’s mom would run out of electric company credit in September!

Enviro-Girl suggested that her mother-in-law get an energy evaluation — most utility companies will send someone out to audit a household or business at no cost. While in college, Enviro-Girl and her roommates did this and got loads of free stuff to winterize their slum — plastic for wrapping windows, caulk and tape to keep the drafts sealed. Mr. D’s mom had never heard of such a thing, which does not speak well of the electric company in Iowa. In Wisconsin many utility companies heavily promote these services. By reducing customer use, utility companies keep their customers’ bills down and have an easier time meeting energy demands.  Enviro Girl also learned that many public libraries will check out electric meters that you can plug into any outlet to gauge the amount of electricity you use for various appliances.

Web sites like National Grid and Energy Right will allow you to self-audit your energy use and suggest ways to save money and energy.

Assessing energy use and suggesting ways to reduce it is best handled at a state or local level — in Wisconsin we spend more keeping warm than folks in Florida — and they spend more keeping cool. Obviously some fixes like improved lightbulbs or Energy Star rated appliances will help lower your utility bill regardless of where you live.   An energy audit doesn’t take much time, an hour or less, and can improve your energy efficiency by pointing out ways to conserve all over your home–from bedroom to attic.   Click on one of the links above or call your utility company and schedule an evaluation TODAY!

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Posted in 3 Rs, electronics, green around the world, house stuff, issues, living green on a budget, quick link

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Turn off your engine.

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Recycla walks, bikes, and runs a lot around her town. Moving at slower speeds allows her to really notice things around her — gardens, lemonade stands, and idling vehicle engines. For some reason, even in this day and age, some folks still leave their car and truck engines idling for long periods of time. This is a foolish practice that wastes  gas and money, while pumping pollutants into the air.

Whenever Recycla knows she’ll be in one place for a while — such as waiting for a train or stuck in traffic — she turns off her car engine. It’s a simple flick of the wrist, yet so many people don’t do it.  Recycla has sat at railroad crossings before and watched as people idled their engines for 5, 10, or even 15 minutes.  She’s also seen other people pull their cars up in front of buildings and then leave their engines running while they dash inside for a few minutes. What a huge waste of gas!  Recycla always feels sick as she contemplates the waste.  The owners of those cars were clearly not thinking about how their actions impacted Planet Earth.

As gas prices increase ever higher, people need to be aware of their gas use and learn to be more economical.  Turning off your engine when you can is a very good first start.  Recycla recognizes that it’s summer and that people can die in extreme heat; however, she’s seen this wasteful behavior in moderate temperatures.  While it might not seem like only a few cars can make a difference, in reality, every little bit helps. Every action, no matter how small, is important.

Tell the Eco Women:  Have rising gas prices caused you to make any changes with your gas consumption this summer?

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