Category Archives: transportation

Tales From a Hybrid Owner

Posted on February 20, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Enviro Girl grew up in a single-car household.  Back in the 70′s, family income was more limited and when her mother required the use of the family car, everyone got up early to drive dad to work–and returned to retrieve him from his downtown office at the end of the day.  Enviro Girl considers the savings her family would enjoy if they had only one car payment, one car to insure and register.  Continue reading →

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Shop Local: Do It for Yourself & for Your Community

Posted on November 30, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Enviro Girl is a HUGE fan of shopping at locally owned and operated businesses.  From restaurants to florists to film developers to groceries, if it’s owned by Mom and Pop, you’ll find her spending her money there.  In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid shopping at “Big Box” and franchise stores.  She’ll go years without shopping at the local mall and tries her very best to spend her money at the stores on “Main Street.”  Her reasons are environmental, political  and economical — here’s the breakdown of why she shops local: Continue reading →

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Posted in eco holidays, issues, transportation, websites & blogs

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Bike Commute Challenge

Posted on September 23, 2011 by | 2 Comments

The weather has started to turn, there’s a crisp edge to the air. Even the leaves are dropping from the trees. You can hear them crackle and crunch beneath school kids’ feet, as they head back to class.

It’s that time of year again.

Yes, Bike Commute Challenge.

You see, here in River City, we take sustainability seriously. Hundreds of people commute by bicycle every day to work and back. It’s an easy way to save money: no need to pay for parking, no money for car insurance, heck, no need for cars, gas or maintenance. And, that doesn’t say anything about how much less your carbon footprint will be. But, just think about it for a moment. You can reduce the emissions your car would be putting out into the air, simply by riding to work. This is one way you can do your part to save the planet . . . plus, you’ll be getting yourself in shape – all at the same time. So no need to pay for a gym membership either. Think of how much you’ll save: money, maybe time and the planet!

So don’t let your bike go to waste sitting on the sidelines.
Get out there and ride to work! And, if you aren’t lucky enough to live in River City, then check with your local community to find out whether they have a bike commute challenge and, if they don’t, why don’t you get one organized…I challenge you.

Even the Green Queen has been riding to work. Of course it’s an easy downhill ride and that helps. She hasn’t quite gotten up the guts to ride back home – all the way uphill, yet – this year. But, that’s coming. She’s lucky to be able to take her bike on the MAX (the citywide transit train) if she chooses.

But Portland has always been one innovative city. City planners have been creating a bike encouraging city. Just look at some of the unusual aspects of city planning going on here. Cars have to sit and wait behind the bikes. And, people can often get to work faster on bikes than in cars, locked up in gridlock.
So, what more do you need to hear to get you pedaling yourself to work? It’s time to JUST DO IT!

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Posted in green around the world, health, transportation, Uncategorized

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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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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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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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Posted in issues, transportation

Grab your helmet and go

Posted on May 19, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Fellow Eco Warriors, did you know that May is National Bike Month? And May 16-20 is National Bike Week? And that tomorrow is tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day?

It’s true. Are your wheels ready, fellow Eco Warriors?

Recycla’s wheels are totally ready. After a winter in the garage, Bubbles (as she calls her bike) is ready to roll. (Pun intended.) Recycla’s husband pumped up the tires, checked the brakes, oiled this ‘n’ that, and even tightened up a wobbly kickstand. Recycla went out for an inaugural 3.5 mile ride on Monday to the library and  the market and it was great, although she admits to some soreness afterward. She’s expecting to spend many miles on Bubbles this spring, summer, and early fall.

When you commute on two wheels instead of four, you save gas, get some fresh air, and burn up to 500 calories per hour (at a pace of12 mph). Studies show that 1% of trips in the U.S. are by bike.   If that number went up only 1/2%, we’d save 462 million gallons of gas per year!  And with gas prices hovering around $4/gallon, you’ll want to find some ways to cut back on driving.

Biking is a great way to get around, if you can do it. Recycla recognizes that biking won’t work for some people, particularly those folks who live way out in rural areas. And, while she admires Londoners and Parisians for their mad biking prowess (in business suits, while looking chic, no less!), she admits to feeling nervous about biking on London’s busy streets with double-decker buses dogging her every move. She would, however try biking in Paris, as there are so many amazing bike lanes everywhere. If you need tips for commuting by bike, check out this post.

(And just for kicks, check out this fun blog about biking while wearing cute outfits. No lycra in sight!)

Even if you can’t bike to work tomorrow, try to get out on your bike sometime soon. Don’t forget your helmet and watch out for driver’s side doors!

Tell the Eco Women: Do you bike? Why or why not? If you do, how often and how far?

Photo credits: Yahoo Images.

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Posted in transportation

Eco in other places

Posted on April 14, 2011 by | 8 Comments

Recycla and her family have just returned from a 12 day trip in which they spent time in London, Paris, and the English countryside. Along the way, she made note of a variety of eco tidbits that she wanted to share with you all.

To start with, bike sharing programs have really taken off in the past few years. Both London (Barclay’s Cycle Hire) and Paris (Vélib’) have programs and Recycla saw bike racks everywhere she went and noticed many, many cyclists riding them around both cities.

London…
… and Paris.

In addition, public transportation is alive and well in both major cities. Recycla’s family rode subways in both cities and noticed that they were in full use. And, while traffic in Paris seemed chaotic, even with so many drivers going about on motorcycles, traffic in London wasn’t too bad. This is largely due to the London congestion charge, which is a toll for drivers that is meant to reduce congestion.

In other eco areas, Recycla was very impressed by the wide-scale recycling she saw in both countries and in both urban and rural areas. She also learned that many municipalities in England have increased their recycling pickup and some are also offering composting pickup.

Recycla also saw many examples of people and businesses attempting to cut back on consumption — hotels asking guests to reuse towels, stores asking if a customer wanted a plastic bag or if they could just carry out their single purchase, and more. She also noted that pretty much every store she went into sold some sort of reusable bag (some cloth, some recycled plastic) for sale at very reasonable prices. In fact, in Paris, customers are charged for each one-use plastic bag they need.

One area that could use improving is plastic bottle use in Paris. It was warm (in the 70s) and there were people on nearly every corner selling plastic one-use bottles of water for 1 Euro. In spite of the warm temperatures, Recycla saw almost no one drinking from their own reusable water bottles. Still, it was just one sour note in the midst of so many other good things, so Recycla will simply hope that by the next time she’s in France, times will have changed.

So those are just a few of Recycla’s observations. What kinds of eco acts have you seen on your travels?


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Posted in green around the world, transportation, travel

Save Money, Reduce Emissions, Drive Less

Posted on April 13, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Gas prices are creeping up–just in time for summer.  Enviro Girl has cut back on her driving, she’s never been a fan of tooling around town in the Momvan mainly because she’d rather do a million other things.  Here are some of the ways she manages to drive less:

1.  Get shameless about carpooling with other parents.  Enviro Girl will mooch a ride for her kids if she knows another parent is heading past their house, she’ll offer to take turns driving to practices and birthday parties and Scout meetings.

2.  Bundle your errands to save gas money and time.  Enviro Girl’s youngest has karate on Monday afternoons, the dojo is located across the street from a grocery store and a hardware store.  Guess who grocery shops on Monday afternoons while she’s in town?  Likewise, running to the post office for stamps, grabbing library books and other such tasks get slotted into times when Enviro Girl already plans to be in town.  Instead of making two trips to town for a karate lesson and bringing her other son to the dime store for project supplies, she drops one kid at karate and then takes the other to the dime store in the same trip.  Sure, this means planning ahead and making a few sacrifices, but once you get in a rhythm of scheduling things, it’s easy to do.

3.  Route your errands.  Criss-crossing town wastes time and gas.  Cluster errands by location so you drive in a complete circle.

4.  Calling ahead insures you won’t waste a trip.  Phoning a store to see if they have green baseball socks beats driving across town to discover they don’t.  On the same token, Enviro Girl has become a fan of the Will Call window for events.  She’ll order tickets and leave them at the venue to pick up when she attends. This means no shipping fees and no risk of forgetting to bring the tickets to gain access to an event and saves a trip to the box office by conducting the entire transaction by phone.

5.  Price your travel.  Enviro Girl’s family planned a vacation to North Carolina’s Outer Banks.  Initially they’d planned to fly–but gas prices hit airlines as well.  Enviro Girl figured her family would spend nearly $2,000 on flights, plus baggage fees, rental fees for linens and towels and a car once they arrived.  Almost $2,500 total!  Then she got on Mapquest and calculated the cost of driving plus 2 hotel stays en route there and back.  Combined with the savings of baggage and rental fees, driving the Momvan to the Outer Banks would cost about $1,000.  Totally worth two extra travel days and more convenient in light of what they could pack in the Momvan vs. carry on luggage.

6.  Downsize your vehicle.  Enviro Girl’s household owns a minivan and a Ford Taurus.  The Taurus gets better mileage.  Whenever her family can manage it, they get around in the Taurus.

7.  Hoof it.  Or bike it or ride the bus.  Enviro Girl’s youngest kids walk to school, the oldest rides the bus.  They walk to baseball practice and to football games.  Now that the ice has melted, Enviro Girl bikes to her weekly gig at the school cafeteria a couple miles up the road.  She uses her bike to make the same trip to the bank and video store because those little trips in the Momvan do add up.  Plus, she gets exercise this way.

8.  Unload your car.  Your car uses more gas to bear more weight.  After bowling, Enviro Girl puts the bowling balls in the garage until next time.  No sense in paying to transport 60 extra pounds of weight.

9.  Maintain your vehicle.  Tire pressure, oil quality and air filtration all affect your car’s efficiency.  Find a reliable mechanic and spend the $30 every few months to address car maintenance.  You’ll recoup your savings every time.

10.  Stay home.  Seriously.  Instead of going out to eat when they’re home on a Saturday evening, Enviro Girl will throw dinner on the grill or stove.  Enviro Girl’s family will watch movies, play games, do puzzles or shoot basketballs instead of driving to find entertainment at Chuck E. Cheese or Marcus Cinemas.  They save those destinations for Very Special Treats.  By keeping things simple, her family saves money and learns to appreciate the little things, like getting a second Yahtzee.  They create better memories playing a family game of Around the World in their driveway than they ever do  in a crowded playland with a hundred other families.

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Posted in 3 Rs, issues, living green on a budget, transportation, travel

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Eco Airport Travel Tips

Posted on February 16, 2011 by | 4 Comments

Enviro Girl just had the great pleasure of taking a long weekend jaunt to southern California.  (Her husband believed her when she said the best gifts come in envelopes–airline tickets!)  While flying there and back, she avoided the ridiculous baggage fees by carrying on a small duffel and managed to generate very little waste during her travels.

Here are 5 tips to make your next airline travel experience greener and cleaner for the environment:

1.  BYOB.  That’s right:  Bring Your Own Bottle.  You may not bring a full water bottle through security checkpoints, but you can bring an empty one and fill it at the nearest water fountain or restaurant.  Enviro Girl’s seatmate was shocked when she pulled out her metal water bottle for a swig on the plane.  “How did you get that through?” she asked in surprise.  “I brought it through empty, then filled it after the checkpoint.”  Saved both money and plastic packaging.

2.  Recycle your paper.  Every airport has recycling containers for your old magazines and newspapers.  Use them.

3.  Print your boarding pass at home.  Enviro Girl was pleased to save herself a wait in line by printing her boarding pass the night before she flew.  She waltzed straight to the security line and breezed to her gate in less than half an hour.  Bonus:  she printed the boarding pass on the back side of something else, recycling paper!

4.  Unplug.  Granted, Enviro Girl was not a business traveler, but she saved herself hassle with the flight crew by leaving her electronic equipment behind.  No ipod, laptop, phone or blackberry device meant she took her seat and laid her head back to rest.  It didn’t matter when she could or couldn’t have her stuff turned on because she didn’t bring it.  This also saved her time in the security checkpoints.

5.  Bring a bag, not a purse.  Enviro Girl carried her wallet, sunglasses, book, camera and other sundries in an attractive shopping tote.  The extra room meant she could easily stash and grab her quart-sized bag of toiletries at security checkpoints.  Once she reached her destination, that bag served as her own shopping bag so she didn’t have to accept a store’s plastic shopping bag when grabbing 3 pairs of board shorts for her sons.

By carrying her cloth shopping bag as a “purse” and a small duffel for her clothes and gear, Enviro Girl skipped the wait at baggage claim, saved herself the headaches of losing luggage and enjoyed peace of mind that her stuff was at her fingertips during the whole trip.

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Posted in 3 Rs, transportation, travel