The Red, White, and Green

No, I’m not about to write about how to enjoy organic homemade treats on Halloween. This has been my favorite holiday since I was old enough to click together the hand-glittered ruby slippers of my homemade Dorothy costume, and you have my full permission to stuff yourself to the gills with Good & Plentys, candy corn, and mini Mr. Goodbars. Even environmentalists have to take a break once in a while.

If you’d like to green your Halloween just a bit, however, why not save a bunch of rubber masks from a landfill fate and make your own costume? And I don’t mean wearing your leggings with three pairs of scrunched-down socks and saying you’re an aerobics instructor from the ’80s, though feel free to steal that idea if it’s calling to you. I’m talking about a totally terrifying, crypt-robbing, little kid–sobbing, completely fabulous disguise.

[Watch video on YouTube]

Check out the ThreadBanger website for more incredible DIY projects. Happy Halloween!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Sewing is making a big comeback in this tough economy. What’s good for your wallet is good for the environment, too, since knowing how to mend and alter the clothing you already have helps reduce consumption. Click here for how to find sewing classes in your area.

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Photo via Flickr: Roblisameehan

Note: This post was originally published on 6.23.09.

Even if you try to make your wedding as environmentally friendly as possible — serving organic (or vegetarian) cuisine, using flowers that are local and in season — there really is no such thing as a “green” wedding. The carbon emissions alone from people flying from all over the country to attend your event pretty much negate even the greenest of wedding plans. (Yes, you could take on the expense of carbon offsets for your guests or ask that your guests do so in lieu of gifts, but the debate rages on as to whether offsets actually translate into reduced emissions.) But that doesn’t mean you should give up, either. I came across one really great eco wedding tip the other day that is so totally obvious I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.

There, on the gift registry page of my cousin’s wedding website, was the following note:

Thank you for thinking of buying us presents.  We love them!  If you do decide to send us gifts, please don’t gift wrap them — we would like to be at least a little bit green.

How brilliant! When I was married four years ago, I remember thinking that all that paper and ribbon was such a waste. And it wasn’t as though I wasn’t environmentally conscious back then; I remember hauling off all of the collapsed shipping boxes and styrofoam peanuts from our gifts to the local UPS store that accepted them for recycling. Why do presents that are shipped need to be wrapped, anyway? They already arrive in a box.

Your guests will be thrilled that they don’t have to pay extra for gift wrap (nearly every online store will let shoppers include a gift card in the box regardless), you’ll save trees, and you’ll be able get your greedy little hands on those presents that much faster!

(Don’t forget to recycle those peanuts and cardboard boxes, too. Click here for the Peanut Hotline, to find drop-off sites in your area.)

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Even if you’re bringing a present in person (or for any other occasion), there are plenty of ways to wrap a gift that don’t involve virgin paper. Click here for 10 creative green gift-wrapping ideas.

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Antonio Gaudi often recycled broken dishes, glass, and tiles by incorporating them into his works. Photo via Flickr: Karynsig

I tend to think that art is inherently green — it doesn’t take a lot of materials to produce, can last for centuries, and doesn’t require any fossil fuels for you to enjoy it other than the metro ride or car trip it took you to get to the gallery or museum (well, unless you hop on a transatlantic flight to visit the Louvre). But if you can create art out of trash or other recycled materials and teach people about conservation at the same time, why the heck not?

I’ve spotted some pretty interesting eco art recently, from the fabulously kooky (The Mercedes Pens) to the slightly creepy (BananaBoyRoy) — though all of it creative, nonetheless. So I was pleased to hear about The Green Art Project website, which features green art for art’s sake as much as for the planet’s. My favorite part of the site, though, is the how-to art projects, which would be great to tackle on a rainy fall weekend with your kids.

The Green Art Project is pretty new, so I expect there will be more creative projects up in the months to come, but in the meantime, why not get cozy, order up a pizza, and then make a Pizza Box Portrait?

There’s been a lot of doom and gloom lately. Green art may not save the world, but it may provide the inspiration. (And at the very least, it’ll keep your kids away from the Xbox.)

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Encourage your kids to start collecting difficult-to-recycle materials (buttons, postage stamps, soda can tabs, etc.) and use them for their own creative art projects.

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Photo via Flickr: Colbs

Note: This post was originally published on 6.1.09.

Like most Americans dealing with the recession, my husband and I have been looking for ways to cut costs in our household budget. We tried giving up cable, but weren’t actually saving much, thanks to Time Warner Cable’s sneaky pricing packages that drove up the cost of our internet connection once we downgraded to network TV and the fact that we ended up going out to the movies more often than usual since we no longer had a DVR on which to record our favorite programs. After three months without cable and the last three consecutive Saturday nights spent playing Trivial Pursuit (not a bad way to pass an evening, but how many Jack Nicklaus Sports & Leisure questions can one really answer?), my husband decided enough was enough and negotiated with Time Warner’s cancellation department to win back our cable and DVR for a full $30 less a month than we were originally paying. We’ll make up the dollars somewhere else — as an environmental blogger, I need to stay up-to-date with Renovation Nation, right?

But now that we have the DVR back after all those months of quiet, I notice something I never did before: That darn thing is always on, humming in the background. And while we have all our other electronics on power strips that can be shut off to stop the flow of phantom power when they’re not being used, I’m not sure that the DVR can be shut off as well. I’ve heard rumors that because of software bugs, the DVR needs to be on 24/7. But according to Energy Efficient Choices, DVRs use anywhere from 12 to 20 watts in standby mode alone; that’s a lot of wasted energy. Is it really bad to power down the DVR at night (when our programs aren’t being recorded anyway)?

To answer that question, I call Time Warner. The representative in the technical department tells me that it’s absolutely fine to shut off the DVR at night — since it’s a hard drive, our programs will still be saved. The only downside, she says, is that it’ll take 10-15 minutes to reboot in the morning when we turn it back on.

My only question now — which the representative didn’t have an answer to — is whether that morning boot-up uses more power than leaving the DVR on all night. RWG readers, any thoughts?

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Since this post was originally published in June, I have been turning off the power strip connected to my DVR every night and have never encountered a problem (other than sometimes forgetting to turn it back on Sunday mornings and missing Meet the Press.) So go ahead: Unplug it!

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Vancouver's famous Granville Island Public Market is an incredible source for local, farm-fresh produce

I’ll be in Vancouver later this week, so I thought it would be fitting to mention that the city recently joined the Meatless Monday Canada effort. The Canook movement and website are still in the works, but will be partnering with Meatless Monday stateside to help spread the movement across the north.

Since Vancouver is known for its devotion to local and sustainable food — not to mention a diverse ethnic population that serves up some of the most lauded Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cuisine outside of those countries — I have no doubt that its foodie inhabitants will have endless resources for tasty vegetarian fare.

For your next Meatless Monday, check out this recipe for Coconut Curried Vegetables from renown Vancouver Indian restaurant Vij’s (which I’m looking forward to visiting when I’m there!).

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Meatless Monday Canada is just getting started and is looking for help. Canadian RWG readers: Click here to join the effort.

More Meatless Monday posts:
Meatless Monday: Vegetarian fast food
Meatless Monday: The PB&J Campaign

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Photo via Flickr: ((Brian))

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way up the West Coast of the United States for an 11-day trip to celebrate my birthday. And while I won’t be leaving the country save for a brief jaunt in Vancouver, I’m going to do what is pretty much now unfeasible for most email/Facebook/Twitter-reliant Americans: take a self-imposed technology break.

I know there will be opportunities galore for an environmental blogger such as myself to communicate about — hiking excursions in national parks, ecologically rich coastal wetlands, the Granville Island Public Market — but I can’t help but feel that ever since I got my BlackBerry, I can’t fully appreciate these types of experiences with constant updates from the outside world. It’s a cliche, but life just moves so darn fast now. And here’s another cliche, but I think more of us would be even more committed to the environmental issues we’re all working so hard to solve if we just took the time to stop — really stop — and smell the roses. It’s not enough to blog about saving our forests; sometimes you have to actually go see those forests.

It might be my birthday that’s making me nostalgic for the simpler world I remember from my childhood — the one where you got to truly relax with friends and family on the weekends without feeling the need to check Huffington Post for updates or respond to text messages every five minutes. All I know is, when I spent several days in Northern Wisconsin earlier this summer, where there wasn’t cell phone or internet service and I had to hike to the lodge every few days to check my email, it was probably the most blissful five days I’ve had in the past seven years (minus my honeymoon in Italy!).

So I hope you’ll understand if I miss any breaking environmental news for the next week or so. Articles will still be published, thanks to the technological marvel of advance scheduling. I promise to share the highlights of my trip when I return.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Studies say that taking the time to relax and enjoy nature is essential to good health. And you don’t have to go on an 11-day trip to take your own technology break, either: This weekend, turn off your computer/BlackBerry/iPhone and vow not to check your email or the internet till Monday morning.

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Photo via Flickr: Pylon757

Leave it to the innovative folks at Southwest Airlines to develop cutting-edge environmental design and initiatives for its fleet while most cash-strapped carriers are charging for checked luggage and making passengers flush before they fly. The company announced yesterday that it’s currently testing a “green” plane that reduces emissions and makes use of eco-friendly interior materials.

I’ve never actually flown Southwest — I’ll be taking my first trip with them this November — but I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with the eco features in the “green” Boeing 737-700 now in beta. (I put green in quotation marks because it’s pretty ridiculous to put that word in the same phrase as something that emits, on average, 2.4 tons of CO2 on one round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles; still, I applaud Southwest for its efforts.)

Some of the new plane’s features:

• 100 percent recyclable carpet that can be installed and removed in sections, eliminating the need for full replacement
• Two different seat cover materials – e-Leather, made from discarded leather shavings, and IZIT Leather, a long-lasting synthetic alternative — that will reduce weight by nearly two pounds per seat
• Lightweight foam fill in the seat backs (supposedly more comfortable, too)

All told, the new initiatives will save a total of nearly five pounds per seat, which will help cut fuel costs and thereby reduce emissions.

Until Branson perfects his biofuel, the name of the game for reducing air travel emissions is efficiency. There’s so much that can be done with inventive design and flight plan optimization — all it would take is for more airline executives to think outside the cabin, so to speak. I’m amazed it’s taken this long for anyone — including Southwest — to start working on these things. What’s good for the environment is also good for the bottom line.

To read more about Southwest’s environmental initiatives, click here.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: It’s not something that people like to talk about, but you know what else is adding to the carbon cost of flying? Americans’ expanding waistlines. All the more reason to keep yourself fit and healthy!

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The BioBag MaxAir II Composting Bucket ($8.95)

Everyone’s been talking about San Francisco’s revolutionary mandatory composting law, and this is indeed a great thing, but why aren’t cities that already offer organic garbage waste collection doing more to encourage people to compost (even when it’s not the law)?

Los Angeles, for example, offers green “yard waste” bins alongside the familiar blue (recycling) and black (trash) ones,  yet I’ve only ever seen gardeners use them for tree and hedge clippings, and I personally don’t know a sole apartment-dweller in LA who actually collects food scraps for compost. I find this astounding, considering that we, in fact, pay for this service every month (take a look at that “Solid Resources” fee on your next trash bill). There needs to be some kind of local PR campaign to encourage people to start using those green bins.

Anyway, since I discovered this, I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect compost container for our porch-/balcony-less apartment. I don’t need one of those super-duper machines that actually makes the compost; just something to collect the scraps for a few days before I bring them out to the green bin.

Thanks to Robin on the Mother Nature Network comments board re this article about San Francisco’s new composting law, I now have my solution. She wrote:

To make recycling food waste a lot easier, a compost container on your kitchen counter is a must. I recommend the MaxAir II Compostainer. You can store food (even pretty wet food like coffee grounds, soup, or soggy cereal leftovers) in it for 5-7 days and it won’t develop a bad odor. The biodegradable liners they sell with it are made from corn, not petroleum. When your container is full, just take the bag out, tie a knot in the top, and carry your food waste outside to your bio waste can.

Thanks, Robin! Ordering mine today.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: Americans waste almost 30 million tons of food each year — one-third of our total food supply — and almost all of that ends up in landfills, where it produces methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than CO2. Bottom line: Want to fight global warming? Forget the Prius and start composting (or at least use those green bins!).

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As I learned with Sommerhaus Piu, sometimes the best-intentioned environmental designs can have unexpected and detrimental consequences. For instance, wind turbines, one of the most important components of our clean energy future (it’s been estimated that the US could supply 16 times the current demand for electricity from wind in the Midwest prairie states alone), can sometimes turn into death blenders for birds.

Now, I would argue that fossil fuels are much more harmful to birds and other wildlife (to wit: extinction related to global warming, mercury pollution, and accidents like the Exxon Valdez), but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for better green design.

That’s why I’m intrigued by the Natura Levo wind turbine, which recently won an International Design Excellence Award and is about to begin prototype testing. The tiny (4-foot) turbine was created by industrial designer Laura Sink, and could conceivably be mounted on chimneys, telephone poles, or the roofs of commercial buildings. There are even plans to incorporate the turbine in electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.

The press release says only that Natura Levo will “peacefully [coexist] with its surroundings.” From the picture shown, it’s clear that this is true from an aesthetic standpoint. But what does that mean, specifically, re interference with birds and other wildlife?

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: There are already residential-scale wind turbines available that can take a big chunk out of your energy bill, and substantial federal tax credits are available to help subsidize the cost. To read more about installing a home wind turbine, click here.

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Nature’s Express, a vegetarian fast food restaurant with locations in Yuma, AZ, and San Diego, isn’t threatening to take down McDonald’s anytime soon, but I love the chain’s if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em approach to our nation’s dependence on the drive thru. And for those who think fast food can’t be healthy, consider that one of the founders of the restaurant is an oncologist. When is one coming to Los Angeles?

A few more reasons to alleviate your fast food guilt, should you be fortunate enough to reside near either location: In addition to serving a completely plant-based menu, the restaurant also buys organic whenever possible, recycles its cooking oil into biofuel, uses biodegradable containers and cutlery, and incorporated renewable materials into the construction of both locations.

I never eat fast food (believe it or not, I can count the number of times I’ve eaten at the golden arches in the past 15 years on three fingers), but I would be hitting up Nature’s Express for a South of the Border Burger and sweet potato fries practically every Meatless Monday. Yum!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: In honor of 350.org’s Global Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24, Nature’s Express is offering special coupons to all its customers who pledge to go meatless one day a week for a year. Find out more about the 350.org campaign and how to get involved here.

More Meatless Monday posts:
Meatless Monday: The PB&J Campaign
Baltimore City Public Schools first district in nation to adopt Meatless Monday

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