The Red, White, and Green

[Watch video on National Geographic]

I’m not going to judge you for your obsession with Real Housewives, but if you’d like to tune in to some trashy television of the more guilt-free variety, you won’t want to miss the Garbage Moguls marathon airing this Saturday (starting at 7 pm) on the National Geographic Channel. The show follows the inner workings of one of my favorite eco-minded companies, TerraCycle, as its crew works to transform trash into treasure.

TerraCycle’s upcycled products have been big business in the past year — its capsule collection for Walmart, which included kites constructed of Cheetos bags and lunch totes spawned from Skittles wrappers, flew off the shelves like the snacks themselves.

Future ingenious green goods (which you’ll get the inside scoop on if you catch the three new episodes this weekend; see video above for a sneak peek) include a line of pet products produced with Pedigree dog food bags, a suit jacket fabricated from Target plastic bags, and a garbage can made from — you guessed it — garbage!

Want to check out the post-consumer-cool products in real life? Facebook fans can enter to win TerraCycle prizes by answering trivia questions during each episode. Click here to find out more.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via The Huffington Post

President Obama, you’ve spearheaded a number of meaningful environmental reforms since taking office (raising fuel efficiency standards for cars, an $80 billion investment in clean energy technology, the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program) — and it seems like you genuinely want to move this country toward a clean energy future, especially in the wake of the BP oil disaster — so would it be too much to ask you to stop being a shill for the bottled water industry?

Yep, I’m talking about that bottle of Aquafina spotted in your hand on the way to shoot hoops with Reggie Love this past weekend at Fort McNair. (This isn’t the first time, either; you were also photographed packing the plastic last September in New York City.)

It may seem like a minor detail, but those little plastic bottles are having a big impact on our nation’s oil footprint, once you factor in the crude used to make the plastic, the energy needed to process the water, the fuel used to transport the bottles, the electricity to refrigerate them… The grand total? Fifty million barrels of the sticky stuff a year.

And by the way, what does it say about your faith in the federal government to regulate public drinking supplies if you’re choosing PepsiCo over our nation’s finest?

Now imagine the example you’d set for all of us if you were photographed sporting a reusable Nalgene or Klean Kanteen at your next pick-up game. It may not bring the DOA climate bill back to life, but it’d sure be a step in the right direction.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo credit: Lillian Falco/USFWS

He’s the king of boat music, so it should come as no surprise that coastal crooner Jimmy Buffett has donated a specialized boat to help out with wildlife recovery efforts for the BP oil spill.

The Shallow Water Attention Terminal (SWAT) vessel, designed by Dragonfly Boatworks in Vero Beach, FL, may as yet have a name (suggestion: Oilspillville?), but it’s scheduled to begin operations this week in the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in coastal Alabama, which has been polluted by some of the thickest oil of the spill to date. Operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge is a crucial habitat for migratory birds and nesting sea turtles.

Thanks to a flat-hull construction, the Buffett boat will be able to navigate the shallow, marshy areas of the refuge; in fact, it’s designed to operate in as little as 8 inches of water (for comparison, that’s about half the depth of a standard size bathtub). The craft also features a canopy to protect workers from the sun, a misting system to provide further cooling, and a table to examine the oil-soaked wildlife. WiFi and video cameras on board will enable remote viewing of the rescue operations.

This isn’t the first time the “Son of a Son of a Sailor” star has reached out on behalf of our sea creature friends: Buffett founded the original Save the Manatee Club in 1981 with then Florida governor (and now head of the presidential commission investigating the BP oil spill) Bob Graham.

–Jennifer Grayson

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It may not have drawn the 2 million-strong crowd witnessed at the Los Angeles Lakers Parade the day before, but the LA Get Off Oil Day rally was a huge success in its own right. Organized by Josh and Rebecca Tickell to celebrate the release of the award-winning documentary Fuel on DVD — not to mention protest the BP oil spill — the event was a veritable who’s who of the green world.

Check out the eco leaders, policymakers, and green celebs in attendance in the video, above, and get inspired to head to the next big rally for clean energy in New Orleans on June 28! (Or at least make a donation to the cause — click here to learn how.)

–Jennifer Grayson

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Scrambling for a last-minute present for Father’s Day? I could offer up a host of green gift suggestions, like a Nalgene BPA-free reusable water bottle customized with a photo skin of you and your dad; or a six-pack of beer from his favorite sustainable brewery. Both are great, but here’s the thing: The most appreciated — not to mention sustainable — gift you can offer this Sunday isn’t something I can add to a Top 10 Eco-Friendly Father’s Day Gifts list.

No, it’s something harder to come by in the tech-crazed, never-stop-for-a-moment world we live in, and that’s time. Undistracted time. (With you, of course.)

That’s why I’m loving the Offlining campaign, which will officially launch this Father’s Day. Founders Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum are urging fathers to go BlackBerry/iPhone/laptop-free for the day and spend a little old-fashioned quality time with their families.

DiMassimo and Yaverbaum are marketing gurus by trade, so it’s no surprise that the ads and e-cards promoting this No-Device Day and others to come are total genius. Check them out (above, and below):

Inspired to go beyond Father’s Day? Take the Offlining Pledge and commit to 10 no-device dinners between now and Thanksgiving Day 2010. I, for one, will be signing up, though no thumb-twisting will be involved: I’ve been BlackBerry-free since Earth Day.

–Jennifer Grayson

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If you have plans to be in Los Angeles tomorrow, you won’t want to miss the Women of the Green Generation Conference. Founded just one year ago by musician-with-a-vision Kris Wiley, Women of the Green Generation brings together LA-area women interested in starting or expanding their eco-driven businesses. The green networking group has proven such a hit, in fact, that it’s since attracted coverage on CNN, the LA Times, and numerous green lifestyle blogs.

The all-day event at the eco-luxe Evo South in downtown LA will give attendees the chance to check out a slew of sustainable products and services, get free mini spa treatments, do some green networking, and sit in on a number of thought-provoking panel discussions. Scheduled speakers include yours truly (I’ll be moderating a panel on environmentalism and the media), as well as:

• Rebecca Tickell, author of Hot, Rich & Green and producer of the award-winning documentary Fuel
• Sarah Backhouse, host of Planet Green’s “Planet 100”
• Sophie Uliano, New York Times best-selling author of Gorgeously Green
• Kim Barnouin, co-author of New York Times best-seller Skinny Bitch
• Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, founder of Ecostiletto
• Davida Heller, sustainability consultant and founder of Ecospire
• Siel Ju, founder of Green LA Girl
• and more (click here for full speaker list)

Over 300 women and 50 green businesses are already expected to attend, so snap up your ticket before it’s too late (space is limited). Oh, and while it’s technically an event for women, men are welcome!

Hope to see you there!

–Jennifer Grayson

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The film industry may be one of the worst polluters, but it looks like some Hollywood studios, at least, are making an effort to improve environmental practices at the local level. Check out these photos taken by loyal Red, White, and Green reader MT, who lunched at the commissary on the Disney lot in Burbank, CA, last week:

Evidently, the Disney Green Workspace program has been in effect since April 2008, and includes a number of different initiatives in addition to the commissary waste reduction effort: Individual plastic water bottles have been eliminated from backstage operations and offices, employees are encouraged to recycle cell phones and other electronics in addition to the standard paper and plastic, and a minimum of 30 percent recycled-content paper is used for everyday printing and copying.

These steps may seem small in comparison to the massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and waste generated by The Walt Disney Company’s theme parks, resorts, and cruise ships — in addition to the aforementioned carbon cost of the movies it makes — but Disney has big-picture planet preservation plans: The company has said it will halve its emissions and theme park–related garbage by 2013.

No word yet on how Mickey and Minnie are personally joining in the eco efforts.

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Watch video on MSNBC]

I’ve decided on my Earth Day resolution: I’m giving up my BlackBerry. It’s not to further reduce my energy consumption, though that is important — the International Energy Agency estimates that increased demand for energy from mobile devices could contribute to a doubling of CO2 emissions by 2030. Nope, it’s about renewing my appreciation for the beautiful world we live in, something I’ve been ignoring lately in my day-to-day life (I’m too busy checking my email).

Drastic? Perhaps. But the idea seemed to resonate with Dylan Ratigan over at MSNBC; I appeared on his show yesterday (see above) to talk about my Earth Day plans, which I had written about more thoroughly in this Huffington Post column.

I could go on with a longer Earth Day post — there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening out there today, like our National Parks being open for free all week — but I think I’m going to take my own advice and go enjoy the great outdoors (as much as I can, anyway; it is still a workday). Hope you can, too.

Happy Earth Day!

–Jennifer Grayson

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[Watch Oceans trailer on MovieSet]

How will I be spending Earth Day? Well, that all depends on how much work I can get done between now and tomorrow morning. You see, if I have my druthers, I’ll be at the 10 am showing of Disneynature’s Oceans, cherry Icee and Jujubes in hand. (Make that organic home-popped popcorn and a Klean Kanteen of ice water smuggled into my canvas tote bag.)

The film, which opens tomorrow, promises a breathtakingly beautiful look at all five of our planet’s oceans — including a first-time look at some of the otherworldly creatures that live there, thanks to the latest in high-tech underwater filming technologies and over seven years of painstaking work from directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud.

That the movie is being released on Earth Day only highlights how blue, is in fact, the new green: It’s our oceans that are already starting to realize the detrimental effects of climate change, what with acidification threatening to wipe out many shellfish and corals completely in the coming decades; it’s our oceans that will no longer be a source of food for coming generations if we continue our current rates of overfishing.

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: See Oceans during opening week, and Disneynature will make a donation from the sale of your ticket to help protect the threatened coral reefs of the Caribbean. Click here to read more.

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Photo via Flickr: Kevin Krejci

If you haven’t played a prank yet today, here’s a cool one that’s for a good cause: As part of its effort to educate Americans about the problem of plastic pollution, California clean water group Heal the Bay has developed an April Fool’s Day app that allows you to “trash” a friend’s Facebook page (or any other web page, for that matter) with floating images of plastic bags.

To participate, visit the campaign’s website to send an email tease to unsuspecting friends and co-workers. When recipients click on a link embedded in your email message (“Dude, I trashed the front page of your Twitter”), the targeted page quickly and harmlessly fills with images of single-use plastic bags.

Those plastic bags will be gone from your friend’s web page tomorrow, but unfortunately the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a massive floating landfill in the Pacific Ocean comprised of 3.5 million tons of plastic trash — won’t be disappearing anytime soon. (Oh, and there’s one in the Atlantic Ocean, too.) That’s because plastic doesn’t biodegrade, it photodegrades — meaning it breaks up into miniscule little bits that are then ingested by marine life (and in turn ingested by us when we eat those fish).

Fortunately, there’s something we can do to drastically cut down on the amount of plastic pollution that reaches our oceans. It’s called a plastic bag tax. Washington, DC, passed a 5-cent tax in January, and since then the city’s plastic bag usage has dropped from 22 million to 3 million a month.

–Jennifer Grayson

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