Giants vs. Patriots: Superbowl XLVI (nfl.com)

While the real action is on the field, think of the following as your very own game; the more actions you take, the more points you earn. Enlist your friends to do the same and get a friendly competition going. If we all take some of the actions below, we’re in for a great season where we’re all winners. Go Team Green!

We admit it! Obsessed with SustyParty’s compostable plates and bowls. Order in your team’s colors & toss into the compost without even scraping the food off!

Go Waste Free

Pack your own reusable plates, water bottles, glassware, and utensils: 20 points!

BYO cloth napkins or PeopleTowels: 20 points!

Or use recycled paper napkins and you’ll still get 10 points.

Drink And Eat Sustainably

Fill your (reusable) bowl with organic or at least more natural chips and snacks, snag 10 points.

Drink wisely – celebrate touchdowns with organic and/or local beer (10 points), hydrate with filtered tap water in a reusable bottle (10 points), and stay awake and warm with organic coffee (20 points). You winos want to look for eco-friendly wine (20 points). Jack your score by 10 more points when you recycle the corks — and add a big 50 when you recycle the bottles!

Whew! Is it half time yet? If you’ve done ALL of those actions, you’ve got 180 POINTS already!

More:

Fire up your grill with eco-friendlier briquettes (10 points) and cook up some sustainably raised meat (another whopping 50 points!) and/or organic veggies (50 more!). Who knew eating guacamole could be SO extra-green?

Southwestern Layered Bean Dip: one of a zillion drooly ideas on EatingWell's special Superbowl recipe collection

If you’re a sausage fan, definitely throw some of Applegate Farms’ organic hot dogs (10 points) on the grill. Do you have a solar-powered grill/oven? Our friends Corey and Lynn of Celebrate Green swear by them — they’ve got another 20 points each!

Applegate Farms cheezy bacon organic hotdog: Yes, please!

Clean Consciously

Before you chow down, clean your hands with a natural hand sanitizer or hand soap and score another 10 points.

When the game is over, recycle everything in sight. We already mentioned bottles; beer cans count for another 20 points!

Wipe up spills and degrease the grill with a natural all-purpose cleaner for 10 points, not to mention reduced air pollution.

That’s a total of 360 points! Sounds like a nice round number to us. How’d you do? If you’ve got more ways to Green up Superbowl Sunday, please post them or drop us a line. (Hmmm, maybe Practically Green should give points for suggesting new actions?)

Not everyone can win a fancy Superbowl ring, but we can ALL be Practically Green!

We’ve been obsessed with tasty healthy food all week: lobster rolls, salmon, and sushi; takeout craves you can just as well make at home; hormone-free burgers and chili; and even roasted potato dominos. YUM yum yum. Now let’s get serious: what about the stuff that TOUCHES your food when you store it, transport it, or reheat it? Today’s action rewards you for choosing anything but PVC to wrap and reheat your food!

If you know of cooler storage-bowl covers, please let us know asap. For now our favorite is this set from Hunter Gatherer. Only possible drawbacks: 1) they're not organic cotton; 2) they're flown from the UK. But still. We love them.

Beaba Multiportion Baby Food Freezer Tray... not just for babies! Grown-up pesto will freeze gorgeously in these BPA-free trays.

Cling wrap is an easy solution for leftovers and a common packaging material. But not all plastic wraps are alike: some are polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which environmental groups like Greenpeace refer to as “poison” plastic. From manufacture to disposal it’s highly toxic—for humans and for the earth. Traces of the chemicals used to make it pliable can migrate into food, especially things that are fatty or warm (never microwave plastic, especially PVC!). Exposure to PVC has been linked to dizziness, headaches, asthma, liver damage, brain/nervous system damage, and increased cancer risk. People who work in or live near PVC factories have it the worst.

Here's another cool idea: Laurie David's PVC-free shower cap solution, featured in The Family Dinner. Rinse caps after using to cover food and dry them on the window sill!

PVC is particularly difficult to dispose of as it is made with heavy metals like lead and cadmium; less than 1 percent of it is recycled.

Use empty glass containers & bottles to store food--or splurge on this set from Williams Sonoma!

Ask your grocery store what kind of wrap they use, especially for meats and cheeses. If it’s PVC, encourage them to change to safer plastic #4. Get your neighbors to speak up; there’s nothing like positive pressure for green and healthy changes!

Great Deal: Pyrex storage containers. These bowls are a great alternative to plastic wrap or plastic containers for food storage. They are safe for use in oven, microwave (take the plastic tops off!), refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher.

To minimize exposure, shop for minimally packaged food and things that come in glass; PVC is also found in plastic trays, candy bar wrappers, and bottles.

At home, store food in glass, stainless steel, or lead-free ceramic containers instead of plastic. If you’re going to use plastic wrap, check to see what yours is made of (“3″ or “V” denotes PVC). But truly, a safe plate over a safe bowl tucked in the fridge does the trick.

• Practically Green: Smart Shopping and Conscious Living with Alexandra Zissu
• Green Living Tips: PVC and the environment
• Healthy Child Healthy World: Shopper’s Guide to Plastics & Food: Cling Wrap
• BeSafeNet: PVC The Poison Plastic
• President’s Cancer Panel: Eat Organic, Avoid Plastics
• Rodale.com: Plastic-Free February
• Greenpeace: The Poison Plastic
• PG Picks! Eco-friendly packaging, Laugh Green, efficient factory, green date ideas, nature and architecture, and cool green products
• U.S. Weighs Cancer Risk of Styrene and Formaldehyde

GLAD says that they do not use any PVC in their products. They also say their products are BPA-free.

Why not recycle them instead?

(Why not bring reusable shopping bags and stop using these altogether, as many places now require…. Seattle, Long Beach, San Francisco, Washington, Hawaii, New Delhi, Italy, France, China, Tanzania….)

From an illustration by Ben Katchor for "Bags in Trees" in The New Yorker, Jan. 12, 2004

Nearly 1 million bags are used each minute worldwide. Recycling rates of plastic bags hover near 10 percent (only about a third of paper bag recycling). Suffice it to say that we have a long way to go to reduce the number of plastic bags that are thrown in the trash and wind up in our waterways as well as our overstuffed landfills.

In 2010, D.C. businesses began seeing a drastic reduction in bag usage; environmental clean-up groups witnessed fewer bags polluting regional waterways

Unfortunately many curbside recycling programs don’t currently accept plastic bags. If this is the case where you live, seek out a grocery or retail store near you that will accept them for recycling. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to recycle them curbside, make sure your bags are properly secured within the bin. They won’t get recycled if they blow away.

Reduce the amount of plastic bags you need to recycle by not taking them at stores in the first place—use a reusable bag instead. You can even bring reusable produce bags to go inside your shopping bags! Reusing the plastic bags you do have stretches the considerable resources that went into making them.

Our friends at Blue Avocado ease the switch BYO bags, with zippy design & a passion for reducing plastic bag waste.

Check with your town or municipality to see if they recycle plastic bags. If they don’t, ask them to start.

Look online to find a store that accepts plastic bags for recycling near where you live. Double check to see what kind of plastic your bags are; some stores only take back plastic #2 and #4 bags. See if they take produce bags as well as shopping bags.

Keep in mind these guidelines from Waste Management:

Clean plastic bags are accepted in recycling containers at many grocery stores. However:

• Plastic bags are a major cause of litter and waste. It is much better to use a durable shopping bag.

• Plastic bags cause litter, slow sorting and jam machinery at recycling centers. Empty recyclables out of bags and boxes, and put them loose in recycling containers so that they can be easily identified and sorted.

From SimpleHuman: Mount this slim profile storage bin in pantry, under sink, or on wall to keep plastic bags organized & at the ready.

Earth911 makes it super easy to find a plastic-bag recycling drop-off.

At Earth911, choose an item, type your ZIP code...

… and presto! You get info on where to go and how to get there.

Or visit PlasticBagRecycling.org.

We’re not the only ones who see bags in trees everywhere; check out Beth Terry’s blog My Plastic-Free Life, or Windy, the story of the plastic bag caught in a Pennsylvania tree in 2008 (and disappeared during the freak snowstorm of October 2011).

• The New York Times: Taking Aim At All Those Plastic Bags
• YouTube: The Dangers Of Plastic–Interview With Charles Moore
• YouTube: The Plastic Bag–A Mockumentary
• Rodale.com: You Pay $88 A Year For Free Plastic Bags
• Rodale.com: 8 Ways To Reuse Plastic Bags (Until They’re Banned)

Dubbed the Magic Wand by many beauties, L'Oreal's Clarisonic is upgrading, which might mean swapping yours out... but what to do with the cast-off?

How exciting! You just received a new hairdryer, telephone handset, camera, electric toothbrush, rotating face exfoliator! (…you know who you are) You’re swapping out your energy-hog toaster oven for a new compact microwave! Good for you! Now what are you going to do with the old ones? Throw them into an opaque Hefty bag for the garbage guy to transport to a crammed landfill? Not so fast.

that is, the electronics besides computers and cellphones, which have their own special set of info (and points!)

Did Santa bring you a new scooter? Fab! What's the plan for the old electric scooter you don't need any more?

E-waste, otherwise known as discarded electronics, is one of the largest—and growing—contributors to solid waste today. This should come as no surprise considering how quickly the latest must-have gadgets become obsolete. And then what? People throw them out. Unfortunately electronics contain metals including lead, nickel, cadmium, and mercury that are extremely harmful if they end up in landfills, where they can leach into the ground and water. Some e-waste gets exported and burned—polluting the air and poisoning the workers charged with this unsafe task.

You're obsessed with the awesome new camera you got for your birthday. We know. But what to do with its predecessor?

While computer and cellphone recycling receive the bulk of e-waste attention, many other electronic items can and should be recycled—including microwaves, home theater items, and all kinds of equipment associated with computers and cameras. Basically it’s good common sense to keep anything with a circuit board out of landfills. Bonus: recycling e-waste also recovers some natural resources like copper, gold, and silicon, which can be reused in manufacturing processes.

Try Gazelle.com to trade in all sorts of stuff. They power e-cycling programs for Costco, Office Depot, Sears, Walmart and other stores.

Try repairing and reusing before recycling. Reuse includes donating items you no longer find useful to an organization or someone who might find it very useful. If you prefer not to donate, you can also resell many electronics.

When the time comes to recycle e-waste, check online for the best options near you. Some towns have e-waste collection centers. Others organize occasional e-waste collection drives, as do environmental organizations as well as schools.

At Earth911, type in your item and your location... and...

... choose the solution that works best for you!

Manufacturers and major retailers like Best Buy also accept most forms of e-waste. Call ahead about specific items before you lug them to a store.

Other helpful resources:

EcoSquid

Best Buy’s E-cycle

Pick one action that’s fun to do, like Switch to organic chocolate, and pair it with an action that’s a bit more drudgy, like Recycle batteries properly.

Or, pick an action that’s absolutely free, doesn’t require leaving the house or making a call. For example, Shut off the lights when you leave a room (your office, the restroom, the house). Pair that with a more complicated action: Start composting your food waste. (Although services like Bootstrap Compost sure make urban composting easy.)

We’ve recommended an action a day for the past Four days. Do you notice a complementary rhythm?

1. Use Reusable Shopping Bags Regularly

2. Turn Off the Lights When You Leave a Room

3. Switch to Organic Chocolate

4. Recycle corks

Click & add points to your score!

Today we suggest Recycling glass bottles.

Chances are you have a few empties lying around this après-holiday season. If you already recycle your bottles regularly (as 99% of Practically Greeners do), be sure to check it off on your dashboard and watch your PG score increase by 50 points. If you’re not quite there yet—if you’re still throwing wine bottles and empty jam jars into the landfill trash, or if you’re not sure where to begin—please read on. (Spiffy new recycling bin, anyone?)

Divided 45L Step-On Recycle Bin with Colored Pedals

Kathleen Plate's Gold Chandelier earrings... pick your glass color at SmartGlassJewelry.com

What’s not to love about glass? It’s not petroleum-derived, it doesn’t leach unwanted and potentially harmful chemicals into your food, and, unlike plastic and paper, it can be recycled infinitely. A glass containing your beverage today could be the glass containing your spaghetti sauce tomorrow. While only a quarter of glass containers are recycled each year, nearly 90 percent of what’s collected is remade into new containers, according to the EPA.

Wean Green Food Storage Containers: Glass, not plastic! (Order from GreenDepot or Amazon)

Recycling glass significantly reduces resource demands and avoids both landfill costs and expansion. For every ton of glass that is recycled, over a ton of natural resources are saved. Recycling glass even saves energy—recycling just one bottle saves enough to run your computer for 30 minutes (that’s 400 watt hours)! Recycled glass can be turned back into glass bottles or used for other items, including jewelry, fiberglass insulation, kitchen counters, and even to stem beach erosion.

If you live in a state where glass beverage containers have a redemption value, recycling glass can even be a source of extra cash. Enlist your kids to collect and recycle glass bottles as a way of earning spending money.

"Lopsided in just the right way": recycled glass vases, Vivaterra

Ubiquitous blue recycling bin

If your town has a recycling program, get the blue bin, and start recycling what you can’t reuse.

If your town doesn’t have a recycling program, ask for one. In the meantime, find a store or a center willing to take back anything that involves a bottle deposit on the links listed below.

Earth 911

EPA.gov: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling And Disposal In The United States

YouTube: Recycle One Glass Bottle At A Time

Bombay Sapphire Gin glass pendants, Etsy

Feel free to share this post with a friend!

1915 English magazine illustration of a lady riding a Champagne cork (Lordprice Collection; Wikipedia)

Harvesting cork from trees Photo taken by Patrick Spencer, director of Cork ReHarvest

Cork is a highly sustainable material. It’s natural, renewable, and biodegradable. It’s also recyclable.

When you recycle cork, you extend its useful life. The material is diverted from a landfill (where, because of overstuffed conditions, even biodegradable items rarely biodegrade) and is (re)used in a wide range of products including floor tiles, place mats, dart and memo boards, and coasters. Reusing cork for these items means not having to harvest and import new material from overseas, which saves energy and reduces carbon emissions.

On Earth Day 2011, Anthropologie & the Cork Forest Conservation Alliance teamed on amazing displays in hundreds of store windows

Cork forests are said to absorb millions of tons of C02 yearly and provide vast quantities of oxygen. Though they’re considered among the most sustainably harvested forests in the world, minimizing the extraction of new cork by reusing what is already available protects them.

PG Tip: Select a nice bowl to collect corks

To locate cork drop-off locations near you, check out the sites listed below. Your local Whole Foods may also have a cork recycling bin.

Set up a spot in your kitchen where you keep your wine corks. Almost 60 percent of the world’s cork is used in wine bottles, so this is likely what you’ll be recycling.

If you’re crafty, you can even try making your own cork bulletin board.

Wine Cork Serving Tray (Etsy.com)

Bookmark This Site: ReCORK America

Bookmark This Site: Cork ReHarvest

Mongabay.com: How Cork Helps Forests And Biodiversity

PlanetGreen.com: Recycle Your Corks With ReCORK America

PracticallyGreen.com: How To Declutter Your House To Prepare For Sale

Give your corks to someone crafty? We found this 16" wreath on Etsy

Nuts for Blue Avocado... order via Practically Green!

We all use reusable bags daily—purses, computer bags, backpacks. But when it comes to shopping bags, we collectively reach for paper and plastic. According to the Worldwatch Institute, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags a year—an unfathomable number.

Polyethylene is produced largely from natural gas. Technically plastic bags are reusable and recyclable, but only a small percentage of them are recycled—Environment California estimates five percent, while the EPA says its closer to twelve percent. Either way, a plastic bag in a landfill takes about 1,000 years to break down, according to multiple sources. And a study by the Ocean Conservancy found plastic bags made up about nine percent of the debris along various U.S. coasts.

Not surprisingly, plastic bag taxes and bans are popping up all over the world as well as stateside; they’re currently banned in San Francisco. Why wait to figure out what rules your town is going to implement? You can reduce your personal use of plastic and paper instantly by switching to a reusable shopping bag today.

L.L. Bean is the King of Canvas bags

The trick to reusable bags is remembering to bring them with you. Set yourself up for success by stashing them in car trunks, purses, and jacket pockets.

Canvas versions are best for heavy hauls. For regular errand runs and groceries, bags made from recycled bottles stand up to most loads.

While there are tons of cute reusable bags on the market, don’t overdo it. Any bag takes energy and resources to make.

Perfect timing: just when we were beginning to obsess about all the egregious waste and outright landfill tossing that happens at this time of the year, along comes Robin Freedman with her tips on Waste Management for the Holidays:

Robin Freedman

“If each of us took a few small steps to reduce the waste we produce or increase the amount of materials we recycle during the holidays, we’d save a large amount of materials, energy and landfill space. There’s tons of ways to cut back on waste at this time of the year, or in any season!”

Robin works for Waste Management, headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. It’s the largest “environmental services provider” in North America, so they know a thing or two about trash. WM looks at waste as a resource, focuses on how to turn around materials in the waste stream, and finds ingenious ways to repurpose waste – into new materials, as energy, and via conversion technologies. Here are her ideas for bringing waste management to your life, with links to Practically Green so you can watch these actions contribute to your score.

1) Composting can reduce the amount of organic waste produced in the home. Holiday meal preparation can generate a large amount of potato peels, fruit rinds, coffee grinds, other vegetable waste and eggshells, that can all be composted. A new compost bin filled with homemade treats can make a great gift for those looking to take recycling to the next level.

2) If you have a fresh tree, garland or wreaths, be sure to recycle them when the holidays are over. Check Earth911’s Christmas tree recycling center for local tree collection and recycling opportunities.

3) If getting your holiday decorations out of storage makes you ask yourself where you’ll find space to put them away in January, maybe it is time to clean out the attic or basement. Before you throw things away, consider whether an item still has a service life and is acceptable for donation to an organization such as the local Value Village or Goodwill Services.

4) Thousands of paper and plastic shopping bags end up in landfills every year. Reduce the number of bags thrown out by bringing reusable cloth bags for holiday gift shopping. Tell store clerks you don’t need a bag for small or oversized purchases.

5) When packaging gifts, consider reduced or no-waste wrapping options. Put a reusable bow on the gift; place the gift in a reusable bag such as a backpack or purse; or package small, themed gifts in a larger item – such as plates or tableware in placemats or a tablecloth or kitchen utensils in an apron or decorative dishtowel. Also, you can use last year’s wrapping as packaging material.

6) Make your own wrapping paper by using old maps, posters or pages from the newspaper or magazines. Recycled-content wrapping paper is also available.  Save bags and bows to use again and be sure to recycle the newspapers or brown paper shopping bags after the gift is opened, or use it for padding when shipping gifts.

7) Consider giving no-waste gifts, such as music or sports lessons, memberships to a gym, the philharmonic or a museum, favors like babysitting or tickets to a sporting event or concert.  Find out the gift recipient’s favorite charity and make a donation in his or her honor, or commit to volunteering with that organization.

With a little imagination and commitment, we can use this holiday season to create new traditions that help preserve the environment. For more information about Waste Management’s comprehensive list of recycling services, visit www.thinkgreenfromhome.com.

Truck picks up the Bagster, literally!

P.S. if you’re still looking for a very special gift for that certain someone, consider a Bagster – WM’s Dumpster in a Bag! It’s a 4’ x 2’ x 8’ collection bag, perfect for the DIY guy or gal on your list. Why’s it green? It takes the place of a metal dumpster, which has to be fetched off your premises one at a time; a truck can haul off 12 Bagsters in a single trip for proper disposal. Find out more at Bagster’s thriving Facebook page.

As in, I really love you enough to stop texting and actually make you something? Even if I’m not a world-class artist?

Solution! Make a homemade card instead of buying a new one

String of lights is sewn across these cards; each light is cut from a magazine. Found on Etsy.com

Who doesn’t love receiving a homemade card? Not only do they really show someone you care, but also making cards by reusing paper and materials you already have around the house reduces the consumption of natural resources. You’ll save money, too.

Cookie cutter cards seen on MarthaStewart.com

While there are eco-friendlier greeting cards on the market, making them involves manufacturing emissions as well as the impact of transporting the cards from factories to stores—even if they’re printed with the best possible ink on 100 percent recycled-content and/or FSC-certified paper. DIY cards made from recycled scraps have a much lower footprint. By some estimates, not sending 50 cards a year (holidays plus birthdays add up!) saves five pounds of waste and 1,000 pounds of emissions.

These Holiday Santa cards at Etsy.com are made of upcycled napkins

Get creative. If you’re not, never fear, there is plenty of inspiration to be had online. The only thing to avoid is buying new materials to make your cards. That defeats the purpose!

Try taking paper you’ve only used on one side and decorating over the printed part. Use that stash of old greeting cards you might already have lying around. The recycling bin is a great source for images, letters, and photographs—from magazines, catalogs, kids’ drawings, and newspapers. Cut and paste these onto your card.

Special scissors create cute mini cards on Etsy.com

Buttons, beads, glitter, and more give any card pizzazz. Or head to the yard for leaves, flowers, and feathers.

If you’re an artist—or live with a young budding one—drawing and painting pictures and designs is always nice, especially with eco-friendly paint.

Here are a few of our Useful Links – for the full list, click to the PG action page!

eHow.com: Homemade Card Ideas

Making-Handmade-Cards.com: Card Making Ideas

Treehugger.com: Does Green Greeting Cards Mean E-Greeting Cards?

Do you have a product or link to recommend? (Wink wink to @EcoKaren of EcoEtsy… ) Please do!

Balsam Hill artificial tree

Are artificial trees greener because they’re used year after year? Or do fake trees use harmful elements in their manufacturing process?

This tree from Balsam Hill looks so real, right? Choose Aspen Estate Fir with faux wooden trunk, Colorado Mountain Spruce, or from a dozen other choices; decide height 6 – 30 feet tall, prestrung with LED twinklers. In cramped space? Consider the flatback model. Even order branch samples if you like! We can appreciate their no-shed, low-maintenance practicality on a TV set — but what’s the admire the True Needle ™ foliage, but what are they actually made of? Plastic? What type? Recycled plastic? (There’s no info on site, and the customer service number was busy when we called….)

Flatback tree saves space

Is it greenest of all to purchase a potted tree that can be planted after the holidays? Practically Green says Yes! Use a live Christmas tree. Treehugger.com’s Ask Pablo columnist tackled this conundrum:

…from a carbon emissions standpoint, a live tree cut from a tree farm (where it is replaced), and then composted was greener than a fake tree. That said, he contended that if you hike out into the woods and cut a tree yearly and do not replace it, then the fake tree is the way to go.

The greenest Christmas tree is actually a third option: a potted living tree you plant outside after the festivities. It will continuously absorb carbon long after it’s holiday decorations are removed. And it requires none of the resources used to manufacture and then ship an artificial tree. It’s also a lot better looking.

A potted tree that can happily grow for decades is ideal, but we realize this is not a practical solution for everyone.

Size: A live tree is heavier than a cut one, because of the root system, and the tree portion is likely to be smaller than you might expect. The folks at Rockefeller Center would have a terrible time finding a large-enough pot for their tree, which is 74 feet tall this year. Transporting immense trees from their native forests to their December habitat is a mindboggling carbon-footprint calculation; imagine adding a massive root ball to the equation?

Xmas tree at Rockefeller Center, a 74-foot-tall Norway spruce decorated with 5 miles of lights (30,000 LED bulbs) & will be turned into lumber for Habitat for Humanity after the holidays.

Our 2010 tree grew 8" taller in one year

Planning ahead. Planting a live tree after the holidays is one good solution, but it requires planning: you have to prepare a hole in your yard (if you live north, dig in advance of frost) or arrange to donate the live tree to a park or school nearby that wants it. Call city hall to find out.

Timing. You can’t bring a live potted evergreen indoors for more than a few days before it begins to suffer from the raised temperatures.

What to do with your cut tree after Christmas has come and gone? Some alternatives:

Mulch. Many towns and cities offer a free mulch program for spent trees, and some even pick up the trees curbside.  At Dunbar Cave State Park in Tennessee, about 1,000 recycled Christmas Trees get mulched for use on hiking trails every year.

Power. Residents of Burlington, Vermont, can drop off their trees to be chipped and burned to generate electricity for area power companies.

Dunes. Other municipalities organize projects to use trees for erosion protection. We’ve heard of these efforts in Louisiana, Alabama, the New Jersey shore. The Rockefeller tree is destined to be used as lumber for Habitat for Humanity.

Some 20,000 trees help create a stretch of dunes, 4-9 feet high, along the mile-long oceanfront in Bradley Beach, NJ

Habitat. The Heron Rookery at Baker’s Lake reuses Christmas Trees as nesting materials.

Illinois: Telephone poles, Christmas trees & 1,300 birds. Photo, Robert Sliwinski

Here’s a state-by-state directory of tree-recycling alternatives.

****   Season’s Greetings to one and all!   ****

Full page, 4-color gift wrap: delightful!

Here’s how it looked once I cut it out of the newspaper:

And after wrapping a present!

A decent ribbon helps...

This got me thinking about all the other ways to Wrap a gift using used wrapping paper, boxes, bows, ribbons.

• Snip up a discarded piece of clothing (clean, of course). I’ve found this is an extra-special surprise when the recipient used to wear the item him or herself! The example below was saved from last year – complete with one end still taped in place.
• Leaf through magazines and catalogues destined for the recycle bin or (gasp) the landfill. Our top publishers and ad agencies spend a fortune to make these glossy photos look great; why on earth not use them to wrap presents? (In photo, the two packages next to the small blue box w/ green tie.)
• If you’ve remodeled lately, or if you have an architect nearby, you’ve got access to fascinating white-and-black wrapping paper. Use a bright ribbon to tart it up. (Example below has fresh springs in the bow knot.)
• Maps and nautical charts.
• Paper shopping bags with cool designs.
• Tissue paper from your (we hope eco-friendly) dry-cleaner.

Front, L to R: hubby's shirt, nytimes.com magazine, WSJ; Rear, L to R: recycled building plans, blue box from UncommonGoods, Vanity Fair mag

How’s that for a start? (Don’t tell me you’re already done with your kris kringling!) And what are your eco-gift wrapping tips?

Now two of our favorite and longtime deeply green friends have also blogged about Patagonia’s stunner message, and we wanted to capture them for you.

Wendy Gordon

First, from Wendy Gordon’s piece in The Huffington Post: “How I Spent my Black Friday Selling, not Buying, Patagonia Fleeces on eBay”:

….my plan this year for Black Friday was to sit out the retail game altogether. That was before I saw the ad… ”Don’t Buy This Jacket.” … It went on to encourage readers not to buy what they didn’t need and to sell their used Patagonia products on eBay…. So while I had promised myself I wouldn’t buy anything other than a quart of milk (we’d run out) on Black Friday, I made the transition effortlessly into über-cyber-saleswoman, posting every one of the fleeces my 20-something sons had outgrown on the retail site, along with all those shirts they’d really never liked in the first place.

Oh, it felt good. So good, in fact, that I ended up cleaning out three whole closets. What I couldn’t sell through the Patagonia initiative, I bundled up for the nearby thrift shop.

**************

Jeffrey Hollender

And, from Jeffrey Hollender’s blog, “Don’t Buy This: The Truth About Sustainability”:

Having not broken my obsession with the print version of The New York Times, I was thrilled to greet Black Friday by opening to a full-page ad from Patagonia that urged readers “Don’t Buy This Jacket.”

To the best of my knowledge, Patagonia has never purchased a full-page ad in the Times, and for this, the first time that they did, they are urging consumers to buy less stuff. This exhibits both true leadership and untarnished truth about what it means to be sustainable.

The copy reads: Don’t buy what you don’t need. Think twice before you buy anything.

Click here for Jeff’s complete post.

PGer Nick Rockwell (that IS a Patagonia vest?)

Thanks again to Chelsea stringer and Patagonia enthusiast Nick Rockwell, who told us about the ad before anyone else had mentioned it, and who caught a Cyber-Monday sequel in his email:

These women are stylishly green, intelligently and brilliantly green: they’re strict about ingredients, family, and process; they seem to travel everywhere and know everyone; they always have fresh flowers; and they are ready with sharp poison daggers to stab greenwashers. Also, they almost always have a French grandmother.

From SlowLoveLife.com

We recently caught up with Priscilla for a Q & A. (The first in a series, if you like the idea!)

Q. How did you get started?

A. I started developing the concept for my store 6 years ago, when I couldn’t find the non-toxic cleaning products I needed when I was at my house in Maine in the summer. I started shipping them from Los Angeles to Maine a week before I was leaving! Just nuts! Also, my friends were always asking me where I bought things or asked for advice about my lifestyle. I never imagined having my own store, let alone online and I discovered it was the most natural thing for me to do. Maybe it’s in my genes…

(Ahh, yes… that Woolworth!)

Golden Rules painting by Priscilla Woolworth, 24" square, on wood

Q. What makes you bounce out of bed in the morning?

A. How did you know that I bounce out of bed in the morning?! I can’t wait to get to work, especially if I’ve just read something fantastic in the newspaper. I must share it right away. I am a compulsive sharer of good, inspiring, exciting information and all of it is connected to my mission of educating and inspiring the public to make changes they can feel good about.

Penguin egg cosy (or puppet?), made of carpet remnants. $12

Q. What’s your mission?

A. My mission is twofold: to provide my favorite practical non-toxic, organic, energy-saving, water-saving products in my store; and to be a trusted resource for information about living a more sustainable lifestyle. I am my own best customer and use most of the products I sell. The market bags, reusable produce bags, stainless steel compost pail, African kettle, olive soap, glass water bottles and Valentina outdoor composter are a few of my products I use every single day.

Here’s the “delightful Kettle”: “I keep it by my kitchen sink, where I pour water from unfinished glasses, or saved water from washing lettuce, etc. Do not put any soap in it, only water! When it’s filled up, I use it to water my potted plants outside my kitchen.”

African Water Kettle made of salvaged plastic. $12

Q. I’m interested in your big thoughts on why sustainable living is important. Why bother?

A. Sustainable living is the way we all need to live if we are going to have a chance at leaving our world a livable and hopefully better place for our children. People need to know that they don’t have to sacrifice their lifestyle but instead can transition easily to something as easy as using reusable market bags or water bottles. I have heard people say that anything we do won’t make a difference, and I strongly disagree. We all have the power to change the world by what we buy… if we all support, for example, the companies that make non-toxic cleaning products or the ones that use recycled paper for paper products, the more those products will become the norm rather than the exception. The awesome United States is a consumer society, so we as the consumers have a lot of power we don’t even realize. Everything we buy is tracked, and when more people spend their money buying non-toxic cleaning products rather than the traditional brands, those environmentally products will become more available and more affordable.

I am inspired so much by my French grandmother, who at 93 years old, has explained to me the way everyone used to live, decades ago: people bought local and produce in season, using market baskets or cloth bags. Very little was wasted and people lived more simply and were content with less. I feel there is a movement to aspire to this kind of lifestyle.

Priscilla's Valentina Outdoor Wooden Compost Bin

Q. We would love your personal recommendations for products and services that make the process easy and terrific.

A. The easiest recommendations are for things we do on a regular basis, such as shopping for food and personal care. Bring your own market bags with you, buy organic food whenever you can, and buy paper goods made with recycled paper. If you live in an area where water is getting scarcer, get in the habit of keeping a bucket in your shower to catch as much wasted water as possible and use it on your plants instead. EWG.org is a great resource when it comes to checking the safety of beauty products and suntan lotions. Check with your local DWP (Department of Water and Power) and find out what energy saving programs they are offering, and learn ways you can reduce the energy and water wasted in your home, and save money. Add indoor plants like a Spider plant, which acts as natural air cleaners, busting indoor air pollutants in your home or office.

Priscilla on a building, location TBA

Q. What are you doing posted on the side of that huge building?!

A. Just hanging around…

You can find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @ecowoolworth.

When we heard that one of the largest corporations in the world named all of its employees Head of Sustainability, we had to find out more. We spoke with Emma Peacock of Unilever Australasia, and she explained what’s going on down under:

Emma Peacock, Corporate Affairs, Australia & New Zealand, Unilever

Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan is an ambitious set of targets, ongoing globally. Here in Australia and New Zealand, we wanted to define our story and our contribution to the Unilever plan. The plan is a clear vision, and we wanted to put ourselves out there. We needed to unveil the Australia/New Zealand roadmap, and we wanted to do it in a way that would be noticed, and get people on board. It’s such an important part of our business, it’s truly part of everybody’s job! We frankly can’t do it unless everyone is involved. People in finance, people on the factory floor, in nutrition, in product development, all across the company. Everyone plays a role. So we decided that everybody is Head of Sustainability! We printed up 5 business cards for each of the 1800 employees – some of them had never had a business card before! It’s not a whole stack, it’s just 5, to show symbolically that You have a new exciting role.

1,800 employees are the Head of Sustainability, complete with business cards!

We gave everyone a new job manual, a fun piece, saying Here’s why YOU have been selected as Head of Sustainability. It’s really the only way we can achieve the growth we envision over the next ten, twenty, thirty years.

Head of Sustainability job manual delivered to every work station

We made posters featuring 6 different employees and put them up overnight. Each one describes the role of that employee in making a sustainable idea or change happen and why they are therefore the ‘Head of Sustainability.’ This goes with our “small actions, big difference” theme. People do simple things at home, at work here, and as part of a team — it might not feel like a big deal, but they all add up and can have massive impact…. We developed this campaign with the help of an agency Republic of Everyone. Clever people.

Mareana, Production Operator & Head of Sustainability

We’re guessing that other teams at Unilever will come up with fabulous ideas as well, and we look forward to hearing all about them — and being inspired by them! In fact, we’ve already noticed a handy Unilever sing-along shower app on Unilever’s Facebook page, which supports Practically Green’s shorter-shower actions. The app lets you choose length of shower to be timed (2 to 7 minutes) and choose from music that Wakes me up or Chills me out.

We call them UniCLEVER. Be part of it on Twitter with hashtag #SustLiving.

Shorter Shower Ballad app

The environmental cost of everything we make is astonishing. Consider the R2 Jacket shown, one of our best sellers. To make it required 135 liters of water, enough to meet the daily needs (three glasses a day) of 45 people. Its journey from its origin as 60% recycled polyester to our Reno warehouse generated nearly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, 24 times the weight of the finished product. This jacket left behind, on its way to Reno, two-thirds its weight in waste.

It’s a classy reminder: Sometimes, the best Stuff is the stuff you already have. Which is why we have dozens of Stuff-related actions at Practically Green, including:

Give experiential holiday gifts (worth 10 points at Practically Green)

Attend a swap event or use a swap site (5 points)

Organize or join a neighborhood tool or equipment-sharing cooperative (10 points)

See all of them right here – and please suggest yours: http://practicallygreen.com/actions/stuff

Patagonia R2 Jacket

If you’d still like to get a Patagonia jacket, you might check the listings on eBay. We saw 205 pages of apparel there when we last checked 5 minutes ago.

Buy something used on eBay or Craigslist (5 points)

Buy or use vintage or second-hand stuff for the Holidays

Holiday Nutcracker Mouse

For inspiration, here’s a vintage mouse costume that’s 20 yrs old, perfect for Nutcracker duty. Thank you, Farrah Graham of Regina, Canada, who sent us this pic with the following story:

For Hallowe’en our daughter wore a mouse costume that has been handed down in our family for the past 20 years!  (And she looked just as adorable as all the mice before her!)

What are your ideas for greening the holidays? Have you used EcoFreek.com or EcoSharing.net — they’re both recommended on Practically Green and await your rating!

In a skittish economy, money trumps all. Everyone wants to boost efficiency, reduce waste, and be healthy not only because it’s the right thing to do but because it’s miserable watching cash float away any more than we must. Practically Green has 70+ actions you can do that are either free or that will yield impressive financial results.

Check the list! You’re probably doing lots of these things already. You’ll see several to do starting, well… Now!

Here’s a sampling. The point value tells you the relative impact of each action:

Turn thermostat down by 4 degrees in the winter (50 Points)

Turn down hot water heater (20 points)

Turn off the heat dry feature on your dishwasher (20 points)

Switch to reusable towels or dish cloths at home (20 points)

Install one low-flow shower head (20 points)

Use reusable shopping bags regularly (10 points)

Unplug (or avoiding buying) your second refrigerator (50 points)

Turn off the lights when you leave a room (10 points)

Unplug chargers and appliances when not in use (20 points)

Buy antique or secondhand furniture and home goods (50 points)

Buy a pre-owned home instead of building new (200 points)

Commit to 25 of these next steps, and you’ve earned the Frugalista badge. Who wouldn’t want this coy pig on their Practically Green dashboard?!

So go ahead, pick your 25 actions and get this savvy oinker on board your green program!

If you’re diving into a Hallowe’en frenzy this weekend (and who isn’t), our Green Halloween badge should be your first stop.

The badge rewards you for making some seriously healthy green holiday choices — including trick-or-treating bags, candy, candy alternatives, eek-o-friendly cocktails for adults, costume selection, and face paint.

Example: Consider Switching to natural face paint. Who wants to clog their pores with anything that might be contaminated with lead (for instance)? You’ll find suggestions on Practically Green including DIY tips; our partner GreenHalloween.org has 6 Very Simple Steps to Make Your Own Face Paints here.

Corey and Lynn of GreenHalloween.org

About GreenHalloween.org:

Corey Colwell-Lipson and her mother Lynn Colwell launched Green Halloween in 2006 with the idea that a few other concerned parents might be interested in making Halloween more about safe, fun trick-or-treating — and less about junk food and “flammable plastic death trap costumes” (as Stephen Colbert calls them).

Five years later they’ve reached a tipping point: tens of thousands of people are persuaded that there’s a better way to celebrate this holiday, with millions more on the way.

We called Green Halloween headquarters today – suffice to say it’s bloody insane there — and got their last-minute ideas for making sure this is a fantastic and safe holiday for you and your friends and family:

1. Check out the first-ever Guide to a non-GMO Halloween: Created in partnership with Non-GMO Project.

2. National Costume Swap Day took place a few weeks ago: 170+ swap events happened in the US and Canada. Why not throw together your own neighborhood swap right now, this weekend?

Host or Join a Costume Swap

3. Find Green Halloween® events across the country this weekend and on Halloween, including the Howl-O-Weens at the Phoenix Zoo and Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo, and Boo at the Zoo at the Bronx Zoo.

4. Three Alternatives to eating leftover candy

We’d love your ideas for a Greener Halloween, so please let us know what you’re doing!

We took a closer look and saw the name: BigBelly Solar. (Nice!)

Discovered they’re headquartered near Boston – probably some MIT kids, we thought.

NOT.

BigBelly is the brainchild of Jim Poss, a local inventor: “While walking down a Boston street one day and observing a trash vehicle in action – idling at a pick up point, blocking traffic, with smoke pouring out of its exhaust, while litter was still prevalent on the street – Poss was struck by the thought (the necessity, really) that there had to be a better way.”

Jim Poss, a Business Week "Most Promising Social Entrepreneur"

Today BigBelly Solar has 14,000 stations in every state except North Dakota and in thirty countries, including numerous cities (including Philadelphia, El Paso, and Salzburg, Austria), universities, and hotspot destinations: Vail Resorts, Colorado, was the first customer, in 2003. It began with a solar-powered trash compactor that works even on cloudy days to minimize trash volume and collect single-stream recycling. SmartBelly waste and recycling bins –also solar– are connected wirelessly along with the BigBelly compactors to a management console that uses Google mapping to indicate receptacle capacity. The SmartBelly reports fullness and collection data like the BigBelly, so it is “smart” – but it does not compact. It holds less than BigBelly for areas with lower volume of trash or recycling. That allows for right-sizing the collection stations in the system.

More recently, the company has developed a system that combines the BigBelly compactors, the SmartBelly units, and a management console into “the Smart Grid for waste & recycling.”

From any web browser, the new CLEAN ™ Management Console provides unprecedented visibility and transparency into public space waste & recycling collection operations. New visualization tools and reporting capabilities provide powerful insights for more efficient management of operations, better activity tracking and enhanced auditing of results.

Behind the scenes, the network Command Center crunches the data that delivers the reporting and insights and controls the waste & recycling stations, while providing remote diagnostics, over-the-air software upgrades and proactive maintenance options.

The central element of the BigBelly Solar value proposition is dramatic reductions in operating costs without any reduction in service levels.

“Ordinary trash cans don’t know anything! They’re just trash cans,” BigBelly’s Richard Kennelly explains. “Our compactor holds 5 times more trash than a regular bin.” Click here for more info.

Some of BigBelly Solar’s customers are going further: Halifax, Nova Scotia has BigBelly Solar 4-component waste & recycling stations, including compost!

BigBelly Solar waste, recycling and compost station in Halifax

Got a Greenovation to share? Post it here and we’ll follow up!

This PG action explains:

Food scraps make up 7 percent of household waste, on average. Some (but not all) can be composted. It’s nothing short of miraculous to literally watch your garbage bag deflate–as if on a diet–simply because you compost scraps rather than send them to a landfill.

Click here for the full story: Compost Kitchen Food Waste

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My husband did grow up on a farm, and I can tell you that he couldn’t possibly compost without worms. Worms are the secret weapon for any world-class composter. Let’s face it, if you are going to all the trouble of collecting your food scraps and then cultivating them in a compost bin, you will appreciate a secret weapon. And Fall is an ideal time to begin.

Here’s a step-by-step personally illustrated guide.

1) Order your worms. Google “compost worms” for sources. Jack chose the Worm Ladies of Charlestown, RI. One pound of worms (hundreds) cost $25.00. The site is crawling (sorry) with great advice.

Our Worms arrived via Priority Mail

2) Unpack your worms near your compost bin.

3) In they go! They disappear almost instantly, chomp chomping on your banana peels, egg shells, and salade nicoise.

Jack estimates he paid 2 cents per worm... how many can you find?

4) Jack’s Secret Sauce. Mixed in with the food scraps: dirt, peat moss, seaweed (from nearby beach), grass clippings (if your lawn fertilizer is organic), leaves, hay.

Jack's Secret Sauce, ready to be mixed up tomorrow

5) Lid goes back on: worms are all tucked in! Warming up and chowing down!

Worms all tucked in

So if you are interested in producing the Black Gold that is every gardener’s dream, worms are definitely part of the composting equation.

PG’s editorial director, Alexandra Zissu, lives in the thick of New York City, where she is a passionate composter. She offers this inspiration on Practically Green:

Urbanites can compost! You don’t need a yard. Worm bins tuck into most corners with no smell or mess. There are also automatic composters ideal for apartment dwellers.

A fantastic no-fuss option is compost drop-off. Increasingly–especially in urban areas–there are community drop off points and even municipal pick up. Check with your farmers’ market or community garden for local details.

Composting is like golf: you can always get better, and enthusiasts will yammer about it all day and night. If you have any questions whatsoever about composting, we know experienced pros like Jack and Lexy who are eager to advise. Post your questions and we promise to get quick answers for you! And if we can’t handle your inquiry, we know who to call: the Worm Ladies!