Some useful information, some anecdotes, some rantings, and some inspiration
from my quest to make my family and perhaps the world around me A Little Greener Every Day

I wish everything could be explained like this. The geniuses who brought us The Story of Stuff, have now put together The Story of Cap and Trade. I get how it works now. You will too once you watch this. Even if you don’t agree with the conclusions the video makes, you’ll understand the process of cap and trade.

The Story of Cap & Trade from Story of Stuff Project on Vimeo.

Last night at my town’s green team meeting, there was a consultant trying to explain to us how financing solar panels for our borough buildings is feasible. Boy, do I wish he could have had a video like this to explain it to someone like me. I wouldn’t have walked away with a headache!

My friend Alison Kerr graciously offered up a guest post for us today. With all the hustle and bustle happening during this season, taking ten minutes for a cup of tea is exactly what some of us are going to need.

If there’s one thing the Scots love it’s their tea. You can hardly imagine them getting through a day or a social interaction without “putting on the kettle” for “a wee cuppa”. But, strangely, I’ve not always been a tea drinker. And it was only a week or so ago that it first occured to me to pay any attention whatever to how the tea I put in my teapot was grown… don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner, considering that I think a lot about where my food comes from and how it’s grown.

Greening your tea drinking has got to be one of the easiest tasks you can set yourself. You can start on the shelves of your local supermarket. The Celestial Seasonings company support sustainable agriculture and fair trade and their teas are widely available. They make a large variety of teas, from green tea, to herb teas and white and black teas. They even have sample packs so you can find the teas you love.  Not quite so easy to find in stores, but organic, fair trade, kosher, and fueled by solar power are tea products from Guayaki. Their Yerba Mate chai tea is rainforest grown and supports reforestation. Did I mention that it’s delicious?

Switching to a greener cup of tea is simple – next time you’re shopping for tea read the packet to see what you’re drinking. Then check the shelves at your local stores to find organic, fair trade, sustainable, and ‘green’ teas. Nature will thank you!

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Alison Kerr is an American from Scotland who writes about connecting with nature and the outdoors through our homes, gardens, neighborhoods and communities. You can find Alison’s writing with tips, inspiration, and information at her blog Loving Nature’s Garden.

tea cup image: foxrosser

There’s no denying it. The holidays are upon us. Thanksgiving is next week. I’ll be doing some posts on the holidays in the upcoming weeks. I thought I’d do a roundup of my posts from the past two years that had ideas and information about making the holidays and all that go along with them a little greener.

• Make sure there’s some local harvest on your Thanksgiving table – Your garden may not be bountiful anymore, but there are still some local foods available that you can put on your table.
• Leftover turkey? Try my turkey potpie recipe – Not the lowest in fat recipe, but it’s a delicious way to use up your leftover turkey and not waste food.
• Real vs fake Christmas trees – which is greener? – I did a lot of research on this topic, and the answer might surprise you.
• 10 easy ways to be more sustainable with holiday gift wrapping – Some people say not wrapping is greenest, but half the fun of a gift is unwrapping it.
• Subtle green holiday party ideas – not happening – A little advice from me on letting people know the green steps you’re taking during the holidays.
• Have yourself a merry little recycling Christmas – A few ideas on how to recycle all the extra stuff you end up with during the holidays.
• Recycling Christmas lights – There’s a company that takes your old Christmas lights, breaks them apart, and recycles the various parts. If you find that your lights don’t work when you take them out this year, this is one way to dispose of them responsibly.

Image: Andrew*

This Sunday, November 15th is America Recycles Day. RecycleBank has come up with this handy recycling list and asked me to share it with you.

Chances are you’re already recycling the cans, bottles, and paper that get picked up at the curb, but what about all that other stuff that’s lurking in your drawers or closets – like outdated gadgets and dead batteries – that you’re not sure how to recycle? The following household items are especially important to donate or recycle because they contain materials that can contaminate the environment if they wind up in landfills or that can easily be reclaimed for use in new products. Here are some convenient ways to keep them out of the trash:

1. Electronics – All Office Depot, Staples, and Best Buy stores accept larger electronics like desktop computers for recycling for a small fee (usually $10) and smaller ones like cell phones and PDAs for free. Goodwill stores accept used computer equipment (some locations also accept televisions) for free.

And you can earn RecycleBank Points by recycling MP3 players/iPods, laptops, and cell phones through our partners at Collective Good, FlipSwap, and Gazelle.

Why: You’ll keep toxic materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and brominated flame retardants out of landfills. And useful materials will be recovered, saving energy and resources.

2. Rechargeable batteries – From cordless phones and power tools, digital cameras, and other gizmos – these can be recycled for free at 30,000 drop-off points nationwide, including retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, RadioShack, Sears, and Target. Enter your zip code at Call2Recycle to find one near you.

Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to find places to recycle alkaline (or single-use) batteries. Try Earth911 to find drop off locations or order a box (for $34.50, including prepaid shipping) from Battery Solutions and send them up to 12 pounds of alkaline and/or rechargeable batteries for recycling.

Why: Like many electronics, batteries contain heavy metals and other chemicals best kept out of the waste stream. Plus, recyclers reclaim metals from them that are used to make, for example, new batteries and steel.

3. Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, but they contain a small amount of mercury and shouldn’t be thrown in the trash. Take them to any Ikea or Home Depot store for recycling or go to Lamp Recycle to find other drop off locations near you.

Why: CFLs in landfills can break and release mercury, a neurotoxin, into the environment.

4. Plastic Bags – Even if you’ve switched to reusable bags for your shopping, you probably have a bunch of these stored in your home. Luckily, lots of retailers like Wal-Mart, Safeway, Albertsons, Wegmans, Krogers, and Giant now have bins where you can recycle plastic grocery bags (and newspaper, drycleaning, bread, and sealable food storage bags). To find a drop off location near you, go to Plastic Bag Recycling or Earth911.

Why: They’re made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and when thrown away they take a very long time to decompose. Recyclers will turn them into new products like plastic lumber.

5. Anything you don’t need that could be of great value to others – For instance, you can donate your used prescription glasses to the nonprofit OneSight at any LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut, Target Optical, or Sears Optical location (or go to One Sight for more locations near you). You can also donate unused, unexpired medications including antibiotics, pain relievers, and others by mailing them to the Health Equity Project. The glasses and medications will be distributed to people in need in developing countries.

Keep in mind that you should always recycle hazardous substances like paint, pesticides, propane gas tanks, and motor oil at your town’s household hazardous waste collection events or permanent collection center. Go to Earth911 or call 1-800-CLEANUP to find collection sites and events.

The lack of posting this week has been because I’ve been at the hospital all week with on of my family members. If this were a political blog, I’d have a lot to say about the health care system, but it’s a green blog so I’ll stay on topic.

I’m at the hospital right now looking at the local newspaper that gets delivered every day with breakfast. Interesting little teaser at the top of the front page “Clotheslines Make Comeback” in Home & Garden section. Of course, I turn to the piece. I’m not impressed.

The two empty-nester neighbors who were featured in the piece share a clothesline or as the piece puts it “a quaint air freshener.” The piece makes it clear that it’s all well and good for these two women who don’t have much better to do to hang out their clothes but for busy big families or people with allergies, it’s just not practical. I understand the allergy part – but indoor clotheslines can take care of that. The automatic out for big families, though, well, I’ve got a problem with that.

While I wouldn’t categorize my family as big (there’s four of us), we are pretty busy and laundry still gets hung out. It is an effort. I have help, though. It’s the rest of the family.

My kids, at 7 and 10, already know how to do laundry. They can separate the clothes, put them in the washer, put them in the dryer if that’s where they go (usually the mounds of socks and towels) and hang them on the line. Often I do the hanging on the line because I like to do it. But, they usually get them off the line. My husband helps, too.

Line drying isn’t just for empty-nesters who are quaint. It’s for everyone with a backyard where it’s legal (yes, legal, there are some places where it’s illegal – I’ve ranted about that before). It’s for anyone who can string a line in their basement or laundry room. It’s for those who can hang things on their shower rod. It’s for those who want to save a significant amount of money on their energy bill each year.  It’s for those who want to save greenhouse gasses for entering our atmosphere.

Line drying may not be an option for some people. But to imply that if a family is big it’s out of the question is ridiculous.

Image: Peter Blanchard