Consumption

Christmas Tree Art from Trash

AZ_Sun — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:21:49 -0600

Barbie Tree Broken Glass Tree Shoe Tree

THE ART OF JUNK

Innovative designer & artist, Janis Leonard, creates Christmas tree art from things that were destined to the landfill like old shoes, dolls and broken glass. Her Christmas tree art is on display at AZ88, a Scottsdale, Arizona restaurant & bar, also at its sister restaurant Bar 89 in Manhattan. The restaurants often rotate art installations.

It is wonderful how so many in the art world can look at refuse, what most people would throw away, and see the building blocks of beauty.

Barbie Tree: Janis Leonard and her team assembled this tree out of plastic dolls, many of them Barbies, floating in jars of colored liquid.

Broken Glass Tree: A monument to the fact that beauty can come from broken things is made of cracked and chipped martini and wine glasses collected over four years from AZ88 and its sister restaurant Bar 89 in Manhattan.

Shoe Tree: This tree is made of shoes, most of them from the 1970s. Janis Leonard said that of all the trees she’s done over the years, this one has gotten the most feedback. She said people would comment on how they used to own pairs just like the ones on the tree.

This gives me a good idea of what I can do with the dozens and dozens of old worn out baseball caps my husband won't wear anymore, but also won't part with. lol

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Save the Planet...Send e-Cards and Cartoons

AZ_Sun — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:52:14 -0600

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This is one of my favorite Happy Birthday cartoons that I have sent via e-mail over the past year to people who would think it was funny. I am gladly retiring this cartoon as of today.

The Hallmark greeting card company has never made much money on me when it comes to sending holiday greetings, birthday wishes, or to remember and honor a special occasion. Instead I choose to show I care in an environmentally friendly way by sending e-cards and cartoons. In the past I would usually find a funny cartoon or picture like the one above to e-mail because most of the e-cards were pretty lame. But I found wonderful free e-cards on Rattlebox. These e-cards are funny, smart, and unique because many e-cards use vintage movies.

Thanksgiving and the holidays will be upon us soon, so send an e-card to family and friends and reduce your carbon footprint.

Today, November 11th is also Veterans Day, and Rattlebox has e-cards you can send to the special veteran in your life.

China mulls green tax to curb pollution

11thhouraction — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:02:32 -0500

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China is studying whether to impose an environmental tax on polluters to cut their emissions, the official China Daily reported on Saturday.

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Site provided by www.reuters.com

Boston Taxi Fleet to Be All Hybrid by 2015

11thhouraction — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:13:50 -0500

New York City’s taxi fleet has been slowly converting to hybrids for some time, and earlier this year Mayor Bloomberg indicated that livery cabs should green-up their act as well. Now another Northeast city is getting in on the act: Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has announced that 2015 the city’s entire taxi fleet would have to be converted to hybrid vehicles.

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Site provided by www.treehugger.com

Get CA$H for Your E-Waste

AZ_Sun — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:31:38 -0500

Get some GREEN and be GREEN for the environment by keeping your E-Waste out of landfills.

Recycling is getting easier each year and now there are a few websites that make it painless to recycle your old electronics and some offer you CASH for all your old cell phones, iPods, laptops, digital cameras, GPS and gaming systems.

Here are a few of them you can check out.

Gazelle.com not only buys back your e-waste but also allows you to earn money with their referral program.

Venjuvo.com is one web site that buys back HDTV’s as well as other electronics.

CellforCash.com recycles and pays cash for cell phones only.

TechForward.com allows you to lock in your future trade-in values for computers and consumer electronics today, so you don’t have to guess what your devise will be worth a year or two from now.

MyBoneYard.com accepts only laptops, desktop PCs, cell phones and flat-panel monitors, and gives Visa gift cards rather than cash.

Current market data determines how much these sites can offer for an item. When something no longer has market value and can't be reused, they keep it available for recycling and work with recycling partners that are recognized as among the best in the industry to ensure that everything that comes in is recycled responsibly.

I am only on my third cell phone and I’m STILL using my Motorola StarTAC. This very OLD model has absolutely no market value but is still in perfect working condition, so I will happily just keep using it till it dies.

Environmental Educational Tool for Teachers and Students.

mhaney — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:59:00 -0500

We have have over 1000 Environmental based Experiments, labs and lesson plans

for Teachers/Home Schoolers and their students. Search topics like Global Warming (of course), climate change, air pollution, science, ocean etc..

*The site is fun and easy to use

*You do not have to hassle with any login procedure

*Grade ranges are from K-12

*The site is 110% kid safe

www.greenplanetsearch.com is also:

*An environmental search engine with over 3000 sites indexed and adding more green sites daily (we are an actual search engine, this is not another Google custom search)

* Original Environment related News Aricles

*Green Website Awards for sites that deliver great content in a unique qnd captivating way

*Submit your Green Website feature

Below is a screenshot of our home page showing the ECO LESSON PLAN ENGINE on the top of the page.

Directions for LESSON PLANS, go to www.greenplanetsearch.com on the top of the page it will say ECO SEARCH ENGINE.

On the right of that you will see the black which states "switch to eco lesson plans" Click It, then you will see it change to the ECO LESSON PLANS, type in your search and learn!!!

How to change our consumption patterns?

diegosavior — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:09:56 -0500

I´m just starting this blog because I got a few questions and I´m seeking various opinions

1 Do you consider yourself a part of the consuming masses?

2 You think First World Countries should make an example on how to addapt our consumption patterns to the increasingly davastating situation our world is going through right now?

3 You think the United States are sponsoring the same environmental consciousness as European Countries?

4 What can I do about used batteries (AA, AAA, etc)? How do we dispose of them without harming the environment?

Amazing Stat: California Uses More Gas than China

11thhouraction — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:40:31 -0500

Given all the news coverage about the rise of the Chinese economy, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world's most populous country is hogging all the world's resources, while the developed nations are fighting for scraps.

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Site provided by www.wiredscience.com

Businesses Emerge to Help School Fund-Raisers Go Green

AZ_Sun — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:18:03 -0500

Parents and Kids Want Goods to Sell That Do Some Good

For decades, children have hawked candy and cookie dough to friends and family to help fund extracurricular activities and school playgrounds.

Now a handful of entrepreneurs have set out to change that paradigm, offering ecologically friendly products for kids and parents to sell for school fund-raisers. From recycled wrapping paper to fair-trade coffee, the business owners are pitching the products as viable fund-raising alternatives for schools.

It's good timing, as schools race to eliminate junk food in the face of rising childhood obesity rates, and state and local governments crack down on junk-food sales in schools. At the same time, green is in, and parents and teachers are paying more attention to energy use and pollutants.

Corinne Dowst, head of fund raising for the Parent Teacher Association at Henniker Community School in Henniker, N.H., says she was looking for new fund-raising ideas after her school's disappointing holiday sale of ornaments and related items last year. Concerns about children's products made in China helped put a damper on that sale, she says.

When Ms. Dowst saw an ad for Greenraising, a start-up fund-raising company that sells eco-friendly products, she was hooked. The school organized a spring sale around Earth Day, and circulated copies of the Greenraising catalog, which features such products as recycled gift-wrap paper and reusable water bottles. The result was the school's most successful fund-raiser in nearly three years, grossing about $2,500, Ms. Dowst says.

To date, Greenraising has helped about 500 schools and nonprofits raise money, says Lisa Olson, who founded the Agoura Hills, Calif., company last year. The company asks schools or nonprofits to distribute its catalog, from which customers then buy directly. For an item that costs, say, $20, Greenraising keeps $12 and returns $8 to the school or nonprofit. The company has grown to five full-time employees, Ms. Olson says.

Kids hear conflicting messages in today's complex society, Ms. Olson says, and too many school fund-raisers add to that confusion. "We're telling the kids about obesity and selling cookie dough," she observes. "We're telling them about global warming, and they come home with this big catalog of wrapping paper with no recycled content."

Parental Guidance
Some eco-friendly fund-raisers have come to another realization as well: It's the parents who are taking on more of the fund raising -- largely because of fears about their kids' safety -- and they'd rather buy and sell products that they want to use themselves.

"We learned whom we're selling to -- the kids' moms," says Corey Berman, president and co-founder of Green Students Fundraising Ltd., a Toronto-based company he started after graduating from college in 2006. "My friends would never buy these products, but I talk to people like moms and it's a different story."

Green Students began by selling energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. But as more mainstream retailers began offering them, Mr. Berman says, the company wasn't able to compete on cost and knew it had to diversify. So, the company started selling stainless-steel water bottles, which got a lift from the recent outcry against bisphenol A, a chemical commonly found in plastic water bottles. Green Students also sells dryer balls, a reusable product that softens clothes while reducing drying time. The company, which relies on a focus group of area moms who test potential new products, became profitable in May. It uses catalogs to sell its goods and tries to keep prices under 20 Canadian dollars (about US$19.80).

One challenge these companies face is coming up with products that parents and friends will purchase year after year. Both Greenraising and Green Students say they plan to periodically change the items in their catalogs to keep them fresh, as well as offer products such as environmentally friendly household cleaners that consumers may want to purchase repeatedly.

"Every successful fund-raising company offers something that's fairly low-priced and offers frequency of purchase," says Tim Sullivan, founder of PTO Today, a Wrentham, Mass., magazine for parent-teacher organizations. "Like gift wrap," Mr. Sullivan says. "Every family uses it."

Strong Brew
Lots of families also buy coffee, which is something that led eco-minded schools to contact Chris Treter, co-founder of Higher Grounds Trading Co., a fair-trade coffee roaster in Traverse City, Mich. Fair-trade coffee is a concept begun a few years ago by small producers that wanted to show consumers their coffee is produced under conditions beneficial to workers and the environment. Schools looking to incorporate lessons about the environment and labor standards will call and ask if they can purchase the coffee for a fund-raiser, Mr. Treter says.

Today, school and church fund-raisers represent about 10% of Higher Grounds' business, Mr. Treter says, and that number is on the rise. So far, it's mostly the organizations that have reached out to him. For no money upfront, he supplies coffee to the school or organization, which then sells it at retail prices. The seller then reimburses Mr. Treter at the wholesale price of the coffee.

For a company that's not primarily in the fund-raising business, he says, the format is cumbersome. Higher Grounds has to come up with individualized order forms for each school to give to students, and explain the ordering process to teachers and administrators. "It's a lot more time-consuming than going into a grocery store that orders every two weeks," Mr. Treter says.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Country, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest

11thhouraction — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:38:10 -0500

What if “eating local” in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

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Site provided by www.nytimes.com