MommyFest is celebrating 5 years with a Blog Party and YOU are invited.
If you haven’t been to MommyFest before, no worries, it’s a great way to meet other mom bloggers and introduce yourself and your web site.
There will be fun prizes and lots of chat.
Clcik on over to the MommyFest site for details and I’ll see you at the party!
One of my favorite summer past times is hanging flower gardens. Each spring I try to pick just the right flowers to bring color and energy to my front porch. They make me smile every time I look out the window and I can’t think of a better way to say WELCOME to my home.
For some reason the birds in my neighborhood also look forward to my hanging gardens.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy hearing the birds sing and watching them frolic around. They are welcome to seek refuge in any of my dozens of trees, but the hanging gardens on my front porch are not intended to be their home. Getting the birds to nest in the trees instead of my baskets is about as easy as getting Obama and Clinton to agree on who should be the Democratic presidential nominee.
I was ready to head to the store to buy those foil pin wheels to try, but now that I am focused on being green in my home office I find that thought process follows me around in everything I do. So I decided to look around and see what I might already have that would work. I did a little search on the net and found a suggestion of using an old CD.
I think I may have FINALLY found a solution.
First I tried hanging an old CD from the basket and that seem to deter some of the birds, especially the smaller ones, but the large Robin that really wanted the prime real estate got bold enough to fly in. So being determined myself, I decided to the stick 2 CD’s down in the dirt of the basket sort of making a CD tent. I think that did the trick.
I tried to photograph it above in case you are having the same bird trouble I was.
What a great way to recycle CD’s. Now the Robin can find a nice spot in a tree and we humans can enjoy the flowers in the basket.
Have a great idea on how to reuse something, please share it.
When I was getting my information for taxes together, I realized I needed a copy of a closing statement from a real estate transaction that had occurred during the year. I contacted the realtor that handled the transaction and asked if I could get an electronic copy. They said they could not send it electronically for security reasons but they could overnight it to me. I thought that was a prosperous waste of money and told them I would pick it up when I would be near their office on other business. Now I was able to do that because they are only about 15 miles away and I did have to meet someone near there for other business. If I had been across the country or even across the state they would have overnighted the papers to me. I started thinking about the tremendous amount of wasted resources we spend everyday on this ridiculous overnight and shipped paperwork.
Until today I didn’t have a real solution to offer then I ran across this press release.
(Accellion press release snippet) Accellion, Inc. (http://www.accellion.com/) has introduced a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional shipping. The Accellion Green Digital Logistics Solution enables corporations to eliminate the traditional costs, time delays, security issues, and environmental concerns associated with physical delivery. Accellion Green provides corporate users with digital delivery at digital speeds, reduced costs and reduced CO2 emissions.
“If you can make it digital, you can ship it via Accellion Green,” said Yorgen Edholm, president and CEO of Accellion.(end)
I checked out their web site and this service looks like an excellent choice for many industries like financial intuitions, health care, insurance and really any company that now uses a traditional courier for papers. Digital shipping is good for the bottom line and good for the environment.
I am definitely keeping this web site bookmarked, the next time I need paperwork I will have a resource to recommend.
If you try their service please tell me what you think?
If you have questions about your water bottle safety please watch this Today Show video.
If you have additional resources or information about plastic safety please post in the comments section.
Okay, I admit it I was “hooked” on plastic bottled water. I bought into the advertising insinuations that bottled water is tastier and healthier. Plus, it just seemed cooler to drink water from the mountain stream or some other auspicious place.
It’s ironic that the millions of plastic bottles used for water are actually destroying the very mountain stream they claim to use.
Did you know making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil in 2006, enough fuel for more than 1 million United States cars for a year, and generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide?
Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, and in the United States, less than 1 out of 5 of these bottles are recycled.
The rest find their way into landfills and just sit there for decades to come.
Why should we waste precious oil and energy and create pollution for a plastic bottle?
Besides wasting our precious resources bottled water is plain expensive.
Do you know how much cold cash do you spend on bottled water? If you drink eight glasses a day from plastic bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 dollars a year! Bottled water can cost as much as $10 per gallon compared to less than a penny per gallon for tap water.
I can think of a lot better ways to spend $1400.00 than drinking plastic bottled water, how about you?
An easy way to go green at home or at the office, give up the plastic bottled water habit. Save your cash and the environment, use a safe reusable water bottle (I recommend SIGG, or something similar) or the glass in your kitchen cupboard.
For Earth Day here’s an easy to implement tip to get you started saving paper.
Print this page for your receipt.
I think those are the infamous words I read every time I make an on-line purchase.
This used to be my routine, print the receipt page, lay it on my desk, find the receipt about 3 weeks later, while looking for a completely different paper and put it in a file in my desk drawer in case I need it later.
I can honestly say I don’t think I have EVER needed that paper for anything.
Since committing to making my home office green I have started looking for ways NOT to print things. A receipt from an on-line purchase has turned out to be one the easier things to not print for me.
Once you have a system in place, saving your on-line receipts in your computer is easy.
Step 1
Find a PDF Printer you like.
Let me explain.
The word printer here is likely to cause confusion. If you are like me, when you see the word printer you automatically think printing on paper; however when you see “print to PDF” (Portable Document Format) there is no paper or ink involved.
Printing to PDF is geek speak for saving your document in a PDF format. I know that sounds complicated, but trust me it is not.
The best way to understand it is to try it.
Find a PDF Printer you like.
There are plenty of free ones available.
I use Green Print, a couple other popular ones are CutePDF and DoPDF.
Follow the download and install instructions on the site you have chosen. Once the software is installed you are ready to start digitally saving your receipts.
When the “print this receipt” box appears, select print like you have done in the past. When this box pops up select your PDF Printer.
Now click ok.
You should set up a digital filing system that works best for you and save your receipt in a folder that you will be able to locate easily should you ever need it.
Give this system a try and let me know what you think.
Earth Day is tomorrow and Yahoo Green has added a FUN contest with prizes to help us get more involved.They are hiding Earth Day Treasure Hunt in ReUse/Recycle Groups everywhere.
If you are not familiar with reuse groups, there are several around the world.
I belong to Freecycle.org and I think most other reuse group’s work in a similar fashion. If you have something you don’t want anymore you post by email to the group about your item, list how someone can contact you to pick the item up. Freecycle.org is free to be a member and you can not charge for anything you are listing to give away. It also works in reverse. If you need an item you can post what you are in need of and wait to see if someone has the item sitting around looking for a new home.
Freecycle groups are divided by areas such as the county or city you live in. Having a local group is the key to success. There are no shipping charges and quick and easy pick up’s can be made.
From Yahoo Green Web Page:
To look for an Earth Day treasure:
Yahoo! might not tell the group about the winner because entries have to be verified. Limit is one prize per person. Prize winners will be notified no later than May 20, 2008.
Please read the complete rules for details.
Hurry on over to Yahoo Green for details and links to your reuse group and good luck treasure hunting.
Bring your own bag
Whole Foods Markets will stop using disposable plastic grocery bags on Earth Day, April 22, 2008.
I think that is a step in the right direction and hope other large companies take a similar action soon. Banning plastic bags is undoubtedly good for the environment.
Do you have your reusable bag with you when you need it?
If the paper bag option is easily available I don’t think most people will make the effort to remember their bag.
I do not see anything wrong with ONLY using cardboard boxes that stock came to the store in for shoppers who have forgotten their bags.
I hope Whole Foods and others will ad BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) campaigns to all their marketing efforts.
Hint to Whole Foods- A million dollar prize seems to motivate us to eat a lot of fast food burgers, I wonder if it wouldn’t do the same for the use of reusable bags.
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When do you remember your reusable shopping bag? I think about mine just about the time the clerk says paper or plastic? UGH! I think the only answer is to have at least a couple of bags in my purse, but until now I hadn’t seen the right bag. I think I finally found the reusable bag that will work for me.
What I like about the flip & tumble bag
Never be without your reusable shopping bag again, order your flip & tumble bags today.
Do paper phone books keep appearing at your door step uninvited? I used to take mine right from the door step to the recycling bin mumbling to myself all the way. Now there is a better way. If you don’t want your “fingers to do the walking” sign up for this eco-friendly service and STOP receiving paper phone books.
According to Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org over 500 Million phone directories are printed each year.
The resources needed to produce these books is tremendous
19 million trees need to be harvested
1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
3.2 billion kilowatts of energy are squandered
Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org is an organization working to educate consumers and promote the green movement to eliminate the unsolicited delivery of Yellow and White Pages books. This site is aimed at starting a national movement to solicit the White/Yellow Pages industry to proactively stop the delivery of books or to begin moving legislation to mandate the stoppage of this activity. This movement should be similar to the National No-Call Registry that have stopped and/or decreased the number of unwanted solicitations telephone calls to consumers.
Make your home office eco-friendly green, save some trees and stop receiving unsolicited phone directories.
