IMCB Eco-tips Archives
In October 2010, inspired by the 10/10/10 Global Work Party events, IMCB began publishing a monthly suggested ecological action in our Activities Newsletter to help increase awareness of our ecological impact. Following are the archives of these Eco-tips:
Green businesses are environmental leaders that reduce waste, prevent pollution, conserve resources, and comply with environmental regulations. They enjoy the benefits of efficient operations which improve their bottom line. Their employees enjoy increased job satisfaction, health and productivity. Green businesses attract happy, loyal, eco-conscious customers. To support those that model how to care for the planet, or to find out how to "green" your own business, visit Bay Area Green Business Program.
EARTH DAY RECYCLING. Thu, Apr 19 and 26, at the Monastery. Your old dead batteries and CFL bulbs (which do eventually burn out) are toxic waste. Your empty toner cartridges from your printer and fax can be re-filled. Your worn out running shoes can be ground up and used to make tracks and tennis courts. In honor of Earth Day, save them from the landfill. Collect them from around the house and from your friends, and bring them to the sitting group on Thursday to be properly recycled. Ernie, 526-0711.
Refill your empty household cleaner bottles with homemade non-toxic all purpose cleaner.
Here is a basic recipe: 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 Tbsp. baking soda, 1/2 gallon (1 liter)
hot water, a few drops of essential oil such as tea tree which has antiseptic properties.
Another environmentally conscious choice that saves money, time, resources and feels good!
Use a worm box to compost your food waste quickly and produce high quality compost. Instructions can be found online, e.g., at www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Worm-Compost-System, or you can buy a container and take a workshop at Berkeley's Ecology Center. For free red-wiggler worms email Linda Gallaher-Brown.
Livestock generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases, more than automobiles. Meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy and pollute water supplies. Rain forests worldwide are continuously being destroyed for crop and grazing lands. Stopping or reducing your meat consumption is one of the greatest ways you can care for the environment.
Have a White Elephant party at the office instead of a traditional gift exchange, where each person brings a wrapped secondhand item in good condition, or do a cookie exchange. For your family, draw names to select who gives to whom rather than everybody buying for everybody.
- November 2011
Convenience is killing us. With each thing we consume, may we ask ourselves: Is this convenience worth the cost to the planet? Do I really need a plastic bag over my dry cleaning? Or a straw in my drink, a stirring stick in my coffee, a sleeve on the cup, or a paper towel to dry my hands? RETHINK, reduce, reuse, recycle.
Keep your "unwearable" clothing items out of the landfill. Goodwill donation centers in the East Bay sell unusable textile items to fiber recyclers who use them to manufacture shop rags. Check with other large charities such as Salvation Army on-line to see if they do the same.
Going to the next floor of your office building? Take the stairs, if you can find them. Save the elevator energy and put out some of your own to get a little exercise. Two or three floors? Even more exercise to wake up your muscles and get your heart rate and respiration rate up a bit.
LED lights are now available for standard household fixtures! Unlike compact fluorescents that contain mercury, LEDs are non-toxic. They are costly up front, but they use about half the energy of a CFL and last for 15 years. Try one and replace gradually as your CFLs burn out. For more information on LED light bulbs, including comparison charts, see the Eartheasy website.
Expand your environmental awareness and get inspired by visiting the Ecology Center Store. Informational sheets on specific topics and ways to get involved, books for adults and kids, and eco-friendly products as well as responses to individual questions are available. 2250 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley. Open Tue – Sat 11-6.
When packing food for a lunch or a picnic, put food in reusable containers rather than disposable plastic and paper bags. See the Waste Free Lunches website for more information, suggestions, success stories, research results, and other resources.
Feed and protect the pollinators! Avoid pesticides and consider removing sterile hybrid plants and replacing them with California natives. Plants from the Salvia (sage) family are excellent drought-tolerant choices especially loved by bees and hummingbirds. For a list of what to plant to attract pollinators, go to the Pollinator Partnership website.
Recycle even more plastic! The El Cerrito Recycling Center, 7501 Schmidt Lane, takes ANY and ALL clean plastics. By recycling those plastics that can't go into your recycling bin, you will dramatically reduce your waste and can switch your garbage service from a 32
gallon to a smaller can, saving you over $100! Reducing is ideal, recycling is next best.
Join PG&E's "Climate Smart" program. This program adds a tax-deductible fee of about $5.00 to your PG&E bill each month. The money is used to make your home’s gas and electric greenhouse gas emissions carbon neutral through various projects, such as forest preservation, methane capture, and ozone depleting substance destruction. Find out more and sign up at the PG&E Climate Smart webpage: PG&E Climate Smart webpage.
47 million gallons of oil are used to produce all the disposable water bottles used annually in the U.S., 80% of which end up in landfill or out at sea. Use a refillable stainless steel water bottle, provide water pitchers for events and ask people to bring their own cups or provide bio-degradable cups.
Bottled water is simply not a good value. Municipal water costs on average less than 1 cent per gallon while the average cost of a 16 oz. bottle of water is about $1.50.
Is it safer than tap water? Bottled water that doesn’t cross state lines, which is about 70% in /California, is not regulated by the FDA. An independent lab tested for hundreds of different chemicals in 38 brands of California bottled water. Two samples had arsenic contamination, six had chemical byproducts of chlorination, and six had measurable levels of the toxic chemical toluene.
40% of bottled water is in fact simply tap water. If you don’t like the taste of your tap water at home, a simple, inexpensive water filter should solve the problem.
Safe and affordable drinking water is a basic human right. Becoming dependent upon bottled water gives us less incentive to invest in maintaining and upgrading safe public water systems for all. And because bottled water has become such a profitable business, and fresh water is becoming scarcer as the world population increases, multi-national corporations are purchasing ground water and distribution rights for commoditization.
The trash generated by plastic water bottles, about 1.5 million tons annually in the U.S., is a huge problem. It’s all going to be here on Earth for a long, long time. It’s not pretty, it swirls in the Pacific Ocean in a mass the size of Texas and harms wildlife that mistakes it for food.
A large amount of plastic bottles that go into the recycling bin never get recycled and are another vast source of pollution. Some of them get down-cycled into a lower grade plastic, but a large majority of them get sent overseas to India for example where some do get down-cycled, but sadly, vast amounts of plastic bottles just sit in mountainous heaps. Our garbage travels thousands of miles across the ocean creating more CO2 pollution to become someone else’s garbage. The best solution to garbage is to avoid making it in the first place.
Bottled water can certainly be convenient, but is it worth the price we pay when we consider all the many reasons not to drink bottled water? A great way to break the habit is to have many stainless steel bottles. Fill them all up at once and put them on the kitchen counter, in the bathroom, by the bed, and 2 or 3 in your car so that wherever you go you will always have safe, clean, and practically free drinking water. you will quickly create a new habit that’s healthy for you and will have immensely lowered your carbon footprint.
For more on breaking the bottled water habit: New American Dream and The Story of Stuff Project.
Make a green resolution for 2011 by adopting 3 actions from the "Simple Ways to Slow Climate Change" list. It's available at the greeter's table and on the Ecological Dharma section of this website. Get more involved by joining or starting a Climate Change Action Group through Berkeley's Ecology Center.
If Americans sent 10 holiday cards electronically it would save 300,000 trees. During the holidays we generate an additional 5 million tons of waste! 4 million tons of this is wrapping paper and shopping bags. Reduce waste by bringing your own bags to the store and use reusable and recyclable wrapping options. Service gifts such as massage, acupuncture and restaurants, edible gifts, movie or theater tickets, or gifts to someone's favorite charity also reduce waste. We can avoid consumption, stress and debt. Invent creative ways of appreciating loved ones that honor our inter-connectedness with all life and return us to the gentleness and peace holiday traditions are based upon.
Green Gift Giving Suggestions from Green Sangha and the Ecology Center
100 million trees are destroyed annually in the U.S. to produce junk mail, using more energy than 3 million cars! The web site www.stopjunkmail.org provides forms and links for stopping it with minimal cost. Do it sooner rather than later to avoid unwanted holiday solicitations and catalogs. Also visit the website of Catalog Choice, a local non-profit offering a free service to help people reduce unwanted mail and clutter, save natural resources, and take control of their mailboxes.
Whenever you are out on a walk to take a bag (or two) with you and fill them with trash and recyclables. If you forget, all too often a plastic bag will present itself but if not, we can strive to always pick up at least two pieces of trash or recyclables, one for each hand!
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