Green Tips for Green Mamas...Grasscycling

Every week we try to tackle a Green Mama problem with a simple Green Mama solution. Could be one thing to do, one thing to toss,or one thing to purchase. Never know. But one things for sure, it won't be a huge TO DO list. We mamas already have a full day planned, don't we?!

Grasscycling

If you don't cut the grass - I've only ever done it a small handful of times in my lifetime - this tip might be best passed onto your very own Green Daddy ;)

"Cut it high and let it lie! The Environmental Protection Agency recommends leaving grass clippings on your lawn rather than collecting and bagging them to reduce the amount of waste that is collected and processed.

Grasscycling enhances the natural health of your lawn. Grass clippings increase the soil's organic matter, along with its ability to retain moisture and nutrients, resist erosion, and maintain cooler temperatures during the summer. Clippings should be no more than one inch long in order to fall through the grass into the soil." ~ Citizens Information Center

Eco-Friendly Holiday Decorations

Be Evergreen with Your Decorations this Holiday Season...

* When decorating this holiday season, don't forget your winged and four legged friends outdoors! If you are blessed with trees in your yard, make cranberry and popcorn garland to wrap around them, complete with birdseed covered pine cones. The animals will love them and they will contribute to your beautiful daylight decorations, naturally.

* One could definitely argue that chopping down trees for any occasion is not exactly eco-friendly. However, when purchasing your holiday tree from a locally owned organic tree farm, you're not only helping out the local economy.

You're also keeping artificial trees out of the landfill, supporting organic farming practices (some tree growers use over 40 harmful pesticides, which you then bring into your home!), and, for every tree cut down this year, that's at least one more tree planted for next season, if not more.

* Go for all the sparkle you want this season, using LED holiday lights. Decorating your tree and home with energy-efficient LED lights will help reduce your energy bills and, since they burn cooler, they are also safer to use indoors. For outdoor lights, there are some awesome solar powered lights that you can decorate the outdoors without all the wires tracking back to the house, draining your pocket book! Plus they can go anywhere, allowing you to light up even hard to reach areas of your yard.

* When it comes time to take the tree down, before you toss it out with the trash, visit eco911.org for local recycling services and pick up dates. Most cities have recycling programs that turn used trees into mulch and other materials. Or, if you are an avid gardener, you can put your tree out back to be self mulched for garden paths. Doing this not only keeps the tree in the cycle of life, birds and other wildlife will enjoy the additional spot to hide and rest in your backyard during the upcoming winter.

A Word About Recycling... The Courtesy Rinse

As easy as 1, 2, 3, giving your cartons and containers a quick courtesy rinse will not only keep your kitchen smelling squeaky clean, but it will also make recycling that much more pleasant.

What's a courtesy rinse, you ask?

Simple.

A quick rinse of your recyclables before adding them to the recycling bin.

I know I keep my recycling bin in the kitchen, so having it not smell like trash (where everything is tossed in and starts smelling up the place instantly...yuck!) makes for a much more pleasant kitchen environment in which to cook and eat.

Now, I know what you're thinking. If everyone was expected to rinse what they recycle - milk cartons, meat trays, apple sauce containers - no one would ever recycle! And maybe for some of the population that assumption would be correct. That's why most recycling plants are now asking you to forgo rinsing and cleaning.

But...

If you're like me and you don't want a stinky kitchen - #1 reason I try to be as trash free as possible - giving a quick courtesy rinse to anything that needs it before tossing it in the recycle bin isn't something I cry over.

It's actually something I take joy and pride in!

I know, I know...I'm a green geek...but then again, maybe you are one too!

;)

When Being Green isn't So Easy...

Have you ever felt like you were on conservationalist's overload mode? That no matter how many plastic water bottles you save from the trash, that you use all local organic food, or that you barely used the AC all this smoldering muggy summer to conserve dollars and help with pollution...that it's never enough?

What about the crude oil industry? What about people who don't have clean water to drink? What about all those schools and companies and hospitals that trash everything on a continual, day-in-day-out, basis? What about the oceans? What about the polar bears? The wolves? The forests? My kids? My kid's kids?

There is so much to do, so much to be done, I just want to...scream! Being one person against a whole world of problems can sometimes kill the very passion out of you. You start to feel as though you are drowning in the toxic waste that fills your air, water, food.

The need is so great, how on Earth can we ever do enough?

Easy...don't give up!

Even though you are just one person, you can make a difference. Just think about your kids watching you take care of Mother Earth: watching what you put into her, making sure not to add to her hurt. You're raising greenies! Little green ones that will grow up to be big powerful green movements. That is something to be proud of!

And if you have kids that go to a school or you work somewhere that doesn't recycle, why not help them implement a system so that they can? Or show them how easy it is being green by packing a lunch box using reusable containers, napkins, and water bottles.

I sometimes get so bogged down with the insurmountable task of greening my family's life and what I can't do - buy solar, get a electric car, grow all our food - that I feel like I'm not doing a good enough job. But then I go out in the real world and see that I am not alone. That my seemingly small efforts are being compounded by everyone else's greeness...

There may be a lot for us to do...but there are a lot of us...

Keep up the good fight...

The Story of Stuff...

How much stuff is too much stuff? And where does our stuff come from? Or maybe more importantly, why do we feel we need so much stuff?!

Annie Leonard - who spent 10 years tracking how our stuff is created and then disposed of - presents with clarity how stuff creates the excessive amounts of pollution and problems we now have for all people and our beloved planet.

The Story of Stuff...

Watch it. Have the kids watch it. Pass it along to all those skeptics in your family...

www.storyofstuff.com

Punch Buggy Red...now Punch Baggy

As I was riding home from work a few months back on the back of our Vepsa I came to a sad realization. Growing up, my brothers, sister and I always played Punch Buggy...you know the game the first person to see a VW Bug screams at the top of their lungs "Punch Buggy _______ (and then the color of the VW)," and at the end of the drive that is how many times you get to punch (gently of course) your sibling. What a great game!

Today I realized that my kids won't be playing Punch Buggy, instead they will be playing Punch Baggy, because there are so many plastic bags littered around that they'll be easier to spot than VW Bugs. I counted on our drive home which is 13 miles and I saw 9 plastic bags. Americans use 100 BILLION

Tomorrow on your drive, no matter where you are going try it yourself. Count the number of plastic bags you see on the roadside, in the bushes, stuck in fences, they're everywhere. disposable plastic bags every year yet recycle less than 1%. Plastics which don't biodegrade.

Should Trash Collection Be Free?

A friend of mine owns and runs her own business. She is a very eco-conscious person, eats whole organic foods, and is raising four greenies of her own. However, when I asked her if her business regularly recycles - assuming the answer would be an astounding yes - I was shocked when she said no.

"Businesses have to pay to recycle."

"Then why don't you pay to recycle?" I asked perplexed, wondering if I had missed the punchline to her joke.

"Because it's expensive," she answered point blank. "Besides, trash collection is free."

"What?"

Of course, this conversation took place a few years ago and since then my dear Earth loving friend pays for recycling to be picked up. Only problem is, they still don't make it easy for her...sometimes they don't even recycle what they promised, putting the stuff in the dump anyway!

That brief conversation got me thinking though: why on Earth would a going green government charge businesses to do so themselves, yet allow them to continue to trash our environment for free? And if the gov't is actually interested in helping change the course of destroying our earth for a greener future, when are we going to see this change?

If you think about the mass amount of trash that businesses create - paper, plastic, cardboard, office equipment - and multiply that by how many businesses there are...I think our green movement is lacking tremendously when we seem to be focusing more on what the individual can do at home. There should be a bigger focus on the huge trash producers. And maybe the first step at bringing them into this green game is by charging for the very thing that they get for free: trash collection.

Shouldn't recycling be a free service? Isn't someone out there - companies that create new materials out of recycled stuff - benefiting from our green actions?

On the flip side, dumping countless items into a landfill is costing us more and more: more land, more resources, our health and the health of the planet...

So the question is, when are we going to see the shift? Is this shift something that will never happen? Am I dreaming here thinking that recycling be the free service?

Is this just something that happens here on the east coast where I live? Is trash collection whre you live the charged service, and recycling free?

Should recycling be free?

What do you think?