Green Gifts for the Holiday

By Tanis Roelofs

GREEN GIFTS FOR ADULTS

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Green gifts can often be intangible presents that deliver green goodness long after the holidays and will not end up as clutter in your closet. 

·       Donate time and money to a charity in honor of the gift recipient such as a gift to World Wildlife Federation or Sierra Club.

·       Buy carbon offsets in the recipient’s name with TerraPass or similar company.  Along with cutting your own carbon emissions and fuel bills you can help your friends and family offset theirs.

·       Give a national park pass or a membership to the Dallas Arboretum or aquarium.

·       Give a gift certificate for a pedicure, massage, or other spa services.

·       Give a gift certificate to a restaurant that uses locally grown foods.

·       Wrap your gifts Japanese style in fabric which can be reused next year. Tie with ribbon or bandanas which also can be reused.

Stocking Stuffers for Adults

·       Energy-saving light bulbs

·       DVD’s such as “An Inconvenient Truth”, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”  “Food, Inc.” and “Kilowatt Ours”

Carry Bags and Jewelry

·       Give a gift of reusable canvas or cloth bags to take to the grocery store and an attractive designer looking bag for shopping mall. This will prevent billions of plastic bags from ending up in landfills.

·       Green Karat Jewelry Company curtails destructive mining practices by using recycled gold and other precious metals.  It uses only synthetic diamonds and seeks out ecologically responsible metal refiners.

·       Vintage and antique jewelry is available at a variety of stores and estate sales across the country. A Google search provides a long list of online sources.

Gardeners, Hikers, Bird Watchers and Bicyclists

·       Gardening tools, binoculars, bicycle accessories and portable solar battery packs.  Encourage friends and family to be more eco-friendly by buying a pair of walking shoes and a pedometer to keep them motivated.

·       Sports lovers would love tickets to an upcoming game.

GREEN GIFTS FOR CHILDREN

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No child’s stocking or Hanukkah gift would be complete without chocolate and organic is better for the environment.  Mass-produced cacao beans are typically grown with heavy use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers on clear-cut forestland.  Organic beans are cultivated without the use of chemicals, and shade-grown beans help preserve the forest canopy that shelters migratory birds and butterflies. Some resources for organic chocolate are:

·       Thompson Candy’s – organic collection includes panda bears.

·       Chinaberry –holiday-themed organic chocolate.

·       Dagoba Chocolate – produced from organic beans grown in Latin America

·       Green & Black’s – gourmet chocolates made from organically grown cacao beans.

Expand a child’s mind instead of their toy collection with books and board games.

·       Instill the three R’s (reduce, reuse, and recycle) early and have fun while doing it with Recycled Crafts Box by Laura C. Martin.  Available in bookstores everywhere for $10.95 or less.

·       Dr. Seuss’s rhyming classic The Lorax spins an unforgettable tale.  It is a whimsical way to introduce complex environmental ideas to young children.

·       Groundhog’s Garden and The Sea, the Storm, and the Mangrove Tangle both are excellent books about growing one’s garden and the intricate workings of an ecosystem.

·       Keep Cool: Gambling with the Climate! was developed by two scientists as an educational tool to convey the risks of global warming and the benefits of international cooperation.  The game can be ordered at 323-525-1948.

·       National Parks Monopoly provides plenty of educational trivia about Yosemite, Yellowstone and 20 other U.S. park jewels.  The game can be purchased through amazon.com

Finally, start your own holiday on the green way by decking the halls and boughs with the latest in energy-saving light:  LED string lights.  They use much less electricity and last longer than conventional ones.

Green Your Holiday Party

 by Kris

Did you know that every year Americans typically generate about 250 million tons of trash?  And as if that wasn’t a large enough number, we throw away an additional 5 million tons of trash during the holiday season.  That’s a heck of a lot of trash!

Trash is an inevitable subject and we all know that it ends up polluting our environment leading to more serious issues such as contaminations, harming wildlife, and basically negatively affecting our eco-system in multiple ways.

We will never be able to fully cut back on the amount of waste we produce, but we can most definitely make an effort to be more mindful of the products we are using and disposing of.

With the holidays coming up, many of us will be throwing and attending parties.  Why not make the effort to be an eco-friendly host or guest?  Not only can we contribute to our environment by being more aware, but we can also spread our knowledge to family and friends through our actions.  You might just be surprised at the effects of your green examples on your party guests!

Easy Ways to Green Your Holiday Party:

1)    Instead of using disposable plates, utensils, and napkins, go for the reusable.

-        Not only does this reduce the amount of waste, but also your party just got a bit more ‘fancy’.

2)    Set up a recycle station for guests to throw away their aluminum, plastics, cardboard, and glass.

-        It can be as easy as a box or bag next to the trash bin.  Just have your kids decorate a piece of paper with a label for each box. That way everyone can easily recycle when they are through.

3)    Leftover table scraps can be collected in a separate bin to be composted.

-        Even if you don’t have a garden, the compost can just biodegrade into soil.

4)    Purchase snacks and beverages in bulk as that reduces packaging.

5)    Buy local. 

-        Locally grown foods don’t require as much transportation and refrigeration, which uses petroleum and emits pollution, and in the long run, affects our earths climate.

6)    Be creative with party favors.

-        Local products like honey and plant seeds are both a great gift and a great way to introduce guests to the benefits and pleasures of buying locally.

Just remember, as you plan your parties this holiday season, think of reusing, recycling, and reducing.

As always, keep thinking green!

For more detailed ways to throw an eco-friendly party, check out the link below:

http://www.globalwarmingdiet.org/green-your-event

A Trip To The MRF

On Wednesday, February 29, I was able to tour the Plano Material Recovery Facility (MRF) located at 4200 East 14th Street in Plano. The MRF is run by Republic Services/Allied Waste, and has a contract with a number of cities throughout Collin County to collect, sort, bundle, and redistribute recycled waste products ranging from paper (including corrugated) and plastics to metals and glass to a variety of industrial customers. The MRF processes over 130 tons of recycled material daily, but has the capacity when running at all three shifts to sort and bundle over 300 tons.

It's a remarkable facility in it's entire operation. Republic Services and Allied Waste recycling trucks drop off products daily at the facility, where huge front loaders scoop up the material and drop it into a hopper which takes it up through the first of many conveyer systems on the first start of the sorting process. The first sorting step involves corrugated paperboard and cardboard, typically the heaviest among the recycled materials. The remaining material then continues to go through the conveyor line as lighter and material with less mass continues to be sorted out. All of the material is eventually bailed and deposited on trucks which weigh the recycled products for the eventual industrial consumer.

One challege that the MRF continues to have to contend with are thin-film plastic shopping bags, the type one finds at discount and grocery stores. Those products, along with Styrofoam, are true waste for the landfill and should never be added to the recycling bin. Not only does this contaminate a recycled load that ultimately ends up being re-diverted to the landfill since the equipment isn't designed to sort out the thinnest film plastics that make up the bags, but the bags themselves get caught in the conveyor systems forcing them to be shut down 2 - 3 times daily in order to have the bags cleared from the rollers. A line shut down costs Republic Services $35/minute; in addition to that, there is limited space to store the unsorted recycled material and the bales of product that are shipped out, so shutting down the sorting line has an almost immediate impact on the amount of material that starts to pile up in queue.

Industrial buyers of the recycled material are global; much of the product is immediately shipped off for eventual use in China. Once the largest product recycled by volume, newsprint has been greatly reduced with glass at nearly the same volume of material being recycled as paper products, followed by plastics and metals.

Hats off to Kim Soto of the City of Plano for arranging the tour and to Tommy Kirk, the MRF manager, for taking us through the facility and explaining the process steps. Every ton that gets sent through there is one less ton that ends up in our muncipal landfills.

The Sustainability Steward

Mass Transit

In yesterday's Dallas Business Journal, a report was release that the metroplex is ranked 148th among US metropolitan areas in usage of mass transit. With 2.9 million workers in the area, just over 1.5% actually commute using public transportation, whether it by through DART or the Ft. Worth Transportation Authority. The city of Arlington, with a population of 380,000, has the distinction of being the largest city in the nation without any public transportation system within it's boundaries. Details of the article can be found below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2012/02/13/dfw-ranks-148th-for-workers-using.html?ana=fbk

As we continue to grow as a region, we need to take steps now to correct this. Try carpooling if mass transportation isn't feasible. But, more importantly, consider taking a bus. If, you're like me, and have never used a DART bus within the city of Plano, try it out and see how it works for you. You may be pleasantly surprised!

The Sustainability Steward