KeepGreenGoing

Love the Do Not Call registry? Wish there was something similar for junk mail?

American mailboxes are inundated with junk mail. More than 100,000,000,000 pieces of junk mail are delivered each year. If you do the math, that’s more than 800 pieces of junk mail per household. I think it’s time for a national Do Not Mail Registry!

Luckily, there’s an organization taking the stance and launching the movement: DoNotMail.org.

In 2003, Congress created the national Do Not Call Registry, the most popular consumer rights bill in history. Today, DoNotMail.org has launched a comparable registry to end the ambush of junk mail. Currently, they are counting names on a petition (20,000 and counting) to show the government and direct mail industry that there needs to be an easy way to opt out of junk mail.

Junk mail in the United States accounts for 1/3 of all mail delivered in the world. Even though 44% of that mail goes to the landfill unopened, people spend 8 months of their lives dealing with it all. Junk mail invades our homes, wastes our time and destroys the environment:

• The greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the manufacturing of the 6.5 million tons of paper required for junk mail annually is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emission of 3.7 million cars.
• More than 100 million trees a year are cut down and made into paper for junk mail. Those trees come from Endangered Forests like Canada’s Boreal and Indonesia’s rainforests - forests that play a critical role in the fight against global warming.

Just as the Do Not Call Registry liberated Americans from telemarketers, a Do Not Mail Registry would give us the choice to halt junk mailers from violating our privacy, wasting our time and damaging the environment.

Free your house from junk mail and sign the Do Not Mail registry petition. Take a stance and help save the environment. It’s time to end the junk mail catastrophe.

It’s one idea to talk about buying a hybrid car and/or riding you bike to work everyday. But for some people, these two options aren’t realistic. Instead of making such a drastic change in your life, what would happen if we simplified the solution? What would it look like for everyone to take one small step that held one big impact?

Think about it this way - What would happen if each of us decreased our demand for gas by %5?

On average, Americans consume about 386 million gallons of gasoline each day. Over the course of a year, that adds up to just under 141 billion gallons of gas. That’s a lot of gas.

If all of us were able to reduce our gas consumption by 5%, we’d save 7.05 billion gallons of gas each year.

Decreasing your gas intake is easy to do:

• Drive 1 less day out of the week.
• Carpool to work with a co-worker.
• Take you lunch with you to work so you don’t have to leave during the day.
• Do all of your errands in 1 trip out, rather than multiple trips throughout the week.
• Have you kids ride their bikes to school instead of driving them. Read on»

Hey all - just a quick note - Renewal has been released on DVD.

You can order your copy straight from the Renewal Website at: http://www.renewalproject.net/dvd

For those of you who missed our previous post on the Renewal project, make sure you keep checking back. We’ll be doing an interview with some of the producers soon.

Bamboo this, bamboo that - What’s up with the bamboo buzz?

Technically classified as a “weed”, the bamboo plant is strong, renewable and inexpensive. There are nearly 1000 different species of bamboo and it can be grown in almost any moderate climate. Bamboo can grow 20 meters in less than 60 days.

However, extremely fast growth is not bamboo’s only environmentally friendly virtue. Bamboo also helps repair the devastating effects of deforestation and mining to soil and communities. Bamboo actually removes toxins from soil, prevents erosion and provides jobs and food for many people.

It thrives in a diverse landscape up to 12,000 feet and releases 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees. Bamboo is the strongest plant known to humankind.

Bamboo is also extremely versatile. It has thousands of uses, from paper to clothing, fences, construction, chop sticks, flooring, musical instruments - the list is endless.

Furthermore, when manufacturing solid hardwood flooring from plantation timber, only 20-25% is used. Bamboo flooring, on the other hand, uses over 90% of the bamboo plant with no wastage.

Its strength-to-weight ratio is better than graphite. The US Navy even used bamboo to reinforce concrete in World War II.

In conclusion, the buzz about bamboo is quite legit. If you have the opportunity to buy things bamboo, we say go for it. Buy bamboo and keep the green going.

Warm weather is almost here and for some, that means it’s time to rip the waves. Surfer dudes and dudettes, this one’s for you - We’ve got a way you can surf all you want AND help the environment.

Help reduce waste by purchasing surfboards made from recycled materials (such as polystyrene foam) and covered with an epoxy resin. Most surfboards are covered with polyester and fiberglass. That’s bad news. So get things right and go with an epoxy board, which is not only lighter but also will last 5 times longer.

So that’s what we’ve got. Sounds simple right? Well it is! If just 1 in 50 surfers in the world purchased their next board from recyclable polystyrene, the number of surfboards saved from landfills could stretch more than 2400 miles.

To help get you started in the right direction, here’s a few green surfing resources:

GreenSurf.org
Greenlight Surfboard Supply

Simple, free and green. Words we all like to here, right? Those are the goals of a newly developed United States Postal Service program that allows customers to recycle small electronics and inkjet cartridges by mailing them free of charge.

The “Mail Back” program helps consumers make more environmentally friendly choices, making it easier for customers to discard used or obsolete small electronics in an environmentally responsible way. Customers use free envelopes to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players - without having to pay for postage.

In a sense, this is the type of program that empowers the everyday person to go green. And it’s simple too. The free, postage-paid Mail Back envelopes can be found on displays in 1500 Post Office lobbies across the country. Simply find a location near you, take as many envelopes as you want and let the electronic recycling begin.

The pilot program is set for 10 areas across the country, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego, but could become a national program this fall if all goes well.

When it comes to recycling don’t forget about good-old-fashion snail mail. Pick up your free envelopes and do your part. Thanks for the great pilot program USPS… We appreciate it be simple, free and green!

Earth Day began in what many call the first “green revolution” in the year 1970. This was a huge step towards getting us where we are today in the environmental movement. It’s important that we carry on this rich tradition and continue to carry on the work of Earth Day’s founder, Gaylord Nelson.

Ladies and Gentleman Earth Day is just around the corner. What are your plans? My wife and I will be hosting our second annual Earth Day party this year sponsored by keepgreengoing.com (if you live in the Denver, Colorado area send me an email, I’d love to have you over alex@keepgreengoing.com). This is a note to encourage you to plan ahead and not let the 22^nd pass by without getting something done. Find an event that you can support, host your own earth day party to raise awareness for your favorite green cause, take a donation to support local environmental causes in your area. Still having trouble? Start here.

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Every wonder why people “go to the extreme” of being vegetarian or vegan?

The philosophy behind veganism stands on the precept that we, as humans, do not have any right to “use” animals for anything. Furthermore, our use of animals, which have no choice in the matter, is a form of exploitation. A vegan lifestyle avoids, to the extent that is possible, all forms of that exploitation. A vegan chooses to avoid using or consuming animal products including dairy and eggs, as well as fur, leather, wool, down and cosmetics or chemical products tested on animals.

So why would someone concerned about the earth be concerned about what they eat? Let’s take a look at some of the facts:

Raising animals for meat has its consequences. It leads to rain forest destruction, global heat rising, water pollution, water scarcity, desertification, misuse of energy resources and world hunger. The use of land, water, energy and human effort to produce meat is not an efficient way to use the earth’s resources.

Since 1960, some 25% of Central America’s rain forests have been burned and cleared to create pasture for beef cattle. It has been estimated that every four-ounce hamburger made from rain forest beef destroys 55 square feet of tropical rain forest. In addition, raising cattle contributes significantly to the production of three gases which cause global warming, is a leading cause of water pollution and requires a staggering 2464 gallons of water for the production of each pound of beef. It only takes 29 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes, and 139 gallons to produce a one pound loaf of whole wheat bread. Nearly half of the water consumed in the United States goes to the growing of feed for cattle and other livestock.
Read on»

If you’re like me, you get sick of hearing about how to go green. Everyday there’s companies pushing messages at you about what you should and shouldn’t be doing to go green. With 3000 messages hitting the average person a day and $620 billion spent each year in advertising… that’s a lot of greenness to take in.

Well, when you’re going through the closets and doing your spring-cleaning, don’t toss it, GIGO it! Here’s a company that takes a new approach to recycling - a practical, realistic and effective way to reuse things you don’t need.

Gigo it (’gi-gO it) is a two-word phrase comprised of the words “gigo” and “it”. “Gigo” is pronounced “Gi” as in gift and “go” as in the word go. Gigoit.org is a free online service designed to help people get rid of reusable items by putting them in the hands of people who want them. The catch? There is none. Anyone who post on Gigoit.org is offering the item up for free. The end result keeps usable items out of landfills and in the hands of people who need your stuff. Essentially, it’s an online donation community. You can search by distance from your location or view the most recently added items. Read on»

Today there are plenty of great ways to begin making a positive impact on the environment; but what if one aspires to something more personal than the great yet simple practices of recycling, buying with a conscious and reducing their own impact on the planet? Enter Grassroots Green.

What I have christened as Grassroots Green is getting green accomplished through your own unique, passion instilling means. The beauty of Grassroots Green is that by getting active on another level, others will be inspired, green happens in a whole new way and the opportunity to introduce others to green opens up. From my own experiences I’ve found the following three steps to be fundamental in beginning your own Grassroots Green effort.

Identify a green need within your community. This can be anything from starting a recycling program for you and your neighbors, to getting the ball rolling on legislation for more renewable energy incentives in your city. Don’t get too caught up on it, if we’ve tried to communicate anything through our publication it is that green should be simple. Start small and move on from there. After you’ve got your need identified write out the steps needed to get it resolved. These steps should be flexible as your understanding of the need will more likely than not change as you are working on it. Be prepared to take the first step immediately; it will likely be as simple as a phone call or a bit of research online. Finally, I think that it is important to find someone else that you can count on to partner with you, share in your passion, and help take the steps already identified to see that your community’s needs are met.

Read on»