Green Scene

Progress is being made, however, some computer manufactures, including Dell and HP, are participating in an EPA program called the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, designed to promote greener electronics–electronics that avoid certain materials, have less packaging and are more easily upgraded or recycled.

The Energy Star program (www.energystar.gov), one of the first environmental labeling programs, is gaining more importance as retailers and utility companies offer rebates for products meeting the energy efficiency guidelines.

The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (www.usgb.org/LEED) provides a tiered certification system to rate buildings on environmental and energy-efficiency criteria.  Another program, GreenSeal (www.greenseal.org) provides a green certification label for a variety of products, including ecofriendly paint, soaps, and cleaning products.

There are a host of resources, on the Internet, at workshops and expositions and in published books, that spell out the many steps that people can take in their personal and professional lives, to minimize their negative impact on the Earth. 

Although the criteria vary, many cities have established green certification programs.  And different groups, from environmental experts to small business owners, have put together a framework of guidelines on what it takes to go green.

“A green business is a business that has been upgraded to address the environmental challenges of our country,” says Lucy Blake, chief executive of the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of environmental groups, labor unions and politicians seeking to transform the U.S. economy into one based on renewable energy.

“A truly green business starts with the basics,” says Costco member Wendy Radwan, client and public relations director for Taxi! Taxi! (www.santamonicataxi.com), a Los Angeles County taxi service that developed the area’s first hybird taxi fleet.  “First you begin internally–recycling, using environmentally friendly materials, etc.  Then you really get down to work, by providing solutions to minimize your business’s impact and to improve sustainability.”

To see the rest of the story, please go to  http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200807/

Fix leaky faucets.  One drip per second amounts to 200 gallons of water waste per month!  Usually it only takes a new washer to fix the problem.

Tip form Gary Hillery of www.thegreenpathcompany.com

“Everybody throws around the term “green” these days, but no one has a definition for it,” says Costco member Harry Lewis, attorney advisor in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. “The concept is fluid: As technology and best practices get more developed, the bar may get raised and standards may change.”

Similar to the ongoing quest to define what it means to be “organic”, the current challenge is for everybody-consumers, environmentalists and the government-to agree on criteria and then identify products and services that meet their criteria. Businesses need clarity as to what constitutes a level of green they can strive for and lay claim to, through an established and recognized green certification program.

The responses The Connection received when we began our research reflected this amorphous definition. A broad spectrum of small businesses, ranging from those that had swapped out light bulbs or begun recycling to companies that had made enormous investments in clean technology, all identified themselves as green.

See the whole article at http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200807/

This is the first in a Series called, “The green in the machine.”

Green. It has become, in the words of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “the native hue of resolution.” What was fringe has gone mainstream.

Green subjects grace the cover of every major magazine. Stories about environmental issues are daily news fare. We see more “green” products on the shelves. Gasoline-electric hybrid cars are gaining in popularity.

Businesses are also making efforts to reduce their impact on the environment by reducing product packaging, increasing the recycled content of products, pushing suppliers to stop using certain chemicals in products, using more renewable energy and reducing the amount of waste generated.

Costco members across the country have been starting or converting to greener methods of operating their businesses. The challenges, they have found, begin with defining what green means and deciding what their motivation for going green is, and go on to affect every aspect of their business.

Here is how one business is going green:

Laguna Culinary Arts, a cooking school, café, and gourmet cheese and wine shop based in Laguna Beach, California, found that just having recyclable containers and cups for to-go orders wasn’t enough. “They often just got tossed in the trash can once they left our premises,” says Costco member Nancy Milby, executive director of the company. “Therefore, we’ve gone to products that are compostable: cups and containers made from 100 percent corn products, containers made of sugar fiber. Go ahead, toss it into the trash—with a little moisture, it will decompose back into the earth from whence it came.”

By T. Foster Jones, as seen in the http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/200807/

Do you have a GREEN business you’d like to see listed on the Mommy Perks site? Contact us for options and rates!  Or email us at mainoffice@mommyperks.com.

Here are a few fun facts about aluminum that help drive home the need to reduce, reuse and recycle. 

1.  Aluminum is one of the few recyclable products that doesn’t degrade during the recycle process.  It can be recycled over and over again and still maintain it’s integrity
2. It takes 20 times the amount of energy and resources to mine aluminum as it does to recycle it

Sadly we do don’t do a very good job of reusing or recycling our aluminum.  Each year over 3.3 million tons of aluminum ends up in our land fills which is equal to 100 million soda cans or 20 million rolls of foil.  We throw away enough aluminum in 3 months to build an entire commercial air fleet.  Here are  simple things you can do to help alleviate the problem.

1.  Reduce:  Store left over’s in glass containers or recyclable plastic containers. 
2. Reuse:  Reuse your aluminum foil.  It’s as simple as that
3. Recycle:  MAKE SURE to recycle all your cans and foil.  You may have to rinse off your foil to comply with local requirements for recycling but it only takes a few seconds and you can send it back to be reused again.
4. Buy recycled foil.  Try If You Care (http://www.ifyoucare.com/Rec%20alu%20foil.htm) or GreenFeet (http://www.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=6008-00008-0000) for a few options.

Contributed by Gary Hillery of  www.thegreenpathcompany.com

Use low flow shower heads in all showers and reduce water usage by 50 - 70% during showers!

Contributed by Gary Hillary of  www.thegreenpathcompany.com

Stop Idling

Every moment you spend idling your car’s engine means needlessly wasting gas, as well as rougher wear on your vehicle. Idling for more than 10 seconds wastes more gas than is needed for startup. Overall, Americans idle away 2.9 billion gallons of gas a year, worth around $78.2 billion.

Read more here.

Sign Up for Green Energy

More than half of all electricity consumers in the U.S. now have the option of purchasing green power from their utility. Find out how you can buy it by visiting the Department of Energy’s state-by-state list of providers. You can also check with your own utility to see what’s available.

Read more here.

Wash Your Laundry in Cold Water

An easy way to clean green is to turn the dial on your washing machine to cold. Most loads don’t need hot water, and 90% of the energy used by washing machines goes into heating. The higher the water temperature, the higher the cost to you and the planet.

Read more here.

Pay Bills Online

Save natural resources - as well as late fees - by enrolling in online bill-paying options. Paperless billing not only saves trees; it also eliminates the fossil fuel needed to get all those billing envelopes from them to you and back again. Plus, you’ll save money on stamps.

Read more here.

Print on Two Sides

Know what? It’s not that hard to print two sides on your computer. But even though most software programs give that option, most of us still print only on one side of the page. Consider this: the U.S. alone uses 4 million tons of copy paper annually, about 27 pounds per person. Save dough and your local landfill. Print 2-sides.

Read more here.

Carpool It!

If your drive to work is 25 miles each way and at least half is in typical stop-and-go traffic, you’ll save almost 10 percent of your monthly carbon emissions by carpooling. Not to mention the gas dollars you’ll save and the fun you’ll have sharing office gossip with your friends.

Read more here.

Choose Hormone-Free Milk

Look for milk that has been certified organic or carries the words ‘no artificial hormones.’ Conventional dairies inject cows with synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), aka bovine somatotropin (rbST), to boost production. The practice has been implicated in udder infections, requiring more veterinary antibiotic use, and is banned in many countries. Some scientists worry the hormones may affect consumers.

Read more here.

All tips here reported by

Reduce Junk mail:  Contact the Mail Preference Service @ Direct Marketing Association and cancel unwanted credit card solicitations
You can get more information on junk mail reduction @ http://reduce.org/.

As the drumbeat gets louder to ban bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in plastics used to make sippy cups and bottles, I wondered and worried: What exactly do parents, like myself, need to know about safely feeding our kids?

With a recent National Toxicology Program brief showing that BPA may disrupt neural and behavioral development in fetuses, infants and children, I knew that it was high time to clean house. But of what?

Sophie Uliano, eco-consultant and author of “Gorgeously Green,” gives us her bottom line:

1. Always avoid plastics with No. 7 printed in the triangle on the bottom of containers. Safer numbers: 1, 2 and 5.
2. Never microwave baby food in any type of plastic container.
3. Avoid using plastic feeding utensils.
4. Use ceramic, enamel or glass plates.
5. Choose sippy cups, bottles and pacifiers free of BPAs (read information on packaging when shopping).
6. Take a second look at canned food because of inner plastic linings; studies show the chemicals in plastic can leech into formula, soup and pasta.

As reported by Gayle Jo Carter             ParentSmart of the July 7th issue of USAWeekend.com