Swap ’til You Drop on Swaptree!

Posted on October 30th, 2007 in environmental websites, household products, recycling, shopping, shopping website by Green Talk

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Photo courtesy of Swaptree.com

How many times have you heard, “Mom, I am bored of this game? Buy me a new one!” Perhaps, you’ve just bought another book (again), finished it, put it on the shelf to never open it again. You are tired of spending money on games, books, or CDs that you or your family gets bored of so quickly. Unfortunately, this is the age of instant gratification. So how do you lessen your consumption impact on the Earth, but enjoy more?

Swaptree.com is the answer to this question with a feel good green twist. It is an online portal for you to trade your unwanted music CDs, DVDs, books, and games for ones that you want with the convenience of retrieving it from your mailbox. Best yet, you only incur the cost of postage, which can be printed right from your computer! So if I were to describe Swaptree, I would say that it offers the online trading of Ebay and Craig’s list, the convenience of Netflix, and the “giving away what you don’t want” of Freecycle™.

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NJ’s Community Green’s Upcoming Green Kitchen Design Seminar

Posted on October 28th, 2007 in New Jersey green, household products by Green Talk

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Photo courtesy of Community Green

After reading the title to this Article, your first impression is who is Community Green and is New Jersey remotely green? Believe it or not, New Jersey is known as the garden state for a reason and it is not due to its long turnpike bearing the same name. It is home to some of the most beautiful agricultural landscape.  There are still many farms in the State.

 Outside of New Jersey, many of you know it as the home of the Sopranos, the HBO mini series.   In the series, New Jersey was portrayed as urban and densely populated.  Perhaps you know it as the toxic capital of the world? (I hear this one alot.)  Is this really true?

Many parts of NJ are urban and dense, and has had its issue with industrial clean-ups just like many areas of the country.  However, it is still the garden state with  many beautiful preserved areas due to an active environmental community.  Community Green, a not for profit organization, was born based upon the same environmental commitment to our Earth.  Founder Adriane Delafosse, a kitchen designer by trade sought to create a community where like-minded people could connect about local and environmental issues.  Her belief is the more people that share their efforts, the greater the difference will be in preserving our environment. Over the year, she has instituted seminars for people to attend, created a community green meetup for others to meet and to keep updated on the community’s events, and created a website as the hub of community green with links, events, green musing, and photos. In speaking with Ariane, she has boundless energy and passion in her beliefs with her goal to create an environmental network for people living in New Jersey who share the same passion.

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Get Paid to do Something good for the Earth?

Posted on October 26th, 2007 in electronics, recycling by Green Talk

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Photo courtesy of Second Rotation, Inc

Every time you open a drawer or closet, there is unused electronic equipment staring you in the face. Should you try and sell it? Then you think, that could be too much of a hassle. Perhaps you should throw it away? Who is going to want it anyway?

Stress no more because Second Rotation wants your equipment and is willing to pay you a competitive price for it. Does this sound too good to be true? Their mission according to Dylan Hunter, VP of Marketing at the Company is to encourage people to sell their equipment to them instead of disposing of it in a landfill. What better way to achieve this lofty goal then by paying someone a competitive price for their unused wares?

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Meet “The Low Impact” Lunch

Posted on October 24th, 2007 in household products, recycling, shopping by Green Talk

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Many of us pack lunches every day whether it is yours or your children’s.  Probably you pack a sandwich in a plastic bag, chips, and juicy box or plastic water bottle in a lead laden lunch box.  Maybe you will need some silverware to go with that salad or fruit cup you packed in your brown paper bag. When you or your children are done with your lunches, what is the next thing you do?  That’s right; all those plastic bags, aluminum foil, silverware, paper bags, and wax paper, end up in the trashcan.  Subsequently, all that waste ends up in landfills.   A plastic bag takes 450 years to decompose.

 

So how do we provide “greener” lunches for us as well as our families?  First step is reducing the lunchroom waste.

 

According to waste-freelunches.org


“Much of the trash we generate comes from the packaging on the food we buy, and lunch foods are no exception. In fact, it has been estimated that on average a school-age child using a disposable lunch generates 67 pounds of waste per school year. That equates to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school.”


Just ponder how much waste that is for your school or perhaps where you work.  It is pretty staggering.

 

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TerraCycle, Teaching Our Young through Worm Poop

Posted on October 22nd, 2007 in Gardening, fundraising by Green Talk

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 Courtesy of TerraCycle, Inc.

What does fundraising, soda bottles, yogurt cups, drinking pouches, and worm poop have in common?  Give up?  I know that is a tough set of words to figure out the correlation.  Just ask the innovative folks over at TerraCycle, maker of worm poop fertilizer and other assorted eco-friendly gardening products.  They will tell you that it’s their mission to rid the world of waste through creating innovative uses of products that you would ordinarily throw away.  Their worm poop product is bottled in recycled soda bottles.

 How does this involve our young?  What better way to teach this lesson than to create fundraisers involving children to collect items that can be reused?   If our young can be taught at an early age to respect the Earth, then when they grow up as adults this thought process will be second nature to them. This is what the TerraCycle clan is banking on.  They are planting the seeds in our children, and nurturing this “help the Earth” concept.  This is not much different than what their worm poop fertilizer does for plants.

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Eco-fundraising Made Easy and Profitable

Posted on October 19th, 2007 in Website, environmental websites, fundraising by Green Talk

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 Photo by Tannazie by permission under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License 2.0

Although it is still October, the holiday season will be upon us sooner than you think.  In anticipation of this season, PTAs, charities, and religious organizations all over the country will be unveiling holiday fundraisers in the form of holiday wrapping paper, cookie dough sales, and mugs and calendars for grandparents.  This is only some of the possible fundraisers that schools, religious organizations, and other community groups sponsor throughout the year.

I know as a parent I hate these fundraisers.  How much gift wrap do you need?  I could not eat another cheese cake or order anymore stationary for my children.  How many trees have we cut down in the name of fundraisers?  How much sugar have we consumed in order to supplement needed programs at our community organizations? 

Don’t get me wrong.  Fundraising is necessary to supplement the income of an organization, institute special programs, or provide supplies which are needed.  Unfortunately, the amount of hours needed for some fundraisers and the money earned has caused organizations to rethink their fundraising strategies. What if there were new fundraisers that were available that were fun, easy, and had an environmental purpose?  With the news constantly bombarding us with global warming issues, people are trying to make a conscious effort to be aware of their impact on the Earth.

Would it be easier to market a “save the Earth” fundraiser rather than a tired old fundraiser that has been done over and over again?  It is worth a shot.

 Just to give an example, a couple of years ago, my school joined Staples’ Recycling for Education program, which I am in charge of.  We collect inkjet print and laser toner cartridges and send them back to Staples for money.

This fundraiser is a no brainier and people drop off their cartridges in a box in the school office. In turn, our school collects $3 for each eligible cartridge and we are doing our part to keep our share of print cartridges out of landfills.

Are there any other fundraisers out there that either are as simple as Staples’ or at least parents could buy something benefiting the Earth, such as a “feel good fundraiser”? 

 Here is a list of the “no brainier” fundraisers where all people have to do is drop off the requested collectible in a box at the school or any community organization. Many of the organizations pay for shipping as well.  I have provided a brief synopsis of these fundraisers and urge you to click on the link to read more about these programs, or visit my site during the week when I will go into more depth about these fundrasiers.

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Is Your Veggie Garden Spooky?

Posted on October 17th, 2007 in Gardening by Green Talk

garden supply fabric covers

Am I getting ready for Halloween? People ask me this since my “ghostly” garden is the first thing you see when you drive up to my house. It sure looks that way. Last week, the weather changed in New Jersey from an Indian summer to a “cold windy I wish I did not live here” day. I am just not ready to throw in the towel or should I say trowel yet on my garden especially since my tomato plants have just started turning red. I wish the weather would just make up her mind. Colder summers, warmer winters, snow in spring?

As the wind was howling, my tomato cages crashed to the ground. I felt like Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind, trying to save Tara (in my case, my tomato plants), and my Rhett Butler ( my husband) was called to help me out. He could not say to me, “Frankly Scarlett I don’t give a d-mn” because he saw the panic in my eyes. I just was not ready to see my tomato plants die when they still had so much life left in them. (I know. I can be a garden drama queen at times.) So, did Rhett save the tomato plants? Read on…

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Blog Action Day–How Can You Help the Earth?

Posted on October 15th, 2007 in environmental websites by Green Talk

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For many of you, October 15 is known as the last day you can file your tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.  Today could be filled with sorting papers resulting in paper cuts, checking feverishly to make sure everything is right on your tax return, and racing down to the post office before it closes to get that blasted tax return in on time.  You know the the saying, nothing is sure in life except death and taxes?

On the bright side, the IRS shares the day with thousands of bloggers who have united to write about the environment through an initiative started by Blog Action Day. Why the environment?

“We have selected the environment as the 2007 theme both for the clarity of its importance and the undeniable urgency that issues like global warming and pollution have. It is an issue that can relate to virtually any subject, any blog and anybody.”

What is the purpose of Blogger Unite?

“An international initiative of bloggers known as “Blog Action Day” launched today, with the aim of uniting thousands of blogging voices, talking about one issue for one day. This year on Blog Action Day, which is slated for Oct. 15, 2007, bloggers will be discussing the environment.  Major blogs have signed up to participate, including Lifehacker, Dumb Little Man, Lifehack.org, Get Rich Slowly, Web Worker Daily, GigaOm, The Simple Dollar, Zen Habits, Freelance Switch, LifeClever, Unclutterer, Pronet Advertising, Wise Bread and many more.

 For just one day, we’d like to unite as many of the millions of bloggers around the world and speak about one issue - the environment,” said Collis Ta’eed, an Australian blogger from FreelanceSwitch.com, and a cofounder of Blog Action Day. “We want to display the potential and the power of the blogging community, which is a disparate community but one with an amazing size, breadth and diversity. By bringing everyone together for one day, we can see just how much can be achieved, and how much we can be heard.”(via their Press release dated August 15, 2007)

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A LED That Shines Above the Rest

Posted on October 12th, 2007 in building materials, lighting by Green Talk

LR6 From Top
Photo by permission of the LR6 by LED Lighting Fixture, Inc,

At Lightfair 2007 in New York City, there were so many promising CFL and LED fixtures. One that caught my eye was LED Lighting Fixture, Inc.’s LR6. This LED looked like it was wearing a metal hat and simply screwed into a typical 6” recessed lighting can, as demonstrated by one of the salespersons. The light rendering seemed excellent. Remember, I was in a huge convention hall with its own lights with aging 40 plus year old eyes.   It seemed too good to be true, a LED light that could provide general illumination. 

 This month I received an email about the launch of LLF’s new website.  Their email brought back memories about how impressed I was with their LED.  I still wondered could this product render full room illumination whereas many other LED products can only provide directional lighting.  What about the heat that is generated from a LED bulb which will eventually shorten its life?  More importantly, is it worth its cost? 

 The LR6 is basically a screw-in-device lighting module for either new construction or retrofit that installs in most standard six inch recessed cans.    It can be installed in both IC or non-IC rated recessed cans.

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Coffee Grounds, Garden Friend or Foe?

Posted on October 10th, 2007 in Gardening by Green Talk


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I was having problems with my roses. They were getting rust from getting their leaves wet from my sprinkler system. Last summer, they looked terrible so I cut them back and thought they would never grow back. I am new to growing roses…well growing anything so most of my planting experience is through trial and error and a lot of error.

One day, my friend came over whose mom was a garden maven. After looking at my roses (or what was left of them), she said “sprinkle coffee grounds around them and they will flourish.” I was desperate because my roses looked so pathetic. I started taking my husband’s left over coffee grounds and sprinkling them around the roses and sure enough they started to grow. I was amazed!

This year, Starbucks moved into a neighboring town. Since my husband was my family’s only coffee drinker, I did not have enough grounds to give my other plants. Figuring that Starbucks had coffee grounds and probably would not mind giving them away, I went into their store. Well, they beat me to the punch and there in a wastebasket next to the door was a little sign “Grounds for your Garden”. I took their package and left home with my garden treasure.

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