Mom Goes Green

Saturday is “America Recycles Day”… a day that ‘encourages more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment by recycling and buying recycled products’ and ‘promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling.’

A very worthwhile cause, I’d say!

As the Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair at our daughter’s school I’m promoting this great day by encouraging the kids to submit their best recycling tips and the favorite ways their families recycle.   I’m going to compile all of their great ideas and turn it into a recycling newsletter that will be sent home to each family.  Some will even win cool prizes, like a recycled pencil bag from Terracycle! The response has been overwhelming!  It’s so exciting to see their enthusiasm.  Kids rule!

So, to get back to the basics of this day… let’s remember WHY we recycle:

• to reduce pollution
• to save energy
• to help the environment
• to save natural resources
• to keep trash out of landfills

And here are some things to think about …

1. PLASTIC– it can take 20 years for a plastic bag to biodegrade and 250 years for a plastic cup!  And if every American household recycled just one of every 10 plastic bottles, it would keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year!
2. PAPER – it accounts for HALF of what is sent to landfills… and it’s recyclable! Plus, recycling one ton of paper would save enough energy to power an average American home for five months!
3. ALUMINUM – recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a computer for 3 hours.  Last year cans that were NOT recycled and went to landfills were valued at $600 million! (let me go get my shovel and start digging!)
4. GLASS – a bottle in a landfill would take more than 4000 years to decompose, but glass never “wears out” and can be recycled forever!

Sadly, 75% of “trash” is recyclable, but only 25% actually gets recycled.

So get recycling, increase your recycling, start someone you know recycling… just get to it!… because “America Recycles” and that’s a club all of us should want to belong to!

One of my greatest frustrations is when I feel like I’m fighting the green battle against people I feel a bond with.  Whether it’s family, friends or groups I associate with, it can be really difficult to be the wave maker… well, I’m about to battle… enter: waves!

Our daughter brought home a letter from school that announced a special school program focusing on proper nutrition and making healthy food choices.  Sounded like a great program to me!  They’re setting aside a day where students can sample healthy foods and snacks. Still, a big thumbs up!

Then, I got to the part that asked for parent participation.  They asked for volunteers to send in apples (okay!), granola bars (can do!) or bottled water (no!  Say it isn’t so!)

So, while we’re teaching 400 kids about eating properly, we can give them a chaser of BPA laced water and bottles that will go into the school’s trash cans and create our very own space in a landfill.  Augh, I think I’m going to scream.

Now (since I am the Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair)  I get to contact all those in charge and ask “why” and “what can we do?”  I hate these confrontations, but I have to do it.  I’m expecting that “convenience” is the reason, so I will probably have to be content with the idea of pushing for a special bottle receptacle.  Sadly, we don’t have a plastics recycling program in the school.  It’s something I’m working for, but we aren’t there yet.  (You wouldn’t believe what it takes to get something so simple in place).

So, as I sit here, I’m preparing my approach to people that are trying to teach the right nutritional choices, but using bad environmental choices.  I have no idea how this is going to end up, but I don’t like where it’s starting!

I can see it now… Wednesday recycling pick-up is going to be crazy at my house after I lug 400 plastic bottles home and they later come flying out of my recycling can… and my neighbor’s…and the neighbor’s next to them….

The useless has landed.  Warning!…the useless has landed. What am I talking about?  Phone books. Loads and loads of phone books.

In my county alone (one single county) there are over a half million households.  So that’s one book for the yellow pages and one book for the white pages.  And that’s just the company that calls themselves “The Real Yellow/White Pages.” And there you have a million(!) phone books.

Next enters another competing company that is producing what they call the “Yellow Book” and “White Book”.  Here we are, one county – TWO MILLION phone books.  That equals about 32,000 trees!  And what about the businesses?   They aren’t even included in these numbers.  I shudder to think.

I want them to go extinct themselves.

My husband has a studio office space in a building outside of downtown Cleveland.  A few years ago the delivery for the entire building arrived…on a pallet.  Funny thing is, there aren’t enough businesses in the building to warrant a pallet of phone books, but a lending company was next door and they had a ridiculous amount of phone numbers, so a book was sent for each number.  It was sickening.  I drove there, we filled our SUV and I drove them to a recycling dumpster at our zoo.  At least THEY didn’t wind up in a landfill.  But if others don’t recycle them, that’s where they’re winding up.

Undoubtedly, phone books are generational.  The younger you are, the less likely you are to count on phone books, and the more likely you are to count on online listings. I learned about a website that is setting its sights on trying to help people opt out of phone books – yellowpagesGoesGreen.org.  They will contact the publisher of your phone book and tell them that you want to opt out.  There is no guarantee, but this should be considered more of a movement to make the industry sit up and take notice…we want our earth to STOP being polluted by unwanted phone books!

So, if your “fingers aren’t walking through the phone book”, let your fingers do the walking on your keyboard to opt out (at least to have your voice counted in disapproval).  And then make your feet do some more walking to the recycling can with your old books.

(*Curbside recycling won’t accept phone books?  Go to earth911.org to find a location that will!)

Well… it’s back-to-school time. Wait. (blink, blink.) I thought it was still June.

Unfortunately…no. I’ve been desperately working on getting in the school mode, but I’m just in such denial that my sweet “baby” girl is going to be gone, all day, five days a week!

We’ve had major discussions about lunchtime and what she would like me to pack. Our school is so-so on nutritious meals, but our daughter has chosen to be a “brown bagger.” However, that’s in name only because we’ve taken lots of steps to insure that she won’t be creating too much waste at lunchtime. In fact, an interesting little stat I found on Greenopia:  “An average kid using disposable lunch wrappers generates 67 pounds of waste per school year.”… YIKES!

So, to our “low-/no-waste” lunch plan.

Buy a lunchbox. There are so many cool ones to choose from, kids can certainly find one to love. Buy a reusable bottle and/or thermo. No matter what beverage you choose, it will accommodate…and there won’t be any disposable bottles/boxes to throw away later. No paper napkins. A quick stop at the dollar store and we have cloth napkins to last her a week. Buy a cheap set of silverware. No need to toss plastic in the trash daily. Or, if you use plastic, wash & reuse. NO Ziplocs or plastic baggies. Like I mentioned before, I bought a bunch of small containers for the kids’ foods and snacks, so these will accompany her to school each day!

I was concerned that within the course of weeks the containers, thermoses, etc. would get left behind at school and never find their way back to us, but I discovered a great product from Stuck On You. They are vinyl name labels that can be placed on all of these items and they are waterproof, microwave- and dishwasher-safe (so you won’t be replacing name labels with every washing!). Our daughter’s are pink with flowers and she LOVES them. They have tons of other great products too (labels, tags, and a great starter pack) if you want to check them out.

So, as I venture into a teary-eyed send-off to our daughter, I at least know that when the year ends, there won’t be 67 lbs. of trash in a local landfill with her name on it.

For our kids, the best part of summer (aside from vacation) is all of the fairs, festivals and parades.

We went to THE parade of the summer recently and our kids were blessed with enough candy to rot the mouths of at least 9 other kids. At this parade, they toss out not only candy, but popsicles, water bottles, pens, pencils… it’s ridiculous.

But the aftermath was nauseating. After a nearly one hour parade, I glanced 6 feet to the left and here is exactly what I saw.

Trash – wrappers, papers, and bottles – despite a recycling bin sitting no more than 10 feet behind us. It looked this way up and down the entire street. It made me sad and very ashamed.

Afterward, my friend, Lynn, and I commiserated. “What are parents teaching their children?” Or moreover, “What AREN’T parents teaching their children?” My mother-in-law justified it by saying “well, they always send the street sweeper through, so it will get cleaned up” but that’s not okay with me. There just isn’t a good enough excuse for making the ground your garbage can.

Our kids overindulged that day. It was a candy fiesta, to say the least, but every single time they unwrapped another treat, I got a “Here, Mommy!” and they handed me the wrapper, because they knew that the ground was no place for the waste.

I wish everyone would embrace that. I wish every parent would teach their children that a little extra effort is worth it. Please, teach your children to love their earth, their city, their town, their block…

That lesson will last their lifetime.

Myrtle Beach Part II (Scenario: Me. My family. Myrtle Beach vacation. Ungodly amounts of recyclables. No where to take them…no recycling options in sight.)

…So, what did I do?

You guessed ‘er, Chester. I stood in the kitchen of our condo. I crushed cans. I smashed plastic bottles. I tore apart and flattened boxes. I gathered and straightened newspaper. I condensed everything… every last little thing… into the smallest amount of trash bag space possible and…

We drove it home. ALLLL the way back to Cleveland. Alongside beach chairs and boogie boards. Alongside favorite pillows and stuffed animals. Alongside food that never got consumed… in the car. A 703 mile cruise to “Recycleville”.

And honestly…it felt great!

This is the pile that we brought home. Keep in mind that it is smashed and crushed and flattened to extremes (so you don’t see the true volume), but would you take a look at what WOULD HAVE been sent to a landfill if we hadn’t brought it home? It literally FILLED our recycling can. Our 3 foot tall recycling can.

What bothers me the most is not that we had to drive it home(!) but what in the hell is going on in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that a recycling program is not set-up for all of the hundreds upon hundreds of resorts and hotels? How much money floods into that place every year and how pitiful that they offer no options, whatsoever, and have not taken responsibility for even the most fundamental step in environmental consciousness.

Do you know that 14 MILLION PEOPLE visit Myrtle Beach each year?!?!? If they accepted only cans and bottles, can you imagine the volume? If they only offered vacationers a choice. But there are no choices. It’s one, big pit of overconsumption and waste.

I need to do something. What? I’m not yet sure. Contact the Mayor? Contact the head of their Sanitation and Waste Department? Contact the Resort Manager? I just don’t know. But I assure you I’m going to do something. This isn’t going to be the end of the story. I promise.

So, a little secret that I didn’t share was that I’ve been away for some time vacationing in Myrtle Beach with my family. And you didn’t even know, did ya?!?!

We stay in a condo on the beach at a wonderful oceanside resort and we were returning this year for the fourth time. We obviously love the place and all of the amenities, however, this time I’m a bit greener than I was last year.

By our first full day I realized that I had been collecting all of my recyclables but had no clue what to do with them. I doubted that daily housekeeping service would take them anywhere besides a trash dumpster. While I was bothered NOT to see any recycling receptacles around the resort, I assumed that there had to be a large recycling bin somewhere on the premises.

So I called the front desk to ask where to deposit them. The woman I spoke to actually laughed. She said “oh no, ma’am. We don’t have any recycling receptacles.” I asked if there were any drop-off points at retail centers, schools, churches… she laughed “oh no, ma’am. We don’t have those either.”

Later that night we had to stop at a gas station. I actually went inside, knowing that the clerk HAD to be local, and asked the same question. The two people in line behind me were obviously local too because they both laughed along with the clerk. I was promptly informed that there were no drop-off sites, anywhere.

I still continued collecting ALL of our recyclables, despite having no where to take them…

Until day number five. As I flipped through TV channels trying to find Headline News, I flipped past the Community Access channel and saw a blue recycling container flash by. I flipped back and started screaming at my poor husband to “write down this number!!!” It was to the local waste and sanitation department.

I called them and asked the question…again. This time no one laughed…however, I was informed that “no ma’am. We don’t have any public receptacles. Only bins for homes. If you want to, I suppose you could drive them down here to our facility.” (…30 minutes away, of course.)

Are…you…serious? Myrtle Beach! What gives?!? Moreover, what’s up with what ISN’T happening?!?

So, what did I do? You’ll have to come back to find out….

Every time I see litter by the roadside, I try to imagine what the litter-er was thinking.

What in the world could make someone think it’s okay to take something they don’t want and turn it into landscape.

Not long ago, our family was loaded in the car and traveling to downtown. No more than 100 feet from a major intersection, some fool in a huge SUV (an Escalade, no less) chucked an ENTIRE Sunday newspaper out the window.

I watched in horror as, at least, a hundred pieces of newsprint slammed into the pavement and exploded into page after page of litter. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the culprit, but never came up with a realistic reason why this was better than simply waiting until they reached an appropriate receptacle for the newspaper.

[Thirty-eight percent (38%!!!) of our total waste is from paper and paperboard!]

How do people rationalize that this is acceptable? Our community has so many options for recycling newspaper. Half of the schools, churches and miscellaneous parking lots have large dumpsters that are designated for paper recycling. There’s just no excuse.

If you don’t have curbside recycling and have a questions about where your recyclables should go, hesitate for a second… and then go here: www.earth911.org . There’s a locator at the top of the page… put it to (good) use!

(Now if I could just find that jerk in the Escalade!)

This weekend our kids begged us to take them to see “WALL-E”. Besides being an always-reliable Pixar film, we were introduced to a lovable, doe-eyed robot that leads us through a story with a message more important than I’ve seen in a movie in recent years.

What bothers me is the message seems to be a real afterthought for all of the reviews I’ve read. I haven’t heard a “buzz” so it was actually unexpected. I don’t believe this will be a spoiler (because it’s only a part of the storyline) but the message was truly profound. In a nutshell (and I won’t give you any more detail than this, so as NOT to get nasty emails!), Planet Earth becomes uninhabitable because it becomes overrun with trash, trash and more trash. It’s a wasteland, littered with humans’ remnants of excess.

Our kids are a little young to entirely pick-up on the message, but it was a golden opportunity to talk about it with them. They really embraced the idea and started talking about “yeah, that’s why we recycle” and “it’s baaad to litter!” Ahhh, my little sprouts make me proud!

My husband and I also picked up on some shots at big corporate greed and mega-retailers and appreciated the jabs they threw in. But more than anything, I love that they included a real message about the dangerous course that we, as Earth’s inhabitants, are currently on…and the abuse we are permitting.

I can only hope that movie-goers actually hear the message and recognize a story that I believe was entirely intentional, and (sadly)…very true.

I can’t believe what I almost did. Going green rule #1…recycling. It’s one of the easiest things to do, since the trash has to go out anyhow. Just sort it (if your community requires that) and throw it in your recycling can (like we’re fortunate enough to have in our city).

The thing is, I bought new blinds for our bedroom and bathroom, and after I replaced the old with the new, I hovered over the garbage can thinking “well, how should I put these in the can?” Problem was, I was hovering over the GARBAGE, not the RECYCLING…as I stood there with two armloads of aluminum. Aluminum! How could I forget, but I nearly did. All it took was a few snips of string on each set and I was peeling away slat after slat and loading the recycling can. When all was said and done, there was very little that had to go into the trash, but I was amazed at myself that the trash can was almost where all of it went. I’m glad my brain finally kicked in.

I also learned that manufacturers like Levolor, Hunter Douglas and Kirsch are making their miniblinds with 70% to 95% recycled aluminum contents. Well, bravo! I honestly didn’t realize that aluminum miniblinds were such an environmentally responsible choice.

photo by: www.easywindowblinds.com