It's Easy Being Green

Five days and counting to Earth Day so enjoy the easy ways to go green tips I post as we head to the big celebration:

1. When it comes to doing the dishes with your dishwasher, use the energy-saving setting. If your dishwasher is older and doesn’t have one of those settings, just let the dishes air-dry. Don’t use the heated option.

2. Reduce the energy needed to wash your clothes by washing in cold or warm water, not hot. We do all of our laundry with cold water, sometimes warm if some stain treatment or sterilization is needed and we’ve never noticed a problem with our clothes!

3. To save on energy used to heat up hot water, turn your water heater down to about 120-degrees. I have to confess, that’s a hard one for us to stomach because we love our hot showers and baths!

4. As you replace appliances in your home, pick out on the best energy efficient appliances. A lot of new appliances carry the Energy Star label which tells you that particular appliance is designed to save you money. If you’d like to learn more about what appliances to look out for, head over to the Energy Star website.

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Just less than six days away, people all around the world will celebrate our blue planet and share their mindfulness to protect our only home. Senator Gaylor Nelson, realizing that conservation was a much needed movement even in the 1960’s, persuaded President Kennedy to tour the nation. He spoke about conserving our precious resources and it began to get the country thinking. However, the Vietnam War was overshadowing the environmental movement at the time. Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations called “teach-ins” had spread like a wildfire to college campuses across the nation. Senator Nelson realized a similar mass demonstration could be just the key to get people thinking about their environment.

In September 1969, Senator Nelson announced that in the following spring, he would sponsor a nationwide grassroots demonstration on the environment and invited everyone to participate. Word of the demonstration spread and on April 22, 1970 Earth Day was born. Today many communities around the world put on Earth Day events and most calendars come marked with the “holiday” already on it. There might even be an Earth Day event going on in your neighborhood. Just follow the link to an Earth Day website where you can punch in your zip code and find out what’s planned for your area.

Over the next few days I’ll post some easy tips to help you go green and celebrate our Mother Earth.

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It’s that time of year again where high school students begin to fret over who they’re going to prom with and what they’re going to wear. I remember how stressful that one event was or at least how stressful we as high schoolers perceived it. My how things change! Prom can be a wasteful event, especially when it comes to the $100+ girls will spend on special shoes and a formal dress that might not ever be worn again. The guys have it easy when it comes to renting their tux. It’s eco-friendly since that penguin suit is worn again and again for multiple occasions. But, when it comes to the one-time worn prom outfit that looks hot on the girl, it’s not so hot for our environment.

What can you do you ask? It’s easy! After your big night, donate your outfit. I know it might seem harsh but just think of the amount of girls who might not be able to afford all that glam to go to her prom next year. Across the country there are dozens of organizations that take donations of dresses, shoes and unused makeup and provide them totally free for other girls. The Fairy Godmothers of the Flagstaff Elk’s Ladies is one such group that collects hundreds of dresses each year and racks them up for a big weekend event. Girls who pick a dress out will even return it after their prom is over, giving that special dress another chance to shine again. The Glass Slipper Project also offers a list of organizations that do similar things in other states. You can also Google your state and “prom dress donations” to find other community groups on the same mission.

It’s a fun, easy way to be green and help another girl enjoy the experience of going to prom.

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While the snow has all but left us here in the mountains of Northern Arizona, the weather has still been pretty cool. That’s how it should be this time of the year. It may warm up into the 60’s during the day but temperatures quickly drop off into the low 20’s overnight. That’s of course too cold for a garden going outside. Despite the fact that I’ve got spring fever and want to get my veggies on their way outside, I have to give them some gentle nudges inside, first.

Two weeks ago I planted two seed starting flats worth of tomatoes and other veggies which will require some time to get themselves established before they actually produce anything. More than likely I won’t be able to get any veggies outside until sometime in May so the few weeks they have to begin sprouting inside and forming root systems will be beneficial. My first flat of tomatoes has sprouted but the seedling are already too leggy. With tomatoes you want to keep replanting them fairly deep, allowing roots to grow off their main stems every time you replant them. This ensures your tomato plants will grow strong and healthy. They’ve already outgrown their little seedling flat so now it’s time to transfer them into small pots so they can continue their growth.

If you happen to save all those little plastic nursery pots you probably don’t have to worry about what you transplant your seedlings into. As it turns out, the last time we moved we through most of those pots littering our potting shed into the recycling bin. So, I turned to some newspaper to form little transplant pots just like the peat pots you could buy at the local nursery. It’s cheap and allows you to put the newspaper to another use, recycling it before it’s demise. Just like the peat pots the newspaper pot is biodegradable and will eventually just disappear into your soil. I found a great video showing how to make some newspaper transplant pots, so take a look below.

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Clothing manufacturer Patagonia has made another interesting move, showcasing their social responsibility to our planet.  The company just launched a new website called The Footprint Chronicles.  The interactive website allows people  to see the good and bad affects of manufacturing the clothes they buy like Synchilla fleece vests and rain shells.  In a press release about the new website, Patagonia company officials said they’re determined to be candid and forthright about its impact on the environment and created the site to encourage dialog with customers who are concerned about the environment.  Five new products will be added to the site on Earth Day 2008.  The site showcases more than 35 filmed interviews and slide shows of factory workers, owners, designers and third party auditors.

Patagonia has increasingly tried to become a more environmentally responsible company.  Since 1996 they’ve used only organic cotton in their outdoor clothing line.  Just recently the company also launched their synthetic fiber-to-fiber recycling program.  Patagonia takes back worn-out polyster and nylon clothing and recycles it, making it into new clothing.  The process forever captures the raw materials used in making virgin fibers.

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Scientists are beginning to prove many of the benefits behind eating organically grown produce. Researchers at the University of California, Davis just wrapped up a study that’s lasted 10 years. The group compared flavonoid levels in tomatoes that were grown conventionally and organically. Conventional farming uses fertilizers and insecticides to help the plant grow and maintain production. Organically grown produce zeros in on soil health through composting and manure applications and not using any chemicals. As it turns out, the organically grown tomatoes had a much higher level of flavonoids.

Flavonoids are known to help protect against heart disease, cancer and other age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. One of the lead scientists on the project says the way our produce is grown has everything to do with how much good stuff it brings to our dinner table. The study’s authors, Alyson Mitchell and Alexander Chassy theorize that plants grown in an organic way devote more of their energy to producing flavonoids which in turn provide more protection from pests. But, Mitchell says there are some exceptions and not all organic tomatoes will contain the same amounts of flavonoids. She says that’s because soils, stresses and growing methods will widely vary between different organic farms.

This research goes a long way to prove that organically grown produce is much better for your health and in the long run. To read more about Mitchell and Chassy’s research, please click on this link.

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You can join millions of people around the globe Saturday, March 29th by participating in an event showing awareness and support for our planet. Started by the World Wildlife Fund last year, the event is a simple one to join. Beginning at 8pm your time, wherever in the world you may live, turn off all your lights for an hour. If you’re at home turn out all the lights in your house or if you’re in an office…work in the dark for an hour too!

The City of Phoenix was chosen as a participating city and will show their support by shutting off all the lights in their city run buildings. U.S. Airways Center (home of the Phoenix Suns) and Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks) will also go dark during the event tonight. So, join in with millions of your fellow humans around the globe showing your awareness about climate change tomorrow night….at 8:00pm.

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