Happy Thanksgiving!

I read this article on how to have a greener Thanksgiving. In summary, purchase your turkey from local farmers. Or serve chicken instead of turkey. And is it better to wrap leftovers in plastic wrap or aluminum foil? If you must use aluminum foil, reuse it.

Happy Turkey Day!

The weapon we have is Love

Just in time for the opening of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows part 1, we would like to draw attention to the works of real-life Dumbledore's Army: the Harry Potter Alliance.The non-profit organization was founded 5 years ago by anything-but-slacker Andrew Slack. What would Dumbledore do? Why, he'd help eradicate poverty, illiteracy,genocide, social inequality, and global warming, of course!

The group recently launched its Deathly Hallows Campaign, a campaign to destroy real-life horcruxes from November 2010 until July 2011. According to this article, the first Horcrux is Starvation Wages. "The HPA sent a letter to Time Warner inviting them to consider switching their Harry Potter chocolate merchandise to Fair Trade chocolate, thereby re-associating good labor and economic conditions with the Harry Potter name."

To donate, click HERE.

Lead in the Bag

I read this New York Times article saying that high levels of lead were found in reusable bags made in China. Implicated were bags from some CVS stores, Wal-Mart, Target, and supermarkets like Winn-Dixie and Publix. Wegman's grocery chain recalled its bags in September. New York Senator Charles Schumer is calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate and ban these bags.

America Recycles Day

Presidential Proclamation--America Recycles Day

AMERICA RECYCLES DAY, 2010

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Each small act of conservation, when combined with other innumerable deeds across the country, can have an enormous impact on the health of our environment. On America Recycles Day, we celebrate the individuals, communities, local governments, and businesses that work together to recycle waste and develop innovative ways to manage our resources more sustainably.

Americans already take many steps to protect our planet, participating in curbside recycling and community composting programs, and expanding their use of recyclable and recycled materials. Recycling not only preserves our environment by conserving precious resources and reducing our carbon footprint, but it also contributes to job creation and economic development. This billion-dollar industry employs thousands of workers nationwide, and evolving our recycling practices can help create green jobs, support a vibrant American recycling and refurbishing industry, and advance our clean energy economy.

While we can celebrate the breadth of our successes on America Recycles Day, we must also recommit to building upon this progress and to drawing attention to further developments, including the recycling of electronic products. The increased use of electronics and technology in our homes and society brings the challenge of protecting human health and the environment from potentially harmful effects of the improper handling and disposal of these products. Currently, most discarded consumer electronics end up in our landfills or are exported abroad, creating potential health and environmental hazards and representing a lost opportunity to recover valuable resources such as rare earth minerals.

To address the problems caused by electronic waste, American businesses, government, and individuals must work together to manage these electronics throughout the product lifecycle -- from design and manufacturing through their use and eventual recycling, recovery, and disposal. To ensure the Federal Government leads as a responsible consumer, my Administration has established an interagency task force to prepare a national strategy for responsible electronics stewardship, including improvements to Federal procedures for managing electronic products. This strategy must also include steps to ensure electronics containing hazardous materials collected for recycling and disposal are not exported to developing nations that lack the capacity to manage the recovery and disposal of these products in ways that safeguard human health and the environment.

On America Recycles Day, let us respond to our collective responsibility as a people and a Nation to be better stewards of our global environment, and to pass down a planet to future generations that is better than we found it.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 15, 2010, as America Recycles Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities, and I encourage all Americans to continue their recycling efforts throughout the year.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

BARACK OBAMA

Green renovations with Green Demolitions

With the holidays coming up, most of us are looking for ways to decorate our homes.

If you are looking to do more than decorate and thinking of embarking on your own home improvement projects before the holidays are upon us, check out Green Demolitions. According to their website:

"Green Demolitions sells luxury commercial surplus and donated kitchens, appliances, bathroom fixtures, home decor, etc. from houses being demolished and renovated in Greenwich and New Canaan, CT, Scarsdale and Bedford, NY, and beyond."

They have stores in Norwalk, CT, Riverdale, NJ, and Honesdale, PA.

Bathroom and kitchen renovations cost so much, especially more so when you want to remain eco-friendly. I'd like to get green materials, but recycling and reusing materials are ways to stay green anyway. I'll visit their Norwalk store soon to check out their inventory.

Bag Check

I heard on The Dr. Oz Show that bags, wallets, and purses made from vinyl (or PVC-Polyvinyl chloride) are toxic because they contain lead. This article states that "the worst offenders were bags that were yellow or yellow-tinted." I for one, am horrified by this. I use bags because I have to and have no intention of spending hundreds of dollars on an expensive leather purse. I guess it's time to use canvas or vegetable tanned leather bags.

Check your bags ladies, and keep yourself and your family members safe.

The Gift that keeps on Giving

The holiday shopping season is upon us. I'm a proponent of re-gifting. Why waste perfectly good stuff that you unfortunately do not want? You can re-gift or donate them. I'm also a lazy shopper. So I buy gift cards instead. If you get a gift card for some merchant that you don't normally buy from, you can use Card Woo. You can sell those cards and get cash back. You can also purchase gift cards from them at discount prices.

"Find Your Footprint"

Attention teachers, parents and students!

Do you have any ideas on how to make your school environmentally friendly? If yes, join The National Geographic's "Find Your Footprint" conservation competition for K-12.

In case you're wondering what you should do, come up with a project for a greener school. And yes, there are some cool prizes at stake. How does these sound - five Promethean state-of-the-art interactive whiteboards, five classroom sets of Promethean Learner Response Systems (ActivExpressions), $1,000 in National Geographic educational materials and 30 subscriptions to National Geographic Kids magazine?

Submit your entries by December 3, 2010. Click here to find out more.

What to do with old jeans

I have a couple of old jeans here that are already looking quite tattered and, frankly, don't really fit me all that well anymore and are just plain sloppy-looking now. Instead of doing away with them, there might be something interesting I can do with them. This article from The Dallas Morning News offers some good tips on repurposing your old jeans.

Photo from CaraGreen