How to Seal a Bag and Make It Air Tight

Our great friend Trayce sent this terrific tip over and I was blown away! Not only does this help to seal the bag but the most thrown away portion of a plastic water bottle, the cap, is functionally utilized by extending its lifecycle. If we all learned to think creatively like this we could save countless pounds of non-biodegradable waste from landfills.

Air Tight Steps

Cut up a disposable water bottle and keep the neck and top.

Insert the plastic bag through the neck and screw the top – to seal.

The bottle is made to be air-tight, such that water will not leak, the secret lies with the top and screw! This is a great idea to share, feel free to pass on the link and let everyone see how easy it can be to save plastic waste and save the items inside the bag for even longer! Thanks for forwarding on the great idea Trayce ♥love♥

What Started Out As Newspaper…

The cleaning up and cleaning out of my grandparent’s old home continues so when Matt and I stopped by the other day to help my aunt get a chair out to the curb I wasn’t at all surprised to find this tacked up on the back of the door to the kitchen:

My old hometown is coming up on its 21st anniversary of recycling. Hooray!

The rest of that side of the page consists of the calendar of pick up dates and a cute little cartoon with a very enthusiastic stick figure announcing that they recycle, proudly! When I flipped the page over I discovered that in addition to newspaper, they were also collecting dropped off (and clean) glass items once a month.  Oh, and the newsletter was printed on already recycled paper.  Nice!

Rain or shine, in a paper bag or a bin, everyone’s newspapers became the catalyst toward a fantastic eco movement in Arlington!

According to the Recycling section of the Department of Public Works website, Arlington now recycles “yard waste, trash collection, white goods, household hazardous waste, CRT/TV collection and more.”, quite an achievement for a mid-sized town in only 20 years!

Good for you for thinking so progressively back then Arlington, thanks for thinking environmentally in the midst of the consumption age. You are the example of how to start small and build a program from one tiny shift in thinking. ♥love♥

Interested in your own town or city’s recycling history? Why not give your Public Works Department a call. Or better yet, stop by for a visit and chat with the employees. If your town has had a recycling program in place for even one day they are making a difference. Tell them thanks and shake their hand!

Happy recycling!

Burt’s Bees Is A Zero Waste Company

This past summer the super cool company Burt’s Bees announced it was going zero waste.  They were always a company who cared about the planet (as evidenced by their commitment to natural based products) and recycled the basics -- paper, plastic, metal, glass -- but within just three short years their special task force of ECOBEES rendered their dumpsters useless.

So how on Earth did they do it?

Well it started out with six-bin waste-sorting stations being sprinkled all over their offices.  Employees were encouraged to sort it out and harness the responsibility of, well, being responsible!  In particular the company is most proud of the compost station as it has managed to keep 300 tons of material out of landfills over the past 31 months, since March 2008.

Not only have they managed to recycle or reuse the top four ‘basics’ items above, but they went that step further and now recycle every bit of their corrugated cardboard, chipboard, wood, shrink wrap and fiberboard too.

They created a way to give back to the Earth with the compost station.  In the break room employees are encouraged to grab a one time type use utensil -- they are 100% compostable and made from potatos (reusable too)!  They also found a way to extend the lifecycle of recycled waste other than as fertilizer or simply being melted down to create more of the same.    

At special waste-to-energy facilities, the items that can’t be utilized for other sources (ie. compost into soil) are used as fuel to power cement kilns.  Even after the items in question have been burned, the leftover ash is mixed in to make cinder blocks.

And oh yeah, they are also composting the waste residue left over at their water treatment facility.

The ECOBEES staged all manner of dumpster diving and bee-cycle swaps (Get it?  Bee-cycle instead of Freecycle?  Those Bees sure are a clever bunch!), and with their continued efforts who knows how far Burt’s Bees will be able to take their environmental awareness.

Thanks Burt’s Bees, it’s companies like yours that teach the rest of us that eco-responsibility can happen at work no matter how big or how small the staff or organization!  ♥love♥

Thanks to GLR friend Julie for sending over this story idea! 

Life Is Good!

This past weekend here in Canton, Massachusetts the well known lover of all dogs, Life Is Good, held their rockin’ good time festival and Matt and I were lucky enough to attend on Sunday.

The festival, held on the grounds of Prowse Farm, featured so much it would be almost impossible to list it all here but I’ll highlight the stuff we took part in and saw.

We started the day with the best part of all -- free parking! Parking was graciously donated by Reebok as their building was about a ten minute walk from the field and they had a parking garage which housed a healthy number of cars. Instead of waiting for a shuttle bus, Matt and I walked the distance to the field with our beach chairs, backpack (filled with towels, a roll of toilet paper, our Nalgene bottles and travel sized Scrabble) and a smile.

We arrived right on time to get set up to see Emily Elbert. Originally from Texas, Emily went to school right here in Boston at Berkley. We’ve seen her live before and couldn’t wait to catch her act on a much larger stage. The music she does is a nice mix of bluesy, jazzy, poppy, rock and her voice holds so much soul you’d never think it was coming from such a teeny girl. She rocked and even had an interpreter signing for the crowd!

From there we made our way to get some food from the local vendors and the prices were really reasonable which was a welcomed change from most festivals I’ve attended. We passed the Life Is Good merchandise tent on the way. Oh yeah, did I happen to mention that 100% of the proceeds from this event of LiG merch are being donated to the Life is Good Kids Foundation?

Cool!

Next up for us was They Might Be Giants, one of Matt’s all time favorite acts. They have taken to doing lots of kids music in recent years but we’ve discovered that the jokes and chatting the guys do on stage in between the tunes is all for the grown ups. So, sans kids of our own, we hung out on the periphery and enjoyed the fun!  They made a funny reference to Woodstock when one of the John's came up to make an announcement and I even recognized a few tunes (Alphabet of Nations I think is one of them) from having taken our nephews to their show a few months back.

We had a bunch of idle time until the next act we were interested in seeing so it was time to mingle -- festival style!

We passed on taking part in the sporting events because we just like to walk around (and also because we both had a drink so safety first!). There was a rock climbing wall, Frisbee toss, bocce, tug-o-war and a whole slew of other fun stuff for all ages to take part in! On the way around we passed the Art for All Mural (pictured at the top of the post) and I was in love!

It consists of 1500 tiles that are hand painted in pre-determined colors/palates by selected volunteers and when it is all put together this 25’ high by 31’ wide canvas is a most impressive piece.

We made our way around to catch a little bit of Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars on the main stage (who were quite grooving, I danced my way across the field!) and then headed back to the smaller stage to watch OK Go and Brett Dennen.

We played a little Scrabble (I won which is pretty normal around here, I come from a long lineage of fierce Scrabble competitors!)

Took a few photos.

And then, I had a Say Anything moment with my favorite eco-conscious musician, the headliner that night, Jason Mraz. Just like Lloyd Dobler and Diane Court “shared a moment” in a mall food court in that movie, my moment with Jason was quite the exciting sighting for me. He passed by about ten feet away with, I think, his Joyologist Tricia but I wouldn’t swear to it. They were walking with a purpose and headed toward the main stage.

I nudged Matt and pointed Jason out but he didn’t catch on until the man himself had already passed by. Oh well, maybe one of these days I won’t be so shy and just approach the guy. I mean really, we have the planet in common at least even if nothing else right?

After Brett was wrapped up we had a lot of time before the next act we wanted to see, Jason, so we kind of milled about the place. We caught a slight snippet of Guster (good!) and Corinne Bailey Rae (very mellow) but when we got to the kid’s tent I was really happy we walked all the way down there.

We were lucky enough to see most of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue and they were amazing! The name says it all, with Cajun, jazz and big band swing influence this act even got Matt dancing (a treasured moment to be sure!). These guys were supposed to open the main stage but had travel problems and couldn’t make it in for the 12:30 start. We were both really glad to have caught the act.

A little more wandering, people watching, throwing trash into the designated receptacles for compost, recycling and trash itself and claiming our spot to see the main stage from a vantage point a healthy distance away and we were ready for the main act.

Jason took the stage right on time and it was such a great performance we ended up heading closer toward the crowd so I could concert call a few friends, also fans of his.

Matt and I danced the entire set and it was a super fun show. Jason was opening his tour this month and I don’t know for sure but I think this was the first stop. He was full of energy and so was the huge crowd even when he performed a whole bunch of new music. At one point he tossed a piece of his cantaloupe into a guy’s mouth in the crowd then later invited the same guy (Joe) and another gal (Katie) up on stage to dance. Good times.

After the satisfying end to a day full of love, fun and music we walked back to the car, tired but happy to have had the experience and lucky enough to sit in zero traffic when leaving.

Thanks for such a great event Life is Good, the day was phenomenal and I can’t wait to hear how much you raised to support the Kids Foundation! ♥love♥

Green Streets Day

On the last Friday of every month Portland, Maine rolls out the eco carpet to host Green Streets Day. ‘What is that?’ you may be asking. Well it is a locally launched movement staged by the town’s residents to think planet.

I love to hear when stuff like this is taking place in my own region of the country, way to go Portland!

Residents and tourists alike are asked to wear something green while they think up Greener ways to live their lives. Local businesses who support and commit to a more eco-conscious way of doing things are staffed and ready to answer all manner of questions.

Whether it is the one day a month you take public transportation or the 365th in a row you placed scraps into your back yard composter, there is something about an entire community coming together for one likeminded purpose that makes me smile.

Upcoming dates include:
September 24, 2010
October 29, 2010
November 26, 2010
December 31, 2010

If you’re in the Portland, Maine area I highly encourage you to check it out!

Thanks goes out to my Aunt for forwarding on this story!