reduce

Support Green Charities by Buying or Selling on eBay

jplatt — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0400

Looking for a way to support a green charity, but you don't have much cash on hand? Try selling something on eBay and donating the proceeds to the enviro-charity of your choice.

eBay's Giving Works program lets any seller choose to donate 10-100% of the proceeds of their sales to any of 14,000 charities.

Green charities registered for Giving Works include all of the biggies: the World Wildlife Fund, Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace, the NRDC and many others.

There are a few restrictions and details that sellers need to know before they list their items:

A donation of at least $5.00 is required if your listing sells (so no selling $1 items)
The donation will be collected from the payment method you put on file for donation payments (so you'll get what's left over if you donate less than 100% to charity)
You still need to pay listing fees to sell your items on Giving Works, but you'll get a 30% fee credit if your item sells
MissionFish, a registered nonprofit, collects and distributes your donation. According to eBay, they "retain a small portion of each donation to help cover their costs."
Your donation earns you a tax deduction, and you'll get all the necessary paperwork to support that deduction

You can also take advantage of this program as a buyer. Just search the Giving Works site, or search their database to find a charity that you want to support and the auctions that support the chairty of your choice.

eBay says this site helps to support non-profits while also living up to the old environmental credo of "reduce, reuse, recycle." Give it a tree and see how much you can donate as a result!

Become a Tuesday-Tarian

scleaver — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0400

In the spirit of Tuesday-Tarianism (or Wednesday or Thursday-tarianism, whichever day you prefer to go meat-less), here are five ways to reduce your meat intake without feeling like there’s a hole on your dinner plate.

Increase variety as you decrease meat: Eat.Drink.Better.’s Robin Shreeves suggests filling a dinner plate with two vegetables (choose two different colors of veggie to make the plate more appealing), beans, pasta, and more, instead of the typical potato, meat, and one vegetable combination.
Expand your options: Vegetarian options (even tofu) don’t have to be bland and mushy. Consider when you can take meat out of the equation (a spicy Thai curry might not really need chicken) and when you absolutely must have it (for the annual grill-off).
Buy healthy meat: If you do buy meat, make sure it’s the good stuff. Organic, grass fed, free-range, meat from cows or chickens that are raised the way nature intended. It's a win-win: they’re happier while they’re running around the farm producing less harm to the environment, and they’re healthier on your plate.
Consider food miles: One way to know you’re reducing your carbon footprint, and that of your dinner, is to get your meat locally. Check out Eat Wild or The Eat Well Guide to find meat in your area.
Rethink what meat means to you: If it’s a garnish or a side dish instead of the main event, you’ll use a lot less. For more tips, see this blog post on grilling.

Photo from the From Whence It Came art project at Carnegie Mellon University taken from Neatorama.

Trash Crisis Brings Out the Garbage Police

scleaver — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:33:22 -0400

In the city of Whitehaven in northern England (almost at the Scotland border), Britons are balking at a government crackdown on trash. Earlier this year, for example, local bus driver Gareth Corkhill was fined $215 when he couldn't fully close the lid on his overflowing garbage can. His neighbors rallied behind him, protesting the fine, but they’re not the only city facing increasing scrutiny on trash day.

New garbage rules are spreading across Europe. Britain, especially, is in trash crisis with a poor recycling record, and ever-shrinking landfill space, according to a New York Times article. Now, governments in England and on the continent are enforcing strict rules to get residents to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Two ideas that governments are trying to enforce that you can adopt:

1. Put out garbage every other week: Many countries are collecting trash every other week, instead of every week, forcing people to limit their trash output.

2. Put less in landfills: Landfill space is running out, which is why Britain and Europe have been ordered to reduce landfill waste to 50% of the 1995 levels by 2015, or incur EU fines.

Those policies are being enforced today, but on the horizon are policies that make Britons pay according to the amount of garbage they produce, using a weight sensor inside every garbage bin to calculate each household’s bill. With what they see as the Big Brother of garbage looming, Britons are up in arms. What do you think? Should the government enforce trash policies? And which do you think will work?

Photo from Green Living Online.

Can You Make Overconsumption Look Good?

akronheim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0400

I got an email with the subject line: "What does a pile of 426,000 cell phones (the number retired in the US everyday) look like?" I clicked on the link and was mesmerized by artist Chris Jordan. On his series "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" he wrote "Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes." From far away, the huge 5'x6' (or bigger) photographs don't look like anything except flat color, stone, landscape, or a model, but when you move closer, the pile of waste is shown. It's like an allegory of how disconnected we are from the problem of overconsumption (as discussed on the Living Ethically and Sustainably Web page) and we have to step closer to see how to fix it.

I sent the link to my friends around campus and they said that our very own Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery has the exhibit! I was so excited to spread the word! On the reaction wall at the exhibit some comments have been: "...cell phones from a distance seem like stone...they look natural from far away and then we pummel it with trash," "USA is home to 5% (or less) of world's population, but consumes 30% (or more) of the world's resources," "What hope or solution does this exhibit offer? How can we become less of a consumerist society?"

Just to start us off on the track to becoming a more sustainable society:

1. Reduce what you buy and use on a daily basis
2. Reuse - "Paper or Plastic?" How about Neither? (an organic bag that says "neither" to paper or plastic)
3. Recycle - recycle everything your town recycling plant can handle
4. Compost your food left overs
4. Redistribute - Donate to a thrift store near you, so someone else can use them and you can get a tax write-off!

There's many other things you can do, and most blogs on Riverwired.com can help you out. Chris Jordan just shoves it in our faces that we really need to make these changes ASAP because the waste is piling up faster and faster. I cannot imagine what I would do if I was personally in front of 410,000 paper cups. We should work on these lifestyle changes together to make Chris Jordan's art a little smaller and our planet a little cleaner.

Back To Basics - RRR

GreenTraveler — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:51:41 -0500

Back to Basics

RRR, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The 3 R's have been around since I was a kid but they're still around because what they stand for is powerful. I think it's important to talk more about this essential alliteration because not everyone realizes the full impact. Sticking to the 3 R's keeps our landfills from overloading and helps to curb the production of unnecessary disposables and materials. In a nutshell, minimizing waste means lower carbon emissions and cleaner air for everyone. Often times when traveling even the greenest of greenies can seem to forget about these steps, but please try to keep them in mind no matter where you may be. For those of you green curious folks, you can start greening up your life by incorporating any one of these steps…and you'll soon find out that they all tie together.

Reduce. All of us are surely guilty of having bought at least one thing that we've never even used. The first of the 3 R's is probably the most important, and it goes farther than just reducing the amount of stuff we throw away. If we could all reduce the amount of things we bought to begin with, it would cut back on both the amount of junk being dumped into the landfills and the production of unnecessary goods…plus we'd all have some extra cash lying around to travel. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tell you to stop shopping all together, just think about what you're buying. The easiest way to start is to try something really simple- like cutting down on the disposables that you use. Bring your own mug to the office instead of using the styrofoam cups. Skip the disposable plates at home. Don't buy products wrapped in ridiculous amounts of packaging and buy things that are recyclable. Let others know why you're doing it and why it's important. Reducing what you buy will naturally reduce what you throw away.

Reuse. It seems like everything is disposable these days. If something breaks, we don't fix it. We throw away everything from our old computers to razors to water bottles but it's so simple to reuse these things and keep them far from the landfills. Investing in something more permanent may cost more up front but you're more likely to save money in the end. Buy a digital camera as opposed to multiple disposables, buy a razor that you only need to replace the blades, buy Tupperware instead of baggies, and get a reusable water bottle. When you do decide to replace something whether it's your old TV or your wardrobe, donate the old item(s) to a charity like Goodwill. Even if it's old or broken, most items can be fixed or cleaned up and given to a family in need. And finally, even if you do use disposables like plastic cups, plates, utensils, you can wash and reuse them -- most of them last a long time.

Recycle. According to the EPA, 75 percent of the garbage Americans throw away is recyclable but only 25 of that is actually recycled. Curbside recycling programs exist across the US and where it does exist 1 out of 2 homes actually participate and recycle. That's a good start but we can do better. What's holding people back? Is it the fact that they need something next to the garbage can to store the recyclables in, to remind them? Charlie found a great solution to this problem at Gaiam, click here. I know a lot of apartment dwellers complain that their complex doesn't have a recycling program, but there is a great website called http://www.earth911.org that can help you find a drop off center anywhere in the US. Earth911 is a great resource for when you're traveling in the US too.

Another huge step you can take that incorporates all 3 of the R's is buying recycled products. The production of anything creates pollution and uses resources but when you buy recycled you are reducing both. As always, you don't have to change your entire lifestyle to help the environment, every little bit does count!

What's your favorite recycled product?

See Ya At The Hub!

Melissa

Want to find out more about recycling?

Recycling Tips: Did You Know You Cannot Recycle Messy Pizza Boxes?

The Benefits of Recycling: Let’s Talk Trash

Recycling the Looking Glass: When Garbage and Art Collide

Top 10 Recycling Resources

Recycled Record Snack Tray

The Benefits of Recycling Cardboard

The Art of Garbage

Reduce, Reuse… FREECYCLE

Recycle Those Electronics!

Picking Up Garbage TVs and Recycling as Art

Students Recycle and Reduce Garbage: Take It Or Leave It

Knight Rider Recycled—Reborn With Green Twist!

Recycling Your Garbage: Where Does it All Go?