that GREEN blog

Every day, the world’s many landfills become the resting place of tons of waste, many of which are not biodegradable, and are harmful to the environment. Many hazardous chemicals can mix in these dumping grounds and possibly leech into our water systems or into the soil, and into our food and drink. So any effort to lessen the consumption of goods that end up in these landfills is a must.

One of the major contributors to the mountains of waste in the landfills are diapers. Although these plastic and cloth wonders of technology are very convenient in terms of managing your baby’s bodily wastes, diapers can also cause diaper rash and is filled with chemicals to better contain urine or stool. Disposable diapers are also expensive in the the long-run. As a baby can go through a number of these items in a day, you can do the math.

But taking care of your baby doesn’t have to mean breaking the bank. You can still give the best to your child without sacrificing environmental responsibility. In line with this, many parents are now exploring old but tried-and-tested ways of managing the baby’s waste. Here are some ideas you may want to check out:

Elimination Communication
- More often than not shortened to ECing, elimination communication is certainly not a new concept. In fact, it is estimated that at least half of the world’s babies are toilet trained in this manner. With ECing, the use of diapers is replaced by a potty (or any similar container) as early as possible, and involves teaching the baby to communicate when he or she needs to use it. To get started, you can emit a subtle verbal cue to your baby, typically timed after feeding. This takes some practice and keen observation on your part, but if you are successful then your baby will be fully toilet trained well before babies who use a diaper. However, if you use this particular technique, then you will know that accidents are inevitable, and for special occasions you can still use a diaper as a back-up.

Cloth Diapers
- Again, like elimination communication, the use of cloth diapers has been around for a long time. Today’s parents choose cloth diapers because they are cost-effective and environmentally friendly, but many more are turned off by the amount of laundry one needs to do. Make clean-up easy by keeping a pail of water with borax or mild laundry soap beside your changing station. Once the diaper pail is full, wash them all in hot soapy water and then dry. Because cloth diapers are made up of cotton, these are less likely to cause diaper rash on your baby, as the fabric allows the skin to breathe.

Eco-disposable Diapers
- These eco-disposable products are much like the typical disposable diapers we are used to seeing, and these are touted as chemical-free and made up of wood pulp from sustainable sources. However, despite the name, many of these diapers are not totally biodegradable, as it still comes with the normal plastic outer covering. (One product claims to be entirely compostable, as it supposedly has an outer covering made up of corn products.) Another thing is that these products are not as widely available (although they can be found online and can be shipped directly to your home) and are typically a little more expensive than regular diapers. Many detractors of these supposedly eco-friendly diapers say that using these is more like paying lip-service to being environmentally friendly.

The truth is, it is still up to you to choose which product or technique to use to toilet train your baby. Do your research and decide which works for you and your lifestyle.

Responsible organizations of every type are proactively taking steps to reduce CO2 emissions that can be traced to their operations, says Mark Bassil, vice president of modular office furniture systems manufacturer MAiSPACE, based in Mt. Olive NJ. “One of the more lasting actions that an organization can take is selecting workplace furniture systems suppliers that employ green manufacturing.” He notes that the term manufacturing in this case is all encompassing and is not confined to building systems furniture components.

“From the get-go, systems furniture manufacturers should employ eco-friendly processes that address carbon footprint concerns,” Bassil says. “For example, we use recycled materials wherever possible in our steel structural elements and panels. Rather than pad panels with fiberglass – which does not break down in landfills and is a long term source of airborne glass particles – we use post-consumer PET made from ground up soda bottles. We also use Guilford of Maine fabrics for panels because of their EPA-recognized sustainability program.”

Systems furniture, unlike conventional office construction, is designed to adapt to changing business conditions. “Stackable panel and movable full-wall systems offered by MAiSPACE are designed and built to easily withstand the stresses of Moves, Adds and Changes (MACs) characteristic of today`s business environment,” Bassil points out. “Cubicles from 6 x 6 feet in size to full-walled private offices and conference rooms of any size can be constructed, revised or removed virtually overnight.”

Unused panel elements can be stored for future use or sold for use by others. The noise, dirt and confusion associated with drywall construction – along with disposing of construction debris in landfills – does not apply to systems furniture. “When components have outlived their useful life they are 100% recyclable, including the steel frames, Bassil says, adding that that even the plug and play voice, power and data cabling in modular offices can be reused rather than discarded.

While not generally thought of when considering vendors, packaging and shipping practices add other opportunities for environmental stewardship and reducing carbon footprints. “In our case we offer bulk packaging and other alternatives to traditional corrugated and Styrofoam materials,” Bassil says. “These include eliminating where possible the use of cartons and the introduction of minimal packaging for truckload orders. Moreover we ask our own suppliers to adopt reusable packaging in shipping product. These steps lower the cost of cleaning up the job site, facilitate installation by cutting back on clutter and are among the reasons why installations are ready for occupancy within 4 to 6 weeks of an order.”

Doing the Same with Less

According to Bassil, changes in how people work is causing organizations to rethink their workplace floor plans and operate equally efficient but in less space. “If a certain percentage of staff is regularly telecommuting from home or on business travel there is no need to prove a workspace for everyone on the payroll,” he says. “Touch-down spaces assigned on an ad-hoc basis and fitted with plug-in data ports yield a smaller floor plan, lower HVAC and electrical requirements, lower investment in office furniture systems, lower rent and as an added benefit, reduce the organization`s carbon footprint.”

Beyond furniture systems selection, companies can reduce their carbon footprint by promoting a corporate culture aimed at reducing emissions across the board. A good example is encouraging car pooling and incentivizing public transportation. “Firms should look at life cycle impact assessments of all products purchased, purchasing recycled paper wherever possible, and question any purchase as to its necessity,” Bassil suggests. Other green-friendly practices are posting electronic forms rather than using paper, reading documents on line rather than printing them, using smaller fonts and margins and reusing paper as memo or draft paper when it is printed only on one side.

Other opportunities include establishing procedures to handle the collection and proper disposal of electronic waste and batteries, using motion sensitive light switches wherever practical and fitting rest rooms with low flow plumbing devices.

Go Green at $12 – $15 per Square Foot Installed

We always look to improve purchasing, design, production, shipping and installation activities with the aim of further reducing the carbon footprint associated with systems furniture, Bassil says. “But our environmental stewardship does not impact the cost of our products to our customers, and indeed in some instances contributes to reduced costs,” he says. “Along with our approach to designing and manufacturing modular office furniture systems it enables us to offer our products at price points average 40% below some of the best known names in the industry. This means our environmentally friendly solutions are available and ready to move in starting at $12 to $15 per square foot independent of the number of units ordered.”

Helping business owners and operators make smart choices in Systems Furniture and Office Cubicles for their offices and selecting the right Office Furniture. Systems Furniture and the Carbon Footprint.

A responsible way to reuse and recycle?
According to the EPA, Americans retired 130 million cell phones in 2005. 98% of them went straight into the trash, then landfill.

Gazell provides a practical, rewarding way for people to finally rid themselves of all those old cell phones, digital cameras, and gaming systems that they no longer use, but can’t seem to find a way to let go of.. I haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to.  They have a real time feed of what people were just paid for electronics and some of them are not that new. If they purchase your used electronic and it has no market value this is what their website claims…

What Does Gazelle Do With My Used Electronics?
Gazelle believes that electronics recycling starts with reuse. After we buy electronics and gadgets, we evaluate their condition. When we receive items that are still in working condition, we extend their lives by removing all personal data from them, and selling the electronics through a variety of retail and wholesale outlets. Items without market value are recycled responsibly.

Buy and Sell Used Electronics It’s good to Gazelle.

Giving a helping hand at educating the public with “Guides to Green” our friends are members of Coop America a great source of all things green. You’ve heard us say it over and over, we know. At this website practical tips for everyday green living are fun, easy and save you money!

They have a great list of 20 Quick Tips on How to “GREEN” Your Business and a Billion Bag Bottle and Bulb Challenge! You should read and check out. Join the fun!

Greg Wrote:

A little post election humor and a request for support for our friends at Your Guide to Green…

Can we put environmentally safe and healthy drinking bottles in the hands of more people?

…YES WE CAN !!!

Can we stop filling our landfills with harmful plastic which will not decompose in our lifetime?

…YES WE CAN !!!

Can we reach out and make these bottles more accessible to all who want them?

…YES WE CAN !!!

In Tandem with the latest “economic stimulus plan” and for a limited time only, the retail price of their best selling stainless steel water bottles has been slashed to an unheard of $14.99 for TWO.  They also have a wide variety of other great green lifestyle products at incredible prices for your holiday gift giving.

Greg Peterson’s personal mission is to

“Inspire people into their own greenness” with the work that I do with the Urban Farm and YourGuideToGreen.com.”

This is what he says you can do to help.

Please take this opportunity to patronize Your Guide To Green’s store for your holiday gift giving or visit with me at our annual sidewalk sale this Friday.  By shopping with us you will be supporting our local business and the great green work that we do in the world.  And as an added bonus for you we have crafted some extraordinary deals on our products plus we are offering local pickup and affordable shipping rates.  As always I really appreciate your support.

So go buy some great GREEN stuff from this great GREEN store already!

Living an eco-friendly lifestyle is rapidly becoming an important goal for a lot of people lately. However, sometimes making those green lifestyle changes are not the easiest on the pocketbook. There are some ways that you can do things differently that will actually save you money and make a huge impact on our world. One of those is to stop buying bottled water.

It seems that having bottled water has almost become a necessity in this country; we buy it like we buy milk and bread. Everywhere you look there are people with bottle in hand. Actually, the United States is the largest consumer of bottled water in the world. Unfortunately, we are also are not doing a very good job of recycling all of those bottles. According to The Container Recycling Institute we are only recycling about 20% of plastic water bottles. Yes, you read that right, only 20% are being recycled! To make matters worse, a lot of the bottles that are deposited for recycling are actually exported, sometimes to as far away as China, which just adds to the resources used by this product.

The manufacturing and transporting of bottled water uses massive amounts of fossil fuels. Most of the bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, which is derived from crude oil. Just making the bottles for the demand in America requires 17 million barrels of oil annually. That is enough to fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year. The energy used to transport the product to consumers just adds to this number. Nearly a ¼ of all bottled water crosses national borders, transported by boat, train, and truck. The US does produce about 94% of its bottled water domestically, but we do also import some water shipped from faraway places like Fiji simply to satisfy the demand for chic and exotic bottled water. Compared to tap water, which is delivered through an energy-efficient infrastructure, bottled water is an extremely wasteful product.

Let’s just stop and think for a moment, is it really necessary to have water pre-packaged in a bottle? Before the bottled water craze we seemed to get along just fine. A lot of people are under the false belief that it is healthier for you than tap water, when in fact using a water filter removes more contaminants than any other purification system. Many may be quite surprised to learn that about 40% of bottled water actually begins as tap water and usually the only difference is added minerals that have no health benefit anyways. Furthermore, in the U.S., there are more regulations governing the tap water quality than bottled water. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency mandates that local water treatment facilities provide a detailed report to the citizens outlining the water source and any test results, including contaminant level violations. There are no requirements like this in place for bottled water companies. Also, public water systems must test for harmful microbiological content in water multiple times a day while bottled water companies are only required to test for these once a week.

Aside from being better for the planet and for your health, drinking filtered tap water is also much more economical. It is not uncommon for somebody to purchase 1 case of water per week for about $7. That is an annual cost of $364, just to drink water and I’m willing to bet that is a lower figure than most spend. Do any of us spend anywhere near that much per year for our entire household water usage? Many justify the purchase touting the convenience factor, but the same convenience can be achieved by simply purchasing a few reusable water bottles. There are a variety of them on the market and they are specifically designed for this purpose. You will make back the money spent on a reusable bottle in no time once you stop spending money on cases of bottled water.

Do something great for your pocketbook, your health and your world. Get yourself a water filter if you don’t already have one as well as a few reusable water bottles and stop buying bottled water. This is definitely one way everyone can contribute to the future well-being of our planet!

Michele Dupper is Mom to her almost 2 year old son and the owner of Truly Organic Beauty. She lives in sunny FL and has been transitioning to a green lifestyle since starting a family. Michele enjoys educating others about living a more natural lifestyle that is beneficial for the health of our bodies as well as our planet.

Environment