Week 44 - Pass it On!

Over the past several months I have made some suggestions on how to invoke both environmental awareness and interest in our kids. I’ve mentioned ideas like, planning to do something as a family for Earth Day, giving Christmas gifts like books and movies that show the importance of protecting our environment, gardening with kids etc. I now want to provide some resources for kids that want to learn more on their own and for those that want some concrete ways in which they as kids can help our planet.

The easiest way for kids to learn more is for them to surf the web. There are a plethora of websites just for them. They provide information in fun ways that may include games, puzzles, projects, and so on. Adults can learn a lot too, so give them a try!

1. Nature Challenge for Kids

David Suzuki, an environmentalist (a fellow Canadian), has been around it seems forever. He was so far ahead of his time. I remember watching him as a kid. At his website www.davidsuzuki.org/kids, he offers 10 fun and easy ways kids can help the environment. They include things like going meatless once a week and using “kid power” to get around. There’s also a checklist kids can print off, to keep track of how they are doing.

2. EcoKids Online

This is Earth Day Canada’s environmental education program for kids. Their website includes interactive games, activities and an eco-calendar with trivia, riddles and other information. Visit them at ecokids.earthday.ca.

3. Environment Canada Kids Page

This site (www.ec.gc.ca/EnviroZine) by Natural Resources Canada has an “envirozine” with a lot of information. One neat thing I found on is a game called Pathways & Pitfalls which can be printed out. You move along the “board” trying to do positives things for the environment (eating locally grown foods), while avoiding environmental pitfalls (running a sprinkler too long).

4. Fun Zone

Fisheries and Oceans Canada offers games, puzzles, coloring pages etc. about, water conservation, aquatic life and oceans. Their best offering accessed through their site at
dfo-mpo.gc.ca is the Big Blue Bus. It is an interactive website with neat things for kids of all ages to do.

5. Tunza

Tunza (www.unep.org/Tunza) is the United Nations Environment Programme. It has separate sections for children and youth. I love the ‘Story time’ link in the children’s section. It has 9 full text story books in Adobe format. The pictures are wonderful!

6. Children of the Earth

This site can be found at childrenoftheearth.org. It has information on plants and animals; info from Native Peoples; you can read stories written by other kids and pictures drawn by kids about the planet. There is a lot!

If you are so inclined, you can also help this non-profit by making your Amazon.com purchase through their website. It costs you nothing (there is no difference in what you pay), but you will be donating about 5% of your purchase price to them.

7. Field Trip Earth

Fieldtripearth.org is a wildlife conservation website. You can click on a particular animal or select a field trip and you begin a journey to discover all there is to know about that animal. This site is probably better for older kids (10 and up) as there is a lot of reading, but it also offers plenty of pictures too.

8. Treetures

This website is definitely for little kids. It has characters with names like Woody, Humus, and Mama Greenleaf. The Treetures (tiny tree friends) teach kids about trees, tree care and tree planting. Visit them at treetures.com

9. Rodale Institute

The Rodale Institute offers kidsregen.org, which is a very comprehensive website. There mission: “To empower children to make healthy choices for the environment and for themselves“. It has a ton of stuff. Information about food, fitness, gardening, world news… More importantly it reaches everyone: kids, adults, parents, families, and teachers. It’s a terrific site!

10. Climate Change

This is the EPA’s site for kids (epa.gov/climatechange/kids). It explains climate change, weather, and the green house effect. It also offers games and the opportunity to be a climate detective. It’s a nice comprehensive site.

11. The Green Squad

This website by the NRDC (www.nrdc.org/greensquad) encourages older kids to try and make their school environment a healthier place. This is a great site that will really get those activist kids in gear, but providing them with concrete ways to take action. I love how the site outlines the steps kids can take right up to ways to approach school officials.

As you can see there is no shortage of websites to help get your kids interested and excited about the environment. For an even larger list (which includes some of what I have here) follow this link: eartheasy.com/article_enviro_sites_kids.html. I have only checked out what I have listed above, so you may want to visit the other sites before your kids do. The most important thing is to share what you are learning with your kids, so they can grow passionate about the environment and pass it on to their children. Now that’s a legacy I would love to leave!

Week 43 - Green Your Vote!

As you may have noticed, we are now on week 43 of Going Green Painlessly, with this post being one of the last ten. I was thinking about all the different ideas I have written about and how if we can stick with even just a few of them we can make a big difference. One other thing entered my mind. This is an election year.

I realize we have some big problems right now (the War, a slumping real estate market, the tanking economy, oil prices, unemployment, health care…jeez, I’m getting depressed), but I think if the environment is important to us, we need to add it to that list. Now obviously I wouldn’t expect someone to vote for a candidate based solely on where they stand on the “environment“, but what if we were to phrase things differently? How does a candidate plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? How important does s/he (it’s great adding the “she“!) believe research for alternative fuels is? How focused are they on alternative/renewable energy? Will they place pressure on the automobile makers to manufacture more fuel-efficient models/hybrids? Do they support the Clean Air and Water Acts? What about the Kyoto Protocol? Will they support the US being part of a global effort to reduce greenhouse gases? When put another way, we can see how these issues can affect our economy, and our health.

So what’s the first thing you need to do? Get registered to vote if you haven’t already. You can do this from home. Visit the League of Women Voters’ website vote411.org. Print the form, fill it out and mail it in . That’s it! No excuses!

The next thing we need to know is where the candidates stand on environmental issues. The League of Conservation Voters has a terrific website presidentialprofiles2008.org, which not only outlines where the candidates, but also grades them based on their voting history regarding those issues. They also document candidate responses to various environmental questions. It’s a wonderfully informative website. Grist.org also offers information about each presidential candidate’s stance on environment issues. It may also be a good idea to visit the candidates’ websites to see if what they claim to do is indeed, what they do.

Whether or not you care about the environment, the truth is with the rising cost of both oil and energy everyone is going to feel the crunch. It is becoming more and more expensive to manufacture and move product. As a result, we pay more for them. Therefore, we need to make a smart choice this November and vote for someone who will support the changes necessary (and for those that know me, by "we" I mean those of you who can vote. Since I am Canadian I have to do my part in other ways - like writing an informative blog).

If the environment benefits from those changes even in a secondary way, I’m fine with that. Job well done!

Week 42 - Recycle Your Cell Phone

Christmas was a few weeks ago and I’m certain many people received new cell phones. As a result, there are likely several old phones laying around because you are not sure what to do with them. Well, you should recycle them! The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a campaign to get Americans to recycle their cell phones.


Why should we recycle cell phones?

1. According to the EPA, “the recycling of the 100 million cell phones ready for end of life management in the US would save enough energy to power more than 194,000 US households with electricity for one year“.


2. Recycling just a million cell phones reduces greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 1,368 cars off the road for a year.


3. Using less energy means reducing greenhouse gas pollution.


4. We can keep valuable and potentially toxic materials out of landfills and incinerators. Cell phones are potentially hazardous waste because they contain lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.


5. We can conserve natural resources (like the metals mined for components).


6. We can help save Gorillas (huh?).

What can be done with the phones?

1. New customers can reuse them.


2. They can be taken apart and their components, such as gold, copper and plastic, can be recycled.

How can we recycle the phones?

1. Drop It Off

The obvious place would be where your purchased your phone, or with your service provider. AT&T, Best Buy, Office Depot, Sony, Sprint, Staples, T-Mobile and LG Electronics all offer a drop off service. Visit their websites for detailed information.

2. Mail It In

You can also mail in your old cell phone, PDA, cell phone batteries, chargers, or other accessories. Nokia, T-Mobile, Sprint, Motorola, Samsung, and LG Electronics have mail in programs. Again, visit their websites.

3. Donate to Charities

There are tons of charities that could use your old phone. Start with your community and check out what agencies would be happy to put an older phone (14 months old; the average age of a phone) to good use.

Earlier I mentioned how you can help save the African Gorilla. I was surprised to learn the manufacture of cell phones poses a threat to the Gorilla. An ore by the name of colian, which is used in cell phones, is mined in eastern areas of the Congo. The mining takes place in the middle of endangered gorilla and elephant habitats. According to the UN in the past five years, the eastern lowland gorilla population in the Congo has declined 90 percent. Fifty zoos across North America participate in a cell phone recycling program. It is their hope that by promoting the recycling program, less colian will have to be mined and as a result, more animals can be saved. The zoos gather cell phones at drop boxes and turn the phones over to ECO-CELL, which sells the phones to companies that refurbish and re-sell them to first-time users abroad. Some of the phones are also donated to senior citizens' centers and hospitals for discharged patients to use for emergency calls. Phones that cannot be re-sold are recycled. A complete list of participating zoos can be found at eco-cell.org. If you cannot get to a zoo, phones can be mailed directly to ECO-CELL where you can designate which zoo should receive the proceeds.

What you need to do before donating your phone

Before you drop off or mail in your old cell phone, make sure you have terminated your service contract and erased any data in the phone. To ensure personal information is cleared from the phone, you can:

• manually delete all information and remove the SIM card


• contact your service provider or phone manufacturer for instructions, or


• use a data erasing tool such as ReCellular's Cell Phone Data Eraser

There are many options for cell phone recycling. You can do some good not only for the environment, but for any number of charities too. Again, we have an easy change with many positive implications. If I haven’t said it before, I love it when that happens!

Week 41 - Just One Thing...

If you make just one change this year this should be it and it’s super easy. Recycle your toothbrush! I hadn’t really thought about it, but it makes sense. According to Natural Health Magazine (naturalhealthmag.com), “if every American changes toothbrushes every three months, as dentists recommend, that adds up to almost 100 million pounds dumped into landfills”. Wow, even half that amount is astounding.

Obviously we’re not going to stop brushing our teeth or continue using the same toothbrush over and over again (that‘s just yuck!), so here are some other options:

1. Opt for a brush made from recycled materials.

The Recycline Preserve toothbrush has a handle made from recycled Stonyfield Yogurt cups. That’s not the only good thing about it. When you have finished using it, you can send it back to the company (in the envelope it provides) where it will again be reprocessed into material for plastic lumber. How cool is that?!

The good news doesn’t stop there; the brush comes in packaging which eliminates unnecessary waste. It’s made from recyclable materials, and the reusable brush canister “provides a sanitary holder to keep your brush clean and portable“.

Visit recycline.com for more information on how these toothbrushes are manufactured. You can even watch a video of the process that aired on Robert Redford’s show, The Green on the Sundance Channel.

This toothbrush can be purchased at Target, Wegman’s and online at greenfeet.com for a very reasonable $3.50. Check Recycline’s website for other stores in your area.

2. Opt for Replaceable Heads

This type of toothbrush can be found at any store. You would certainly help the environment when purchasing this type because you would be reducing the amount of plastic being thrown away. But you can do even better by purchasing a brush made from recycled materials or cellulose.

a) Radius offers the Intelligent toothbrush.

It not only uses replaceable heads, it is also made from sustainable natural cellulose and is battery operated. Radius will take back the handle for recycling once the battery dies (lasts through 6 replacement heads or about 18 months).

The Intelligent toothbrush also offers:

• 2 minute timer -- toothbrush beeps once and green light flashes once every 30 sec. to 2 minutes.
• 90 Day wear meter - after 180 uses the light changes to red to indicate time to check bristle wear. Depressing the button for 5 seconds resets the meter to zero.
• Radial bristling - first toothbrush in the world to have it. Makes brushing easier and more effective.
• They are available in soft or medium. Right or left hand.
• One brush runs $7.95, but you can buy 3 packs and 6 packs at significant savings. The replacement heads are 3 for $6.95. They ship from PA and the cost for either a 3 or 6 pack is $4.60.

Visit the radiustoothbrush.com website for more information.

b) Lotus Brands offers the Eco-Dent TerrAdenT toothbrush.

These brushes have snap-on replaceable heads. They cost about $3.00 each and can be purchased at most health food stores or online at eco-dent.com.

3. Join a Recycling Program

ToothbrushExpress.com has the ‘Save the Planet One Toothbrush at a Time’ recycling program. Sign-up to receive a new toothbrush at specific intervals which you specify. Along with the toothbrush, they will send you a postage-paid mailer for you to return your old toothbrushes. The brushes will be recycled into planters, decking or benches.

4. Reuse Your Brushes

So maybe you are picky and prefer a particular toothbrush; or maybe you feel finding one of the above brushes is a pain, what else can you do instead? Use it elsewhere of course. Here is a list of uses for your old toothbrush:

• Use as an eyebrow brush (I’ve done this for years; obviously clean it first)
• Scrub around faucets
• Clean grout
• Clean jewelry
• Spot clean clothing
• Clean fingernails
• Clean carpet stains
• Clean your garlic press
• Clean your screens

The list can go on forever; think of any small or tight space that needs to be cleaned.

In closing, here is the ultimate in recycling and reusing. Follow this link hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_occasions/article/0,,HGTV_3268_1382191,00.html for an inspired craft project your daughter(s) would love!