After my sister-in-law told us that her 3 year-old son wanted to sleep under his Christmas tree, my husband and I remembered our daughter’s love of our Christmas tree when she was about the same age. When our tree was dry and brittle, we started to break the news to Lindsay that we were going to take it down. She was really upset and kept hugging the tree, which of course just added to the already alarming loss of needles. Every year we take our tree to a local park, where they have a chipping program called Mulchfest. We brought our tree there, much to Lindsay’s skepticism to “be with it’s friends”. She bid it a tearful farewell and fortunately didn’t notice the crew feeding trees into the huge chipper.

I always find it a little sad to see Christmas trees tossed out with the trash. The fact that they were once a treasured part of the holiday and are now tossed out on the street with the garbage bags always startles me. Plus it’s hard to wrap my head around all that organic matter going to a landfill with old batteries, diapers, etc. So, let’s try and come up with some great uses for old Christmas trees to prevent them from going into landfills. TREECYCLE!

• Find out if your community has a tree collection or chipping program. Here in NYC we have mulchfest this coming Sat. 1/9 from 10am-2pm. You can look at this site to find a park in your area that will take your tree. And while you are dragging your tree down the street, why not stop and grab one or two others that are just lying on the sidewalk waiting for trash pick up? A lot of these programs allow you to bring some wood chips home with you for your garden.
• If you don’t have a mulching/chipping program in your community, do it yourself. Prune branches off your tree and lay them down in your garden beds. Pine branches can look nice arranged around a tree on a city sidewalk. You can add them to your compost pile, although pine needles can take a while to break down.
• You can prune branches and make small bundles. These are great to help start fires in your fireplace.
• If you have the land, drag your tree out into a woodsy area to be used as a wildlife refuge for birds and small animals.
• If you have a pond, weigh your tree down and put it in the water. It becomes a nice home for fish.
• If you live near a beach, see if your community uses old Christmas trees in an effort to restore dunes like Bradley Beach in New Jersey.
• You can save the needles and make potpourri or sachets.

If you have a great use for an old Christmas tree, please post!

Last year in preparation for a very sad event, I bought a package of cloth hankies. Since then they have become a staple with me as my nose runs from October through May. I like how soft they are on my beleaguered nose, I like that I’m not cutting down trees to wipe my nose, and I like saying hankie way better than facial tissue. Seriously, what focus group came up with that name? It sounds as ridiculous as “ladies lounge”.

Here are some pictures of adorable vintage cloth hankies. They are easily found in almost any vintage clothing shop for very low prices. Why not try and save a few trees (actually 163,000 if every household used one less box of virgin fiber tissues) and smile when you blow your nose into a hankie that says “Thank you”? These hankies are from an online shop called Betsy Vintage. They are pricey, but so cute!

In our house we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah. That is a whole lot of gift giving, which can mean a whole lot of gift wrapping. It bums me out each year to see the clear garbage bags filled with holiday wrapping paper. This year I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of paper we use to wrap gifts. For Chanukah, we give one or two gifts a night. I’ve been putting them unwrapped inside a pretty gift bag. Lindsay doesn’t seem to notice or care that they aren’t wrapped. She’s just interested in what’s inside the bag. In fact she saw the bag today and asked why there was nothing in the Chanukah bag (her comforter wouldn’t fit in it).

Neil asked what I planned to do with the presents for Christmas. The gift bag obviously won’t work, so I’ve been looking at ideas online for gift wrap alternatives. Here’s what I found so far. Please feel free to add suggestions.

1. Use fabric to wrap the gifts. I’ve gotten some fabric bags over the years when I’ve purchased something at a fancy shop. I always hang onto them because it just seems a waste to throw them out. (I’m convinced that I have a form of mental illness when it comes to throwing things out, but that’s a whole other post). I think putting some of the gifts in these bags would be pretty. If I had more time, I would even consider sewing a few bags from all the bits of fabric I have.
2. Use the funny papers to wrap kids presents. If your paper has a comic section, this can be a nice option.
3. Old calendars can be cut up and used to wrap smaller gifts.
4. Wallpaper
5. Old maps. NYC subway maps are free
6. Kid’s artwork. If you don’t want to use their drawings, have them decorate paper grocery bags with stickers, drawings, glitter, etc.
7. Pillow cases from mis-matched sets of sheets

Here are some factoids that might give you some more incentive. I pulled them off the California government website.

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

These days it’s not just individual Hollywood A-listers who are going green in their personal lives; they’re taking the entire movie set in a sustainable direction. Some eco-driven insiders have even started up side businesses to complement their work in film. And who knows, with emerging companies like Film Biz Recycling in New York and EcoSet Consulting in Los Angeles, the industry may have just conjured up a new wave of green troops.

Shannon Schaefer, founder of the fledgling EcoSet Consulting (website still in progress), is on the front lines. During her stint as production secretary on the Coen Brothers’ film A Serious Man in Minneapolis last fall, she helped the Coens and FOCUS Features studio divert more than 11 tons of waste from the landfill.

From unused film to leftover food to set props, Schaefer and others recycled or composted the kinds of things that normally end up in a trash dump somewhere.

It started when Schaefer, who has worked in film production for several years (and who officially started her company in December), made it known that she would take charge of greening the set, if the film’s muckety-mucks were interested. As it turned out, FOCUS Features had already instituted a policy to make its operations as eco-friendly as possible, so Schaefer founder herself in charge of not just clean-up, but green-up.

During the 44-day shoot, she says, 80 percent of the 14 tons of trash was diverted. To start, organizers avoided the use of plastic water bottles whenever possible – instead, providing water stations and reusable bottles around the location, preventing an estimated 10,000 plastic water bottles from going to the city dump. Yet only 6 percent of the diverted waste was recycled cardboard, bottles or cans. Surprisingly, 74 percent of the refuse went to compost, including virtually everything from catering and craft services – fruits, vegetables, meat, bones, dairy, paper and corn eating utensils (plates, napkins, cups, forks, knives). “Basically anything that was once an animal or a plant is now compost,” Schaefer said.

The way it began was organic, Schaefer says. She didn’t approach the filmmakers or the set supervisors; she was already part of their crew.

“When I was hired on, I let my supervisors know that I was interested in doing this, and so I was kind of figuring out the logistics for it at the beginning of prep. I’d written up a little memo to the crew and production office, sort of a sustainability statement saying we wanted the film to be as un-wasteful as possible. And so I was already working with my direct supervisors when it came from the top. FOCUS Features had to be the ones to say, ‘Go ahead’ – because often there can be additional costs to recycling and diverting waste.”

Once given the go-ahead, the production office worked with Minneapolis’s Eureka Recycling and local hauler Boone Trucking. In doing so, they were not only able to set a tone within the industry; they were able to show ultimate respect for their host town – by not trashing it.

“I’ve seen a lot of waste,” Schaefer says, “and I’ve been in the position to where even though I care about it, I’m too exhausted to deal with it after filming. So, I’ve been there – I know how hard it can be. But if you have the prep time, if you know you’re doing it in advance and that you just have to implement some new systems, it’s not that difficult.

“It’s something I really care about, and the industry has to change. I want to be part of that change. You can sit and talk about it all you want, but if you don’t do something, then you’re part of the problem.”

Schaefer says she believes that more and more film production crews and studios are moving in the same direction – away from the city dump and toward a self-created (or pre-existing) compost site.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

In the way that buildings can be certified as ecologically friendly, the Sustainable Sites Initiative is working to set guidelines for landscaping. Click on their link to see some case studies.

What can you do to make your lawn or garden more “green”?

* You can add rain barrels, or other ways of recycling rain for irrigation.

*You can plant native plants that thrive in your climate and don’t need much in the way of fertilizer or watering.

*You can compost your kitchen and yard waste to enrich the soil instead of using chemical fertilizers.

© Kyle Flood

Trish Smith over at The Daily Green posted about 12 ways to recycle used coffee grounds. Instead of throwing them out, try the following:

Saturday is America Recycles Day; Recycle, reduce greenhouse gas emissions / U.S. EPA encourages public to do its part, find ways to increase recycling

Contact Information: Wendy Chavez, 415/947-4248, chavez.wendy@epa.gov 

(11/14/08) (SAN FRANCISCO) – Trash can or recycling bin? It’s your choice. As America Recycles Day approaches, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency encourages people to think about increasing their recycling rate to conserve resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

November 15 marks the eleventh anniversary of America Recycles Day, a day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and to buy recycled products. More than 35 states are holding America Recycles Day events, with state and local governments, non-profit organizations, and large industry partners promoting recycling efforts. America Recycles Day is supported by the National Recycling Coalition and sponsored by the U.S. EPA.

“Recycling is a great way all Americans can help fight global warming and protect the environment,” said Jeff Scott, the EPA’s Waste Division director for the Pacific Southwest region. “On America Recycles Day, we encourage everyone to learn about opportunities to do even more.”

The EPA’s new 2007 Municipal Solid Waste Characterization report shows Americans recycled and composted 85 million tons of the 254 million tons of total municipal solid waste produced in 2007. Each person produced on average 4.6 pounds of trash per day. Recycling increased slightly over 2006, when people recycled and composted around 82 million tons of the 251 million tons of total municipal solid waste produced.

Opportunities to increase recycling include:

University student recycling competition: This month RecycleMania opens registration for colleges and universities to compete on their waste reduction and recycling efforts. In this 2009 national competition, schools can be recognized for the highest recycling rate or the largest amount of recyclables per capita. During the 2008 competition, 58.6 million pounds were recycled and composted, preventing the release of 25,342 metric tons of carbon equivalent greenhouse gas emissions — the equivalent to eliminating the annual impact of 15,439 passenger cars; the electricity use of 11,165 homes; or the burning of coal for 440 railcars.

Go beyond recycling – compost: In addition to paper, bottles and cans, recycling also includes composting food and green waste. About 25 percent of what is still sent to landfills is food and green waste that can instead be composted and turned into a beneficial soil amendment and great nutrient in your garden. 

Recycling certification training: To learn more about recycling, the California Resource Recovery Association is offering a professional certification training program this year. The training, partially funded by a U.S. EPA grant, provides classroom courses, testing, and guidance on how to implement a recycling or composting program. Recycling provides economic benefits by reducing costs to businesses and creating jobs. The American recycling and reuse industry is a $200 billion enterprise that involves more than 50,000 recycling and reuse establishments, employs more than 1 million people, and generates an annual payroll of approximately $37 billion.

For more information on America Recycles Day, visit: 
http://www.nrc-recycle.org/americarecycles.aspx 

For more information on RecycleMania, visit: 

http://www.recyclemaniacs.org 

For more information on composting, visit:
http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste//organics/index.html 

For more information on Recycling Professional Certification:
http://www.crra.com/certifications/index.html 

This tuesday evening I took a compost workshop at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was an interesting workshop run by Luke Hall. Most of the information I already knew, but it was great for filling in some gaps and refreshing my memory of other things. The workshop was worth it alone just because taught me a new term. Freegan. Maybe I live under a rock, but I had never heard of freegans before. And for those unenlightened folks like myself, here is a description of a freegan from freegan.info. 

Perhaps the most notorious freegan strategy is what is commonly called “urban foraging” or “dumpster diving”. This technique involves rummaging through the garbage of retailers, residences, offices, and other facilities for useful goods. Despite our society’s sterotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are safe, useable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages us to constantly replace our older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model. Some urban foragers go at it alone, others dive in groups, but we always share the discoveries openly with one another and with anyone along the way who wants them. Groups like Food Not Bombs recover foods that would otherwise go to waste and use them to prepare meals to share in public places with anyone who wishes to partake. By recovering the discards of retailers, offices, schools, homes, hotels, or anywhere by rummaging through their trash bins, dumpsters, and trash bags, freegans are able to obtain food, beverages, books, toiletries magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and just about any other type of consumer good. Rather than contributing to further waste, freegans curtail garbage and pollution, reducing the over-all volume in the waste stream.

I haven’t met any self-proclaimed freegans, so I have no real opinion on their manifesto. I do agree that we add a shameful amount of perfectly good items to the landfills. My sister and I used to call the weirdly disposable joke gifts our mother used to give us landfill fodder. I commend any group in America for trying to curtail the flow of goods to the garbage dumps.