GREEN TIPS
The Green Team has put together some handy tips to help you live "greener". More information is available in handouts in the office.
Click on a heading below to read the full text of the tip.
Eating Greener -- Eating Cheaper: Slow Eating: Organic Food
Eating Greener -- Eating Cheaper: Slow Eating: Whole Foods
Keep Chemicals Out Of Your Garden
"The Age Of Disposable Plastics Is Over."
What Do You Use To Wash Dishes?
An idling car gets 0 mpg. An engine that idles for more than 10 seconds bums more fuel than one that is turned off and started again, according to Natural Resources Canada. Turning your engine off while you're stopped anywhere, for example, getting cash at the bank's drive-through, picking up your kids, Or waiting for stalled traffic or a raised bridge will save gas! (01/18/09) Top
You could see a 20 per cent gain in fuel economy by eliminating jackrabbit starts and sudden pedal-to-the-metal maneuvers. Take your foot off the accelerator as soon as you see a yellow or red light ahead, including flashing taillights. Also, gas mileage decreases fast above 60 mph, so staying close to or under the speed limit improves gas efficiency. Remember the speed limit is not the recommended speed to drive, but the fastest you should drive under the best road conditions. On highways, cruise control can help you maintain a steady driving speed. (01/25/09) Top
The Green focus this month is on helping you buy better nutrition with your existing food budget. When you make a food choice, each "Yes" answer you give to these questions is a move toward greater health for yourself and your planet:
S - Is this food fresh and in season?
L - Is the food grown locally (within 50 miles)?
O - Is this food grown using organic methods?
W - Does this food look substantially like it looked when it was harvested whole?
See our February Green Tips handout for more ideas. (02/01/09) Top
Eating Greener -- Eating Cheaper: Slow Eating: Organic Food
Yes, organic may cost more. Switch gradually, experts advise, by starting with organic milk, potatoes, peanut butler, salad greens and apples.
These common foods are most likely to be laced with the heaviest doses of unhealthy chemicals unless they are organic. (See Green Tips Handout for a list of worst produce offenders).
FACT: Apples have the highest pesticide score even after they've been washed. Make your "apple a day" organic! (02/15/09) Top
Eating Greener -- Eating Cheaper: Slow Eating: Whole Foods
Cooking from scratch eliminates many harmful additives (see Tips Handout for list) and can be dramatically cheaper. Here are three ways to start.
1. Switch from boxed cold cereal to cooked whole grains, or toast and milk.
2. Replace bottled salad dressings with homemade.
3. Bake your own bread. It's easier than you'd think. (See Tips Handout: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day)
FACT: Producing a 32 oz box of breakfast cereal costs the energy equivalent of burning I gallon of gasoline - and its nutrients are marginal at best, in spite of the enrichments." (02/22/09) Top
Grow some of your own organic produce. Feel a connection with the Earth by getting your hands into the soil and putting the delicious, healthy results into your body. Tuck tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and more into your landscaping or into pots if you don't have a designated garden. Do it without chemicals.
Over 60% of pollutants in our waterways now come from “'non-point sources" - that means "us," and yard/garden chemicals are a big part of the problem. (03/01/09) Top
Growing loose-leaf lettuce is fun, and you avoid pesticide residues and the risk of E. coli contamination often found on industrially grown lettuce. Sow seeds or start with plant starts - in your veggie garden, in your landscape, or in a shallow container on your porch, patio, or deck. More details on March Green Tips Handout, including link to instruction video! (03/08/09) Top
Pole beans of any kind can be grown in a tub. Just make a bean tepee using three or four bamboo poles (Green Team has a limited supply, grown here at MSUUF.) Sink them into the soil near the outer edge of the tub and tie them together at the top. Plant four bean seeds around each pole. (03/15/09) Top
Keep Chemicals Out Of Your Garden
The benefits are several: You'll be keeping them out of your body. You'll be keeping the air, the earth and the water cleaner. The whole food chain will be better off. And you'll save oil: many fertilizers, and most pesticides and herbicides are petrochemical products. Pick up more Green Tips in the foyer. (03/22/09) Top
Recycle food scraps and yard debris into compost. Enrich your soil with it for a robust crop. Use compost tea for pest control. Choose from worm bins, compost piles, and now bokashi for meat and dairy scraps. Pick up more Green Tips in the foyer. (04/05/09) Top
"If you don't want it to go to the stream, don't put it down the drain," says Don Young of Clark Regional Waste. Current treatment technologies treat human waste, vegetable matter and little else. Cleaning chemicals, personal care products, and medications upset the interdependent web. Treat them all as hazardous waste. (04/12/09) Top
"The Age Of Disposable Plastics Is Over"
SO says Dr. Marcus Eriksen, who recently sailed a raft made of plastic bottles from the mainland to Hawaii. To learn why, go to www.junkraft.com and click on "Problems" if you dare. It gives all the reason you'll ever need to remember to use your own reusable shopping bags and water bottles. (04/26/09) Top
What Do You Use To Wash Dishes?
If every household in the United States used just one 28 oz bottle of vegetable-based dishwashing liquid in place of liquid detergent, we would save 82,000 barrels of oil. Biokleen is a Vancouver, Washington--made brand available now in most supermarkets. Washing dishes by hand can be a meditation practice, and it needn't take any more water than an automatic dishwasher. (06/28/09) Top
Waste water treatment does not treat pharmaceuticals. Whether you excrete excess medications or dump them down the toilet, they end up in the water, disrupting the life cycles of many creatures and finding their way back into our drinking water supply. Help all you can by reducing your own medication intake as much as is prudent. When disposing of prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines, do it right: Call Clark County Solid Waste, 360-397-6118, ext. 4352 for details. (07/12/09) Top
Waiting in line in your car- at the bank or bridge or drive-through? Make a commitment not to idle for more than 10 seconds and you'll improve your community's health, save gas, save money, and help reduce global warming gases, according to Stanford University's School of Earth Sciences. (08/16/09) Top