GardeningNude

The Recycled Holiday Tree Challenge: Make All Your Holiday Ornaments From Reused or Recycled Products

Late in November I sat at the kitchen table playing games with my youngest daughter and discussing holiday plans. She said to me, “You know what? I bet we could make a few holiday ornaments this year.” This triggered a genius idea between us: what if we could decorate our tree with all reused or recycled holiday ornaments?

During this difficult economy many families cannot afford to buy new ornaments, so this effort will simultaneously teach how to reuse products and how to save money.

After some intense discussion, we came up with a plan for the Recycled Holiday Tree Challenge. While we had hundreds of holiday ornaments here at the house, we could not use them. It was important to reuse, recycle, or make the decorations ourselves so we could help educate our friends, family, and community about recycling and reusing.

To be placed on our incredible sustainable holiday tree, the decorations had to qualify by following the below rules:

Recycled Holiday Tree Challenge Rules -

1. Reused, or
2. Recycled, or
3. Garage Sale Purchased, or
4. From a Resale Shop, or
5. From the Natural Environment

Any craft parts beyond glue, staples, and needle/thread also need to be from a resale shop or disassembled and reused from a previous source.

We decided on a “blue” theme – decorating the tree with blue lights and trying as much as we could to stick with blue decorations whenever possible. Then we took a trip to the local resale shop.

For $4.10 we purchased several used blue colored blankets made out of fleece, a snowman table cloth, and a few blue sweaters which had snowmen embroidery to use as crafting material on-the-cheap.

First step was to assemble the artificial tree. We then hung twenty-four blue glass ball ornaments which I bought at a garage sale two years ago and had never used. My daughter hung a plastic Cinderella ornament she had found from a pile of old toys which had gone off to the needy, and we topped the tree with a fabric angel which was also found at a garage sale years before. We put an old white sheet on the floor as “snow”, then topped that with one of the snowman tablecloths we had found at the resale shop. What a great start.

Over the next several weeks we shall make more ornaments for the tree and demonstrate each craft so readers can see how to make it for themselves. My daughter and I hope you will follow along and make reused and recycled ornaments for your holiday tree as well.

Please send us photos and links so we can see what you have done with holiday trees to help save the landfills. Thanks!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Win A Recycled Wind Sculpture For A Christmas or Holiday Gift and Help Keep Metal Out Of Our Landfills!

My favorite recycled green gift of the year comes from two fantastic artists who are long time friends and partners, Barbara C. Ryan and Elsa M. Mikus. They run an awesome shop based on a green concept which keeps metals out of the landfills. Tempest In A Teapot is a small business which specializes in recycling teapots and silverware into beautiful wind chime creations. 

After starting their arts and crafts business, the ladies were soon happy to see Tempest In A Teapot’s products available in art shows, galleries, and gift shops through out the United States.

Barbara and Elsa were kind enough to send the teapot wind chime (see photo) for Gardening Nude to give-away to one lucky reader for the holidays. This teapot wind chime is valued at $175  and is approximately 24” tall and 10” wide. There are seven silver spoons that hang below the teapot, one of the spoons is engraved with the artists signature.

TO WIN THIS TEAPOT:

1. Sign up to become an email subscriber to this blog. Do that by going to the upper right hand corner of the page and entering your email address, then follow the instructions.
2. Sing about this blog on Twitter.com (you must belong to Twitter to do this.) Create the message of your choice with the phrase  “www.gardeningnude.com” in the tweet. You can say anything you want about the blog or contest – hopefully positive! :-)

(An example: ‘Go to www.gardeningnude.com to learn about being green and healthy!’)

A random number generator will be used to determine the winner on THIS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4th, so start tweeting ASAP. Every time you tweet the Gardening Nude URL you will be re-entered in the contest for more chances to win!

If you would like to see more selection and order one of these awesome recycled gifts, please go to this link - - Tempest In A Teapot.

And the winner of the Teapot Wind Sculpture is - -

::DRUMROLL PLEASE::…………………..

Randomly selected Twitter person who used “www.gardeningnude.com” in a tweet - “@genewrites” from the Gene Was Here Blog. Congratulations Gene – you won yourself a fantastic green holiday gift! :-)

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Save Our Landfills From Textile and Clothing Waste; Reuse What You Have!

 

American textile waste, according to the EPA's 1988 study on the United States Generation of Solid Waste, accounts for over 3.9 million tons of the solid waste stream. Post-consumer textile waste is most typically garments or household items like old towels and rags that the owner discards because the items are outgrown, worn out, damaged, or have gone out of fashion. Often, these items are given to charity, but more typically they are thrown into the trash and help to fill our municipal landfills to the bursting point.

Perfectly good clothes wasted, when over a billion people on earth struggle every day to have water, food, clothing, and medicines. This is a basic human need being thrown away.

While donating your old clothing to charity is a start; why not think about reusing the clothing you have instead of buying new? It will save your family money, so you can spend the money on food or education for your children.

In the photo above you see my daughter’s creative idea for reinventing a t-shirt. On a rainy day a few weeks ago I cleaned out one of my closets, separating items out I want to use for garden work. A friend of mine, Ben, gave me this Leapfish t-shirt earlier this year and when my daughter spotted the word “Leapfish”, she snatched it up and begged to keep it as a sleep shirt.

Within thirty minutes she had redesigned the t-shirt; filling it with hand drawn leaping fish. Lovely. Good for the environment. A perfect idea to help teach a child about the value of reusing what you have so you can keep it out of the waste stream.

Help your community save a landfill – make a difference!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Kids and Recycling – Expand Their Brains When They Say, “I’m Bored!”

Fall rainy days and children combine to produce the inevitable complaint, “I’m bored.” Not too long ago my youngest daughter and I came up with a genius solution to the “I’m bored’s” which was fun and educational. Here’s how it went:

“Mom, I’m bored.”

“You can’t be bored. You’re nine years old – go play.”

“I’m still bored.”

“Do the dishes! That’ll keep you busy.”

“That’s not the type of bored I am.”

“Hmm…” As I glance around the kitchen, my eyes fell on the recycling bin. “Hey! Look at that – you have an entire recycling bin full of craft supplies.”

“I do?”

“Yep. You do.”

Two hours later my daughter put the finishing touches on the above creative crafts. One milk jug car and another aluminum can sports car, plus several other fun things. All ended up back in the recycling bin after dinner, but the products provided two hours of active, brain-building play. She had to figure out how the tires would fit on to balance the vehicle, why we all have license plates on our cars, and aluminum is very thin so it can also be sharp and dangerous. She learned just a little bit more about life.

We currently live in a country where 4.5 million children are diagnosed with ADD, millions of children suffer from depression, and childhood educational programs are being cut due to funding problems at our public schools. Enabling active play where children learn to build and create at home is an important part of brain development. Schools are just the beginning of a child’s education; we as parents, friends, and family of children should be actively working together to help our children learn and be healthy.

Make a difference in the life of a child – suggest creative and green ways to solve the “I’m bored’s” and your child will begin to see the world in a whole new way.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Have An E-Waste Recycle Event At Your Home – Help Your Neighbors Learn About Saving Landfill Space

Electronic waste is currently the fastest growing category of municipal landfill waste. GreenerChoices.org says, “Nearly 3 million tons of consumer electronic waste was generated in 2003 alone, according to the most recent U.S. EPA estimates.”

Guess what? YOU can do something about this and it is simple and easy. Hold your own E-waste Recycling Extravaganza! This can be held in your driveway.

First, schedule a pick-up with a local E-waste recycling company. This time I used Vintage Tech Recyclers, which is an asset recovery and recycling company. Often, if you have large quantities of E-waste, you can get a pick-up scheduled for free.

Next, contact all your friends and neighbors, give them a date you are recycling E-waste, and have everyone deliver E-waste such as their old computer equipment, coffee pots, and electronic games to your driveway. That’s all there is to it – you are done. Now the company comes and takes away the products for recycling. Easy!

In the below video you can see my recycling extravaganza pick-up and details on how easy it is to accomplish!

It’s easy! It’s simple! It’s good for the earth! Make a difference today and recycle your electronic waste products.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Recycle your CDs and DVDs – Keep Your Technotrash Out Of Landfills

Shockingly, 30 billion Compact Disc’s (CDs) and Digital Video Disc’s (DVDs) are created every year; many of them only to end up as landfill. The CD Recycling Center of America says it is time we recycled them instead!

Here’s the problem – it takes oil to produce plastics. CDs and DVDs are not recyclable because all products such as compact discs, videotapes, and computer discs are made from mixed materials which cannot be recycled unless first disassembled.

Retail companies across the United States are sending their products to special recyclers like CD Recycling Center of America. Another recycler to consider is GreenDisk, a group which record companies send their unsold product to. GreenDisk is focused on rewriting and reusing previously used disks before complete recycling is necessary.

This creative approach definitely helps to reduce the billions of CDs and DVDs which end up wasted. Imagine 30 billion CDs/DVDs stacked on top of each other and how much space that must take up if the discs were in a landfill.

What’s happening to the CDs and DVDs from the 1980’s which are no longer "current”? What happens to all that packaging – from the CD jacket to the cardboard and ink fillers? My guess is they are tossed out. If we continue to produce the number of CDs and DVDs we have in the past, there is a potential for trillions of these products to end up clogging our landfills.

Before you throw out a CD or DVD see if your local library or a community organization will take it first. Contact the above recycling centers. Better yet, find a creative craft you can do like the above CD fish made out of an old disc.

Think before you throw things in the landfill – make a difference today!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Green and Simple Tip – Reuse or Recycle Your Paper Napkins From the Car

In a perfect world we would be utilizing paper napkins that are made from 100% post consumer waste (PCW) and are processed chlorine-free (PCF) (which means no bleach will get into our water systems after the product is thrown out or recycled again). We do not live in a perfect world and the pile of napkins below is proof of that.

Above you see my husband (a.k.a. Mr. Serious in this photo), getting ready to back out of the driveway – his car is usually full of napkins. He runs his business out of his vehicle and spends a lot of time on the road working long hours. This means LOTS of fast food stops. Most of the time he has an extra napkin or two left after he eats. Instead of putting it back in the bag and throwing it out or recycling it, he saves the napkins for reuse to prevent waste. Once he gets a large pile, he brings it in for the family to use and helps keep our landfills just a little bit cleaner.

Seems like a small thing to do for our planet, doesn’t it? It is not when you imagine that Americans use an average of 2,200 paper napkins per person per year – here is the U.S. population count as of this blog post – 307,340,699 – you do the math! Thousands of trees could be used for other purposes if we were more careful about which napkins we choose to use and how we choose to use them. For instance, how are we going to use the napkins which are automatically handed to us through the fast food window?

Follow my husbands great tip and prevent waste – save and reuse the extra napkins you pick up along in your journey through life. Also, when buying new napkins focus on purchasing PCW and PCF products. This goes a long way towards protecting the environment.

You can make a difference!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – School is In Session – Teach Your Children To Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Once again it’s that time of year – school has begun. According to Discovery’s Planet Green website, “every ton of paper -- or 220,000 sheets--  that is recycled saves approximately 17 trees. For scale, the average school tosses 38 tons of paper -- the equivalent of 644 trees -- each year.”

Here’s a photo of my little cutie heading off to elementary school. When you send your children off to school, how are you helping them learn about taking care of themselves as adults? What can make a huge difference for our children is modeling good adult behavior - purchasing post-consumer recycled paper for instance, and educating our children to make sure it gets recycled yet again after it is used at school.

Donating time to assist organizations such as SCARCE (School and Community Assistance for Recycling & Composting Education), a not-for-profit organization which spends considerable time and effort recycling school products such as paper, crayons, pens, and other supplies will really help your children to connect with the process of where our products come from and where they usually go to – over stuffed landfills.

Teaching your children to reduce, reuse, and recycle school products is easy – just like teaching them to brush their teeth. Good habits start at home and need to be learned. Bad habits like being wasteful also start at home, so take the time to change that.

Make a difference in the life of a child by modeling and educating how to take care of the world by reducing, reusing, and recycling!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Green and Simple Tip – With 26 Billion Toilet Paper Rolls Produced Yearly – Harry the Pug Says Let’s Recycle

Harry the Pug is bringing you a green and simple tip today – from the toilet. See the toilet roll by his paw? That little cardboard is the bi-product of a toilet paper roll – and usually the average American simply throws it in the trash thinking it a tiny and insignificant bit of cardboard.

Let’s reconsider our thinking. In the United States alone, 26 billion rolls of toilet paper are created annually. With most Americans using an annual average of 23.6 rolls per capita. My home uses lots more than 23.6 rolls per person per year – it’s true – I’m just sayin’!

With these statistics in mind the question needs to be asked: what are you doing with your toilet paper cardboard? Are you throwing it out? Don’t do that! I recycle the cardboard directly in my recycle bin, use the cardboard to hold electrical cords together, and sometimes tear it up to put in my compost bin.

Help make a difference and be sure to reuse or recycle your toilet paper cardboard. What ideas do you have for reusing this cardboard? Leave a comment and let me know.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Car Trash – What Do You Do With It? Here’s a Green Recycle Tip!

 

See the photo above – that would be me at least 50% of my life – in the car. Just call me “The Taxi” It’s true; Americans spend a lot of time in their cars due to our hectic modern life. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, over 100 hours per year commuting to work alone. There are days when various members of my family eats, naps, and does homework in the car – modern American life is hectic.

While living a greener lifestyle in our family does include bicycling and walking, we are still trying to find ways to reduce our automobile usage. In the end, with urban sprawl and larger wide-ranging communities, the car has become a necessary evil to help our family to survive in a modern age. With all the travel and activities we have, there is a bi-product created which lives in our car; garbage from our adventures.

Before recycling existed, we would dump the garbage out at the nearest trash receptacle and leave it at that. However, what I have learned is a lot of what we collect as trash during our car travels can be recycled. Our family has begun to save everything we gather and bring it home so we can place it in the recycling bin instead of throwing useful things out in the landfill.

Next time you’re out and about in your car, remember to save all your recyclables and bring them home. Think before you throw them out in a trash bin and make a conscious decision to make a difference for our environment. Recycle!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Greening is Easy AND Can Make You A Profit – Garage Sale Sustainability

  

Here it is – a giant fallacy about living a sustainable lifestyle: that you need to spend a lot of time and money to make it happen.

Many times I have heard my friends say, “I refuse to do anything about being green – I mean, c’mon who can live like that?” What they are referring to is the ridiculous amount of money you have to pay for a bamboo-blend outfit which can cost over $100 and is supposedly “green”. Worse yet, the exorbitant costs of organic juice drinks, which can sometimes exceed $6.00 seems outlandish. This might be “green” to some people, but it is not the type of practical green living I am talking about for every day living.

Being green, definitively, is living life with more awareness of where all your stuff comes from and where all your stuff goes to. For instance, when you are done with your kitchen waste, do you just throw it in the landfill to become someone else’s problem, or do you compost it to keep it out of the landfill and to use it in your garden?

It is all about simple choices that are better for you because they save money – and even earn money. Sometimes they are choices that are simply healthier for both you and the earth.

For example, if your kids out grow their clothes, what do you do with them? Do you throw them out? Do you give them away? In this economy a simple and very easy way to reduce, reuse, and recycle is to have a garage sale. It EARNS you money.

Faced with my oldest daughter leaving for college this fall, the family decided to have a “Get My Kid To College Garage Sale.” Each of the family members contributed. Soon we had old toys, clothes, books, and even sold fresh veggies from the front lawn veggie garden I built this year. You can see in the above photos we made homemade signs and sold our hearts out.

In the top photo you can see what my youngest daughter and I did not expect – -RAIN! In the end, we were rained out (notice the soaking wet hair and clothes). All was not lost, we worked together as a family and earned a little money which helped my oldest daughter get started with her college career. It was fun!

Use Garage Sale Sustainability ideas wherever you can to make your life greener – remember – it’s all about using simple common sense.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

A Yellow Pages Rant – What’s With The Phone Book Company SCAM? Americans Go Digital and Save Our Resources and Our Landfill Space

Once again I have received the damned Yellow Pages Phone Book. I do not want these books - I have not used a phone book in nearly five years. Ever. Not even once in five years! Usually I toss the old book – which is still in pristine condition - in the recycling bin annually and accept the useless new book. But this year I have chosen to do something different – RANT!

Yep, I know I rarely rant, but this time it’s personal. Several times a year I receive pounds and pounds of unwanted phone book on my front door step. Because most of my referencing is done online, I find it a tremendous waste of paper. There are some people who might need or want the annual Yellow Pages distributions – but my preference is the distribution of phone books should be consumer driven. In other words, we should be able to opt-out of receiving this junk mail or better yet, if the books are wanted, they should be requested individually on an opt-in basis.

Think about that – how many people would actually take the time to phone the phone book company and request a free book? Seriously. Not a single person I know. This is surely why the program does not exist. IT IS A MONEY MAKING SCAM!

According to the Yellow Pages Association, consumers reference print Yellow Pages directories more than 12 billion times per year while Internet Yellow Pages sites receive 4.6 billion references each year. My question is where do these statistics come from? NO ONE HAS EVER CALLED ME FROM THE YELLOW PAGES COMPANY! EVER!!! Are they out there dialing up everyone in the United States to get a truly accurate number instead of an estimation?

Information from www.stopthephonebooks.com really puts the phone book scam into a green perspective:

Creating 500 phone books takes:

TREES -- according to a study in California 17 to 31 trees- depending on how much is new paper and how much is recycled paper .

ELECTRICITY – 4100 kwh (a 3 bedroom house in Colorado uses about 600 -1500 kwh per month-- so that about 3-6 months of electricity)

WATER -- 7000 gallons of water (that’s about 14 gallons of water per book - Gee, I thought we were trying to cut back on wasting water).

GAS – ????  -- how many gallons of gasoline for the delivery trucks? Gas for the trash trucks? Gas for the recycling trucks?

So-- how much did we use for 615 million phonebooks ? -- Well, that’s about 1.23 million times each of the numbers above -- in just one year (and we are not even including the electricity and water it takes to recycle these products yearly). Also, guess what? Only 15% to 20% of the phone books created are recycled annually. 

Of course, that’s an estimation, right? It’s just my opinion, but according to the Yellow Pages Association website, it’s okay to estimate, right? That’s how they got their 12 billion number. Apparently estimating how many people are actually utilizing their phone book product justifies how much of our natural resources we are destroying. With this mindset, estimating is a great way to justify tricking businesses into advertising in a useless, wasteful, out-dated, resource-sucking product also.

My thought is this is a SCAM to take money from business owners and is an utterly useless and ridiculous piece of advertising SPAM which we do not want. It’s time for all of us who agree with the this rant and opt-out of this insanity and do something kind for the earth.

I phoned the below phone book businesses today and tried to opt out but could not. ATT/Yellow Pages was impossible. I tried to opt out, repeatedly, but no one ever answered the ATT number so that I CAN opt out. I will try again tomorrow.

— ATT/ Yellow Pages: 1-800-479-2977

— Verizon: 1-800-555-4833

— DEX: 1-877-243-8339

— Yellow Book:1-800-929-3556

In my opinion, it’s part of the SCAM – they avoid you on purpose so opting out is not a consumer choice – how unprofessional. But then again, businesses which build scams really are not very professional are they?

Here’s the reality - most of the directory companies do not offer telephone menu options which include opting-out. It would be great if they provided an online way to opt out – I guess that’s just asking way too much from a bunch of scam artists!

This is an issue we should be contacting our government about. Contact your local representative and tell them you want something done about this outlandish scam built to steal good businesses money!

Please help come up with additional ideas to make a difference. Leave a comment below and let me know what you think -

Do you feel this is a giant underhanded SCAM like I do?

What can we do to stop this unprofessional practice from phone book company’s around the globe?

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – How Do You Make Extra Money In A Recession? Recycle Metal!

Has the economy got you down? Darned-tootin! And you are not alone. With so many of our neighbors losing jobs and an economy still on the downswing, it has become more important than ever to find money where ever you can.

Yesterday my daughter and I went to S & S Metal Recyclers to recycle 10 pounds of aluminum cans which we crushed with the cool aluminum crusher from Clean Air Gardening (in the video above). Talk about entertaining – everyone who comes to our home wants to try this crusher because it’s fun to use. We earned $3.50 cold hard cash for our efforts (inset photo shows the scale weighing the 10 pounds at S & S). If you send the same metal off with your community recycle collection truck, you get absolutely nothing beyond the knowledge of having done a good deed. Personally, I like the bonus of cold hard cash in my hand!

Now – I know what you’re going to say to me, “it takes FOREVER to save up 10 pounds of aluminum cans!” Below you see my youngest daughter holding the two bags of cans we took to S & S. You may be right – it took us several months of collecting because we do not drink a lot of sodas at our home. However, I have a creative solution for earning even more dollars.

Metal recycling companies recycle far more than aluminum cans. Typically most recycling companies will give you cash for copper, iron, aluminum, brass, wire, stainless steel, sheet metal and much more. S & S also recycles batteries, metal automotive parts, refrigerators, washer-dryers, old bath tubs and the list  goes on.

Why not go to all your local friends and family. Explain that you need extra cash and would like to come and collect their metal once a week. If you could get enough people to help you out, you just might collect $3.50 per day instead of $3.50 once in a great while. For your efforts, that’s an extra $100 per month you could use on your family’s grocery’s or pharmaceutical bills. With a little work, you could make even more.

This would be an awesome fund raising idea for churches and community organizations, particularly if you could collect larger items. No matter your goal – financial or eco-oriented - the good news is you will be doing something good for the earth as well as yourself.

Keep metals out of our landfills! Recycle!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Taste of Chicago - Why Are People Pigs? Stop Being Inconsiderate and Make a Difference For Your Community!

Above you see a photo of my oldest daughter at the Taste of Chicago ‘09. An event which draws millions of attendees and presents Chicago with an opportunity for a lot of positive financial revenue – a desperately needed commodity right now in our difficult economy.

Note the look on my girls’ face. It is not happy. Behind her is row after row of trash and recyclables lined up in some twisted scene – an art display gone desperately wrong.

After researching the Taste of Chicago’s newest and most exciting announcements, I have learned that more than 450 tons of garbage is expected to be produced at this year's Taste of Chicago alone. Staggering.

That’s a LOT of garbage. To encourage recycling, Taste of Chicago organizers will have 65 dual recycle and trash bins available across the Grant Park grounds. Yet from what I see in the photo above, that is simply NOT enough. My daughter said she saw very few recycling areas for the 3.5 million attending the Taste this year.

According to Allied Waste, the new bins have one 30-gallon opening for trash and another 30-gallon opening for recyclables. Yet if they are not conveniently located, what is the use of providing them?

This mess is the fault of the consumers who should be holding their cups, plastic, and cans until they can find a recycling bin to dispose of their trash and recycling properly. However, if 3.5 million people are expected to attend this event, is it truly realistic to expect only 65 recycling bins to do the trick?

People, please stop being pigs and dispose of your trash properly. Not only does it make the city – your community – look like an embarrassing mess, it also presents a health hazard. STOP IT! Take responsibility and do the right thing – take care of your trash and recycling the right way.

Make a difference NOW! Make a difference TODAY! It is YOU who are responsible!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Kids - Recycle Your Jeans and Turn Them Into Green Home Insulation

Today Gardening Nude welcomes a guest blogger, Christine Escobar, founder and editor for Green Parent Chicago.

If you have jeans that your children have outgrown, pairs that are too worn, ripped, stained or damaged to swap, consider having them recycled into green home insulation and help set a world record too.

National Geographic Kids is hoping to set a Guinness World Record of largest collection of clothes to recycle. So far, they claim to have collected over 16,000 pairs of jeans, which will be recycled through Cotton Inc.'s From Blue to Green initiative into home insulation. The insulation called Ultra Touch, is manufactured by Bonded Logic and contains 85% post-industrial recycled natural fibers. In addition, Ultra Touch appears to be safer to install and handle than traditional fiberglass home insulation. 

To participate in the recycling record, just follow these rules to send in your denim:

1. Select as many denim jeans or denim clothing as you like. (Any denim clothing is OK.)
2. The denim must be used.
3. The denim can be any brand.
4. The denim can be any color or size but must have been worn by a human (no doll clothes!).
5. Please print out this form and include it with each package!
6. Send as many jeans or denim items as you wish to:

NG Kids / Set a Guinness World Record
P.O. Box 98001
Washington, D.C. 20090-8001

For shipments that cannot be delivered to a P.O. box:
NG Kids / Set a Guinness World Record
1145 17th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

All denim and jeans must be received by June 30, 2009.

Christine S. Escobar is a Chicago based writer and the founder of Green Parent Chicago, the online destination for eco-friendly, off the mainstream green living and natural family living news in Chicago. She is also a loving parent who realized her skills in writing should be applied to something reflecting the idea of being good to one another and living a healthier life.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! http://www.thecasualgardener.com/, The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com/, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com/

Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle Your Package Waste – Make A Difference For Our Landfill Space

How bad is our package waste problem in the United States? Annually the people of California – ALONE - generate 66 million tons of solid waste. Almost one third of that solid waste is packaging.

Above you see an example of a common ingredient in packaging – tie wraps and plastic bags. Plastic bags are made from oil and the wraps are made from processed metals and oil combined, which take a significant amount of resources to produce. Imagine our landfills stuffed full with billions of dollars worth of natural resources formed into these tiny packaging products. It is a crisis to have all that money and resource lost.

While the “players” in the packaging industry truly need to work together to reduce packaging waste, it is also our responsibility to help keep it out of landfills.

Above you see where I have reused a water bottle package as a mini-greenhouse for seedlings this spring. It is easy to make if you carefully remove the flavored soft-drinks as you need them. Plastic ties are also reused in the garden as plant ties. They are good for kid craft projects as well and I always keep some on hand to tie cords and belts together.

What ways can you think of to reuse packaging products and make a difference for the world?

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo’ Green On Tuesday – Reusing Plastic Bag Ideas – A Flower Pot Condoms… errr.. Hats

This weekend my gardens – both my freshly planted annual flowerpots and my veggie garden faced imminent disaster: FROST! That’s right, Chicagoland’s unpredictable weather is consistent in it’s unpredictability.

At 8:00 PM Saturday night I was out in the dark in my jammies covering every annual plant in sight. It was a mad dash to save the little babies.

In the process I invented a great way to recycle your old plastic shopping bags – Flower Pot Condoms. Okay, let’s call them Flower Pot Hats….errr something.

According to Indiana University, more than 1.6 billion gallons of oil are used yearly for the production of plastic bags alone here in the United States. For gosh sakes people, find creative ways to reuse them – do the right thing.

My creative idea? See in the short video above how I saved my garden babies with some fabulous Flower Pot covers.

Make a difference today and comment below – let me know your creative ways to reuse plastic bags too!

Today’s post is a “Two For Tuesday” – this blog is on both my greening blog – www.gardeningnude.com AND my gardening blog – http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com – ENJOY!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com.

Put Together a Recycling Extravaganza Event and Make A Difference!

When I met Kay McKeen, the first thing she said to me was, “You really need to come to the Wheaton Recycling Extravaganza.” This was years ago, and I am more than happy I followed her advice.

Dupage County, Illinois sponsors multiple recycling events every year. Hundreds of volunteers participate, including the School and Community Assistance for Recycling & Composting Education (S.C.A.R.C.E.), run by Kay McKeen. Here you see a photo of Kay with my youngest daughter at one of these special recycling events.

Recycling Extravaganza’s involve far more than simply turning in some aluminum cans. These events recycle everything imaginable and make a true difference in hundreds of people’s lives. This year alone, the Wheaton event collected 37,688 pounds of electronics, 2 roll up dumpsters full of scrap metal, 109 solid lead acid batteries, 46 fire extinguishers, 37 bicycles, 143 American flags, 342 eyeglasses, 8 hearing aids, 215 cell phones, 216 ink cartridges, 8 pounds of keys, 20 crutches, 5 medical assistance walkers, 4 wheelchairs, 4 large boxes of sterile bandages, 1 SUV load of styrofoam packaging for reuse, one pick up truck of scrap metal donations were taken to the resale shop, 6,200 pounds of books, and 1,500 books were reused in the book swap.

Absolutely amazing! All of that was saved from the landfill. This is “making a difference” on a grand level and every community in the world should be doing this type of work to help reuse resources and keep our landfills from overfilling.

What I noticed when walking around all the recycling stations, was that people were absolutely proud to be a part of the experience. Below is a photo of the American Legion men who were in charge of the flag retirement station. They were proud to be out that day, doing something special for their community.

At the Wheaton, Illinois Recycling Extravaganza, the volunteers set up stations in a parking lot. Donators drive in the parking lot and around a simple “track” where the various stations are located. Volunteers collect the material and the drivers never have to get out of their cars. Simple. Easy. It runs like clock work.

Your community can sponsor a green event like this as well. Get people together to make a difference for our landfills. Imagine what books, medical supplies, wheelchairs, and eyeglasses might mean to members of your community who need them but cannot afford them. These recycling events are now touching the global community. S.C.A.R.C.E. sends the books they collect wherever needed – including many third world countries. Having an event like this is important and is a wonderful opportunity to help others.

For further information on Kay McKeen and her green team at S.C.A.R.C.E., please link through and read here – http://bit.ly/156vhE. Contact S.C.A.R.C.E. for additional community ideas at www.bookrescue.org.

Plan a Recycling Event in your community and make a difference for the world!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

How To Plant A “GREEN” and Water Conserving Flowerpot or Container Garden

Every year millions of people plant flowerpots. Although beautiful, one problem with flowerpots is that you sometimes have to water the pots every day, particularly during the hot summer months.

My secret for potting plants insures you do not have to water as much, plus you are able to reduce, reuse, and recycle household products in the process. Last year I watered perhaps once a week, maybe twice a week during the hottest time of the season. (Video demonstration above.)

CONSERVATION CONTAINER PLANTING 101

STEP ONE -

Find a container with a drainage hole and place plastics you cannot recycle or light weight recyclables like milk cartons and water bottles in the bottom of the pot. Make sure you have about five to six inches of space left at the top of the pot for soil. Top your plastic/recycle filled area with sheets of newspaper, a pizza box, or some cardboard to prevent soil from leaking down through the cracks of the pot and being lost from the plant roots.

STEP TWO -

Add growing mix. I prefer a mixture of 3/4 traditional potting soil, 1/4 composted manure (I am using Buff Stuff – a “buffalo” manure), organic time-release fertilizer, and Soil Moist or Soil Moist Mycorrhiza water crystals according to package directions.

STEP THREE - 

Pot your plants. First arrange your plants to see if they all fit. Then plant according to your plan, making sure you plant them up to the crown of the root area. If you utilize a mix of drought tolerant perennials and annuals, you will have to water the pots much less. This year I have used a mixture of Proven Winners annuals and perennials because they have come out with a line of “heat/drought” tolerant annuals which help conserve water usage. Some of my favorites (seen here) include the Proven Winners Supertunia Mini-Silver, Diamond Frost Euphorbia, Graceful Grasses Red Riding Hood, and the Jolly Bee Geranium

STEP FOUR -

Water regularly with a thorough soaking at the base of the plants. Make sure you completely wet the soil with a heavy watering less often instead of watering lightly, but inadequately, more often. This will help the water crystals to obtain and hold water for their “time release” effect and you will spend less time tending your container garden.

Give this reduce, reuse, and recycle planting technique a try and you will see the benefits as less water usage, more money savings, and less plastic products thrown away in the landfills!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

Here’s the coffee cup truth – our landfills are filling up with disposable coffee cups. According to the Sustainability Is Sexy website, Americans use approximately 16 billion disposable coffee cups per year. In 2006 alone, Starbucks used 2.3 billion coffee cups. Most cups including Starbucks current coffee cup design (as of 4/2009) only use a small percentage of recyclable material and are NOT recyclable themselves due to plastic content used to protect the cup from liquid leakage.

This quote from Sustainability Is Sexy really says it all; “In 2006, it is estimated that paper cups accounted for 252 million pounds of garbage resting in landfills.  Paper cup use in 2006 also accounted for 4 billion gallons of water wasted, 6.5 million trees cut down, and 4,884 billion BTU’s of energy used.”

When I found out these statistics I was blown away. Lots of people on the internet are complaining about it, but very few people are doing anything. Let’s DO SOMETHING!

If we can’t recycle them, why not reduce and reuse them?

The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

1. I challenge you to bring your own coffee cup to the local coffee house.
2. I challenge you to ask the manager of that shop to use recyclable cups every time you visit.
3. I challenge you to show my readers a creative way to reuse the coffee cups via video or photo.

Above is a video I made showing you what I do to reuse disposable coffee cups. I challenge you to make a difference by finding creative ways to reuse these cups. Send your videos, photos, and write-ups to blog@thecasualgardener.com and I will post your ideas and suggestions.

Let’s do something to make a difference together!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup – One Man’s Junk is Another Man’s Treasure

As my eight year old and I are driving to her gymnastics class last week, we are negotiating over the grass. She is losing grass and I am gaining garden beds, so there is a strong concern over where she can practice her gymnastics.

Suddenly I spot a treasure in someone else’s garbage. I shout in my best garbage-grubbing voice, “HEY! DID YOU SEE THAT?!” She blinks and smiles broadly knowing we were in for an adventure.

What did I spot? A gymnastics mat. Amazing. Awesome. Perfect timing. It was a gift from the heavens given at the exact moment we were discussing our need for a solution. Now to get it in my car. We lifted the hatch on my Vibe and pulled off the headrests. Together we balanced the large, unwieldy, blue object and jammed it ungracefully into the back of the car.

Dusting off our hands we both climb back in with huge smiles on our faces and gladness in our hearts. I say, “Problem solved. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Yes I am a garbage digger – why would I let something useful go into the landfill? Why would YOU? It makes no sense. It is a waste. It is ridiculous. So if I spot something useful in the garbage you can count on me to pick it up and transform it into a good idea. I hope you will too.

Think of me as the “Junk Brothers” distant cousin – the Gardening Nude Junk Woman… errr something.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Retailers listen up - -Bag? Who needs a stinkin’ bag?

Bags. We get them at every store we go to. Heaps and heaps of bags.

It takes a lot of energy and resources to make a bag and each year across the globe an estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are used according to www.reusablebags.com. Only a small fraction of plastic bags are recycled.

Plastic bags are made from ethylene, a petroleum byproduct. In the United  States, approximately 12 million barrels of oil is used annually to make plastic bags that Americans consume.

You can imagine my happy surprise when I received this email from my friend and green enthusiast, Eileen Landau, the other day, “Yesterday I stopped at Borders. The cashier rang me up and put the receipt inside the book...then handed the book to me. I was stunned and asked her about bags. She said that the company decided several weeks ago to only use bags if the customer asked. Great. Less use of plastic! Might get more people to carry a reusable bag around with them. Like I only have five or so in the car at all times, right? It reminds me of shopping in England back in the '70's. You went from store to store and carried net bags to hold your food in.”

Today I tested it out – went to the nearest Borders to purchase a paperback and you can see above how they handed it to me – with the receipts tucked in the front cover. LOVE IT!

What a fantastic idea. Retailers heed the example of Border Books and stop handing out useless oil-based plastic bags. Make a difference for our world!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! http://www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - http://www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Learn How and Why Your Stuff Ends Up In The Landfill: "The Story of Stuff"

This week I was sent by a friend to view a powerful online movie called "The Story of Stuff." It was 20 minutes long, which I thought was horrid - in a very busy world I rarely have time for a 20 minute movie, particularly during the work day.

My decision was to watch half the movie while I ate lunch, and see if was worth continuing. An hour later I had watched the movie in its entirety TWICE - it turned out to be one of the most powerful and thought-provoking green experiences I have had in a long time.

Below is a brief 52 second teaser to the show which gives you a surprising look into the world of where all our stuff goes that we use every day - from natural resource to product to retail to landfill. Most of the information provided I knew, but had not examined and understood the complete process of how all that stuff worked.

Whether you choose to agree or disagree with "The Story of Stuff," I hope that you will watch it and think about the importance that each and ever person and all our stuff has on the planet. How about you start with ten minutes at lunch and see where it goes? Go to www.storyofstuff.com and get started.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday - How Do You Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle? MacGyver It!

From 1985 to 1992, for 139 television episodes, Richard Dean Anderson played MacGyver, a scientist/spy/adventurer who believed in environmentalism before it was popular and saved the world at least once an episode.

What made me love MacGyver, beyond his dashing good looks and coolio mullet haircut, was that he worked at finding a solution to a problem instead of whining around about it. MacGyver had the ability to get out of any difficult situation by utilizing his ever present roll of duct tape (and perhaps a paperclip and piece of gum) - all while his hair stayed perfectly coifed. Amazing. These neat tricks soon became known as "MacGyverisms."

What does MacGyver have to do with the concept of reduce, reuse, and recycle? Are you kidding? We should all take a lesson from MacGyver - instead of throwing something in the landfill, why not THINK first? Do a MacGyverism - repair that ripped book, clean up your old furniture, donate your clothing to a resale shop, give your newspapers to a pet shop, sell all your unwanted stuff in a garage sale. Reinvent the obvious. Think first and do something creative and good.

Richard Dean Anderson went on to star in Stargate SG-1 after the MacGyver series ended. While the new series ran for ten years, his legend lived on as MacGyver off-screen. Even Americans who are unaware of the television show, still know what the term "MacGyver It" means - to use your creativity to find a solution and make it work.

Dear readers, it's confession time: my favorite television show for the last ten years has been Stargate - and before that it was MacGyver - yes, I confess I am a geek, a sci-fi nerd, a techie addict, in other words; a true Richard Dean Anderson fan. It all started with MacGyver and the dream that somehow intelligence and creativity can be married successfully in an environmentalist-save-the-world kinda way. Fantasy perhaps? Maybe - but I think we can make living a green lifestyle real. Of course, I have never met the former MacGyver star, but I imagine Richard Dean Anderson would want MacGyver's non-violent, intelligent, use-your-creativity-to-find-a-solution memory to be celebrated as inspiration to help keep our planet clean.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle - make a difference today and use MacGyver as the inspiration to find your own solution to save landfill space. In other words: "MacGyver It!"

P.S. NOTE TO RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON - Please email me if you see this blog - I would like to interview you (I will respond to your email after I stop jumping up and down and screaming from receiving it in the first place). Thanks.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday - Recycle Your Ass Off!

Today is Tuesday - recycling day in my neighborhood. Why do I call it "recycling" day instead of "trash" day? Because for the last seven years I have lived in my neighborhood, I have put out four recycling bins every week - minimum.

The community I live in requires that you pay for trash pick up, while recycling pick up is free. From a money-saving standpoint, it simply does not make sense to put your recyclables in the trash.

What is the most shocking revelation about this recycling policy? When I drive around the city I see an increasing number of trash cans sitting beside a very tiny, itty-bitty, miniscule recycling bin, barely filled half-full.

I am a trash digger people! I have stopped and looked - your garbage is not full of garbage - it is full of recyclables. It is no more difficult to place a tin can in a recycling bin than it is a trash bin. Landfills in the United States are at the bursting point and by being lazy and not placing recyclables in the proper spot you are part of the problem.

It is time for a change! Please stop being a part of the problem and be a part of the solution. It is time to do it today - get out there and recycle your asses off - I will be cheering you on with pride.

You are the only one who can make a difference; it all starts with a first step towards being kind to the earth.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup - Recycling Old Headphones Into A Necklace - Another Awesome Green Teen Craft

Most teens and college aged music lovers go through headphones like they're going out of style. While there are several things I use the old headphones for - including garden ties and ties to organize extension cords - my favorite by far was taught to me by my seventeen year old daughter.

Here she is modeling her recycled craft idea - she reuses the old headphones creatively as a choker necklace. What an awesome idea!

HOW TO MAKE A NECKLACE FROM AN OLD SET OF EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES

Supplies:

One set of old earbuds or headphones, a charm (if you prefer)

Steps:

Step One -  Tear the two cords apart to the base (the part that plugs into something)

Step Two - Start knotting the way you start to tie a shoe (left over right and pull it from under).

Step Three - Repeat knotting. It helps to switch left over right then right over left because it evens out the ear buds.

Step Four - Leave enough room to be able to knot the ear buds over the plug.

Step Five - Tie on with the earbuds worn in the front. For a more creative look add a large stone or charm on the necklace and wear the earbuds towards the back with the charm on the front of the choker. Very cute! 

Finished!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

GREEN AND SIMPLE TIP - Guest Puggy Winston says "Be Green on Super Bowl Sunday!"

Our favorite guest puggy, Winston, once again graces our Green and Simple Tip page in celebration of this annual football event. His tip this week is all about Super Bowl recycling -

"Football season is almost over and the Super Bowl is just around the corner! My team choked and didn't make it to the big game so I'm watching all of the great new commercials in between plays at the Super Bowl party while playing with my football. Remember to drink responsibly at the football parties and recycle all of those bottles and cans!"

Winston the Pug is a great recycling dog making a difference for the world - you can make a difference too! 

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday - How to Recycle A T-Shirt Into A Carry Bag - An Eco-friendly Teen Craft!

Recently, my teenager took a class at her high school on the environmental sciences. Happily, the class taught her a lot about the concept of reduce, reuse, and recycle - she enthusiastically walked prairies, collected seeds in nature, and studied woodland areas with her classmates.

Experiencing greening and conservation at a scientific level enabled her to intimately investigate how our earth is being threatened, and more importantly, the steps every individual should take for positive habits related to greening.

She learned that every little bit counts and we all need to work together to accomplish something great. Many of the lessons learned in this class about conservation, recycling, and landfill rescue will stay with her for the rest of her life.

One of the fun things her class did as a group was learn how common "throw-away" items can be converted into something reusable. One easy craft related to this subject was recycling an old t-shirt into a new carry bag. Here she is modeling the carry bag. Awesome!

HOW TO MAKE A CARRY BAG FROM A T-SHIRT

Supplies:

One Old T-Shirt, Scissors, Needle and Thread (or Sewing Machine)

Steps:

Step One - Turn the t-shirt inside out.

Step Two - Cut off sleeves (all the way to the seam).

Step Three - Cut down the middle of the neck to about chest high.

Step Four - Cut  from one side of the neck band to the slit in the middle and repeat for both sides (this creates the handles).

Step Five - Sew the bottom of the shirt closed and turn right side out.

Finished!

 

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup - What To Do With Junk Mail Envelopes

According to the book 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth, these shocking facts are related to junk mail:

Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail;

250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail; and

Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year.

There are dozens of junk mail "stop" companies out there which can help you reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. This is an important way to lighten your carbon footprint. One of my favorite online resources for reducing junk mail is www.obviously.com/junkmail.

Finding creative ways to reduce, reuse and recycle junk mail is also a great pro-active way to make a difference and save a tree or two.

My favorite at home idea for reusing envelopes from junk mail is to utilize the used envelopes for grocery lists and note taking. It is simple, easy, and a great idea in which a small thing can help the environment in a big way. Recycle junk mail today!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

GREEN AND SIMPLE TIP - Stop Living a Lie: Global Warming Exists, Recycling Can Help, and Obama Speaks the Truth

I am the first to admit that while watching President Obama's Inauguration I cried like a baby. Change is exciting and frightening, but change can also be good. President Obama seems confident in his expression of certain truths; publicly revealing lies without fear and standing strong in his faith that DOING THE RIGHT THING is more important than the fear of change.

In his Inauguration speech, President Obama mentioned global warming and his passionate concern for our planet's health. Recently, I overheard this quote at a conference, "global warming is a lie, oh yeah, and it is a waste of time to recycle." There are many out there that continue to believe this false and uneducated myth without doing further research themselves to understand the truth. Having done the research on my own, I am infuriated at the ignorance behind the statement.

Might I remind you of Sir Winston Churchill's famous quote, "There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true." Negative media lies cannot overcome the truth - proven by scientific experts - that global warming exists. In other words, do not believe everything you hear; instead, do the research yourself and discover the reality that our landfills are overfilled, our planet is warming, and our water is rapidly being depleted: our planet needs your help.

   

When the community uses excuses to avoid recycling and caring for the planet, guest puggy Sir Winston Fernatt gets so angry his eyes glow. In an amazing coincidence, Sir Winston Fernatt the pug resembles Sir Winston Churchill the man, who was famous for his skill of getting to the truth. One of his most famous quotes really hits the nail on the head: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."

Avoiding the truth by living life with blinders on shouting about how recycling is not "worth the time" or that global warming does not exist does not equate to living life; it equates to being selfish. Even my little friend, Sir Winston Fernatt understands that the truth is simple: if you hide the bone of truth behind your back, he can still smell it.

Instead of wasting time arguing, do the research for yourself and discover that our landfills are overfilled, our environment is warming and changing, and we Americans are the most wasteful consumers of our earth's precious resources. Sir Winston Fernatt and I challenge you to DO THE RIGHT THING today; make a difference!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo' Green on Tuesday - Stop Over-Consuming; Reuse and Recycle Basic Items In Creative Ways

Making a difference from a green perspective means thinking about consumption. What are you throwing away that you could be reusing? Why buy something new when the items you have are perfectly good? We Americans consume more of the world’s natural resources than most of the globe. It’s time to stop that behavior and start making a difference.

What this means is that the little things count. Our resources are used to create millions of small items - not one giant item. Little things that fill our lives every day like aluminum foil, plastics, boxes, toys, and clothes are all recyclable or reusable. Recycling ordinary things in a creative way can save valuable landfill space.

For example, I collect stationery boxes, using them to store memories and knick-knacks. Boxes can be reused for many reasons other than their original purpose – like gift boxes or travel kits. Another creative idea, and my favorite use of a stationery box, is the below purse I made for a holiday party.

HOW TO MAKE A PURSE FROM A STATIONERY BOX

 

Supplies:

One Attractive Stationery Box, String or Cord, Drill, and Glue or Hot Glue

Steps:

Step 1 – Clean box out and decide which should be the top of the “purse” and the bottom of the purse. Choose a drill bit for the drill that allows for the size of the string or cord being used.

Step 2 – Close box and drill four holes in the box bottom. If there is a lid, be sure that two holes are drilled directly through the lid and box while box is closed. Two more holes should be drilled equidistant from each other through the bottom of the box. See photo.

Step 3 – Drill two holes in the top of the purse to hold the purse “handle”. See photo.

Step 4 – If there is a lid, drill one hole in the top of the purse directly through the lid while the lid is open. Be sure to center the hole, it will be used for the purse closure knot. See above photo.

Step 5 – Drill one final hole parallel to the closure hole. This will be used to hold the closure loop. See above photo.

Step 6 – Cut string, feed through holes on the bottom of the box, and knot to form the “hinge” on the bottom of the purse. See below photo.

Step 7 – Cut string for handle. Be sure to measure the length you want - making it a long strap or short dependent on your requirements, then feed through two holes on top of the box, making knots on the interior.

Step 8 – Cut string for closure knot. Form into a thick knot. Feed end through top lid hole. Place a spot of glue on the interior of the lid, drop string end into glue, then close the lid for a moment to make sure the string will not block the box’s ability to close. See below photo.

Step 9 – Cut string for loop. Knot the bottom of the loop, then feed loop up through hole on top of purse.

Step 10 – Pull knots taught and dot glue on all interior knots to prevent string from fraying and to hold the string in place. See photo of interior of purse.

Step 11 – Let dry.

Next time an opportunity presents itself, please do not throw away a valuable resource. Instead, consider a creative way to reuse the little things in your life. They may be small, but are important resources for so many. Make a difference for our world today - every little bit counts.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Green and Simple Tip - Guest Puggy says, "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle"

Little Pugsley Ratter Salwitz is our guest green puggy today. Pugsley Ratter's owner, Christina Salwitz is very green conscious. Recently her family lost all recycling and garbage pick up due to the snow storm deemed "Snowmageddon 2008” in Washington state. Not to be deterred; Pugsley Ratter encouraged the family to keep recycling during the three week garbage pick up hiatus by stockpiling recycling in the family's dining room until the crisis was over. This lasted the entire holiday season. Recycling was stacked to the rafters by the time the crisis was over.

Remember that recycling reduces the demand on our natural resources. Pugsley knows that recycling also conserves energy and water and helps to reduce air and water pollution.

Production of recycled paper alone uses 80% less water, 65% less energy, and produces 95% less air pollution than virgin paper production. 36 million trees a year could be saved if every American recycled one newspaper a week. The exciting news? Every four-foot stack of paper you recycle saves a tree.

Saving energy is an important result of recycling as well. It uses 96% less energy to make cans compared to manufacturing new aluminum from virgin material [bauxite]. Many commonly recycled items have a high energy reduction rate when compared with the energy used to extract their virgin materials from the earth. Recycling plastic bottles uses 76% less energy, paper uses 45% less, and glass uses 21% less.

Little Pugsley Ratter, fondly nicknamed "Pig", says everyone should reduce, reuse and recycle for a healthier planet!! If you would like to Twitter to Pugsley, do so through his owner, Christina Salwitz (http://twitter.com/Arcadia1).

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green on Tuesdays - SAVE LANDFILLS - Recycle Carpet With Green Kid Crafts

Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) is a joint industry-government effort to increase the amount of recycling and reuse of post-consumer carpet and reduce the amount of waste carpet going to landfills. According to the CARE statistics, 5 billion pounds of carpet was sent to landfills in 2003 alone.

Used carpet can be sanitized and recycled in an industrial facility. New carpet is also thrown out by retail carpet stores. We can prevent this waste. I went to the local carpet store searching for rubber backed samples for crafting purposes and found that management was very cooperative and willing to give samples for free.

Getting children involved in "reduce, reuse and recycle" for carpeting is a great way to have fun and increase their understanding of how we all need to care for landfills. Doing crafts with your children is a great way to spend time "unplugged" and building your relationship.

RECYCLE CRAFT - MAKE NON-SKID COASTERS OUT OF CARPET SAMPLES

Tools Needed:

Discarded Carpet which has a rubber backing (samples or new is preferred, however, old carpet is good if it is not contaminated somehow)

Sharp scissors

Step One: Measure carpet for coasters. We have extra large mugs at our home, so we measured 5" square carpet sections.

Step Two: Cut. Carpet is difficult to cut through for small hands - children might need parental assistance.

Step Three: Give as gifts or use yourself. Perfect for coffee mugs!

Spending time with your kids is great. Better yet, children get a great sense of self-esteem and community when doing something good for the planet - teach them to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Teach them to make a difference!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Your Green On Tuesdays – Teaching Children Recycling and Green-Crafts

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle: the “greenie” mantra. One of my favorite ways to practice the 3 R’s is to save trash from the landfill by recycling it in the form of a craft.

Being the first week in January, my kids and I took down all our old calendars. Instead of tossing the calendars in the recycling bin, we decided to re-use them. Similarly, I have been saving some full-color folders from the Chicago Art Institute, awaiting a good excuse to reuse them for a craft.

We are reusing these products to make bookmarks which can be used for writing notes on [by writing on the back of the bookmark]. It is an easy craft children and adults of all ages and helps teach about how to rescue reusable products from the landfill. One 12 month calendar and one folder made an amazing 90 bookmarks - all beautiful and artistic.

RECYCLE CRAFT - MAKE BOOKMARKS OUT OF USED CALENDARS AND FOLDERS

Tools Needed:

Old Calendars or Folders – any colorful paper product which has a “stiff” feel so it will not fold or bend when being used for a bookmark.

Scissors or Paper Trimmer (I prefer a paper trimmer because it is quick to measure and cut)

Step One: Disassemble calendar, separating staples or cutting pages off the holder.

Step Two: Measure and mark 2” X 8” rectangular areas on the full-color design. If you are using a paper trimmer you can eliminate “marking” the rectangular areas and simply measure with the measuring marks on the trimmer.

Step Three: Cut as many 2” X 8” bookmarks as possible with paper material. Save leftover scraps to make smaller bookmarks.

Step Four: Recycle remaining scraps.

Step Five: Give as gifts or use yourself. We like to use the bookmarks when reading reference material - we write notes on the back-side of the bookmarks.

Happy Crafting!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Green and Simple Tip - Guest Puggy Says "Recycle Your Christmas Trees"

Today I am kicking the New Year in with a Green and Simple Tip. Guest puggy, Winston, Green Super Dog and rescuer of fair maidens says, "Check with your local waste authority about proper disposal or recycling of your live Christmas trees. Many states will set up locations for the public for proper disposal."

Following Winston's advice is the way to go! According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), millions of trees end up in landfills or illegally dumped on public property every single year. MILLIONS!! That is a lot of space taken up in our landfills! If the average tree is eight feet tall, that means that two million trees placed in our landfills would be approximately sixteen million feet long. WOW!

There are several ways communities can source-reduce Christmas trees. The easiest method would be to grind the trees into mulch which can be reused to mulch city property or to give to residents. Mulching puts nutrients back into the soil, helps protect plants against winter freeze and also helps conserve water by keeping the ground cooler. You can find more ideas for holiday tree source reduction at the EPA’s website - www.epa.gov. Another GREAT website for this information is The National Christmas Tree Association at www.christmastree.org.

If you would like to see your city help with the Christmas Tree landfill issue, why not contact the city administration and ask if the city would consider a “brush pick up” mid-winter? They can pick up all those discarded pine trees and turn them into mulch for the city’s residents. Christmas trees can be the gift that keeps on giving if they are turned into mulch. Call your neighbors and get as many people as you can requesting a better way to dispose of this major landfill problem.

Winston the Pug says, "Recycle Your Christmas Tree" today!!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Your Green On Tuesday and in 2009 – A GREEN New Year's Resolution Guide

It is that time again: the time for New Years Resolutions. Here are my top five easiest green and healthy tips which will really help you and your family “get your green on” in 2009.

Make a GREEN New Years Resolution to follow these simple tips -

#1 – Recycle all soda cans and plastic bottles instead of throwing them away. Landfills are rapidly overfilling – this saves considerable landfill space. 

#2 – Convert all light bulbs in your home to Compact  Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs. Changing the light bulbs will also save you money.

#3 – Turn off the lights when you leave a room. This alone will save a significant amount of energy.

#4 – Give away your old clothes, appliances, and toys to a community assistance organization. It saves landfill space and promotes giving to the community. 

#5 – Turn off the water when you are brushing your teeth. Saving gallons of wasted fresh water every year can make a real difference for your community. 

There you have it - five of the easiest-to-do and inexpensive greening ideas ever. These new year resolutions are easy to stick to as well – so do it – get your green on in 2009.

Happy New Year!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Get Yo Green On Tuesday - A "Green Teen" Activity During Winter Break - Recycle and REMIX!

It is Winter Break - that dreaded time when all parents sigh a collective groan. How do you keep your kids busy for two weeks of no-school-snow-day-filled holiday?

I have the answer: RECYCLE!

Teens and pre-teens are all about self-expression. Why not encourage them to pull out the old magazines, catalogs, books, photos, and art supplies and creatively build a poster board. Including newspaper and magazine cut-outs can be very artistic and encourages the reduce, reuse, and recycle mindset.

New York City has started its "Recycling Magazines is EXcellent (REMIX)" Television Campaign to encourage citizens to recycle catalogs and magazines. Reusing magazines and catalogs keeps them out of landfills and this is a great opportunity to teach your teen, and all of your children, what that can mean for our environment. Here is the latest commercial for the REMIX program -

Recyclables are picked up via curbside service here in our community, and fortunately magazines and catalogs are a part of that service. However, instead of simply tossing products into the recycling bin without a thought, why not consider alternative uses for them? Reusing products can be a fun artistic outlet, particularly for teens and pre-teens, and the perfect activity for a snowy winter break day.

Activities which include a lesson are always great for kids. They learn without realizing they are getting an education. Teaching your kids how to recycle new products is just the beginning. If you have a houseful of children, baking is the perfect activity to occupy their time; measuring means counting and math. It IS the season of love, giving, and SUGAR - - spend some quality time together enjoying the best of what that offers and BAKE COOKIES.

Spend some time this season teaching your children how to be green and how fun activities can teach surprising things. Your kids will be happy to enjoy some special time with you and the holiday break will go by quickly. Happy Holidays!

www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Monday Whazzup - Remembering Luna, The Incredible Recycling Dog

Ever meet a special soul who changes your life forever from the moment they touch your life?

This is what happened for me when I met Luna, the Incredible Recycling Dog. I wrote a feature about Luna and her master, a dear friend of mine, Jim Kleinwachter, in my newly published book, "Gardening Nude." Tragically, Luna died this week from liver complications, and I find myself saddened and in tears over her death. She was wonderful.

It is a coincidence that just last week, my dog, Harry the Pug, and I wrote a review on "Remembering Ruby," a book about pet loss and bringing family together. Pets bring much love and enhance community. If you are able to live with pets and do not have allergy problems, I highly recommend it - reducing stress, isolation, and depression are just a few benefits of owning a pet.

Please read the below excerpt from my book, "Gardening Nude," in salute to Luna, and help me to remember an amazing dog's life. My family will miss you sweet Luna; you touched our lives with your special love.

Mr. Answerman and the Incredible Recycling Dog

Recently, I had the distinct privilege of meeting Luna, the Incredible Recycling Dog. Her owner, Jim Kleinwachter, testifies to Luna’s amazing ability and invited me over one morning to show me how wonderful she truly is. When I came over to meet Luna, an English Springer Spaniel, Kleinwachter told me his strong belief that animals can improve a person’s health. Luna and he often go hunting together and share time walking and exercising outdoors. Kleinwachter feels Luna has encouraged him to be healthier. After seeing Luna’s exuberant enthusiasm for walking, running, and recycling, I agree.

Luna adores her master and excitedly runs in front of him wherever he walks. If he changes direction, she does too, anxiously jumping in front of him to protect him on his travels. We walked his expansive nature-filled backyard with Luna happily wagging and turning to check that we were safe every few minutes. The grounds are beautiful, yet Kleinwachter uses no fertilizers or excessive chemical weed killers on the property to help keep Luna and the other native plants and animals which live there safe.

There is something else that makes Luna particularly special. Luna is “off color” according to her breeder. Springer Spaniels are supposed to have dark patches over the eyes and ears with a white stripe down the nose: if they do not, they cannot be shown at dog shows. Many breeders put these mis-colored dogs down, killing them for no other reason than they have poor coloring. Luna was lucky—the Kleinwachter family found her before that happened. Kleinwachter and his family are eternally grateful for the love of their dog Luna and feel she has contributed to the family’s health and emotional connection with nature. Kleinwachter grins and says, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!”

Kleinwachter stopped, plopped down a recycling bin and said, “Now watch this!” In astonishment, I watch as Luna repeatedly picks up plastic bottles and deposits them in the recycle bin. She excitedly runs in circles wagging her tail and waiting for more recycling duty. She repeated it dozens of times and Kleinwachter said she would do it all day if he let her. Luna IS the Incredible Recycling Dog!

Monday Whazzup - Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle Holiday Gift Wrap and Christmas Paper - You Can Make A Difference!

 

Today's blog is an excerpt from Shawna's green and healthy newspaper column, "The Casual Gardener." Enjoy!

Every holiday season, my family receives, saves and reuses dozens of greeting cards which come in the mail. Cut off the more decorative part of the card and save it for next year. When the holiday season arrives, use the card “front” as a gift tag for presents and as postcard greetings to send in the mail.

Another great money saver is to put aside gift bags which you might have received from last year’s holiday season and reuse them. Finding and saving decorative shopping bags throughout the year is a great idea as well. With a holiday bow, a “greeting card” gift tag, and some ribbon attached, the shopping bags look as beautiful as any traditional gift bag out there and it costs so little to use them. Recycling old gift bags by reusing them is great for the environment.

When my family runs out of gift bags, it is time to turn to the saved wrapping paper. Yes, it may sound “cheap” to some, but I say it is smart! Reusing expensive wrapping paper is a huge money saver. It is impossible to save all the wrapping paper, yet if a big hunk of beautiful paper is lying on the ground after the holiday extravaganza, do not roll it into a ball and throw it out. Instead, pick it up, fold it, and place it in with the other wrapping supplies for next year.

Newspaper is also a great wrapping paper. All year long we receive Sunday comics from relatives who receive a newspaper and know my children love to read them. When my kids are done with the comics, they fold them back up and save them with the wrapping supplies. Sunday comic wrapping papers looks beautiful if topped with a holiday bow (also saved from last year). One of the most gorgeous holiday trees I have ever seen was covered in all red decorations and had presents topped with giant reusable red ribbons – the presents were all wrapped with black and white newspaper.

Even the family mascot, Harry the Pug, can see the difference between a tree that is decorated with recycled wrapping products versus non-recycled - it is tree built with love.  We all are proud and happy to see all the wrapping paper we were able to reduce, reuse, and recycle. 

Remember, when you finish unwrapping presents on Christmas morning, be sure to place the crumpled paper in the recycle bin and keep the rest for your secret money-saving, environmentally-friendly wrapping stash.

Happy Wrapping Holidays!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blog www.gardeningnude.com

Get Yo' Green On Tuesdays - How to Save Money and Save the Earth During the Twelve Days of Christmas

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa. In an amazing salute to the holidays I have created my very own GREEN "Twelve Days of Christmas" Sing-A-Long.

Wanna be green this season? More ecologically friendly? Well, start humming the tune - everyone sing with me now:

On the first day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the second day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the third day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green;

I'm using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the fourth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the fifth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the sixth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the seventh day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the eighth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm buying locally made gifts, using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the ninth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm giving a farm co-op membership, buying locally made gifts, using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the tenth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm preparing an organic meal, giving a farm co-op membership, buying locally made gifts, using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the eleventh day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm giving recycled products, preparing an organic meal, giving a farm co-op membership, buying locally made gifts, using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

On the twelfth day of the holidays I'm giving the gift of green; 

I'm composting holiday dinner waste, giving recycled products, preparing an organic meal, giving a farm co-op membership, buying locally made gifts, using LED light sets, wrapping gifts with fabric, GIVING ORGANIC WINE, reusing bows, using a live tree, sending email cards, and converting to CFL light bulbs.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blog - www.gardeningnude.com