Earth Day 2008

[saffy]

Hi all,

Just wanted to remind everyone Earth Day is going to be celebrated April 22nd. Just a little explanation

Earth Day is a name used for two different observances, both held annually during spring in the northern hemisphere, and autumn in the southern hemisphere. These are intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day, which was founded by John McConnell in 1969, each year on the March equinox, while a global observance originated by Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in, and since January 1970 also called Earth Day, is celebrated in many countries each year on April 22, including America.

There are many web sites you can check to see what you can do, please take a look.

This is our world and our physical bodies are here, let's do all we can.

[yogagurl]

I am finally ready to start going green myself. I am buying reusable grocery bags today. My sister's and I are getting together tonight to make laundry soap, dish soap, dryer sheets and air freshener. We are also buying the bins to start recycling. Recycling is hard here because we do not have curbside pick-up, and not everything is accepted at the local recycling place. I figure that we have to start somewhere, though. I have also started ordering all of my hair and skin products from a seller on Etsy that makes them by hand. We have also boycotted Wal-Mart, and started buying our groceries at other stores that are are more socially conscious.
Happy Earth Day!
Kristi

[Sloan]

That's awesome Kristi! And thanks Saffy for the heads up!
Oh and Kristi...? What kinda of recipes and stuff are you using to make your stuff? I'm trying to bring more and more green stuff to the house and always up for new ideas!

[♥Starlene]

Sweet! Thanks for the reminder,,, I am posting my newsletter this weekend and I wrote a little article about Earth Day myself

I am going greener and greener the more I educate myself on this sort of stuff, the easier it is to go green! I have always loved handmade stuff, the stuff i use for my face is made of vitamins and I use dove soap, but I like the idea of buying someones handmade stuff too,, I am addicted to handmade vegan lip balm but I think I confessed to that one already! I love supporting the lieelt people that put their work and pride into their work,,, instead of the giant companys that just make stuff for profil....
OOOOOOOOOk Kristi sice you brought it up,,, you should PM me the store of your soap pusher hehe,,, i just have sensitive skin so i gotta be careful what I use.... suggestions maybe??

So tell me,,, why boycott Wal-Mart,,, other then the obvious reason,,, that they are a huge corporation and corporations usually worship the almighty dollar... Did they do something particularity special to get this boycott? I thought they were going to start selling organic stuff? Honestly I dont go there all that much and I never really bought food from there,,, just household stuff and things like that...

[yogagurl]

This story is why I decided to boycott Wal-Mart. It doesn't actually have anything to do with going green, but I know that there are lots of environmental issues related to Wal-Mart as well. Around here Wal-Mart is the biggest grocery store we have. It is very hard to not shop at Wal-MArt because there are actually things I cannot get anywhere else, but I have decided that I want to support companies that treat their employees like human beings, and actually care about the environment. I hope I'm not being too political, it's my opinion.
walmartwatch.com/pages/learn_more_about_the_shank_family
Kristi

[Sloan]

This made for a pretty darn good reason to stay away and look for other places to shop! Wow.
How did the soap making go Kristi?

[Anamere]

We've been working on going green and getting more and more green conscious these past few months. I've also been really big on not wasting food and instead freezing what might be going bad.

I use alot of natural cleaners (vinegar is my best friend!) and various "natural" or "green" products for my body just because I didn't realize all the chemicals in so many products (not to mention meat by products too... um, eeewww!) in them.

Aveda is expensive but they are very VERY green.

I've been on a huge plastic reusing and recycling kick this year after a local waste management center came to talk to the class earlier this year. We got some great idea's and I learned some things I didn't know.

Like did you know the boxes used for freezer foods CAN NOT be recycled? There is a thin coating of wax on them so the food and ice don't get the boxes "mushy". So it's waste that can't be recycled. That was huge for me cuz we bought alot of frozen foods for the kids.

I now self freeze alot of our stuff and reuse the plastic bags (or put them in containers) until they have holes and are useless. You can do boil a bags with just about anything in them to warm up (soups, stews, leftovers) for a quick little meal for the kids.

Another idea for Bananna's about or that have gone bad (browned)... FREEZE 'Em! Use them in a smoothy and you can't tell the difference. Peel them and toss 'em in a good freezer container. If you haven't used them by the time you have more... just toss the new on top... we haven't had a problem with this and they taste the same!

I don't have them last too long so I can't say how long you can freeze them but in a deep freeze surely 3 months or so??

You can make Apple Sauce out of Apples about to go bad, freeze it and use it in a smoothy with the bananna's!

Sorry, got alittle side tracked. They waste managemetn company also educated us on which plastics can and can't be recycled and idea's of what you can do with the ones that can't.

A cool Idea I got for something to do with plastic bottle caps:

For young children the caps can be used by writing letters of the alphabet on and create words or practice spelling with. You can store them in a bin or a cut Milk jug. We use these at school alot! The school I work at is leading in pounds of recycled "stuff" and all of the staff and teachers are very green minded.

They even have compost bins with worms showing the kids how they can do this at home. The kids take turns caring for turning the compost around daily. It's pretty cool!

I reuse glass and plastic containers to store small things in. (pencils, pens, beads, string just what ever!) I like using same size containers so they can stack or be put on a shelf. Why buy those rubbermade containers when we have so much go right through our hands every day.

Shoe boxes are great for storage too! But I know there is alot more I can do but it's a start.


Ok now all that said. WALMART....

This is what got me on a boycott Walmart kick a coupl'a years ago. My husband will still shop there and I've been there a couple of times over the past few years but I shop at Kroger just because it's local to us here and they have better quality food.


www.in.gov/idem/oe/cause/NOV/16296-W.htm


This is basically a document of gross negligent waste practices of a Walmart store here in Indiana. They were sighted repeatedly and Walmart Headquarters knew about it and refused to pay for the store to upgrade the waste system. The news was involved and everything. They didn't "fix" the problem until The Environmental Department was involved. Who knows what sort of permanent damage was done.

It just made me wonder how many more cases of this were going on around the world.

Also, it's wide known that Walmart just oozes greed.... sadly they only made Charitable Contributions because they can write them off on taxes. Sometimes they will "dump" penny stocks or stocks that aren't going to be worth anything on a charity and Still can write off what they paid for them.

Basically they save themselves and dump crap on the charity. Even more sad... many large companies do this with stocks that have no worth.


Ok done with my rant and ramble

XO's
E