Reusing Is Better Than Reducing and Recycling

Although Reducing and Recycling are important, reusing is the more important. Here are a few simple things you can do to reuse:

1. When you are buying things look for opportunities to use your own container.  Coffee Shops allow you to purchase a reusable container and often provide a discount for you as well.
2. Rather than buying water bottles you can buy ones like Swell that can be reused and keep your liquids either hot or cold.
3. Now a lot of retail stores will likely not like this one but go to a consignment shop or shop on ebay at stores like bgy.cou.ture for used items.  These items are in good condition and you will probably save some money too over purchasing new.

If you have other tips then please comment so others can benefit. Our environment will thank you too.

Starbucks makes it worthwhile being green for earth day

Just think about how many people will be bringing their reusable cup tomorrow for earth day to get their free Starbucks Coffee. Now imagine if we all brought our cups every day. Imagine how many cups don't even need to be recycled.

Now reflect on how hard it was to bring the cup along. Not very hard was it. Its Easy Being Green and Starbucks has now proven it is. Awesome job Starbucks. Now its up to us to continue with throughout the year.

Check out the link for more details:
http://www.starbucks.ca/en-ca/_Social+Responsibility/Earth+Day.htm

Chloros Guild - True Green List

There are a lot of products that pretend to be green, some actually make an effort and then there are some products that go the extra mile and exceed all standards. They are truly environmently friendly. This is a list of such products.

If you know of any products you feel should make this list please send over a short summary of why you feel this product deserves the "Chloros" label. You can email Susan Fischer at susan@clinchportal.com and we will review them and post the list below.

Solution to higher cost of wind power generation

Generally this blog is for tips for individuals on how its easier to be green but this one is actually for the government. In the newspaper today, I saw the article about coal being cheaper than wind power to generate and that cost per kw/h will be going up. Well one way to help out the average Canadian who will be getting this cost increase and one way to stimulate the economy through environmental spending would be to give every home owner in Ontario or possibly Canada, a solar panel fully installed for free.

Let's think about this for a moment. what are we gaining:

1) We are reducing the energy strain in our electrical system.
2) We are promoting an environmentally friendly energy source.
3) Since money is not being sucked out of the economy through electricity costs, people can afford to buy more.
4) Labor for manufacturers of solar panels and installers would get more money that they could in turn spend.
5) The government looks good in the eyes of every Canadian for their work on the environment. Since everyone would get one then everyone would see the work they are doing. They would not need to spend all that money marketing to us. We would see it happen.

If you know someone who has some power in government to make a difference, please forward over this idea to them. If you have any comments on this proposal please contact chris williams at chrisw_88@hotmail.com

Obama visit and Green

There were two very interesting things about the Obama visit to Ottawa. The first was that the focus was Green. Not green as in dollars but green as in the environment. It seems that even politicians are jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to promoting saving the environment as a way to save money. The second interesting things was his visit to get a beaver tail. It shows that he is a man who does his research including the little details like our Canadian treat. Let's hope that he will continue to keep an eye on the details and push for a greener environment simply. It's easy being green, we just have to keep an eye out. All the little things add up.

Planet-Friendly Lunches

A friend pointed out these 8 tips on creating green friendly lunches:

http://events.ca.msn.com/green/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=599518&imageindex=1

Funny how some simple things can make a big difference. Not only would you be saving the planet but also saving money we spend on throw away stuff. Why use a ziplock bag for sandwiches when reusable tupperware works well. The same with juice boxes. How many people actually recycle them? Why not just use plastic refillable ones?

Cudos to MSN for publishing this article. Click the link and go see it and share it with friends. Let's hope we see more such articles in the coming year.

If you see any interesting articles please email them to susan@clinchportal.com and we will post a link to them here.

A Peek At An Ideal World

Green is on everybody's mind. How can billions of people live on a planet and not destroy it? I once had a vision of a distant people. They educated me on how some of the things we feel are necessities actually have more environmentally friendly alternatives or simply better ways of collection or using them.

Recently I have been researching some of what I learned in my vision and realized that their suggestions are not that new or unique. Some were used by ancient cultures, some are used now but not on a large scale. It is my hope that this blog will grow and people will submit additional tips and techniques not in my dream. I will start by posting my initial dream.

It was late one winter's eve when I laid my head on my pillow. The
snow was softly floating to the ground. It was so peaceful to watch it
fall flake after flake. Soon all was white around me. I reached
forth and and hand reached out to me. "Come with me and I will show you",
the voice said. I followed as they led me through the white and out into
the green pastures surrounded by reds, yellows, pinks and oranges. Flowers
of all kinds. "Where am I?" I asked. "You are on Gliese" the voice
said, "You could have a world like this too." "But how?" I asked, "We have
billions of people living here." "That is no excuse. There are
billions of stars in the sky", the voice said, "All it takes is a walk back
through history. Edward Burke once said that “Those who don't know history
are destined to repeat it." "I see what you mean. All we have to do
is look back in time to see how people used to do things", I said.

I awoke with a paper in my hand. It was all in my writing but I didn't remember writing it.

1. Use locally grown or made resources. Back in the olden days, we only imported things we could not get locally. Now we import because its cheaper. But importing things uses up fuel, puts wear and tear on vehicles that will need to be repurchased. Require additional preparations for travel. Also, during transport some items may get broken or rot. That means things are wasted.
2. Why bleach paper products, why put unnecessary additives in foods. Sometimes additives are put in foods simple so they last longer during transportation. In the case of paper, if we are simply scribbling down notes do we really need pure white paper. If we are going to jot down a small note why use a full sheet of paper.
3. It seems every year we hear something different about what containers are more environmentally friendly. Use paper cups, use plastic cups, don`t use plastic bottles. Well who really cares what the container is made of as long as we reuse it over and over. Better one plastic cup than 1000 of any type of cup. Let`s stop fighting and just focus on what is important.
4. Make it more economical to fix things rather than just replacing it. There are many examples of this ranging from cars, computers, electronics, music medium such as cds, dvds, tapes. A friend of mine gave me a recent example of this. He bought a laptop a year ago for $399 plus tax from the local Best Buy store. It turns out the screen got damaged. It was under warranty for repairs but the screen was not covered. It turns out the screen plus labor would cost $453 to repair. So it would cost almost $100 more to repair the computer than it would to just go buy a new one. Then you get MP`s complaining about electronics ending up in the dump.
5. Stop changing the storage formats. We need to fix it so the industry is not making money only on new models and formats. This goes for cars, computers and electronics that are not upgradable or it is cheaper to buy a new one. This goes for the media industry too. LP, Tape, CD, DVD, Blueray, HD DVD. Do we really need all these formats? Do we really need all these incompatible players?

I am not sure if some of these items are too harsh or not. I just wrote them how I found them when I awoke from my vision.

I am hoping to hear from all of you with your ideas, tips, tricks, resources on how we can make this planet an Ideal World. I love kermit the frog but I have to disagree, "It's easy being green". My email address is susan@clinchportal.com I look forward to hearing from you.