Got Junk Mail? We have a problem!

Did you know

• You waste about 70 hours a year dealing with junk mail
• 28 Billion Gallons of water are used to send junk mail to Americans each year.
• Further more than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail.
• Creating and shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 9 million cars.
• $320 million of local taxes are used to dispose of junk mail each year

Learn more here.


You can stop 75% of the junk mail by signing up for this service (http://www.dmachoice.org/).

And remember most financial documents in the mail can be accessed online. Sign up with your bank to get electronic statements only and remember to sign up for BILL-PAY! It WILL PAY in the long run.

More about Unsolicited Mail, Telemarketing and Email: Where to Go to “Just Say No”? Learn from the Federal Trade Commission.

DIY: Things you didnt know you could recycle, or how to!

Did you know of http://www.earth911.com/ ? Its the one place you can go to figure out how to recycle things you wish you could recycle instead of dumping in the trash... atleast I hope you feel that way everytime you reach for the dumpster:-)


Here are a few things you may not know you could (or how to) recycle/reuse.
- Wine Corks
- Foam Packing Peanuts
- Bras
- Carpets and Rugs
- Prescription Medicines
- CDs/DVDs/Books
- Shoes
- Holiday Lights

The article below shows you how to recycle them.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-things-you-didnt-know-you-could-recycle.html

LEARN: Lets Learn from the Birds and Bees!

Having a hard time figuring out how to ease sustainability into your home, workplace, and friend circle? Check out this great article to make a mind shift and learn a great strategy-

http://blogs.forbes.com/csr/2010/08/18/the-birds-and-bees-of-sustainability/?boxes=Homepagechannels

DIY: Buyers Guide to Green Products. Get the most green back for your green(back)

This post is going to be edited from time to time, so bookmark it and check back once in a while.

What I want to do here is provide links to sites that help you decide where to spend your dollars so you get the most green back for your green(back). These sites will help you develop your own standards for sustainable living.

- http://www.goodguide.com/ for safe healthy and green products for the home, health, personal care, food and more

- http://www.eatwellguide.org/ for organic restaurants, stores, farms and more

- http://sfapproved.org/ for products that meet San Francisco's Health and Environmental Requirements

- http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

LEARN: 6 Reasons to Go Organic

1. Protect your health - You really don't want to ingest hormones, pesticides and other chemicals, do you? Worse, you dont want your children to be eating those toxic cancer causing chemicals. One study showed that 23.4 per cent of farms with caged hens tested positive for salmonella compared to 4.4 per cent in organic flocks and 6.5 per cent in free-range flocks. See the study at http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_9990.cfm

2. Protect soil - In industrial farming, soil structure is not given much thought, leading to depletion of nutrients and erosion. If the soil is not handled in a sustainable way, it eventually stops giving back and you can't use it any more.

3. Protect water - Fertilizers and pesticides used in industrial farming inevitably make their way into ground water and other water bodies.

4. Reduce Energy - Organic farming uses much less of petroleum than industrial farming since it relies on manual cultivation methods.

5. Protect Farmers and Farm Workers - Farmers that do not own farms not only suffer from ailments brought on by inhalation/ingestion of chemicals found in fertilizers and pesticides, they are also at the financial mercy of corporations. With reduced land ownership, economic disparities between the haves and have-nots increases.

6. Organic Tastes Better - Try it, and know the difference!

DIY: Wash Your Clothes with Soap Nuts!

http://greenarbytheday.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/wash-your-clothes-with-soap-nuts/

Soap nuts are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree. They contain saponin, a natural cleaner. For over 2,500 years, soap nuts have been used for laundering silks and wools, by jewelers for shining gold and silver ornaments, as a hair wash, and as a skin soap. They are 100% biodegradable and hypoallergenic.