Sustainablog

Do you remember RecycleBank, the Philadelphia-based company that rewarded customers for recycling? I thought that was a great idea, and I’ve got a similar response to Earth Aid’s new rewards program for energy savings. Rolled out earlier this month in Washington, DC, Earth Aid offers a program to track your energy use and savings, and then to “pay” you for those savings through reward points that can be redeemed at partner companies.

In its press release for the launch of the rewards program, the company claims that its program “…creates a virtuous circle of local businesses providing incentives for households to save energy, and households re-circulating their savings on their utility bills into local businesses - benefiting both the local environment and the local economy.” All of this is on top of money actually saved by consumers cutting their energy use…

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Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas‘ Editor-In-Chief, discusses biodynamic winemaking, vineyards, and farming with Katrina Fetzer, Director of Sales and Marketing for Ceago Vinegarden.

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According to Richard Florida in his latest book, Who’s Your City?, the average American moves every seven years. “More than 40 million people relocate each year; 15 million make significant moves of more than 50 or 100 miles,” writes Florida. That’s a lot of carboard boxes, time and energy.

The implications for such a footloose society is further complicated by a staggering statistic: a roughly 50 percent divorce rate nationally, leading to multiple homes for what was once a single family home. Of course, second home ownership was also on the rise before the financial meltdown, increasing by 22 percent between 1995 and 2005, according to the Harvard University’s Joint Center on Housing Studies. Now we have two (or more) homes (to fill with stuff) only to later sell them, on average, every seven years.

Then when we age, we’re left with the quagmire of what to do with all our accumulated stuff. The solution for many, of course, is to jam it into self-storage lockers. Over the past two decades, self-storage has emerged as a $20 billion industry and comprises over 52,000 facilities, according to the Self Storage Association. In California, many people park their vehicles in their driveway or on the street not because of their famously great weather (no city snow removal), but because their garages are packed full of more stuff.

Florida points out that there are several key trends emerging:

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When Michelle Obama announced plans for a White House kitchen garden, local foodies, gardeners, and health advocates rejoiced: what better way to promote the value of home-grown food than get the first family involved. It turns out that the Obamas aren’t the only executive family growing vegetables on the grounds of the official residence: a number of governors and their spouses have taken up the cause of not just planting vegetables, but also implementing more sustainable landscaping practices at governors’ mansions and even state capitols.

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First Time Homebuyers qualified for Fed. Stimulus Funds. Why not \”greenovate!\” $50K available in grant money for home improvements for qualified individuals.”

Were you starting to believe that the Federal Stimulus $$ were for everyone but you? Brace yourself, because you, - yes YOU! - even if you’re not a billionaire banker or jet-setting car company executive - may be able to qualify for a nice chunk of change from the government to buy your first home.

In a national program, the Federal government is making available up to $75K dollars in a 0% interest, 20-year deferred home loan if you meet certain qualifications. What are the qualifications? You must be a low ($46K per year) –medium ($66K) income earner and have a FICO score of at least 620. If you have all that, pay attention, because you can get yourself qualified for not just up to $75K in a 0% home loan but also another $10K towards the down payment of said home or the closing costs upon purchase, you choose.

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Jeff McIntire-Strasburg occasionally writes posts on new, innovative green products (see Five Greenish Products You’ve Seen on TV and Five More Greenish Products You’ve Seen on TV). Rather than try to steal his thunder, this post looks at some basic, simple, green products that can make your everyday life many times greener.

Staying away from the topics of food and transportation, which are probably the biggest daily products you could green, here is a list of products you use everyday.
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With spring bringing out the gardener in many of us — veteran, rookie and in between — my household has been expanding our growing. Last year, we had a couple of small vegetable plots that maybe totalled 15-20 square feet. Plus, we created a wildflower and native grass section that stretches to a slim 40 square feet.

This year, we have turned nearly half of our backyard — tiny as it is — into a vegetable garden, adding 125 square feet, or so. I built a wooden-pallet compost bin. And our front yard — yes, tiny front yard — is quickly becoming garden space, too (more flowers, native grasses and such). We’ll soon have a rain barrel. I’ve torn up a 50-foot stretch of sidewalk, and will replace it with a more drainage-friendly, more attractive solution. My wife also has started dozens of vegetable seedlings, which she is giving away for others’ gardens.

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This year, I’ve undertaken a new endeavor: I’ve started a vegetable garden. It’s an ongoing process — no harvest yet, of course — but I’m already looking forward to fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and beans that will be transported about 15 feet from garden to kitchen.

In the process, I’ve come across a number of intriguing DIY projects for growing your own food. Here are five that can help make gardening easier and, maybe, more productive.

The raised bed planter: This project is at the heart of the method I’m using for my garden — Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening system. I used leftover bricks for mine, but there are lots of different materials you could (re)use to build a garden space (and avoid the digging!). GO’s Kelli Best-Oliver contributed one great plan for this.

The upside-down planter: Yes, I’m fascinated with the Topsy Turvy, but am going to try making my own out of reused 2-litre soda bottles. I’ve found a number of different plans available online that make use of a variety of containers.

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Earth Day provides us with an opportunity to both reflect and act on our desire to use the planet’s resources in a sustainable manner. As we’ve noted in numerous posts, water may be the one resource we should focus on more, individually and collectively. No doubt, many of you have water-saving activities planned; a few of you may already be at work installing low-flow shower heads, faucet aerators, or even rain barrels.

Rainwater harvesting makes a lot of sense: the initial investment can be quite low (especially if you do it yourself), and your plants love rain water.  Unfortunately, as Rachelle Carson Begley once noted, an awful lot of commercially-available rain barrels are, well, ugly.

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Are you worried that an organic garden on the White House grounds might cause some Americans to start eating a wide variety of chemical-free, locally grown produce? The Mid America CropLife Association, a lobbying group for agribusinesses giants, is.

Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden, the MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter (which can be viewed in its entirety here) expressing their disappointment that she had not “recognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.”

But that’s not all. The group went on to provide a dose of propaganda educational information, including little known fact that “technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.” Drawing a clear line between technology, undefined, and sustainability does not, in the strictest terms, suggest the group’s total disapproval of organic farming methods.

That outright statement came in an email MACA sent their members shortly after sending the first lady aforementioned letter, in which they said that the idea of an organic garden “made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.” [italics mine]. Read the rest of this entry »