Shop Smart, Save Forests

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, or whatever you and your family celebrate! Sorry for the lack of posts this past week...it was a bit crazy.

In this season of runny noses, perhaps some additional thought about the environmental impact of home tissue products is warranted. Click here to review an online Shopper's Guide to Home Tissue Products from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

DID YOU KNOW that if every household in the US replaced just:

• one box virgin fiber facial tissues (175 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 163,000 trees.
• one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees
• one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees
• one package of virgin fiber napkins (250 count) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 1 million trees.

The NRDC guide has detailed ratings for many of the top brands of home tissue products, so that we can make more informed choices.

And, even better than using recycled paper products is to use reusable ones! While there isn't a palatable option (for me at least) for toilet paper, in our house, we have taken to using plain washcloths instead of paper napkins and paper towels. (When we had babies, we just seemed to have a couple stacks of plain washcloths always at the ready...and we now use washcloths instead of paper napkins and paper towels for everyday messes!) We use ones from IKEA, but I'm sure that there are lots of inexpensive options out there.

Three tips from the NRDC to help save forests

1. Buy paper products with recycled content -- especially post-consumer fibers. Look for products that have a high recycled content, including high post-consumer content. Post-consumer fibers are recovered from paper that was previously used by consumers and would otherwise have been dumped into a landfill or an incinerator.

2. Buy paper products made with clean, safe processes. Paper products are bleached to make them whiter and brighter, but chlorine used in many bleaching processes contributes to the formation of harmful chemicals that wind up in our air and water and are highly toxic to people and fish. Look for products labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF). In some cases, elemental chlorine-free (ECF) may be acceptable.

3. Tell tissue manufacturers to stop using virgin wood for throwaway products. If a brand you buy for your home doesn't have any recycled content, contact the manufacturer. Tell the company to use more recycled fibers, to avoid sourcing from ecologically valuable forests such as those in the Cumberland Plateau and Canadian boreal, and to ensure any virgin fibers used are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Saving forests also helps reduce global warming pollution.

Oh the weather outside is frightful (for shopping)! Uncommon Goods for last minute green gifts

If you're looking for some last minute online gifts, check out Uncommon Goods. They are a company with an 'uncommon mission' that includes a focus on conducting themselves in an environmentally friendly and socially conscious way. Seriously, it's part of their mission, and so they feature a huge selection of gifts that you can feel good about giving! They have fun and elegant items in all price categories. Some of my favorites include:

• Urbano Eco Can - a good way to store and easily re-use plastic shopping bags (although I know we all get fewer and fewer, they're still out there). It's much better than the mess of bags in a ripped paper bag that is currently a disaster situation under my sink! It's made from recycled polypropylene in the USA. $20

• Flip Flop Doormat - made from surplus rubber from a flip flop factory, this colorful doormat is not only welcoming, but keeps a whole lot of rubber out of the landfill! Made in the Philippines. $20-$40, depending on size.

• Protect Our Wildlife Glasses - Made from the bottom half of wine bottled rescued from the waste stream in North America, these lovely glasses also feature a silk-screened print of an endangered species and the phrase "Protect our Wildlife" in four different languages. Made in Wisconsin. $45 for a set of 4. plus, for each purchase, Uncommon Goods will make a $2 contribution to Defenders of Wildlife.

• Bike Chain Bottle Opener - I actually bought this for my brother-in-law two years ago. (They're big bikers...he and my sister biked from California to Wisconsin a few years ago, and are currently on a bike trip in New Zealand). Anyway, it's a bottle opener made from reclaimed bike parts - a chain and part of a gear-thingey. Like I said, I'm not the biker in the family! Handcrafted in Oregon. $10.

There are tons of great gifts on this site...and if you can't get out in this snow to support local independent business, you can still feel good about supporting an online company that focuses on handcrafted, unique, environmentally friendly, socially conscious, high-quality goods.

They say that they can get it anywhere in the US (with expedited shipping, an additional $2) by Christmas Eve, as long as the order is placed by 5 pm EST on December 22!

RethinkRecycling.com: the go-to guide for waste & recycling in the TC

A fantastic local resource for waste & toxicity issues is back up! Previously known as GreenGuardian, RethinkRecycling is the outreach campaign of the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board (SWMCB) and is loaded with information about waste, recycling, and toxicity reduction.

The SWMCB manages the Community POWER program, which is one of the primary funders of Linden Hills EcoParents.

Make it a bookmark, and check it out whenever you have a waste related question!

EcoTuesday Holiday Party at Twin Cities Green

The EcoTuesday Holiday Party is this Tuesday, December 16 6:30-9:00 pm at Twin Cities Green (2405 Hennepin Ave). Geared towards eco-networking, it'll be a great time to learn lots of tips. Bring in a non-perishable food item and receive 10% off purchases at Twin Cities Green during the event.

And, if you haven't yet been to Twin Cities Green, it's a great store to check out! The owners Ryan and Tina are parents themselves and are loaded with great tips and information, not to mention a fantastic selection of green, local (or fair-trade), innovative products at their store. Lots of items that are eligible for the EcoParents rebate program...

Our green holiday party! Walking the walk...not just talking the talk.

Our annual holiday party had a decidedly 'green' flavor last night. While not entirely ZERO WASTE, there was much less 'trash' produced than in previous years, with just a little additional effort or cost. We had 100+ friends, including adults & kids, with a buffet of food. Some of the small changes this year included:

• Set up 'disposal stations' with collection bins for compostables, glass (beer bottles), plastic (i.e., water bottles), and trash.
• Used compostable plates (Chinet dessert plates) and compostable cups. Paper hot cups for the hot cider, and corn-based "PLA plastic" cups for punch and wine. The corn cups were printed with a green stripe indicating that they were made from corn and compostable, so folks knew that they were not regular plastic cups!
• Did NOT have chocolate kisses as in past years, due to the non-compostable foil wrappers.
• We did use plastic utensils, but we collected and washed them, rather than throw them away. (Using corn-based utensils would have been another option, but we had leftovers from buying in bulk for last year's party.)
• Collected bottlecaps (instead of throwing in garbage as in the past) since I just learned at the EcoParents meeting that bottlecaps can go with the metal recycling collected curbside!
• Purchased food in bulk at Costco (where possible) to reduce packaging waste (e.g., big bags of Goldfish crackers and Pirate booty)
  

And of course, we put the beer boxes with the organic recycling NOT the boxboard recycling since those have the wet strength additive. :-)

Our little green organics carts is overflowing! And the big black garbage bin has only one big bag from the party. And an added bonus - lots of our non-Linden Hills friends asked about the organics collection and expressed a desire to have that in their neighborhood as well! The corn-based cups were definitely a big conversation starter.

More to come about green parties later this year, as we will be asking for EcoParent volunteers to host green parties with non-EcoParent friends to help spread the word! (That was part of the original grant proposal plan...)

It was a lot of fun and very satisfying to host our annual party with a much lighter footprint!

Thanks to Susan Young & Minneapolis Recycling!

A belated THANK YOU to Susan Young for coming to our EcoParents meeting last week to speak with us. Who would've guessed how interesting and dare-I-say exciting to learn about garbage and recycling?! Susan is truly a treasure. We are lucky to have her guiding a world-class solid waste management and recycling program for our city!

For those who were unable to attend the meeting, click here to learn more about what and how to recycling in Minneapolis. Some of the (new-to-some) info we learned:

• Boxboard with 'wet strength' additives (e.g., pop boxes, freezer boxes) cannot be recycled. In fact, it can muck up the whole recycling process. So, remember "If it goes on the counter or cupboard, it can be recycled. If it goes in the fridge or freezer, put with your organics recycling or garbage."
• The city will give you as many blue recycling containers as you need. Click here for information to request additional bins, or call (612) 673-2917.
• Minneapolis sends all of our garbage (not recycling) to HERC waste-to-energy facility to be burned at 2200 degrees and converted into energy. The city of Minneapolis doesn't send garbage to a landfill...except what comes out the 'back-end' of the incinerator.
• Though it may seem cumbersome to sort recycling at the household level, that is actually what gives our recycling program its value!!

For those who were at the meeting, make a comment about something new or interesting you learned from Susan or our discussion!

More to come...

Learn the ins & out of Recycling: EcoParents Meeting - Wed Dec 10

Just a reminder that the next Linden Hills EcoParents meeting is this Wednesday, December 10 from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Linden Hills Park building (43rd & Xerxes Ave S.)

Our guest will be Susan Young, director of the Solid Waste and Recycling Division at the City of Minneapolis. Susan will help us to understand the ins & outs of our municipal recycling program - what's collected, what's not, how to sort for collection, how to prepare materials for collection, etc..., and answer every question that we have!

Linden Hills Natural Home has donated a porcelain counter-top compost pail and biodegradable bags, which will be given away FREE at the meeting (but you have to be there to be eligible to win!). Also, coupons for $5 off a purchase of a compost pail at LH Natural Home AND $2 off a purchase of a set of reusable mesh produce bags will be distributed to meeting participants! Thanks to Linden Hills Natural Home for their support of EcoParents!

Also, FREE kitchen scrap buckets from Hennepin County will be available for pick-up at the meeting. We have a couple extra if you haven't signed up for one. AND, you can pick up your gorgeous fair-trade organic canvas reusable tote with the Linden Hills EcoParents logo, if you haven't gotten yours already!

See you Wednesday!

Healthy Toys - resources to help you be sure!

Here are two quick resources to help you feel confident that the toys you may be giving your kids are non-toxic.

HealthyToys.org is an online consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys. They have test results on over 1,500 children's items and toys, as well as additional information. Check out their list of best toys, and more importantly, their list of worst toys! More to come soon...

I saw in the paper today that a local engineering firm will be testing toys at the Community Bank in Plymouth on December 15, during regular bank hours. The bank is located at 3455 Plymouth Blvd. Crane Engineering will scan up to four toys or pieces of costume jewelry per family. Their scan can detect heavy metals and other foreign elements in toys, even at very low levels. Please note that no clothes nor fine jewelry will be tested.

Local Green Shopping Opportunities

Here are some upcoming opportunities for holiday shopping that are sure to have lots of 'green options' as well as support local businesses, artisans, and organizations.

Reindeer Days, sponsored by Linden Hills Business Association. Saturday, December 6. In addition to hot cocoa, sleigh rides, and special activities at many of the local businesses in the 43rd & Upton business district,

• Linden Hills Co-op is hosting it's Reindeer Room with fair trade, well-made, local & environmentall friendly little gifts...all priced under $10. No charge. No reservations. 11 am to 2 pm
• Wonderment is hosting an advent wreath workshop (suggested for ages 6 and up). Suggested donation is $5 to support Joyce Food Shelf. And pick up some great non-toxic, high quality kid gifts as well! 10:30 am to 2:30 pm.
• St. Thomas the Apostle is hosting its "JustGiving" Fair, with fair-trade good from Peace Coffee, Ten Thousand Villages, Birch Clothing and more, as well as information to connect you with nonprofits supporting our community and the larger world. 11 am - 2 pm.

No Coast Craft-O-Rama at Midtown Global Market. December 5, 3 pm - 8 pm. December 6, 9 am - 5 pm. This annual event features a variety of designers, artists, crafters and other talented creators of unique handmade goods. Not everything may be 'green' - but they explicitly have a green focus this year so expect to see crafts from recycled, repurposed, recyclable, etc... materials. There is sure to be lots of options, with many under $25. I think I'll be looking especially for unique teacher gifts there...

Craft Sale Benefit for Friends for a Non-Violent World at Mpls Friends Meeting House (44th & York Ave S). Dec 5, 3 pm - 9 pm. Dec 6, 9 am - 3 pm. Again, not specifically a 'green' event, but many of the handicrafts will be from local artists and feature green elements.

Know of something else?? Make a comment and let the rest of know too! (or email me so I can post it.)