gifting and recycle resources

http://freecycle.org join a local group to give and receive free items

How to make the most impact on the environment? Through YOUR ACTIONS
in YOUR OWN LIFE!

Last few years of my life, I've started noticing how much trash comes
out of my apartment/house each week, week after week. Where this trash
goes is pretty easy to figure out: landfill. Landfill is our
not-so-good best solution to a really bad problem: landfill does not
go anywhere, it just builds and builds and builds. What causes it to
build is simple: our own inability to reduce waste to ZERO.

So I started looking at what needs to happen in my life so that my
impact on the planet will be reduced. Rather than see a problem that I
need to feel guilty about, I decided to take it as a game: how can I
change the way I do things little by little, how creative can I get to
make a huge difference while continuing to live my life normally. What
I wrote below is essentially what I learned.

Got more ideas to add? Got more websites, youtube videos and articles?
Please let me know! The purpose of this article is to make it easy to
make small changes week after week in order to make a big difference
year after year! Right now, this is just a first article. Eventually,
I would like to turn this into a no-brainer fun way that people can
make a difference. This could turn into a blog, an email list, a
website, whatever will do the job in the most easy, simple,
straightforward way!

Ready? Let's start!

First, ever wondered why you're getting all this junk mail and how to
reduce the amount you receive? Check out these two sites:

http://www.stopjunkmail.org
http://tinyurl.com/5aqxwr

Next, ever wondered how to make a difference with the environment
around the products you consume day after day? First, see this
website:

http://www.storyofstuff.com

Now that you know how stuff is made and how it makes its way to you,
here's a few ways to diminish your impact on the environment:

-          Buy less (stuff), drive less (with a gasoline engine).
Buying less reduces the demands on manufacturing, which is the most
direct way for you to reduce your impact on the environment. Driving
less causes less emissions, which in turn is easier on the
environment. If you need to meet people, consider free conferencing
services instead (http://www.freeconference.com)
-          Buy used (stuff), carpool (with gasoline engines) or use
transportation that pollutes less. Buying used means the life of the
product will be extended before it find its way into landfill. Check
out (real) flea markets, http://www.Craigslist.Com, http://www.eBay.Com, and ask
your community (email lists, facebook, etc) if anyone wants to sell
you the item you're looking for. Carpooling
(http://www.ridenow.org/carpool and http://rideshare.511.org/) or
using public transportation (http://511.org/) means more people get
moved by the vehicle you're using, which means less impact than if
more people used their own vehicle. Transportation that uses less
emission (biking, walking, etc) is even better!
-          Fix or re-use (stuff that you already own) -- or find
someone who can. Sure you could have something bran-new, but that
means both throwing something away and buying something else – a
double impact on the environment. Trying to fix something that already
exists will get your brain to function at a creative and analytic
level to learn how to make this "thing" work. When in doubt, ask your
community (lists) for help. Someone WILL likely show up ready to give
you a hand.
-          Reduce the amount of packaging. Buy local. Buy in bulk. If
you buy something and don't need the extra bag, tell the cashier and
carry it in your hands. Better even, always keep old plastic bags and
other canvas bags/old backpacks/paper bags in your car and use them to
carry anything you buy. Buy in stores that have lots of bulk food
(Berkeley Bowl in Berkeley, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco) to
reduce the amount of packaging (and use those plastic bags to put the
food in it instead of taking new plastic bags in the bulk food
section). Buy local to reduce the amount of gasoline that was used to
food to you (the more people who do this, the more local food stores
will carry). Even better, go to farmer's markets (Check
http://www.ecologycenter.org for Berkeley Farmer's Markets). For shipping
boxes, find a UPS store that will take them rather than putting them
in the recycling.
-          Examine closely what you put in the trash. Become conscious
of how your choices affect the amount of trash you generate. Turn it
into a game! Get creative! How long can you extend the time before you
have to empty your kitchen trash can?
-          Recycle as much as you can ("everything" should be the
goal!). Ask your city for a flyer telling you what can be recycled. If
your city doesn't recycle some items, find other cities close by that
will, collect the items over a few weeks, and then walk/bike/drive
over there on recycling pick-up day to put the items in someone else's
recycling box. A great place to look for all this information for the
San Francisco Bay Area is  http://www.stopwaste.org! When purchasing products
(especially while doing groceries or getting takeout containers from
restaurants, make sure that the containers have a recycling symbol at
the bottom and that the symbol is #1, #2 or #3. Anything higher is
harder to recycle and is less likely to be recycled by your curbside
recycling program.

Other fun articles:

-          Green special: My trail of trash: http://tinyurl.com/6f2j2o
-          http://www.EcoGeek.Org : Science, technology gadgets and...baby
seals. We're in a bit of an eco-mess, but we've got the brains to lick
any problem. And that's why EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories
daily about innovations that are saving the planet.
-          http://www.EcoMetro.com : Find the best green and local products,
merchants and ideas from the people around you.
-          http://www.angelfire.com/wi/PaperVsPlastic/: Is paper
really better than plastic?
-          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch:
This is a mass of floating plastic twice the size of Texas, and a
couple of hundred feet deep, getting bigger all the time, and no one
wants to take responsibility for it.

Podcasts:
-          http://www.livinggreenshow.com


This is just a start! Being the creative geek that I am coupled with
all of your knowledge, we CAN make a difference RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW,
in our day-to-day life, where we have the most IMPACT.

Want to play with me?

A bientot et avec amour,

Philippe