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PIECES OF VERMONT

Owned & operated by
RES eCom, Inc.
PO Box 578
Jacksonville, VT 05342
800-507-7721
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Home   10 Green Actions

10 Green Actions
    that will make a difference!

Obviously there are some steps that each of us can do to "GO GREEN". You've probably already heard things such as; fix dripping toilets and leaking water faucets, use energy efficient light bulbs, inflate your tires and accelerate from a stop gradually (no "lead foot" take-offs) and drive the speed limit to save fuel, recycle bottles, cans, newspapers, and cardboard, plant a tree, turn off ALL electrical devices (including and especially your computers) when not in use, purchase environmentally-friendly household cleaning and laundry products, and dispose of hazardous materials (such as used batteries, propane tanks, paint cans, spray cans, etc.) responsibly. But there are other things we can do that will make a BIG impact as well. Here's my Top 10...

1. Use 100% recycled bathroom tissue. The impact...

If every household in the U.S. replaced just 1 roll of 1000 sheet bathroom tissue with a 100% recyclable roll, we could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water.^1.Buying products made from recycled paper helps reduce the need for virgin wood pulp, which means more trees are left standing. Trees, as you know, absorb carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to greenhouse gas.

2. Replace a toilet with a low-flow or dual flush

Water-efficient low-flow and dual flush toilets really save water. If every toilet in the U.S. were a low-flow model, we'd save almost 2 TRILLION gallons of water a year!^2. Early on, low-flow toilets got a bad rap - and justifiably so - their flushing ability left a lot to be desired. But today there are many low-flow toilets on the market that work well. Caroma in particular is a world leader in dual flush technology. Check out this "potato flushing test" that uses only 0.8 gallons of water. Imagine, a better flushing toilet that actually uses almost 1/4 the water of older models!!

3. Grow veggies. It's easy, saves money, and it's fun too!

Growing some of your own vegetables is fun, easy, and within a short time it will save you money too! My girlfriend and I realized this first hand when we found ourselves paying $1 to $2 for green bell peppers and tomatoes, each! We were paying $4 for a nice size eggplant we could grill. Our weekly vegetable bill for just these three veggies alone, not including herbs or fruit, was $6/week. That's at least $312 a year. So we got to thinking, can we grow at least some of our own bell peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants without a large complicated garden area, for less than $312/year? You betcha! The solution... Self-watering Planters!

Self-watering Planter Systems are available online for around $75. These nifty patio planters will grow lots of vegetables, without taking up a lot of space. Of course if you're savvy you can make you're own, like ours shown here, for about $30! This is one we created recently for pepper plants. Send us an email and we'll tell you how. With four or five of these bucket self-watering planters you'll have fresh veggies in no time! And if you need help, send us an email. We love talkin' veggies.

If you really want to "GO GREEN", add a compost tumbler (more on this below) and a rain barrel to your patio garden! Admittedly, this increases the price of growing vegetables, but think of it as a family activity that helps our planet. Plus, growing your own food guarantees that it's safe and that the process uses far fewer of the earth's resources.

While patio gardening won't enable people to become subsistence farmers as they might be able to on large fertile plots in the Midwest, your patio garden can provide a substantial portion of your food, especially if you love veggies!

4. Stop using plastic water bottles. Bring water from home.

Yes, bottled water is convenient, but at what cost? Over 60,000,000 plastic bottles a day are disposed of in U.S. landfills from bottled water use.^3. My girlfriend and I live in Key West, FL, often described as a "slice of paradise", and yes, it is beautiful and quite clean, but we still see lots of plastic litter, mostly plastic bottles, washing up on shore along certain sections of non-beach areas. What we see is just a microcosm of the plastic trash everywhere, all across the country, that eventually finds it's way into the ocean and contributes to the Pacific Trash Dump - a floating trash patch nearly twice the size of Texas! Where did all this plastic trash come from? Marine biologists estimate that about 80 percent of the litter is from land, either dumped directly into waterways or blown into rivers and streams from states as far away as Iowa.^4. Now you may say, "Well, I dispose of my water bottles properly." True. But even so, a lot of people do not recycle as they should.

The Solution - Install a below counter kitchen sink water purifier and take your water with you from home in a sports bottle. Admittedly, water purifiers can be expensive in terms of the "up front costs", but in the long run a water purifier will pay for itself. Here's a place to start....

5. Reduce your use of pre-packaged foods/materials

This one isn't so easy - we all love the convenience of pre-packaged foods, but unfortunately it generates so much extra waste that it’s overwhelming. One of the best ways to green your kitchen is to start concentrating on eliminating as much packaging materials in your weekly shopping list as possible. Even though you can recycle many parts of pre-packaged discard, perhaps even all of the packaging that the food comes in, but take into consideration that it also takes energy to produce packaging materials. Studies also show that not everyone recycles all the time, so it’s best to avoid overly pre-packaged goods as much as possible. I say, "as much as possible" because it's simply not realistic to think that we can stopping using ALL packaging materials, but we can certainly reduce our use. There's lots of ways this can be accomplished. For example, instead of sliced cheese in individual wrappers, opt for block cheese, preferrably Vermont cheese of course, and slice it yourself, or purchase your cheese from the deli. Or, bring lunch from home and refuse the fast food temptations. It's healthier for you and better for the environment. And generally try to buy foods in bulk, then divide it up into your own re-usable plastic containers. It may not seem like much, but if we all reduce how much pre-packaged material we use and dispose of, the impact will be substantial.

6. Buy Local & American-made

How will this save the environment? Simple. Less shipping or trucking, less packaging materials, and more control over environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes. When products are made in this country, you can be far more certain that companies are guided by strict environmental rules. Safety and environmental protection are far less certain in cheap-labor countries. Looking at the broader picture, the United States is 20 years ahead of developing countries, yet Americans are just now embracing environmental awareness. Do we want to trust countries 5, 10 or 20 years behind us to "do the right thing"? Plus, when we buy local and American-made, we're fueling our economy, which in-turn makes money available to clean up and protect our environment right here at home! We all know what the results are of a weak U.S. economy!

Need a simple, yet cool gift that gives back?
How about a "Giving Green for Critters" Vermont maple sugar candy frogs & turtles gift box? Click here...

7. Use products made from Recycled Materials or Environmentally-friendly

Even if you're partial to Clorox Bleach and Lysol, or a particular laundry detergent, there are still products that you can purchase that are enviromentally-friendly, such as 100% recycled napkins, paper towels, trash bags, dishwashing detergents, printer/copy paper, business envelopes, etc. Here's three great starting points....

For Summer Picnics & Holiday Parties... EarthShell® - NATURAL & SUSTAINABLE SINGLE-USE DINNERWARE FOR HEALTHIER FAMILIES ... AND A HAPPIER PLANET. EarthShell® plates and bowls are completely American made including all of its natural, raw materials, using starch from renewable potatoes and other vegetables, mixed with abundant limestone, water and air. Designed from the ground up with the environment in mind, EarthShell® answers the growing demand for a green alternative to paper, plastic, and styrofoam. Learn more...

For Office Supplies... OfficeMax® - "Working Responsibly Comes Naturally" at OfficeMax®. Recycle used cartridges and earn up to $30 in MaxPerks® Bonus Rewards. Bring empty ink cartridges to an OfficeMax® store near you and receive $3 in MaxPerks Bonus Rewards for each cartridge you recycle. Every returned cartridge is either reused or disassembled for recycling. PIECES OF VERMONT uses OfficeMax® Online for printing supplies. Find a Store near you.

For Home Use... Seventh Generation® - Seventh Generation® is committed to becoming the world's most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home. For 20 years, the closely held Burlington, Vermont-based company has been at the forefront of a cultural change in consumer behavior and business ethics. Learn more...

8. Refuse to Use Plastic Shopping Bags

The vast majority of people shopping at supermarkets are NOT requesting, or rather demanding, that their groceries be put into paper bags, let along paper bags that are produced from 100% recycled paper. Similarly, personal/reuseable shopping bags are the best alternative to plastic and paper shopping bags, but it takes a conscious effort to remember to enter the store with them in hand. I can't tell you how many times my girlfriend and I have gone food shopping and either forgot our personal shopping bags in the trunk of our car or didn't think to request paper bags until after our groceries were bagged in plastic. Plastic shopping bags can be returned to some stores for recycling, but who knows if they are actually recycled or not, and even if they are, how much energy does it take to both produce and recycle all those plastic bags. Remember, everything takes electricity and water to both produce and recycle, and that drains Earth's resources. Considering all the plastic shopping bags in circulation and it's easy to see the positive impact we'd have if we all stopped using plastic shopping bags, used paper only when necessary, and used our personal shopping bags the majority of the time. So, it's not enough to say, "I'll try to stop using plastic." We need to say, "I absolutely REFUSE to use plastic shopping bags."

9. Why Composting is Good

I know I mentioned this above, but composting is a great way to help the environment. Composting has come a long way from the days of a back yard pile of leaves and manure. There are now a variety of new compost bins on the market that have smart designs, are rodent-proof, easy to fill and empty, and produce finished compost in just a few weeks. Why compost?

By discarding at least some of your vegetable remnants into a compost bin and then as fertilizer back into your garden, you'll generate less trash, use fewer garbage bags, and make fewer trips to the dumpster. That means less toneage being trucked to landfills and less need for packaged fertilizer that, guess what, comes in a plastic bag. It just makes sense! Check out this Compost Tumbler. And in case you're wondering, this is NOT and advertisement and we do NOT make any money from endorsing either this compost tumbler or any website(s) selling composting supplies.

10. The BIG Picture

This one is philosophical. An argument can be made that the worlds' population, systems, and environmental problems are too large and growing far too quickly to solve solely by changing our individual habits, and that the only real way to solve the worlds environmental problems is by inventing new technologies. You've probably read articles or heard cases made that recycling or using alternative fuels actually costs more and does more harm then good, and that may or may not be true. Who knows? But in the meantime, until clean fuels are invented and more bio-degradeable, earth-friendly materials/products are invented, I believe we all must take action and do something to clean up and improve the world we live in, for as long as we're here. Feedback

-Rick Smith, POVT Owner

1.,2. Source: www.keysglee.com
3. Source: www.waterfiltercomparisons.com
4. Source: www.oprah.com 5. Source: www.cigarettelitter.org