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Green Travel Tips from www.tradewindsmeetings.com It is estimated that there are almost 1 billion tourists that crisscross the globe annually. With that many travelers in the skies, on the roads, and residing in lodging, it is very important to recognize the impact that is being placed on our natural resources. Here are some tips to help conserve these precious resources while still enjoying your vacation. 1. Choose a green hotel. There are a number of hotels worldwide that are helping to minimize the impact on natural resources by implementing programs from energy and water savings to air quality and recycling. a) If the hotel offers a towel and linen reuse program, take advantage of it Know your hotel’s recycling program and sort accordingly. b) Take the toiletries back home with you if you open them. Hotels can’t use them for the next guest, so lots of those items can end up in the landfill. c) Give your hotel feedback. Express your appreciation for any eco-friendly programs it currently offers or if it doesn't, encourage the management to go green in the future. d) Pack light. Apply the golden rule of packing: estimate what you think you’ll need, and cut it by half. Extra weight not only requires extra fuel, it may cost you additional baggage costs 2. Transportation-air travel is where the biggest environmental impact comes from. During the course of your air trip, hundreds of tons of damaging greenhouses gases are pumped out into the atmosphere. Here are a few suggestions to limit the impact of your carbon footprint as you travel. a) If you rent a car, choose the smallest vehicle that can comfortably accommodate you, or better yet rent a hybrid. b) Taking a long road trip? If your personal vehicle is large and not very fuel-efficient, consider renting an economy car instead. You'll save gas and avoid putting miles on your own vehicle. Whenever possible, use public transportation instead of a taxis or rental cars. Better yet, walk or bike. c) Go paperless with your PDA-download travel guides, maps, and boarding passes onto a handheld device. d) Whether you are on the beach or hiking down a trail, remember to never leave trash behind. Deposit all trash in the proper receptacles. We want to make sure that wildlife remains wild. e) Remember that when you are traveling to many of the world’s most beautiful places, make sure that you only take photographs, not nature’s souvenirs f) When snorkeling, do not touch the coral reef or stir up sediment as this may damage the fragile ecosystem g) Buy local handicrafts. Refrain from buying souvenirs that exploit wildlife or the environment, such as ivory, tortoiseshell, coral or animal hides. Handicrafts made by locals are not only sustainable, they’re often less expensive. Saving Gas.... Our gas prices are hitting record highs for the US but they aren't quite as high as the prices that have been paid for decades in Japan and Europe. In those countries the high gas prices have helped them creatively engage in alternate ways of travel. That has saved them not only money but also has created less pollution. As our gas prices rise we have additional motivation for keeping our driving to a minimum (and thus minimizing the pollution we add to the environment). For instance: You could have just one day a week designated for errands. That will cut down on multiple trips to the store and, although it may seem inconvenient in the beginning may even prove more time efficient in the long run. Along those lines, we could all develop the habit of calling our neighbor before we go to the store to see if they need anything while we are out. Combining errands, sharing errands, and limiting the number of days we "run out" will all help lower our gas consumption. Sweeping your driveway When you are sweeping your driveway -- make sure you sweep those clippings back into the lawn and not into the gutter. One of the ways you can minimize pollution in runoff water is by keeping your lawn on your lawn. You can also try keeping your grass a little longer in the summer and sending the clippings back into the lawn.
The Rock UMC has located a paper recycling bin on the property, on the driveway close to the entrance on the far side from the church office. We will earn a little money from newspapers, magazines, shopping catalogs, discarded mail, office and school papers. Please do NOT bring cardboard, cereal boxes or other packaging, paper towels, tissue, cups, or plates, food wrappers, or anything with plastic or metal (except that staples in paper are OK). The paper we colled will be used to make newspaper and possibly other products. We need to include only the right materials to be sure we do not cause problems in the manufacturing process. Recycling paper saves a lot of energy, water, and pollution. Please invite your friends and neighbors to contribute their waste paper to a good cause! Don't be idle If you are going to idle your car for more than 15 seconds go ahead and turn it off. That will save you aggravation and will save the environment from you car's emissions! MAIL IT BACK! The U.S. Postal Service is launching a free, recycle-by-mail "Mail Back" program. In 10 select areas of the country, you can use free envelopes to mail back inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods and MP3 players - without having to pay for postage. There is more information about this program at http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2008/pr08_028.htm. This service will not be available in Texas during the trial period, but if it works well it will be expanded around September. In the meantime, the best general way to find where to recycle things near you is at the top of the page at http://earth911.org/. There are several places locally to recycle injet cartridges and various other electronic components. For example, you can enter "inkjet" in the What? blank and your zip code in the Where? blank Environmental Seafood It probably won't come as a surprise to anyone that we have been overfishing certain fish species. In an effort to help folks each in a "fish and earth friendly" way the Environmental Defense Fund has put out a handy pocket "National Seafood Guide" (you can see that at www.seafoodwatch.org"). If you want the short version of responsible eating you can try: Pacific Halibut, Alaska Wild Salmon, US farmed Catfish, US farmed Tilapia. Staying Out of Hot Water About 90 percent of the energy used for washing clothes goes to heat the water! For all but the most stubborn stains, washing in hot or even warm water is unnecessary. Most detergents are now formulated to wash in cold water. Water heaters account for about 13% of home energy use. Try setting the heater at 120 degrees (or "normal" on units that don't have temperature markings). If the water does not arrive hot enough at the tap, insulate your hot water pipes. Adjust the Setting on Your Refrigerator
energy consumption. To save money and energy, and improve air quality, keep your refrigerator’s thermostat set between 37 and 40 degrees. And when buying a new refrigerator, make it an energy-efficient Energy Star model. What to do with kitchen grease? The worst thing to do is to wash it down the sink with hot water. Oil and grease are a major cause of clogging in sewer pipes as they congeals and coat the pipes. Clogged sewer lines can cause sewage to seep or spill out of fractures, or blow out of manholes, into drainage ways and creeks. This is especially likely to happen during storms, when rain water can flow into sewer lines wherever they have cracks or openings and overload the system. So cooking grease down your kitchen sink can actually cause sewage spills! The best thing to do is to collect the oil & grease together with other food scraps and mix it into a backyard composting pile, as long as it is a small part of the total volume of the pile (5% or less). Meat and solid animal fat is likely to cause composting problems and need to be discarded. If you don't compost, it is best to collect the oil in a durable and closed container and put it out with the trash. Packing the container with discarded paper towels, tissues and/or other paper will help prevent leaks and spills in the trash. A poster in English and Spanish with more information and do's and don'ts can be found at http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/comm_exec/forms_pubs/pubs/gi/gi-290.html and http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/files/gi-290.pdf_4196693.pdf Cook Efficiently Texans can help reduce energy consumption, air pollution, and global warming by making sure that their pots and pans are not smaller in diameter than their stoves burners (or flames). A 6-inch pot on an 8-inch electric burner wastes over 40% of the burners heat, as well as the energy consumed to produce that heat. Make sure your pot completely covers the electric burner or flame that is heating it. Greener Forests You probably know that there are certified energy efficient appliances (indicated by Energy Star ratings), and that many products come with certified recycled content. Did you know there are also certifications for wood products that come from forests that are being managed responsibly and sustainably? The Forest Stewardship Council certifies sustainable wood products -- the products of 200 million acres of sustainably managed forests and tree farms. These lands use selective harvesting, stream buffers, and other practices that keep the land and rivers healthy. Going a green step further, the Rainforest Alliance's "SmartWood Rediscovered" label certifies wood products that were made from lumber recovered from landfills, manufacturing scrap, or other discards. You can be even greener and buy second-hand or antique furniture or salvaged barn wood. Repairing and reupholster your old furniture (using green materials, of course!) can be one of the best options of all. For more information on these and other green furniture and wood options, see http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/. Packaging matters... We make decisions about the items we purchase based on many factors including price, availability, health concerns. Why not add packaging to that list? We can make a significant difference in our environment by reducing the amount of packaging that we are purchasing. Taking canvas bags to the grocery store is an easy start. Then take the extra step by choosing products based in part on their packaging. The less they use in terms of packaging the better they are for the environment. So, instead of buying 30 individually wrapped coffee creamers buy one large container. Pay attention to the amount you are adding to the environment just based on the packaging you are buying! Used Cards Anyone... We receive Christmas cards and then don't know what to do with them at the end of the year. Sure recycling them is a great option. But this year we also have an opportunity to reuse them before they get recycled. If you bring your cards to church on December 30th and get them to Bill Carter he'll make sure they get to his coworker. She collects as many holiday cards as possible in order to recycle them, donate them, and give them a new life. For the second year in a row she will be partnering with Westminster Manor, a non-profit retirement life care community that is housed on Jackson Avenue in central Austin. They use the cards for craft projects throughout the year in their Activities Center, so we are not only recycling, but we are donating to a good cause as well. Party Time... HOLIDAY PARTY GUIDE... When preparing food, compost leftover food scraps (other than meat and dairy). Place left-over oil and grease in the garbage; never pour them down the drain. Turn down the heat before guests arrive. You’ll save energy and the extra body heat warms up the room. Walk to neighborhood parties or carpool with friends and family. Use cloth napkins and reusable dishes, glasses, and silverware. After the party, don’t throw away the leftovers. Put them in reusable containers and send them home with guests or donate them to a local meal kitchen. Walk Lightly on the Earth... We are all familiar with the damage we can do when we walk on top of plants, especially delicate annual flowers. Even lawn grass, which is selected for its unusual ability to survive repeated trampling by human feet, can be killed by too much foot traffic. So, staying on the pavement and pathways whenever possible really helps our landscapes stay healthy. This is particularly true of planting beds with flowers and small plants and shrubs, like the ones around our church building. The mulched areas look sort of like pathways, and it is tempting to walk across them as a short-cut. However, even when we don't actually step on and injure the stems and branches of these plants, we press down the soil and compact it, damaging the roots and reducing the soil's ability to absorb moisture, turning it into a beaten path. We have placed a couple of stepping stones to reduce the compaction caused when someone chooses to walk across the beds, but when possible it is even better to walk around the beds and leave their soil as light and loose as possible. Green Living Tip for the Christmas Lights...
LED Christmas lights us much less energy than conventional lights. You can go to: http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/ for more information. You will use a lot less energy using these lights so as you replace your burned out Christmas lights consider this green alternative. Community Gardens save the planet... Community Gardens Can Reduce Greenhouse Gases -- A Canadian researcher found that has found that if urban residents in just one city grew some of their own fruit and vegetables, they could reduce greenhouse gas emissions annually by up to 14,000 tons - or the equivalent of taking 4,700 compact cars off the road. For full article: http://www.kingstonwhigstandard.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=763736&auth=Jennifer+Pritchett+-+Environment+Reporter All I want for Christmas is....
Can I recycle old paint and batteries? If so, where? Earth911.org provides a handy reference source to help answer questions like that. Just type earth911.org into your web browser and enter, and you get a search service at the top of the page titled, "Find a Recycling Center." In the first screen you type in the item you want to recycle, and in the second you type in your zip code or city and state. So how about batteries? A search of earth911 this week for batteries in Cedar Park, Texas yielded several Radio Shack stores and similar electronics businesses, an automotive center, and the City of Round Rock Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility. The search results provide the phone number as well as address of each location. It is very important to call ahead before bringing items to a recycling center to determine whether they accept the specific items you have and when they are open. For example, the electronics stores will take rechargeable batteries for electronic devices and sometimes also alkaline batteries but not car batteries; the opposite is true for the automotive businesses. Earth911 is most helpful for getting leads to recycling opportunities that are not widely known. If you go to The Rock UMC you can recycle batteries by putting them in the recycling container in the lobby of the church -- it is easy being green at The Rock UMC. Fluorescent light bulbs DO help the environment... One of the easiest ways to conserve energy is to replace all traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. It costs you the same or less in the long run, since their long life more than makes up for the higher price per bulb. One of the concerns sometimes raised about fluorescent bulbs is that they contain toxic mercury. This is true, but mercury is also released by coal fired power plants. The extra energy used by incandescent bulbs causes the release of more mercury than the fluorescent bulb they would replace, even if coal provides only 16% of the power source for your electricity! (In this region coal provides more than half of the base load generating capacity for electricity.) The following FAQ gives more details. I heard that energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs have mercury in them. Are they hazardous? It's true that every compact fluorescent bulb contains four to five milligrams of mercury. As long as the bulb isn't broken, it is completely harmless. If disposed of properly, the mercury will never escape into the atmosphere. In fact, using a compact fluorescent bulb produces less mercury than an incandescent bulb. How? A certain percentage of our power comes from burning coal, which contains mercury. Since incandescent bulbs use around four times as much energy as compact fluorescents, they require the release of much more coal into the atmosphere. After about 7700 hours of use (under typical conditions in Ontario, where coal makes up 16% of our energy supply) a compact fluorescent will have used less mercury than an incandescent. With most CFLs lasting 10,000 hours, rest assured that compact fluroescents will reduce your mercury emissions, reduce your carbon footprint, and save you money. http://www.pr.uoguelph.ca/sustain/energyfaq.html Recycled Halloween Candy...
More than one way to reduce pollution... Certainly one way of reducing the pollution associated with generating energy is to reduce our consumption. Turning lights off, making sure that we keep our thermostats a little higher in the summer and a little lower in the winter DOES make a difference. Another way to decrease pollution is to buy green energy -- energy produced from non-polluting sources like wind and solar. However renewable energy isn't available from all energy companies and you may not have that option. If you don't you can buy "REC"'s (Renewable Energy Certificates). That supports the production of energy from renewable sources and gets that energy on the Texas power grid which should help our state as a whole reduce our pollution. To get more information you can go to: http://txipl.org/?q=buyrecs Don't dump those fish...
Resources to help us do more... The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has upgraded its web page with information and resources on what everyone can do to "Take Care of Texas." It has nice graphic features that help guide you through considering some of the top things you can do to make a difference. http://www.takecareoftexas.org/ Cut Junk Mail at its source...
2. The $15 solution: GreenDimes (http://www.greendimes.com/) is a service that registers you with the Mail Preference Service (as described above) and then checks monthly to be sure you are still on the list. It also sends you a kit to take further steps to reduce junk mail not stopped by the MPS. It also arranges for the planting of 10 trees with one of three primary conservation organizations. For further ideas, you may want to check out: Consumer Research Institute's Stop The Junk Mail kit: http://www.stopjunk.com/ Do-it-yourself: Stop Junk Mail, Email and Phone Calls: http://www.obviously.com/junkmail/ Stopping Junk Mail is Easy: http://www.smartmoney.com/dealoftheday/index.cfm?story=20070206 Bring along a coffee cup...
Tap water is good for you... Many of us have a perception that tap water might not be good for us. Which is odd since the United States has the most aggressive and progressive standards for drinking water in the world. Having standards for what is allowed to be in a public drinking supply is something that we do well as a nation. We are the experts in the world at that and because our standards are so good we find drinking water issues (when they rarely happen) quickly. Here's what we aren't good at as a nation: having standards for BOTTLED water. That's right. There are no national or local standards that you have to meet to sell bottled water. All you have to do is slap water in a bottle and sell it. You could even, without violating any laws at all, fill a plastic bottle with water from the tap, seal it, and sell it as bottled water. Converting our lawns... Many of us have lawns that make our houses look like everyone else in our neighborhood. And we know that maintaining a lawn can be a nightmare and can use up a lot of our free time. Lawns also provide a drain on local water sources as they need to be specially tended. Those of us who use fertilizers to make our lawns greener also may be adding to the water pollution load in our areas. Go to: www.recmanagement.com/columns.php?fid=200304GC02 to see an entire article on the advantages of converting at least part of your lawn to natural vegetation. We all live downstream... So what we put down our drains eventually ends up as a burden on our city water system, and our health. If you want to find out more about this important issue I would suggest you visit: http://www.stormwatercoalition.org/ and check out the short public service announcements. One for 2004 and one for 2005. They are entertaining, short videos with a great message. Help for your car...
Carry it with you...
Toxic waste starts at home... There have been recent stories about products from China containing toxic elements. We know that there is children's jewellery being produced in China that contains high levels of lead -- known to be toxic, especilly, to children. Now there is research indicating that the source of the toxic waste is probably our own backyard. It looks like the jewellery is being produced from discarded electronic items from North America. We can do something about this -- we can recycle our old electronic equipment responsibly and we can insist that others do the same. If you'd like to read more about this feel free to visit: http://www.ban.org/. No Bottled Water
If you must use bottled beverages...
Drawing Current Did you know that your cell phone charger draws current from your house even when the cell phone is not plugged in and charging? It's true. So, a simple way to save energy is to unplug your cell phone charger when it's not in use. (This is true for most electronic equipment so the more you can unplug the more you save!) Do Your Part for Conservation in Texas. Go to this website to get ideas on how to be conservative this summer: http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/comm_exec/forms_pubs/pubs/pd/020/07-02/doyourpartforconservation.html |
