Green Hints Every Week in the 2008 Bulletin!

1) Have a look inside your mailbox:

Chances are, some of the items are things you didn't ask for and don't plan to read or use. All that paper being trucked across the country has serious environmental consequences: Adults receive an average of 41 pounds of junk mail per year. Mail has its uses, but there are ways to minimize its impact on the Earth, from going electronic to reducing the number of mailings you receive. For junk mail reduction, ProQuo ( http://www.proquo.com) is a useful new tool; sign-up is free, and the service culls a variety of lists and organizations that may have your information, allowing you to opt out of receiving mail from any of them. Or visit the Web site of the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service ( http://www.dmachoice.org, click on "Consumer Information"); for $1, you can remove yourself from members' mailing lists.

2) Have a look inside your mailbox:

Chances are, some of the items are things you didn't ask for and don't plan to read or use. All that paper being trucked across the country has serious environmental consequences: Adults receive an average of 41 pounds of junk mail per year. To eliminate mailed credit card and insurance offers based on pre-approval, visit OptOutPrescreen.com.

3) Catalog Choice, a D.C.-based organization allows consumers to remove themselves from catalogue mailing lists on its free Web site, http://www.catalogchoice.org.

The organization says 19 billion catalogues are sent to U.S. consumers each year, at a cost of 53 million trees and 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions -- the equivalent of exhaust from 2 million cars. Even if you enjoy flipping through your catalogues, consider how long you'll keep each one. If you're likely to toss it (or simply toss it into a pile), consider browsing online instead.

4) Save time, paper, petroleum -- and the planet.

Many banks, telephone companies and other services with monthly charges offer an online-only billing and payment option via their Web sites. You'll save paper and the hassle (and expense) of mailing in a check.

5) Want to save 36 million trees?

While e-mail and e-billing are less resource-intensive ways to communicate than regular mail, many people print out e-mails to read or for record-keeping. But this often results in printing extra pages with little more than a hyperlink or banner ad. Before you print, select "Print Preview" and choose only the page range that will be useful. GreenPrint, a company that makes software that helps reduce unnecessary printed pages ($35, downloadable at http://www.printgreener.com, Windows only), claims that if all new computers used its software, it would save 36 million trees and 117 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.

6) Learn the Facts and Stop Single-Use Bag Waste

* The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year.
* If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth not once, but 760 times!
* According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees to be cut down.
* Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo-degrade—breaking down into small toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food-chain when mistaken for zooplankton or jellyfish.

Buy a bag from Saint Mark and do good for the environment two ways: stop waste and plant trees in Haiti. See the display in Macdonnell Hall.

7) How green is your cubicle?

*Taking public transportation to the office is only the first step in leading an eco-conscious work life. Here are other ideas:
*Use your own mug for coffee, instead of adding to the 1.9 million tons of disposable cups tossed in the trash each year.
*Persuade your boss to relax the rules on business attire. It saves cleaning costs (plus energy). Lighter clothes also permit the office thermostat to be set higher in warm weather.

8) How green is your cubicle (Part 2)?

*Ask building managers to turn off lights at night or install motion-activated sensors. Lighting accounts for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from commercial buildings.
*Start a collection of old cellphones with your colleagues. Organizations such as ReCellular.com will refurbish, reuse and recycle retired handsets.
*Keep an indoor plant at your workstation. Plants act as natural air filters and can absorb some airborne pollutants.

9) Watch the video “The Story of Stuff” http://www.storyofstuff.com/

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

10) If You Want to Do One Thing on Earth Day: CALL FOR CLIMATE!

Global warming is our most urgent environmental problem: The time for waiting and inadequate solutions is over. On Earth Day, April 22nd, join Earth Day Network in our global Call for Climate by contacting your national leaders and demanding bold, swift and fair action to tackle climate change. And from now until Earth Day, take action and sign Earth Day Network's Sky Petition. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1807/t/5340/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=858

11) Clean Water – we take it for granted. Visit http://66.135.59.24/~earthday/node/154

To read “Ten Thirsty Children & Community Water Stories” Children bear the burden of the world's water crisis more than anyone else. Everyday, diarrhea caused by water-borne illnesses kills 6,000 people, most of whom are children under the age of five. Our Ten Thirsty Children Campaign presents portraits of children living in water-stressed regions around the world.

12) History of Earth Day

Earth Day -- April 22 -- each year marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, proposed the first nationwide environmental protest. At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news. Earth Day 1970 turned that all around. On April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts. Sen. Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder. To read more http://66.135.59.24/~earthday/node/77

13) Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs save energy and prevent greenhouse gas emissions, but CFLs contain a small amount of mercury that's released in your house if the bulb breaks. What should you do?

* ventilate the room.
* put on gloves.
* using cardboard, scoop the broken cfl into a bag.
* double bag it, then recycle or throw the bag away, in an outside trash can,
* then wet wipe the area,
* or use duct tape on carpet.

BUT WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T VACUUM! VACUUMING ONLY SPREADS THE PROBLEM.

To get the complete guidelines and warnings from the EPA go it its website. http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm.