Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
By Catherine Girardeau
This coming Labor Day Weekend, San Francisco will celebrate the intersection of taste, sustainability and social justice that is the Slow Food movement. Non-profit educational organization Slow Food USA is throwing a four-day party they’re calling Slow Food Nation.
SFN’s Executive Director Anya Fernald hopes the debut event, expected to draw some 50,000 [...]
Tags: Activists/Authors · Agriculture · Business · Dining Out · Food · Food/Health
By John DeFore
Just because a green initiative pops up in the news doesn’t mean it’s new. Take a blurb in this month’s Food & Wine that puts Rhum Clément’s Première Canne Rum at the head of a list of eco-friendly spirits.
The item touted a green-extreme sounding manufacturing process that is powered by its own [...]
Tags: Briefs · Food · Greener Businesses
By John DeFore
Conservation minded farmers might naturally assume it’s wise to get the most out of what’s available; if post-harvest waste material can be used in biofuel production, it seems to make financial and ecological use to sell it.
Not necessarily, according to a scientist at Washington State University who is urging farmers in her [...]
Tags: Agriculture · Energy/Water · Food · Green Enthusiasts/Researchers
By Julie Bonnin
There are many reasons to grow your own food, and recent unresolved food safety concerns about summer favorites like tomatoes and cilantro, the official herb of Tex-Mex cooking – are likely to have more folks cultivating an interest in growing edible plants.
Herbs are the perfect entry-level plant for first-time food growers. Given [...]
Tags: Food · Organics · Trees/Plants/Yard
By John DeFore
Vegetarians and concerned carnivores alike have long protested the way livestock is raised at many large farms. But it’s taking some time for Americans to view this not only as an animal-mistreatment issue but one that directly affects human health. The Union of Concerned Scientists has taken the issue up, and is [...]
By Nima Kapadia
Wal-Mart, once criticized for pushing local merchants out of the picture as it installed itself in every burg and hamlet in America, has now launched an effort that could build up some local businesses, namely those run by local farmers. The world’s largest retailer has announced plans to purchase $400 million worth [...]
[Read more →]Tags: Briefs · Food · SHOP GREEN
By Catherine Colbert
Photo: Veruska 1960 | Dreamstime.com
Backyard barbecues and Shakespeare in the Park picnics are the perfect opportunities to whet one’s whistle. But before you pack your cooler or portable wine or tea party, consider ways you can enjoy your favorite beverages – during the holidays and yearlong – while also caring for the [...]
Tags: Food · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
By Catherine Colbert
You sent out your Evite and now you’re working hard to make sure your house is ready for the crowd. Before you put pen to paper to create the menu for your next get-together, pour yourself a tall one, sip some Syrah, or have a spot of tea and relax. Beverage manufacturers [...]
Tags: Food · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
By Barbara Kessler
If you’ve been wondering about all the buzz over honeybees, here is some food for thought – or rather some thought about food: Bees play a role in one out of every three bites of food Americans eat.
Pollinators, mainly bees, but also butterflies, songbirds and even bats, perform such a critical function [...]
Tags: Food · Model Projects · Nation · Trees/Plants/Yard · Wildlife
By John DeFore
It may sound like a no-brainer to say that threatened fish populations stand to benefit when governments establish havens where fishing is prohibited. But since taking such actions can harm human livelihoods, proving they will have significant ecological benefit is a political must. That’s just what Australian researchers have done in a [...]
Tags: Briefs · Food · Model Projects
By Harriet Blake
Independence Day brings back memories of picnics and fireworks. Lots of paper and plastic, coal or gas grilling, and a brilliant light show. Is it possible to celebrate the Fourth and remain green? Let’s take it step by step.
Photo: Elke Dennis/Dreamstime.com
Having a daytime party that makes use of natural outside light is great. [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Food · Recycle & Reuse · SHOP GREEN
By Julie Bonnin
We know, grocery shopping has gotten complicated. But the evidence for one supermarket choice is becoming increasingly clear – milk from grass-fed cows has more health benefits than other kinds of milk.
By John DeFore
For a movie that explicitly addresses the perils of overconsumption, Pixar’s WALL*E is being used to promote an awful lot of consumer products.
One tie-in in particular is rankling Greenpeace. It seems that the lovable robot’s image has popped up on boxes of Kleenex, a product the activist group has criticized with a “Kleercut” campaign that asserts, “it takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex” because the product’s manufacturer Kimberly-Clark “all but refuses to use recycled paper in its products.” (Among other things, they’re trying to get parents and teachers to reject the company’s tissues in classrooms.) [Read more →]
By John DeFore
Mitsubishi Electric announced Wednesday that it will quadruple its capability to produce solar cells, jumping from the 150 megawatts it currently produces each year to an annual 600MW capacity by 2012 — a more ambitious goal than its previously stated one to get to 500 MW by 2013. Current production levels are already triple what they were four years ago. [Read more →]
Residents of the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area will again get a chance to trade in their pollution-emitting old clunker for a newer, less polluting car with the help of state money.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) reports that it has about $12 million for the second year of the AirCheckTexas Drive a Clean Machine campaign, which began taking applications in mid-August. [Read more →]
