Alright everyone!   Time to gear up and get ready to support your favorite football team .  The season is right around the corner.   Fans can grab their hats and jerseys and prepare for the ever popular tailgate parties. While you’re busy cheering your team on with fellow party goers add some of these green ideas into the mix.

•    Forget the paper products and bring dishes from home. These can easily be packed into an ice chest after use and washed at home later.

•    Bring trash bags made from recycled material and clearly label them for trash, recyclables, and even compostable foods.

•    Prepare as much food as possible yourself, such as dips, salads, etc., to avoid buying prepackaged items.  Think landfill!

•     Go with finger foods. Who doesn’t enjoy simple to eat munchies. They’re popular, tasty, don’t require plates or utensils and make for easy clean up.

•    Buy food from a local source. Supporting foods grown and made within your own community is always the best option. And if you can’t find what you need locally, reach for organically grown.

•    Serve beer from your local brewery and jello shots made with organic vodka.  Enough said!

•     Only buy enough food to feed an army if you’ve actually invited one.   Some wise planning on your part will help avoid any unnecessary waste.

•    If grilling is a must, then propane is considered to burn cleaner than coal or wood fires making it a little “gentler “on the environment.

•    Speaking of grilling, shish kabobs are a good way to go here.  Try loading skewers with some grass fed beef, organic chicken , vegetables and fruit.

•    This can be a tough one for some, but try and pull out your old team gear and resist the temptation to buy something new.  If you already have it, why not use it?

Congratulations… You’ve just scored the winning tailgating party!

Parents can make a difference. Getting involved in your child’s education doesn’t stop with homework help and helping out with fundraisers. Parental involvement in greening up our schools can go a long way in improving the learning environment for our children while protecting Earth’s precious natural habitats. Here is a list of 7 easy ways you and your children can start to green your school this year!

7 Steps to Green Your School

1. Establish A Green Team or Eco-Committee

The Green Team is the core of the Green Schools process, both organizing and directing activities at the school. Consisting of the stakeholders of the school environment – students, teachers, janitors, facilities managers, parents and school board members – the Green Team is democratic and can be run by the students themselves. Whatever the type of school or age group, student involvement in the committee is essential. This group can be charged with coordinating many of the greening activities, making recommendations to relevant school decision-makers, and facilitate communication among and actions by the whole school community.

2. Adopt An Environmental Vision Statement or Planet Pledge

Each school produces its own vision statement, setting out what the students are striving to achieve. The Environmental Vision Statement or Planet Pledge is displayed in various places within the school and is recognized by the students and other school community members as a statement of beliefs and intents. This statement is often in the words of students, and can be an inspiring classroom, art, or school-wide assembly project. Such statements can also be accompanied by a resolution from the school board, Parent Teacher Association, the Green Team, or other school bodies.

3. Conduct A School Environmental Survey or Audit

To identify priorities for action, begin with conducting a review of the environmental impact of the school. Students are involved in this work from assessing the level of waste from school lunch to checking the building for inefficiencies such as leaky taps or electric equipment left on overnight. The school and the Green Team can work with local organizations, businesses, or other resource people or experts during the review.  These audits can be fun and really help educate the school community about the health and environmental impacts of the school.

4. Create A Green School Action Plan

Use the results of your environmental survey or audit to identify priorities of the key areas where you want to make change and create an action plan. It is important to set realistic and achievable targets to improve environmental performance at the school so kids and adults can take pride in tangible accomplishments in the short term. And it is important to set long-term, inspiring and challenging targets to move beyond the status quo and foster greater environmental improvements. The action plan could involve and promote, for example, a school recycling program; eco-friendly, non-toxic cleaning materials; carpooling; energy conservation like turning off lights, computer monitors and printers; or a school garden.

5. Monitor and Evaluate Progress

The Green Team, students, or other school community members can assist with monitoring and evaluating progress on the priorities in the action plan. This could involve conducting an annual environmental audit to monitor levels of waste, recycling, energy use, purchases of environmentally-preferable products, and financial savings and/or costs. The information from the monitoring is needed to ensure that progress towards the goals and targets is made and that the action plan is modified, if necessary. It also ensures that environmental education is an on-going process in the school, since students can be responsible for the annual audits. The basic data collected over time can show the waste, pollution, and energy avoided – big motivators for people to continue the efforts.

6. Integrate Greening into the Curriculum

Greening activities can be integrated into existing curricula in science, art, humanities, math, language arts, or electives. Using the school as a hands-on laboratory offers opportunities for real-world problem-solving. Students can undertake study of themes such as energy, water, forests, toxic pollution, and waste. The whole school should be involved in practical initiatives – for example, saving water, recycling materials and saving energy. Outdoor education, and time spent in nature locally – whether the schoolyard, a park, or a field trip – is a critical component of a hands-on, place-based, experiential education. Where environmental education is not part of the regular curriculum, recommendations can be made by the Green Team as to how these themes can be incorporated.

7. Inform, Involve, and Celebrate!

Recognizing, communicating, reflecting on, and celebrating achievements are critical components of a Green School! Greening programs can often unify the whole school and strengthen community relations. Green Schools are encouraged to partner with external organizations from the community to benefit from their experience and expertise.

In some schools, environmental consultants have offered to take part in the environmental review process. Many local government agencies and utilities often offer free advice on energy, recycling, and hazardous waste management. Green Schools are also encouraged to consider the wider community when preparing action plans – for example, schools could offer to be the local recycling point or to be a drop-off for Community Supported Agriculture boxes. Some schools get involved with clean-up or habitat restoration at nearby parks or share their experiences in other ways.

A communication and publicity program keeps the school and the community informed of progress through classroom displays, school assemblies, newsletters, or other press coverage. Annual Earth Day celebrations – organized around April 20 – can offer an opportunity to showcase actions taken by the school and bring together the school and wider community.

Let’s teach our kids different habits to help the earth. Here are just a couple ways you can make a difference.

Pack a waste-free lunch- Eliminate plastic bags, plastic utensils, disposable containers, paper napkins and those brown paper bags. Instead, use reusable lunchbox, reusable drink containers, cloth napkins and silverware. You could save up to $250 a year and as much weight in waste as the average nine-year old.

Carpooling- Carpool, and save time and money. On a typical day, the average mother with school-age children spends sixty-six minutes driving— taking more than five trips to and from home and covering twenty-nine miles. If more moms carpooled, it would save them all that time and gas driving.

Pencils- Choose pencils made from recycled materials and those packed in lightweight and recyclable packaging. Pencils can be made from all sorts of things that would otherwise end up in our waste stream- like furniture, old money, and paper. Pencils account for about $121 million worth of purchases every year, and all could potentially be made from recycled materials.

We want to know about what your school is doing to Go Green. Share your ideas below in the Comments section

-By Sarah Bankoff

It seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Everyone knows that a garden has to have water to thrive. But drowning your plants in water is just as harmful to them as not watering them at all. So, to try to help you figure out how much is exactly enough, here’s your quick and dirty guide to watering your garden.

First of all, ensuring that your plants get the right amount of moisture where they need it is not just a matter of spraying them with water. Like most things in gardening, it goes back to the soil. Too much water in the soil will make it heavy and collapse it around the roots, effectively smothering the plant. However, too little moisture in the soil will cause the plants to wilt and dry out, which is also, obviously, not conducive to healthy vegetables. The trick is to get the balance of wet and dry just right.

So how much is too much?  The amount of water needed by the plant depends on its stage of growth and development. Seeds and transplants need wetter soil than healthy, mature plants. Seeds require lots of moisture to sprout properly, and transplants require lots of water to root properly. Once the soil is wetted down to around eight inches in depth, organic compost should be placed around, not on top of, the seeds or seedlings, which will help the soil to hold in the moisture and keep it from getting too soggy.

Seeds should be watered often, but shallowly. Mature plants should be watered less often, but the soil should be watered to a greater depth.  Most vegetable plants use water in the top 12-24 inches of soil. Shallow-rooted plants, such as cabbage, onions, lettuce and corn need to be watered more often than deeper-rooted vegetables like asparagus, tomatoes and watermelons.

Obviously, plants need to be watered more during hot seasons then during cooler seasons, but a good watering every five to seven days during the warm season should be fine for well-rooted, established plants. Plants should be watered in the morning so that all the surfaces have time to dry out in the sun to prevent fungus and mold from forming. Since the roots of the plant are actually where the plant “drinks” from, this is the most important part to irrigate, but remember, it’s drinking, not swimming, so don’t drown the plant’s roots!

BECOME BATTERY SMART
Stretch your battery use. A battery too drained to power a flashlight might be perfect to operate your TV remote. Before you pitch it – switch it!

CAR WASH
This one is surprising. Did you know that a commercial car washes can be more efficient than home washing? Check out you neighborhood car wash to make sure that they clean and recycle the water.

INDOOR PLANTS: NATURE’S AIR FRESHNER’S
Instead of picking up one of those yucky aerosol air freshener’s, pick up a plant instead. Investing in large, live houseplants  will help keep your indoor air fresher. Here is a list of just a few that can make a difference:

Pink jasmine (Jasminum polyanthum), string of beads (Senecio rowleyanus), wax flower (Stephanotis floribunda), and wax plant (Hoya). These plant all require some special care and bloom better in indirect light in a sun room or other well-lit location. They all should be allowed to slow down and rest during the winter, by reducing the fertilization and keeping them somewhat cooler.

To enjoy the full nourishment of food, you must make your menu a seasonal one. In different parts of the world, and even in different regions of one country, seasonal menus can vary. Ensure optimal nourishment in every season. Each season Who’s Green will provide you with a guide of in-season fruits and vegetables. Make sure to take a look before you head to the grocery store.

Spring Fruits and Vegetables

Apricots

Artichokes

Asparagus

Belgian Endive

Broccoli

Butter Lettuce

Chayote Squash

Cherimoya

Chives

Collard Greens

Corn

English Peas

Fava Beans

Fennel

Fiddlehead

Ferns

Green Beans

Honeydew

Mango

Morel Mushrooms

Mustard Greens

Oranges

Limes

Lychee

Pea Pods

Pineapple

Ramps

Rhubarb

Snow Peas

Sorrel

Spinach

Spring Baby Lettuce

Strawberries

Sugar Snap Peas

Swiss Chard

Vidalia Onions

Watercress

We mean that in a good way of course. We all express concern for our environment and the need to clean it up, so why not start off under our own roofs? Trying to keep our homes clean is something each of us does, but we don’t necessarily want to sacrifice our health or the environment to do it, and most available household cleaning products are filled with a variety of  ingredients that aren’t good for either. Simply reading the warning labels alone cues us into the unhealthy nature of what we are using. Exposure to these harsh chemicals carries certain hazards and can be a special concern when there are young children or people with certain health conditions around (allergies and asthma for example).

Fortunately, we do have “greener” choices. Along with long existing natural methods, we are finding more eco-friendly products and services available, making smarter living an easier choice.

Whatever your lifestyle or budget, here is a sample of the many ideas to choose from that will help you create a clean and healthy living space.  You may just find yourself, and your neighbor, breathing a little easier.  As an added bonus, by incorporating some of these earth friendly methods into your routine, you will discover a savings on time, money, or both.

Look below to find out which ideas suit you best, then give one or more of them a try.

1.  I barely have time to straighten up/ my budget is tight.
Try some of these natural cleaning remedies that are both safe and inexpensive. $

Mix 1 part white vinegar and 1 part water in a spray bottle and use to clean counter tops, sinks as well as floors.
Cut a lemon in half then sprinkle baking soda on the flat side to use as a scrub for surfaces and stains.
Use white toothpaste as a stain remover for furniture or as a polish for silver.

2.   I stay on top of things/ I can invest a little more in keeping my home clean and organized.
Try one of these environmentally friendly lines of cleaning products. $$

Method  – 99% natural  and  conveniently located at your local grocer
wowgreen-  Non-toxic and  all natural enzyme based products
Seventh Generation -  Dye and fragrance free and made from recycled materials

3.   I  have a very busy schedule/ it’s within my budget to hire someone else for this task
Try one of these Eco friendly cleaning services.  $$$

ECOMAIDS – All natural cleaning products and wash and fold laundry service available
The Cleaning Authority  – Green Seal certified products and uses HEPA vacuums
Earth Maids -  Non-toxic, biodegradable products and competitive pricing

***Resources

www.methodhome.com

www.wowgreen.net/13150

www.seventhgeneration.com

www.ecomaids.com

www.TheCleaningAuthority.com

We design and construct elegant, energy efficient, masonry homes. The systems we use include rammed earth, adobe, ICF and insulated concrete block. We install solar technology, harvest water, preserve vegetation and use recycled lumber. Our Energy Star qualified houses at the Mercado District will be served by the Modern Streetcar.
802 S. 8th Ave. Tucson, AZ  85701

(520) 623-2784

Email: redinc(at)rammedearth.com

Website:  www.rammedearth.com

www.kvar.net

Call today for more information: 520-760-1780

]]> http://whosgreenaz.com/2009/12/02/mehl-electric-service-inc/feed/ 0 http://whosgreenaz.com/2009/09/30/university-pest-control-inc/ http://whosgreenaz.com/2009/09/30/university-pest-control-inc/#comments Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:24:00 +0000 admin http://whosgreenaz.com/2009/09/30/university-pest-control-inc/ University Termite and Pest Control Inc. servicing all of Arizona is a Quality Pro Green certified company by the National Pest Management Assc.
The first company in Arizona to be green certified.

www.bepestfree.com
520-886-4146
800-887-4146

There seems to be plenty of ideas on how to green your home, car, garden, office, or just about anything else one can think of, but information on green stable care is not quite as plentiful.

Because not everyone can afford to re-build a environmentally friendly barn or install a new green irrigation system, we looked for green barn ideas that were more affordable and convenient.

Green stable tips can be as simple as moving your horse’s water bucket a bit further away from their feed tub or hay rack. Less feed will get into the water bucket, thus creating a cleaner water supply for the horse and perhaps you will have to clean the water bucket less often. That saves you time and you use less water.

Place a recycle bin in your barn and encourage others to put their drink, snack or other recyclable packaging in the bin instead of the garbage.

You probably have heard plenty about energy efficient light bulbs. An ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. Just make sure that you purchase CFLs that are designed for outdoor/barn use. Motion sensors on your light switches at the barn and around your arena can also cut down on the amount of electricity that you use and will increase security around your barn.

You may also consider having the interior of your stable whitewashed or painted to brighten it up and reflect natural and artificial light.

Rubber mats in stalls can result in using less bedding and can be beneficial to your horse’s legs. You may also explore alternative bedding in your area like recycled paper, wood shavings or wood pellets. Buying shavings, feeds and supplements in bulk can also reduce packaging material if you have the storage space.

Pest control is a major concern for any horse owner but there are plenty of organic and natural  product available  for livestock operations as large as a cattle feed lot or as small as a single backyard horse.