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Going Bottleless at the Office: Water...

by Green Irene on 11/04/2011 - 12:35 pm |

Tags: Business, Water

Gathering around the water cooler has been a time-honored office tradition, but bottled water can be costly for your business, and can have a negative environmental impact! Those 5-gallon plastic jugs eventually end up in landfills, and bottled water services have a high carbon footprint due to the emissions of fossil fuel-burning delivery trucks.
 
When you also consider the inconvenience of lifting new bottles onto the water cooler, storing the empty bottles at your office until the next pick-up, and spending time in the reordering process, you may be ready to consider more sustainable, convenient, and inexpensive alternatives that still provide your staff with clean, safe water: bottleless water coolers.
 
Bottleless coolers draw directly from your tap water supply and utilize state-of-the-art technologies, such as ultraviolet (UV) sanitation, 5-stage water filtration, and reverse osmosis filtration, to offer you the cleanest, best-tasting water available. With no bottles involved, the expense and logistics of supply and delivery are eliminated, reducing your office overhead costs while also giving your business a smaller environmental footprint. A bottleless water cooler never runs out of water, giving you a convenient, less-expensive, more eco-friendly solution without eliminating the benefit of filtered water for your employees.
 
As one example of a bottleless water cooler provider, Quench is one the largest UV filtration companies in the US, supplying bottleless water coolers to more than 25,000 businesses (including more than a third of the Fortune 100). Offering a variety of cooler types, filtration options, and service plans, this can definitely be a service to look into for any business interested in going green and saving green!
 
You can learn more about Quench and about the benefits of bottless water coolers here:
http://www.quenchonline.com/landingpages/greenamerica.html

Seven Simple Steps to a Green, Health...

by Jennifer Hankey, President of Organic Baby University on 09/06/2011 - 12:10 pm |

Tag: Toxic-Free

Pregnancy is such a critical time to avoid harmful everyday chemicals for the health of your baby. Most moms-to-be do not realize how much their environment has changed since they were kids. In the last 50 years over 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our environment and bodies, and to the shock of most, less than 200 have been tested for safety by anyone...including the US government! Many of the chemicals that have just recently been studied are showing real links to infertility, birth defects, asthma, potentially autism, childhood cancer and more! These exposures are the most critical during development in the womb and in early childhood! Women are also surprised to learn that the everyday woman uses an average of 126 of these chemicals every single day! These chemicals are particularly dangerous to fetuses and growing children and their bodies are growing and developing at a rapid rate!
 
A brief overview of a few of the common chemicals you will be exposed to and what their dangerous effects on health:
 
BPA-

Found in some hard plastics, dental sealants, some baby bottles, some water bottles, canned food, formula containers and baby food lids, some plastic utensils, storage containers, small appliances, and toys
Linked to birth defects, miscarriage, reproductive disorders, and more research is showing more toxic links
For more information click here 

Parabens-

A common preservative found in personal care products such as shampoos and conditioners, lotions, body washes and soaps, deodorant, sunscreen,  cosmetics,  baby shampoos and soaps, baby lotions, wipes, diaper cream, medicines, hair products, and more!
Possible endocrine disruptor, possible link to breast cancer
For more information click here

Phthalates-

A chemical that makes plastics soft and pliable found in toys, some teethers, nail polish, hair spray, air fresheners, shower curtains, personal products, most products that contain "fragrance or perfume" in ingredient list, IV bags and tubes, cosmetics, cling wraps, building products
Linked to birth defects, developmental problems when exposed in womb, endocrine disruptor, may cause early birth, probable carcinogen (cancer causer) by EPA and WHO, transferred through breast milk, asthma, and more
For more information click here

Pesticides-

A wide variety of chemicals found in food, parks, yards, etc
Linked to a huge array of health problems including birth defects, lowered IQs, endocrine disruption, neurotoxity, cancer and more!
For more information click here

PDBEs, TRIS, and Other Flame Retardants

Flame retardants are found in couches, rugs, drapes, cars, car seats, mattresses, nursing pillows, swings, bouncers, changing pads, playmats and more!
Neurotoxins (damages the brain and central nervous system), linked to endocrine disruption, crosses the placenta to the fetus and is found in breast milk, potentially linked to cancer and more!
For more in ...

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Think Globally, Can Locally

by Green America on 08/02/2011 - 10:22 pm |

Tags: Local Food, Toxic-Free

Canning local fruits and veggies will tantalize your taste buds and reduce your carbon footprint all year round.

Even after you’ve bitten into the last ripe peach from the tree in your backyard or the last strawberry from the farm on the outskirts of your town, realize you don’t have to say goodbye to those succulent local favorites at the end of summer. By canning and preserving local produce, you can enjoy it out of season, stretching an abundant harvest to nourish you year-round.
 
Why not just go to the store and pick up more peaches and strawberries during the winter? Because they likely came from a warmer climate thousands of miles from where you live, and transporting them from the tree to your fruit bowl has environmental costs well beyond the price you pay at the store.
 
Eating local produce—either from your own garden or a nearby farm—helps limit your “food miles,” or the distance food travels from the farm to your plate, thereby cutting CO2 emissions. Buying from a local farmer also supports your community’s economy.
 
Perhaps best of all, preserving fresh produce by canning it allows you to enjoy the freshest-tasting peaches, berries, tomatoes, and green beans long after the summer farmers’ markets close up shop. Here’s what you need to know. …
 
Easy and Fun
Canning may seem like an obscure chemistry project or a long-forgotten art from yesteryear, but don’t get intimidated. To can foods like tomatoes and peaches, all you need are glass jars and a pot of boiling water. Basically, you’ll mix in a few natural ingredients like salt, water, or fruit pectin to help preserve the fruit or vegetable of your choice, pour it all into glass jars, and boil the jars to seal them shut. This process ensures that what’s inside those jars will keep in your cupboards for up to a year.
 
As a child, 22-year-old Becca Derry of Baltimore, MD, helped her parents can fruit butters and jams twice a year. Being part of the process from an early age taught Derry that canning was doable and fun.
 
“Canning is a real skill that I possess now,” she says. “You don’t need that much knowledge or that many things. I could move into any kitchen, get jars, boil water, and teach other people who are interested.”
Why Go Local?
Canning and preserving local fruits and vegetables is a great way to eat local and have your peaches and green beans in December, too. David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance says that a third of the nation’s fruits and vegetables come from California, which means produce in this country travels an average of 1,500 miles to get from the grower to your supermarket.
 
“These miles are accumulated because the raw fruits and vegetables are sent to processing facilities, then manufacturing plants, then warehouses, and finally retail stores,” says Morris, wh ...

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Common Good City Farm Slideshow

by Shireen Karimi, Green America's Senior Web Developer on 08/02/2011 - 10:13 pm |

Tags: Local Food, Toxic-Free

I love to eat; it’s my favorite thing to do. What started as a love for food as well as concern for healthy eating and a healthy planet has actually become an obsession, partly supported by my volunteer work with Common Good City Farm in Washington, DC. While working at this urban farm and education center, I have become more passionate about the need for whole, fresh food that is grown and prepared organically and wholesomely. Pictured: Shireen Karimi working at Common Good City Farm. [Photo by Deedy Ogden]

 

Food is our source of life and is integrated into all aspects of our being. It deals with agricultural and land issues, personal health and public epidemics, social justice and security, ethnic identity and culture, family rituals and national celebrations, global as well as domestic economic policies and politics. Pictured: Spencer Ellsworth, former farm manager at Common Good City Farm.[All photos courtesy of Common Good City Farm, unless otherwise noted.]
 

Common Good is the only urban farm in DC. There are many gardens in DC, but no one grows food on this much land as a nonprofit with the intention of educating the community and addressing food security. Common Good’s mission is to distribute fresh, organic produce to DC residents in low-income areas who don’t have access to or the means for fresh vegetables and fruits. By spending just two hours working at the farm a week, anyone can take home a bag of fresh produce. Its mission also includes educating all community members about the environment, agriculture, food security, and personal health.
 

With backgrounds in agriculture and social issues, DC residents Liz Falk and Susan Ellsworth saw that DC has many “food deserts”—neighborhoods with no grocery store with fresh produce for miles. All you can find are convenience stores with nothing but packaged and processed “foods” that cause the health epidemics like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. So they started the farm in 2007 as a means to help the most underresourced communities get access to good food.Pictured: Liz Falk (left) and Susan Ellsworth.
 

The farm was originally called the 7th Street Garden, an urban garden on a small plot of land in the Shaw neighborhood of DC. Two seasons later when the nonprofit from which we were leasing their space needed their land back, we were forced to look for a new space. We ended up on the grounds of the now-closed Gage-Eckington School in LeDroit Park with a much larger production area, a half-acre, and became Common Good City Farm. While tremendous work was required to turn the old baseball field into fertile agricultural land, we are happy to have this larger production area and hopefully provide the neighborhood a welcomed green space. The lease is only for three years so we hopefully can negotiate a longer term. It would be quite disappointing to leave this land after so much effort to build it up.
&nb ...

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