Green Challenge: Paperless Christmas

Picture courtesy of: http://www.contentfy.com/christmas-decorations-themes/

During the holiday season, Americans will generate an additional four million tons of waste than average just from wrapping paper and shopping bags. With lovely paper that comes in all colors and patterns and with a healthy dousing of sparkles, all those gifts under the tree can make a beautiful sight on Christmas morning. But after all the paper is ripped off and you’re struggling to stuff it all into a large trash bag, it begs the question; is it necessary?

Sacrificing wrapping paper at Christmas doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice the beauty of Christmas morning. There are a few alternatives to typical wrapping that won’t leave you feeling as dirty as a climate denier after everything has been opened.

Weekly Green Challenge: Ask for a Plastic Bag Ban

Last week, I challenged you to sign at least ten environmental petitions through organizations like the Rainforest Action Network and Care2Petition. How many did you sign? What issues were your petitions about? Let me know in the comments section of this post!

I signed a total of twelve petitions this past week. Here’s what they were about:

I asked that funding for orca rescue programs be reinstated, via Friends of the Earth. I demanded that mountain-top removal coal mines be banned, via the Sierra Club. I supported the Save America’s Pollinators Act, which would ban pesticides that harm bees, with Organize CREDO. I asked that both captive and wild chimps receive protection, instead of being considered separate in the eyes of the law, via Center for Biological Diversity. I endorsed GMO food labeling for the state of Washington with Yes on 522. I demanded that there be restrictions on factory carbon emissions with the League of Women Voters. I told Congress to act on climate change by reducing carbon emissions and increasing use of renewable energy with Care2Petition. I expressed my outrage with the use of child and slave labor for palm oil production with the Rainforest Action Network. I asked for the low speed limit law in endangered Right Whale waters to be renewed with the Center for Biological Diversity. I demanded that American wolves remain protected with Defenders of Wildlife. I said no to Arctic drilling via the Sierra Club. Lastly, I demanded that the bushmeat trade be banned, which would help out endangered chimpanzees, with Care2Petition.

The organizations I listed above make it easy to make your voice heard with petitions and connect with your representatives and leaders. Sign up with them today (for free) to receive action alerts about petitions!

Plastic bags are difficult to recycle, which is why ninety percent of bags in the United States are not recycled. Despite this, between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used annually around the world, with 380 billion of those used in the United States.

 Picture courtesy of: http://myplasticfreelife.com/2011/11/speaking-out-for-tougher-plastic-bag-laws/

This week, I’m planning on writing to my local government to ask for a ban on plastic bags in my town, and I want you to write a letter too.

Weekly Green Challenge: Sign Petitions

I continued to repurpose this week! I found a use for one of my other candle jars, and I used a side of the second fan box to transform a clutter of pictures on my wall into an organized picture board. I plan on using the other side of the same box to make another picture board.

The candle jar became a cup for razors in my shower

The box

My cluttered wall of pictures from a trip to Quebec.

The finished product!

What did you repurpose/upcycle? Send me photos of your projects at viridorari@yahoo.com and I will feature them on the next Green Challenge post. Remember, Viridorari always wants to know about what you’re doing to be greener! Email me anytime with your accomplishments.

Weekly Green Challenge: Upcycle 5 Things

I continued to ride my bike this week to nearby places. I totaled 14.6 miles, which equates to .67 gallons of gas in my car saved, and with current prices, $2.45 not spent. That may not seem like a lot, but look at this way: this EPA fact sheet says that burning one gallon of gas emits nearly twenty pounds of carbon dioxide. So, traveling .67 miles on my bike kept my car from belching more than ten pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. Imagine how many pounds of emissions could be spared each year if we all started to use our bikes more often!

Do you love riding your bike, whether it be for exercise, sport, your wallet, or the environment? Sign People for Bikes’ pledge, and help them reach their goal of one million pledges! The pledge shows that you’re committed to riding your bike, and it will help advocate for making towns and cities more bike friendly by adding bike lanes, paths, and trails. Be sure to change your badge to the type of bike you prefer to ride! When I signed, I picked the “commuter” bike. Which style will you pick?

Picture courtesy of: http://lajollavelo.com/

Now, on to this week’s Green Challenge! I had a lot of fun this week reusing and repurposing a few things, so for the coming week, I challenge you to repurpose or upcycle five items instead of throwing them away or recycling them.

Here’s a good tip for upcycling; when planning to repurpose something, don’t think about what you can make that object into. Try to think of something you need or want around the house, and then consider the alternative items you could make it from. Not only does upcycling keep items out of the landfill, but, hopefully, your upcycled item will actually be useful to you and your household.

Weekly Green Challenge: Reduce Your Trash

This past week, I traveled a total 14.8 miles on my bicycle in replacement of my car. In my car, 14.8 miles translates to .68 gallons of gas, which is worth $2.48. That may not seem like a lot, but if I saved that much each week of the year, that amounts to $128.96 and 769.6 miles of exercise and miles not on my old car. The money savings are great, but I must say, I really enjoyed the exercise I got over the week. Not to mention, the sun has been shining, and I got a great tan! (Well, a sunburn that turned into a tan. Wear sunscreen when biking!)

I plan on continuing to use my bike more often!

How far did you travel on your bike? How much did you save? Email me at viridorari@yahoo.com and let me know! Did you miss Green Challenge #14? Read it here.  

This week’s green challenge is inspired by Amy and Adam Korst, who I featured in an Activism Spotlight. If you haven’t read about them yet, here’s the punch line: over an entire year, they only produced a single shoebox full of trash (items that could not be recycled, reused, reduced, or composted). Since the average American produces 4.5 pounds of trash a day, that means they prevented over a ton of trash from entering a landfill.

Using their advice for a trash-free life, which you can find here, for this entire week, I want you to commit to either significantly reducing or eliminating your trash production. Like Amy said, you don’t have to give up life as you know it to be environmentally friendly. A lot of the transitions they made were easy to do, and much more efficient. Adam believes that living trash-free can be a perfectly normal lifestyle.

Weekly Green Challenge: Ride Your Bike

For Green Challenge #10, I asked viewers to plant a tree, whether they went out and bought one or transplanted a sapling to a more hospitable area (i.e., from a garden to the edge of a forest). Well, Viridorari viewer Bruno sent in a picture of the tree he and his family planted! Together, they went out and selected a Colorado spruce to commemorate his graduation from high school, and now the tree has a permanent home in their front yard.

Picture courtesy of Bruno

If you have planted a tree recently, email me a photo of your tree at viridorari@yahoo.com and I will feature it on the next Green Challenge!

In last week’s Harsh Facts about car dependence, one of the facts was:

Americans now use motor vehicles for more than ninety percent of their daily trips. Keep in mind that a quarter of all car journeys are less than two miles.

This week, I want you to change that. Think of all the places you drive to that are two miles away or less. For me, that would be the gas station down the road from my house. We visit there frequently for things like toilet paper and dog food and soda when we’re not ready to go for a full grocery shopping trip.

So, throughout this week, instead of driving to these nearby locations (two miles away or less), ride your bike. If you really want to challenge yourself, increase the distance to four or five miles. Not only will riding your bike instead of driving your car be gentler on the environment; it’s healthier for you too. If you’re falling behind on your exercise, incorporating some bike rides into your schedule is an easy and fun way to make up for it. Hopefully at the conclusion of this week you’ll decide to continue replacing your car with your bike for short distance trips.

Green Challenge: Repurpose Your Plastic

20-25% of landfill weight is from plastics. An average plastic container takes about 500 years just to begin the decomposition process. The timing varies depending on environmental conditions and the chemical makeup of the plastic.

Picture courtesy of: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/29/japan-leads-field-plastic-recycling

I wanted to come up with a way to make people understand how many plastic products we go through. I don’t think we always realize it, myself included, because we view plastic bottles and containers and the like as disposable. They hold no true value to us.

So, this week, as an eye opener, you’re not allowed to throw out (even into the recycling bin) plastic products. With every plastic product you use, you must either reuse it or repurpose it throughout this week. This will probably be a little cumbersome and obnoxious, but hopefully, that will help you understand how much you really go through and motivate you to avoid or reduce plastic use in the future.

Weekly Green Challenge: Plant a Tree

I can’t believe I’m on Viridorari’s tenth week of posting. I can’t describe how happy it makes me to write this blog. In my introductory post on Viridorari, I mentioned how I’d been doing some self reflection, and decided that I wanted to become more involved. Viridorari has helped me and, hopefully, some of its viewers do just that. Not only is my blog raising awareness for the environment, but in the process of researching for new content for my posts, I’ve learned more about the environment and the world of activism in the past ten weeks than I would have in two years. Now that my tests are over and high school is winding down, Viridorari gives me something to occupy my idle time with. Coming up with new ideas for content is a challenge that I enjoy.

Speaking of challenges, this week’s Green Challenge came from a Viridorari viewer. It’s a simple, but important action, and can be especially fun to do with your kids or younger siblings. Spring has sprung, and it’s one of the best times of the year to plant a tree. So, this week, I want you to plant at least one tree.

Green Challenge: Go on Vacation! (Amazing pictures)

Thank your for being understanding about my absence last week. Finals are important.

For this Green Challenge, I’m going to ask you to go on vacation.

That’s right, a vacation!

I’m not asking you to spend a fortune on it either- there’s no plane ride involved, unless you want to go all out. Actually, for this vacation, you could be there and back in a day.

The weather is becoming more and more gorgeous. I think it’s about time that people started to leave their houses after being cooped up all winter, go outside, and enjoy nature’s beauty and bounty. So, sometime this week, take a day off from work, let your kids skip school (unless you want to wait until next weekend), and for one day, go enjoy a national or state park. There are currently 6,624 state parks and 59 national parks across the United States, so chances are, there’s one not too far from you.

Too busy this week? That’s fine. Sit down with your family, choose a park together, talk about what you want to do at the park, and make plans for another week. Natural preserves offer numerous activities for your family, such as fishing, hiking, swimming, sports, horseback riding, animal watching, photography opportunities, and much more. Some of my favorite times with my mother have been when we were hiking together at a park. It could be a perfect opportunity for you to talk with your family about the importance of preserving and enjoying nature.

(International viewers, hang in there, I’m going to include some global natural attractions after I’m done writing about U.S. state and national parks!)

Weekly Green Challenge: Get Vocal

I can’t stress enough how important being vocal about the environment is. The big dogs in the capitol are making bills that deal with the environment. Big corporations are going to keep doing what they’re doing if they think everything is running smoothly. Legislators and business owners won’t know what you want unless you tell them, and if they don’t know something is wrong, nothing will change.

This week, I want you to practice being vocal. It’s really easy, and if you’re shy, that’s okay too. Contacting people doesn’t actually require a lot of speaking- it’s mostly writing. In a lot of cases, it’s just signing something. Organizations like WWF, 350.org, and the League of Women voters often provide pre-written letters. All you have to do is sign them and alter them, if you so choose. Then hit a “send” button.
It seems like I’ve been giving a lot of challenges that aren’t that hard… maybe I’m being too soft on you guys!

Anyways, on each post day this week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) I want you to either send a letter, an email, or make a phone call for an environmental cause that you care about. I’ll provide something that you can do each day, but please, feel free to do your own.

Weekly Green Challenge: Eating with a Conscience

As I’ve mentioned before on Viridorari, I am a humaneitarian (not the same thing as a humanitarian). What exactly does that mean?

For me, it means that I understand the horrible truths about the farming industry, and I’m refusing to support it. I watched a gut-wrenching video about how animals are treated from birth until death in industrial farms, with actual footage from actual farms, and I saw images that I’ll never be able to forget. After my gruesome enlightenment, I committed myself to using my consumer power to support farms that raise animals the right way, and I became a humaneitarian.

I only eat meat products that are organic, Certified Humane, or both, because I can trust that these products came from farms where animals are free-range and cage-free, fed a proper diet,  not injected with hormones (which are unhealthy for both the animals and us), and cared for properly. I also eat meat that has been hunted, like venison, because that animal was never influenced by humans until the day it was killed by a hunter. When these products are unavailable, which is often, I simply don’t eat meat. So, for a large percentage of my time, I’m a vegetarian, and I often describe myself as such to make the explanation simpler. Fortunately, organic and Certified Humane products are becoming more readily available all the time as consumer demand increases and the public becomes more conscientious about where their food comes from. Consumer power is a real force, and it’s working right now.

I know how annoying “militant” vegetarians can be (trust me, I’ve had run-ins with a few). I am not a militant vegetarian, nor am I asking you to become a vegetarian for this week’s Green Challenge. Vegetarianism is very much a lifestyle, and it’s a choice you have to make for yourself, not one that someone else can make for you. 

For this week’s “Green Challenge”, I want to introduce you to two concepts: buying local and “Meatless Mondays.”

Weekly Green Challenge: Boycott Wasteful Products

Before I reveal Viridorari’s fifth challenge, I’d like to share the results of my driving log from last week's challenge. I’m not particularly proud of how my driving went this week. There were several wasteful trips and I think it will be interesting to see how much gas and money I would have saved had the week gone better. In total, I drove 149.80 miles, used 6.27 gallons of gas, and spent $23.96.

Weekly Green Challenge: Driving Habit Awareness

This week’s “Green Challenge” is actually pretty simple, in my opinion. Starting tomorrow, on Sunday, I’m going to ask that you keep a driving log until next Saturday, when the new “Green Challenge” is released. I’m going to keep a driving log too, and I’ll post it along with my reflections with next Saturday’s challenge.
    This challenge, although it’s not asking you to change any habits, will be difficult in that you’ll have to pay attention to your daily trips and remember to write them down. I designed this challenge so that you can become more aware of how much gas you’re using and how much you’re spending on gas.
Here is a model log that you can use:           

Date	Start Place	End Place	Miles Between	Car	MPG	Gallons Used	Cost of gas/gallon	Money spent

Weekly Green Challenge: Wildlife-Friendly Yard

Picture courtesy of: http://www.beautifulwildlifegarden.com/can-vegetable-gardens-be-wildlife-friendly.html

Spring is on its way, for most people, anyways. The weather has been weird here, but when you’ve lived in New York for your whole life like I have, you come to expect nothing less. It’s beautiful out today, but it could just as easily snow or sleet tomorrow. But, in the normal states and in other parts of the world, winter is melting away to reveal singing birds and buds on the trees.
    Spring is the season for new life and new beginnings. With all the animals waking up from hibernation and returning from their winter homes in the south, what better way to welcome the new season and the animals than transform your yard into a wildlife friendly haven? That may sound like a daunting task, but it is, after all, a Green Challenge. In truth, you can make the process of inviting wildlife to your property as easy or as difficult as you want. For those of you who already have gardens, the process will be significantly easier.

Weekly Green Challenge: Featuring Alexandra

First, I want to say that I’ve immensely enjoyed my first week of maintaining Viridorari and providing information to the masses about the importance of the environment and being greener. Already I have been getting positive feedback from people, and I’m excited to start a second week of posting.  

This week’s Green Challenge is something my mom and I have been talking about doing for a while. My challenge to you is to start a compost pile, if you haven’t already. If you do have a compost pile, then sometime this week I want you to A) have a discussion with someone who doesn’t compost about the benefits of composting, or B) direct someone who doesn’t compost to this post on Viridorari.

Composting is an easy and efficient way to reduce your negative impact on the planet, and just for the sake of convincing you how awesome and simple it is, today I will feature Viridorari’s second weekly Guest Writer. Please welcome Alexandra to Viridorari! 

Weekly Green Challenge: Take the Bus

This first Green Challenge is based off of a commitment I made recently: I am no longer driving to school, even when I stay after for clubs and extra help. As much of a luxury as commuting in my own car is, it’s wasteful. There’s a bus for me in the morning, a bus when school is over, and an after school bus if I need it. Whether or not I drive, the buses continue on the same routes every day, using the same amount of gas. By driving in a separate vehicle, I’m just adding to gas usage and emissions.