Recycling Project: Light bulb ornaments

Happy holidays everyone! Today I am writing to you from the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where I am spending my Christmas with my grandparents.

Picture courtesy of: Me

Today I wanted to show you an awesome recycling project for Christmas. The next time your light bulb goes out, don’t throw it away! You can make it into a lovely ornament for the tree or for the garlands.

Picture courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36420053@N07/5156276597/?rb=1

Materials needed:

Lightbulb

Acrylic paints

Paint brush

Wire

Wire cutters and pliers

Hot glue

Marker (optional)

Recycling Projects: Pen & Pencil Organizer

The school season is in full swing now, and I know when I was in school I was constantly loosing my pens and pencils. This organizer can help your child keep all their utensils in one place, and they’ll have fun making it! This project comes from the blog Random Thoughts of a Super Mom.  

Picture courtesy of: Random Thoughts of a Super Mom

 

         Supplies Needed:

         -Cereal box, pancake mix box, snack box, etc.

         -Toilet paper rolls

         -Scrap paper/decorative paper/wrapping paper

         -Glue and tape

         -Markers/paint/paintbrush (optional)

         -Scissors

Recognizing Green Actions & Tigers

I wanted to highlight some green and sustainable things I've noticed on campus!

My friend John re-purposed a Snapple bottle into a coin jar!

 He decorated it with stickers :)

In my hall, we have the option to hang dry our clothes instead of using the dryer. 

Yay for saving energy!

Recycling Projects: T-Shirt Scarf

It’s starting to get chilly here in New York, so today I want to provide you with a way to make a fashionable winter scarf out of an old, unwanted t-shirt. This will make a great project for young girls, and when their friends ask them where they got it they can proudly claim that they made it themselves. 

         Supplies needed:

         Old t-shirt (keep the color in mind. Do you want a bright color? A pattern? Something more plain?)

         Scissors

         Glue gun (optional)

         Buttons, old/broken jewelry, beads etc. (optional)

Recycling Projects: Yoga Mat Recycling

Uses for Yoga Mats

         Does Mom have an old yoga mat she’s planning on throwing out? Don’t let her! There are many fun ways to repurpose a yoga mat. My floor RA showed me this awesome page featuring twenty ways to repurpose a yoga mat, and I picked two to display here on Viridorari. Be sure to visit the page to see many more creative projects!

         Decorative Bulletin Board

 Picture courtesy of: http://www.brit.co/20-creative-ways-to-repurpose-old-yoga-mats/  

      

         Supplies Needed:

         Old yoga mat (preferably colorful, especially for a girl’s room)

         Scissors

         Sewing pins (straight pins), duct tape (optional)

         Nails or Command products (to stick the board to a wall. Command products are less damaging than nails and allow easy removal)

Ecofriendly Economics: Going Green at College

15 Ways for College Students to be Greener in their Dorm and on Campus

As a first time college student this semester living in a sustainably conscious residence hall, I am acutely aware of my impact on the planet and my ability to have a greater control over that impact, especially now that I'm living on my own. 

             Think about it, Freshmen. For the first time in your life, you have complete control over how you live and how you spend your money. That means you can have more control over how sustainable or unsustainable you are.

            So, in today’s Ecofriendly Economics section, I am providing fifteen ways that college students, like myself, can be more green in their dorm and everyday habits. Ithaca College students: look for the bold sections to see information that specifically relates to our college and the Ithaca area.

Ecofriendly Economics & Harsh Facts: Oil Spills

Harsh Facts

The Exxon Valdez Spill of 1989 was often considered the worst oil spill ever before the BP Spill of 2010. Exxon Valdez leaked 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

Without taking the BP Spill into consideration, an average of one billion gallons of oil are spilled into the world’s oceans each year.

In the BP Gulf of Mexico Spill, 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of oil were leaked each day. On May 17^th, 2010, the slick was 130 miles long and 70 miles wide.

The cost of Gulf Oil Spill to BP as of June 14^th, 2010, was $1.6 billion. $1.5 billion is the estimated amount insurers paid as a result of the spill.

About 400 wildlife species were threatened by the BP Spill, including the 25 million birds that traverse the Gulf of Mexico each day. 

2,300 square miles out of a total 7,000 square miles of Louisiana coastal marshes and cypress forests have been damaged as a result of oil drilling. 

The United States consumes 19.5 million gallons of oil per day. 

One estimate expects that over its fifty year lifetime, the Keystone XL Pipeline will have about 91 significant tar sands oil spills (significant meaning at least fifty barrels).  

Picture courtesy of: http://justmytruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/the-ripple-effect/

Recycling Projects: Featuring Jennifer Kemper

Today, Viridorari's eighth Guest Writer, Jennifer Kemper, will provide you with four recycling projects!  I discovered Jennifer at an arts and crafts show in Cazenovia, NY.

Jennifer Kemper has been an artist and potter all of her life. Though pottery is her main work, she has fun using other media as well.  A junk-collector from early on, she learned through experimentation to make various things using items that might have been thrown away. Her creations include wind chimes, hurricane lamps, garden totems, terrariums, candles, jewelry, lampworked glass beads, masks, clothing, and more. Some of these items can be found on her website www.kemperpottery.webs.com.
You can also see her work at The Artisans Guild in Oneonta, NY and at her studio at 120 Taylor Rd, Morris, NY.

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.

Recycling Projects: Business Card Birds

This project is a great way for you to upcycle old business cards, either the ones you’ve accumulated over the years and don’t need, or you outdated set after you have new ones made. The kids will love this creative little project, and they can decorate their rooms with the end result.

Picture courtesy of: http://earth911.com/work/business-card-crafts/

Supplies needed:

-Two unwanted business cards
-Pencil
-String
-Scissors
-Decorative paper and glue (optional)

Suggested Reading & Activism Spotlight: Trash-Free Living

Activism Spotlight

“Every time you reach for the trash,” Amy said, “if you make that motion a conscious thing, [you realize that you] reach for the trash so many times a day. I really was kind of amazed.”

Imagine living for an entire year without producing garbage. Impossible, right?

Apparently not, because that’s exactly what a young professional couple, Amy and Adam Korst, did from July 6th, 2009 to July 6th, 2010. Their original goal was to produce no more than one garbage bag of waste, and instead, they ended up with only a shoebox full of items that could not be recycled, reduced, reused, or composted between the two of them. 

Picture courtesy of: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2010-07-21-trash_N.htm

In comparison, the average American produces 4.6 pounds of garbage daily, three pounds of which goes to a landfill. We recycle only 32% of our total waste, and we trash 99% of everything we buy within six months. So, according to these estimates and averages, the Korsts saved about 2,190 pounds of waste from the landfill, which is over a ton.

How did they do it?

Recycling Projects: Homemade Paper

Homemade Paper

I was considering recently ways to reuse paper scraps from the paper shredder. Some sites suggested using them as cushioning in packages, for gift bag stuffing, for Easter baskets, or for pet cage bedding. Well, I don’t send packages that need cushioning very often, Easter isn’t until next year, I don’t own any pets that would need cage bedding, and I imagine digging through confetti to find the gift in a bag would be very messy and annoying. Another thing, too: the people who receive the package, gift, or basket will most likely throw out the paper shreds right away. None of these solutions seemed like a very lasting reuse of paper shreds.

    Then, I stumbled across a tutorial for taking paper scraps and turning them back into full sheets of paper. The project is pretty messy, but it sounds really fun, and I can’t wait to try it myself. Not to mention, if you want, you can be creative and decorative with this project!

Picture courtesy of: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hand_made_paper.jpg

    Most steps in this project are pretty harmless, but I suggest supervising your kids for the sake of controlling the mess factor.

Materials needed

-Unwanted scrap paper- paper shreds, newspaper, old bills, junk mail, construction paper, etc.
-Blender
-Water
-Liquid starch (optional)
-Plain wooden frame to the size of the paper you want to make
-Window screening, cut larger than the size of the frame
-Staples or tacks
-Dishpan or plastic storage container large enough to fit the entire frame inside
-Pieces of felt or flannel fabric slightly larger than the wooden frame
-Sponge
-Cookie sheets
-Weight (bricks, phone books, dictionaries, etc.)
-Clothesline and clothespins (or just a safe place for drying)

Harsh Facts, Ecofriendly Economics & June's Animal

Harsh Facts

70% of the Earth is covered in water. Only 3% of all that water is freshwater. Unfortunately, much of the waste produced each year around the globe is disposed of in these water bodies.

According to the data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, approximately 1.4 billion pounds of trash are dumped into the oceans each year.

Asian rivers are the most polluted in the world. These rivers contain twenty times as much lead found in the water of industrialized nations on other continents. The bacteria (from human waste) found in Asian rivers are three times greater than the global average.

Approximately 85% of the total area of Bangladesh has contaminated groundwater. That means over 1.2 million citizens are exposed to the dangerous effects of arsenic-contaminated water.

About 40% of the rivers in the United States are polluted. One cannot use water from these rivers for drinking, swimming, or any such activity. These rivers are incapable of sustaining aquatic life. Additionally, 46% of lakes in United States are unfit for supporting aquatic life.

Water pollution is a major problem for humans and animals alike. Worldwide, many unfortunate people are without clean water, and marine species are constantly threatened by pollution of their environment, as you’ll see with June’s Animal of the Month. Always be conscious of your waste disposal habits, and encourage your legislators and representatives to work for better waste disposal standards.

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.

Recycling Projects: Easter Egg Fireflies

My family never got into decorating real eggs for Easter. It takes time, and I was usually bored after the second one. We didn’t hide those eggs, we just decorated the kitchen table with them for a little bit and then ate them. I was all about the hunts. I love Easter egg hunts. I still love them, even though I’m eighteen years old.

Plastic Easter eggs are awesome, because you don’t have to spend all that time painting them, and unlike hard boiled eggs, you can stuff them with goodies. Pocket change, candy, hints for a scavenger hunt, and if you’re lucky, maybe a five or ten dollar bill.

But of course… plastic is not biodegradable and not good at all for the environment. I couldn’t find any specific numbers online, but I think it’s safe to say that we go through a LOT of plastic Easter eggs each spring. And, like most “disposable” items, I’m sure more people throw out their plastic eggs than not.

So, what can you do with all of those eggs you now have laying around? Inevitably, some of them broke. You could recycle the busted ones and save the rest for next year (hopefully you’ll remember you have them before you go out and buy more), you could take them to a thrift shop, you could donate them…

Or, you could repurpose them into something new and fun. I found this project and thought it would be perfect for the month after April. I hope I caught you before you threw them out.

 Easter Egg Firefly Toys/Flashlight

Supplies Needed:

Plastic Easter eggs
Flameless LED tealights (3 pack for a dollar at Dollar Tree)
Pipe cleaners
Duct tape
Scissors
Nail and hammer (can be substituted with glue)
Paint and paint brush/ permanent markers

Guest Writer: Sustainable Living and Business

Today I'd like to welcome a wonderful and caring person onto my blog; Beth Aust. Beth and my grandmother are both small business owners, and when they met each other at an event, my grandmother told her about Viridorari and she was immediately interested in becoming a Guest Writer. (To read grandma's post about owning a Hybrid Prius, go here.)

After working in the nursing field for twenty years, Beth Aust RN was divinely guided to follow a more holistic path. She studied nutrition through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and became a Holistic Health Coach. Drawing on her nursing background and nutrition knowledge, Beth provides one on one programs, group programs, workshops and cooking demonstrations to show others how to cook healthy, shop savvy and live freely through a creative approach. In an effort to provide the community healthier options, she also is opening a natural foods shop in Oneida, NY June of 2013. The shop will focus on non-GMO and organic products as well as providing gluten free, vegan, RAW, and nut-free foods. A member of the National Association of Professional Woman, Board certified by the American Association of Drugless Practitioner’s, supporter of the NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association), Young Living essential oil distributor, and board member of the Madison County Habitat for Humanity, she is passionate about health, wellness and community.

Beth strives to combine her desire to help people lead healthier lives with sustainability. With greenhouse gas levels rising in our atmosphere all the time and the constant loss of natural areas around the globe, environmentally-conscious business owners who see beyond their wallet, like Beth, are needed more and more. 

In her guest writing piece, Beth will discuss what she does to be sustainable, keeping the future in mind. Business owners and average Joes alike: I hope you are all inspired by her determination and mindfulness. In order to secure a better future for this planet, we must take action now.

Recycling Projects: Carton Wallets

Carton Wallets

This is a cute and fun project for kids that could make a great father’s day present! It takes about an hour and some patience, but will hopefully keep them occupied. There is cutting with this project, so please supervise or help them.

Supplies Needed:

Half gallon milk or juice carton with cap
Scissors
Paper towels or kitchen rag (rags are less wasteful!!!)
Tape
Wallet template (see picture below)
Ballpoint pen
Ruler
Butter knife

Recycling Projects: Plastic Bottle Piggy Bank

Plastic Bottle Piggy Bank

Here’s a tip from a senior in high school who is planning on attending a $55,000/year college: it’s never too early to start saving for your higher education! So today, I’m going to show all the lovely people on Viridorari, especially the youth, how to make a piggy bank out of a plastic bottle. 
    This project involves minimal amounts of cutting. Please supervise your children during these steps.

    Materials
•    Plastic bottle, 2 liter bottle (the bigger the better!)
•    Pink felt or construction paper
•    Four extra bottle caps
•    Pink and black acrylic paint
•    Pink pipe cleaner
•    Googly eyes (optional)
•    Glue/tape
•    Scissors/knife

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.

Ecofriendly Economics & Harsh Facts: Food Waste

Thank you for your understanding and patience about Monday's postponement. Again, please excuse the inconsistent formatting... I have sent a complaint to Blogger about that. 

Harsh Facts of the Week

These harsh facts will be part of a theme I have decided to focus on this week: food waste. I thought the topic of food waste would go along nicely with this week's Green Challenge, which takes some of your food waste and recycles it into rich, healthy soil. I pulled some of the facts from a web page entitled: "Americans go hungry in a land of massive food waste," which is starkly and sadly true. Stay tuned for Friday's "Suggested Reading" post, which will actually feature a video instead of a book: a TED Talk by Tristram Stuart on the topic of food waste. Stuart is mentioned in today's Harsh Facts.

Roughly one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year.

  

The average American wastes 209-254 pounds of edible food each year, while 17.2 million American households in 2010 were deemed “food insecure,” meaning it was difficult to provide food for everyone in the family. About 46 million Americans, or one in every seven people, relied on food stamps that same year. 

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that the consumer level food waste in industrialized countries is almost as high as the total net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa (222 million tons of food waste as compared to 230 million tons of net food production, respectively).

Tristram Stuart visited British farms to understand how quality standards affect food waste, including M.H. Poskitt Carrots. In total, 25-30% of all carrots handled by M.H. Poskitt Carrots were out-graded. About half of these were rejected due to aesthetic defects (i.e., wrong shape or size, not orange enough, broken, having a cleft or blemish).