Green Guru Network

My friend Marty has an incredible home.  Hudson River views, wonderfully decorated, welcoming, and spacious. It's the soul of efficiency you can find what you need and what ever it is it's always close at hand.  She is a successful business woman, mother and wife. This article reminds me of her lifestyle. Reduce Redecorate and Reconsider What Belongs to You, posted by Ronnie Citron-Fink on Care2

54% of home energy use goes into heating and cooling.  Now is a great time to do a mini energy audit while it’s comfy in your garage, basement, and outside.   Fixing “it” now could save you from fixing “it” later when it’s 35 degrees Fahrenheit out and you have numb fingers and are getting grouchy.

Here’s a 5 minute check list: 

Water Heater- Is it very new?  If not consider replacing it NYSERDA has a host of incentive programs designed to put cash back in your pocket for buing energy efficient equipment.  Check them out at:

http://www.getenergysmart.org/

Windows- Switch storm windows to screens allowing air in will postpoen how the first day of air conditioning.

Air- Remember which parts of the house was drafty last year?  They probably will be again this year.   Mapping out areas that need insulation and calking and getting it done early can save you money and keep you domicile cozy next winter.  Try scheduling a BPI survey to figure out where tose leak really are. 

Switching your heater filter will save you energy and you can make the “first night the heater goes on” smell a lot better.

 

Jack was born and raised in southern Rhode Island on a family farm. Since attending the University of Rhode Island’s College of Plant Science, Jack has worked as a greenhouse manager for a family-owned florist, greenhouse and nursery, a private gardener, a park ranger for the Costa Rican National Parks Service, and a sharecropper for an organic vegetable market in California.

Most recently, Jack developed an organic program at White Gate Farm, which produces food for 60 member families and various retail natural food stores and has become a center for the community.

As the Farm Manager for Stone Barns Center located in Sleepy Hollow, NY, Jack maintains the half-acre in-soil greenhouse and four acres of garden. His goal is to produce optimal amounts of superior-quality produce for the restaurant, market, education center and community using efficient and naturally sustainable practices.

Go Ahead Buy The Good Stuff! Plastic is forever! 

A walk along Jones Beach can convince you of that.  Plastic bottles tossed  into the recycling bin can be recycled only once.  Once whatever we make out of those bottles is worn out that plastic becomes trash and can no longer be recycled. Glass on the other hand is recyclable over and over again.  There is no limit to the number of times you can melt down glass or metal and create something new and useful.  

Nowadays big name soda comes only in plastic bottles.  There are however some terrific haute-cuisine sodas available in glass bottles.  These sodas cost more and come in old fashioned single serving glass containers.  Imagine being satisfied by an ice cold 12 ounce root beer in a glass bottle.  Quench your thirst, feel luxurious, impress your guests, drink 1/3 fewer calories than the 18 ounce super size, and save the planet! Enjoy!

Breathe Easier This Fall

Kids are back to school, the days are getting shorter and the leaves are starting to turn.  Of course all those leaves will be coming down soon.  The last few years leaf blowers have become all the rage and their droning will soon be heard from the Bronx border to the Connecticut border to the mighty Hudson and everywhere in between.    If you are the unfortunate user of such a device you may want to know that the fumes coming off of the engine are not filtered and contain far more particulate matter and carcinogenic pollution than come off of any gas burning vehicle.  (Now picture that within say 2 feet of your head for an hour or so every weekend.)     

 But they are so convenient?   Don’t forget to figure in the time it takes you to drive to the gas station, pump the gas, (inhaling gas fumes), transporting the gas back home in your vehicle, (inhaling more fumes), finding a “safe” place to store the fuel, filling the blower, occasionally maintaining the blower, getting the darn thing started when it’s feeling finicky, and the time it takes you to say “What?!?” to everyone who attempts to speak to you for a few hours after you use your blower.  Even if all that takes less time how good is that “extra” quality time you think you earned when you are hacking up dust and leaf chunks in front of the TV at night?

 If you are one of the lucky ones who has someone to do lawn care for you, think through this:  While you are at work blissfully unaware, back at home where your kids are, ther is a cacophony of sound, dust, particulate matter and exhaust fumes being spewed about your yard in the name of tidiness.  Your family, the neighbors, and all who pass by are getting their dose of blower byproducts.   

The solution?   Behold the humble rake, a tool that has been around since the dawn of civilized man.   Look at the side benefits:   Minimal dust (while no method of leaf and lawn trimmings removal is dust free the rake kicks up a small fraction of the dust)   Exhaust free (except your breathing).  When used well a great upper body work out (Caution: You may end up with Pecs like Arnie).  Avoiding the “You blow leaves into my yard on Saturday and I’ll blow leaves back into your yard on Sunday feuds”, leaf piles for your kids to jump in.  (Blowers just can’t match the piling power or beauty of the rake) Economy for about 15 bucks you can buy one of these that will last you until your raking days are over.  And the blessing of peace as you quietly commune with the lawn that you worked so hard to come by.     

You would have to drive 1000 miles in a late model car to create as much air pollution as your lawn mower produces in just half an hour’s running time.   Imagine pushing your Honda (with the engine running) to see the Rolling Stones exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland Ohio and back.    Since you would be pushing your car you’d be breathing in all those fumes as you go.   You would still come out creating slightly less pollution that you would than mowing your average suburban lawn!

 Your time is a very valuable commodity a “scarce world resource” in fact.   Perhaps you could pursue your favorite hobby during the time you are not mowing the lawn (there is no significant negative environmental impact for learning to belly dance or stamp collecting or listening to the Yankees on the radio)    For every inch you let your lawn grow it repays the favor by producing more oxygen for you to breath.   Realocate your resources take it to the movies instead of the gas station.

 Want to eliminate fumes altogether?   There are wonderful cordless electric mowers now available.   They are reasonably priced and work great on average sized lawns.   They are quiet, smog free, and light.   You can plug them into the wall socket at night or companies like Real Goods carry solar panels that will charge your mower with the power of the sun. Electric mowers are not for the realy tough over grown lawn.  It's a choice mow less or mow electric.

This week is Walk to School Week for the Hastings on Hudson school district.  This innovative international program helps families to focus on the importance of walking to school.  Children are rewarded each day that they arrive at school by walking or biking.  Schools are abuzz with conversation about the walks and there is some serious competition to collect and display the prizes.  

In 1969 most kids who lived within a mile of school walked now only a handful do.  Parents site danger as the number one reason for not letting their kids walk.  Yet one of the most prevalent dangers to kids on their way to school is traffic and drop off hazards caused by parents trying to drive their offspring.  Increased inactivity and obesity among children is a rapidly growing health hazard.    One way to beat these real dangers to kid’s health is to invest the time in teaching children how to walk to school safely. 

Check out Safe Routes to School:

http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/

They have great ideas like the “Walking Bus”; parents take turns walking with kids to school, creating a livelier alternative to carpooling. 

Umbrellas and rain boots are making a come back as quintessential school gear for young children who commute on foot to school.  New friendships are being formed, restless students get to walk off some energy before being asked to concentrate on math, grammar and remembering the names of all the capitals of all the states!  All walkers get a look at the natural world before spending the day indoors Parents get a chance to walk and connect with their kids early in the day while everyone is still fresh.  For those who can’t spare the time to walk both ways leaving the car behind in just one direction, either coming or going, saves half the gas and carbon emissions!

If your school offers Walk to School Week give it a try, it’s the stuff great memories are made of.  If your school doesn’t yet offer Walk to School Week contact me at lea@greengurunetwork.com  and I’ll help you find folks to help you get one started!

Composting can be done anywhere any size from municipal and commercial windrows processing thousands of tons annually to a ½ gallon under the sink worm farm in Manhattan.    Composting helps eliminate garbage, reduces our carbon footprint, and nourishes our soil.    May is a great time to get your compost going.  The first blooms of spring are wilting and ready to be trimmed.  Folks are cleaning up winter yard waste outdoors and all the vegetable scraps of summer are just around the corner. While you are setting you your bin imagine this:

Great corn husks and tomato peels, basil stems and potato eyes left over from summer feasts recycled into more feasts in years to come!  What if the secret to your amazing sauce is the incredible soil that the tomatoes are grown in?  OK so if you are an apartment dweller the food scraps may end up becoming begonias or African violets instead.   (My avid gardener-composter-parents were considering moving, my Mom said she wouldn’t go without her top soil!)  Get the kids involved.  Apples and bananas are more appealing when they come with a trip to the worm bin at the end of the meal. 

Need help getting started? Check out Westchester Master Composters:

http://redwrigglerz.blogspot.com

Cornell Cooperative Extension is always willing to guide you through the basics: 

http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/westchester/

Once composting became part of my food preparation ritual I began to value my veggie peelings.  I began to think of them more like a commodity. All that biomass could end up becoming great food again, or it could clog a landfill, or it could cost us money by cooling the burn at the local waste to energy plant. 

 

 

Mowing your lawn for half an hour puts out more emissions than driving a late model car 1000 miles! Now imagine pushing that late model car from here to say Montréal and back and breathing in 1000 miles worth of fumes! Use of lawn pesticides have quadrupled since Rachel Carlson wrote Silent Spring. Use of pesticdes in suburbs like Westchester is triple that used in conventional farming.

Luckily we live in the land of alternatives so cleaning up the yard easy..

Try reducing the number of times you mow each summer. If you mow every other week instead of every week you reduce your exposure to particulate matter, SO2, and a host of combustion by products by 50 %. 3 weeks reduces your exposure by 67%. The lawn will be longer which creates better habitat and produces more oxygen. Consider the possibility of a new esthetic, what would it be like if suburbanites furrowed their brows at short cropped lawns.

 

Photo by matthewbridges

Choosing between the myriad of alternate energy and energy efficiency options available can be confusing.  A Building Performance Institute survey can help you figure out how to get the best bang for your buck.  Prices vary and some utility companies help with the cost.  You’ll end up with a punch list for what needs to be done, approximate cost, and your return on investment.

http://bpi.org