Greener By Choice With The Green Up Girl®

Joining us today is Richard Sundance Owen, founder and executive director of the Environmental Cleanup Coalition. Today we’re talking about how Plastic Pollution is affecting our oceans, food chain and the health of marine animals, as well as our own.    Did you know “An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped in the world’s oceans every year. And worst of all most of it is plastic.”   What a horrific amount of trash. Today, let’s discover how the Environmental Cleanup Coalition’s helping to reduce this and what we as everyday people can do to help make a difference.

Highlights from the Mother Earth News Fair   Last weekend I attended the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, PA. Wow,What an amazing weekend. First for those of you who may not know about Mother Earth News, they are a magazine that has been helping folks live self-reliant, sustainable, meaningful lives for more than 40 years. With an audience of more than 3 million readers worldwide, it is the largest and longest-running environmental lifestyle magazine on the planet.     Second, I’d like to share a few of the talks I really enjoyed: Pickin’ Chickens: An introduction to heritage breeds with Jeannette Beranger from The Livestock Conservancy and Earthen Building with Rusty and Walker Orner of Quiet Creek Herb Farm & School of Country Living.

It’s a green road trip   It’s 5:30am in Wilmington, VT and I’m getting ready to head out the door and travel to Seven Springs, PA for the Mother Earth News Fair.   I am so excited to be spending the weekend with hundreds of Green Movement Leaders, learning more about their products and services, and sharing their stories with you over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!   MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine has been helping folks live self-reliant, sustainable, meaningful lives for more than 40 years. With an audience of more than 3 million readers worldwide, it is the largest and longest-running environmental lifestyle magazine on the planet. The MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIRS are fun-filled, family-oriented sustainable lifestyle events that feature dozens of practical, hands-on demonstrations and workshops from the leading authorities on: Renewable Energy, Small-Scale Agriculture, Gardening, Green Building, Green Transportation and Natural Health.   Check out full details at http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/about.aspx#axzz3D5

Protecting nearly 200 breeds of livestock and poultry from extinction. Eric Hallman executive director of The Livestock Conservancy speaks with The Green Up Girl.   Now, you may be scratching your head and thinking, “but I see cows and chickens all the time, how can they be endangered?” Just like there are endangered species such as pandas, tigers, and elephants, there are also endangered livestock and poultry BREEDS. Specifically, 21% of the world’s 8,000 livestock breeds are in danger of extinction. Just like there are heirloom seeds that need saving, the Livestock Conservancy works to protect heritage breeds – for the security of our agricultural system.

Do you believe that if a few a passionate people come together they can create change? Well according to the email I just received from Green America, the voices of conscious citizens have been heard by the Apple Corporation.   “Apple announced that it would ban benzene and n-hexane — two dangerous industrial chemicals — from its first tier factories in China starting September 2014.” This is a very important first step and I’m so glad to hear they are listening. Apple is saying that it took the action because they heard from thousands of consumers voicing their concerns.   So that’s the good news, now for the bad news.   The China Labor Watch and Green America’s undercover investigators found harmful chemicals being dumped into the groundwater, locked safety doors, and other violations. If you lived in a community where your ground water was being poisoned, would you want someone to step in and help? I’m hoping yes, discover how you can easily assist.

Misty Reilly founder of RocknSocks started her business because her husband was always forgetting to pack his socks and would have to borrow hers when they attended music festivals. It got her thinking about the fact that you can get a whole new wardrobe from independent designers at these music festivals, but not some basic accessories. It all came together, when she decided to bring funky and fashionable eco-friendly socks to rock-n-roll music festivals. RocknSocks was born.

The reality is we all are going to die someday. I know it is sad to think about this topic, but all amazing things and creatures must pass on at some point. You can’t live forever, even though you may want to.   Besides the emotional trauma, many folks are worried about the possible environmental pollution a burial can cause. From the poisonous embalming fluid, to the chemically treated caskets, and cement burial vaults.     But what if your burial could be handled in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way? Discover more about green burials.

Wood pallets, old fencing, and beat up pianos are turned into finely crafted, cherished pieces of furniture thanks to the work of Casey Muldoon from Custom ReWorks.These materials would have other wise ended up in the landfill. Instead Casey uses his creativity to give them new life and purpose. View many of projects at Facebook.com/CustomReWorks.

Stop Junk Mail From Polluting Your Mail Box. What a waste "More than 100 million trees are cut down every year to produce junk mail.”  Discover the simple 5 ways to protect the trees and keep your mail box empty. Receive resources; mailing addresses, email and website addresses to contact the right sources. Visit GreenerbyChoice.com.

Joining us today is Jane Jones, founder of Magical Earth Retreats, a non-profit organization that connects children and adults with nature. Magical Earth Retreats is on a mission to bring as many children and adults to the mountains to experience mother earth in order that they understand our connectivity with everything while creating love and beauty in everyone’s garden of life.   I’m also proud to be a board of director for Magical Earth Retreats and witnessed first hand the joy that Jane and her staff bring to the children that attend these many programs.

Beyond podcasting about green issues and bringing you interviews with Green Movement Leaders, I’ll now be creating a community so you can receive simple action steps, engage in conversations, and gather the resources you want to enjoy living a greener lifestyle. This new community will go live on September 1st and will offer you: Live workshops & Google Hangouts, Downloadable action steps & green up tool kit, Live Meet Up Events (Right now at locations around the US and then we’ll expand around world, Guided travel to conservation centers and even a few safari trips. Visit GreenerbyChoice.com to learn more.

Stay tuned! Greener by Choice is expanding.   I’m so excited to share my weekend’s adventures with you. I’ve been in Dallas, Texas attending Podcast Movement 2014. It offered training for Podcasters by Podcasters. The conference was beyond amazing and I am so excited to expand and improve the “Greener by Choice” podcasts I’ve been producing for you.   My key take-a-ways from the conference are that in addition to featuring green issues and bringing you interviews with Green Movement Leaders, I want to also facilitate a community so you can receive simple action steps, engage in conversations, and gather the resources you want to enjoy living a greener lifestyle. We’ll do this through both online podcasts and in-person activities.   More details coming tomorrow.

Today let’s talk about Giving Back. We all know there are many benefits to giving back; you feel better, set a good example, and the world benefits. Plus, part of living a greener lifestyle involves how we care and give back to others that share our earth. Protecting our earth for future generations is going to take a team effort. If we all come together, one step at a time, we can make a difference.     Giving back does not have to be about money, giving of your time can be just as valuable and sometimes more valuable. Discover over 100 ways you can give back to your community.

The plastic shopping bag debate continues. In episode #27 we talked about how Americans use approximately 102.1 billion plastic bags, creating tons and tons of landfill waste. This number breaks down to the average American family using almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year. And worst of all less than 5% of these bags are recycled.     Thank you for all your comments and emails listeners, that podcast stirred up quite some interest and I’d like to share some of the comments with you.

Lauren Taylor Director of U.S. Public Relations for TerraCycle an international recycling company. TerraCycle converts difficult-to-recycle packaging and product materials into innovative, affordable products. Its partners are among the Who’s Who in the CPG, retailing and manufacturing industry. Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, L’Oreal, Entenmann’s Bakery, Kimberly Clark and Colgate-Palmolive are among the companies running community-based collection fundraisers through TerraCycle that function both as innovative packaging reclamation initiatives and cause-related marketing programs.

Cooking off the grid. No need to turn on the electricity or gas. Use the sun to cook your next meal. In this episode, I’m going to make cooking with the sun simple and easy by sharing some more tips and tricks. A solar cooker is simply a devise that uses direct sunlight to heat and cook your food and they come in all sizes depending upon how much food you want to cook and how many people you are feeding. You have an outside oven to attract the sun and an inside container to hold the food. The whole set up is of course place in direct sunlight for best results. Discover more about cooking temperatures, food prep and more.

Mark Curran is founder of Black River Produce. Since its inception in 1978, Black River’s main focus has been distributing locally grown product throughout New England. They now partner with 200 growers and producers with a team of 170 employees. Mark has served on numerous boards including the Vermont Fresh Network and currently serves on the Vermont Agriculture and Forest Products Development Board. This year Black River Produce completed renovations of an abandoned Ben & Jerry’s plant into a state of the art meat processing facility providing market opportunities for Vermont farmers.

Do you ever get frustrated when you’re shopping at the grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, or any store for that matter and the clerk asks the person in front of you, “May we bag your order in plastic? and they answer yes. Am I the only one who wants to yell, no please don’t choose plastic, those bags are polluting the earth. Do you ever speak up and tell them how much their choice is harming the world or do you stand their quietly and say nothing?   Let me share some very important facts with you; every year, Americans use approximately 102.1 billion plastic bags, creating tons and tons of landfill waste. This number breaks down to the average American family using almost 1,500 plastic shopping bags a year. And worst of all less than 5% of these bags are recycled.   Discover how to make a difference by sharing your shopping bags.

Nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, but only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. and just 1 percent of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields. Discover 6 more simple ways to conserve water including a link to find your very own shower buddy.

How often do you eat out at a restaurant and find that you can’t finish eating the whole meal? Are you someone who wastes the food or brings it home in what we call “the doggie bag”? According to restaurants.com, “As much as 33 million tons of food is wasted each year in the United States alone.” That is way too much wasted food, don’t you agree? Together let’s rebrand the Doggie Bag.