Greener by Choice

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.