Earth home tour

Earth homes demonstrate a way to live in more harmony with the planet. Let's take a look at one:

Some of you that know me on a personal level know that I recently* went to Wisconsin for a week. My good friend and former Green Drinks partner, Laura, moved back to her home state about six months ago*.

sunlight shows through a banana leaf
in the solarium of
Ann and Wayne's home.

Awhile ago, we had been discussing her aunt and uncle and the fact that they had built an Earth Home. I've been fascinated with Earth Homes at least since I was in college. I don't remember how I first heard about them, but I do remember this crazy hippy book where someone had basically built themselves a shelter out of whatever they could find in the woods. I've read a ton about them since then but had never actually been inside one. I casually mentioned to Laura that I'd love to see their place if it wasn't too far. It was luckily only about 1/2 an hour from where we were and her Aunt (Ann) and Uncle (Wayne) were gracious enough to let us wander around and take photos of their home.

I took lots of photos, but a few came out blurry and I also somehow neglected to take a photo of what the whole house looks like from outside. (How could I have missed such an important shot? Well, my only defense is that I was so excited about touring my first Earth home, I just plain forgot!) Originally, I was going to post a bunch of shots in this post, but I think it makes more sense to just link you to the web album and let you enjoy the photos at your own pace.

I want to say a very special Thank You to Ann and Wayne. They are such sweet and gracious people. This was one of the highlights of my trip!

Enjoy the tour! If you want a full travelog of our trip, scroll to the very end*.


*Sometimes I suck as a writer. I get an idea in my head of how I want a post to go and then the post ultimately suffers for it, because it never gets published. (Perfectionism, much?) I'm sure this is true of all writers, but I sincerely wish it hadn't happened to this post. I wrote this post I think almost a year ago (sheesh!!!) and am finally posting it today... I had wanted to get it "just right" but ended up just never posting it, period. Shame on me. At least you can now enjoy the photos. Also, the travelog was something I had intended to post as well, but that got dropped half way through the trip (was having too much fun) and it has a bunch of missing data. Anyway, I had a great time in WI-Laura went way out of her way to pack a ton of fun into my trip and I'm happy to say I get to go back at the end of this month to see her again.

Get your glass straw!

Last year, I posted about how much I LOVE my glass straw. I love it so much so, in fact, that I asked for some more for Xmas this year and got them!

If you'd like to give a glass straw a try, Glass Dharma is giving away more this year.

As I've discussed before, it takes some time to create a new habit. I definitely have my bag habit down and I'm really close to having my take away container habit. Last night (and frequently lately) I've been noticing when I order water in a restaurant, they automatically put a plastic straw in the drink. My next habit to work on is to ask for water with no straw.

Where Reuse and Social Media Meet

Greetings, friends!

I've been asked to speak on social media at a conference at the end of this week. 
This post will probably be pretty short on pics, but long on good content, so read on!

In preparation for my presentation, I decided to try to find some examples of how other companies are using social media to promote reuse (my presentation topic.) Lucky for me, one of the first companies I looked at was iFixit. I found they were doing an excellent job and decided I wanted to ask some more in-depth questions of them. 

My presentation is pretty short, so I won't have an opportunity to cover nearly as much ground as I'd like. (The talk will pretty much be some good examples followed by some bad examples with time for questions from the audience, hopefully...) However, after Elizabeth from iFixit took the time and energy to answer my questions, I wanted to post* the exchange here to share it with anyone interested in a little more information. I added a few comments here and there. My commentary is in purple. 

Q: Is social media part of anyone's job description? Part of everyone's?

As an entirely online company, our social media presence is really important. Pretty much everyone at iFixit is involved in interacting with customers online. iFixit has approximately 50 employees, all of whom are expected to have active profiles on iFixit.com and interact with users on iFixit Answers. Our guide writers make all our guide content and interact with users in the comments. In addition, we have Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus pages, on which about 5 or 10 of us post. A couple employees manage our YouTube page, creating video teardowns and guides. Our CEO, Kyle, did an AMA (AMA means "ask me anything") on Reddit this summer after the Retina MacBook teardown took off. We also use an inter-office social media network, Yammer, to communicate.
That's a big part of why all iFixit employees are required to take a grammar test as part of the hiring process (Kyle talks about it here.) Employees make up the face of the company.

Q: How do you determine how much time to spend on social media? Do you try to quantify ROI?

We don't have any ROI quantification for social media as of yet. Personally, I try to keep it to well under 10% of my time spent working. But I don't know for sure about other employees; we don't have specific guidelines. It varies, of course, based on the buzz: right after the Retina MacBook teardown, for example, we were all spending far more time than usual on social media.

Q: Does your company have an internal social media policy?

Not really. Our handbook says this:
"Good writing is credibility. In blog posts, in tweets, in emails, on our web site, our words are all we have. They are a projection of our company. For better or worse, people judge us if we are sloppy writers."

Pretty much any time I give a talk on social media, I'm asked about company-wide social media policies. I do have one that I would feel comfortable sharing. However, this morning, it eludes me. If you're interested, contact me and I will get it to you. You can also do a search for social media policies online-from your favorite company or local jurisdiction. In addition, I would also whole-heartedly agree with the tenet that good writing = credibility!

Q: What is the largest benefit you believe your company gets from social media? Largest drawback?

Benefit: We are sustained financially by online word-of-mouth. Site traffic and personalized interactions with customers mean sales.
Drawback: On a few rare occasions, the site has been brought down when we were unprepared for so much traffic from social media.

Q: Regarding the "stories" section of your website: How do you collect/post these? Are they moderated before posting?

I assume you mean the stories section on iFixit.com. (I did.) When users receive a purchase, we send them an email to make sure the package arrived safely, to provide them with a link to the relevant guide for the part they bought, and to encourage them to submit their repair story. These stories are not moderated. All stories that are submitted with a picture end up on that site, even if the picture is unrelated. Stories submitted without a picture are still live online, but they're not linked from anywhere (you can access them by iterating the story number in the URL, e.g. http://www.ifixit.com/Story/4122). We may someday do something with the non-picture stories, but our programmers are busy with other projects for now.
We have a "repair stories" category on the blog too, but those are all employee-written blog posts.

Q: Anything else you want to say about the role of social media in promoting reuse?

Many of the terrible things we're doing to the environment as a society are out of consumers' immediate hands—I can't snap my fingers and make mining and manufacturing sustainable. But we can limit how much we're contributing to that mining and manufacturing, by keeping our stuff working for longer. Realizing what power we do have requires a shift in our cultural attitude, which means reaching a lot of people. Social media is really good at reaching a lot of people.

Online communities can change attitudes toward repair and reuse. Many of our users come to the site after posting pictures of a broken phone screen on Facebook—their friends say, "Hey, you don't need to get a new phone. You can fix that yourself for cheap. Check out iFixit.com." 

Hope that helps and that your presentation goes well!

Best,
Elizabeth Chamberlain
Writer, iFixit.org

I want to thank Elizabeth profusely for her time and insights. I hope the presentation goes well, too, Elizabeth! Maybe I'll get to meet Kyle at the conference.

*I took a few liberties with the text of the original email-mostly adding in links and fixing any dead grammar I created in the process.

Refashioning: XS skirt to XL

There are 3 blogs that I follow that aim to take old, ripped, torn, stained, unfashionable and/or thrifted clothes and "refashion" them into new wardrobe pieces. I've been creating a number of headbands for myself (another post...I'll get to it...eventually...) but this skirt project was one of my first forays into refashioning an actual item of clothing.

Most of the headbands I've been creating are made from t-shirts. I stopped at a rummage sale a few months ago and the clothes were a buck a bag. (My favorite find was a vintage apron. I LOVE aprons, but I digress...) They didn't have a ton of fun t-shirts, but I found enough shirts to make a dollar bag of clothes totally worth it. A lot of the other items I picked were much too small for me. I picked up 2-3 shirts that I loved the fabric and figured if they didn't fit my colleague, I would make headbands out of them. (They fit Melissa, so she kept them-yay!) This skirt was originally an Extra Small. There's no way it was ever going to fit me, but it was a little long and I hoped that I would be able to chop off the top panel and make it fit. After some false starts, I'm happy to say I have successfully refashioned my first garment.

Enjoy the progression:

To see if this project might work and to gauge where to cut the small skirt, I used a skirt that currently fit and laid them together. After much fretting, I basically decided to just cut off the entire top panel.

The blue skirt is the one that fits.

You can see the size labels in this photo.
I'm not making this up! ;)

Checking the size/length

Removing the lining.
I had originally planned to try to replace
the lining, but it proved too difficult
for my amateur sewing skills.
Instead, I just wear bloomers with the skirt
as it is quite transparent.

Making the chop!

checking color of jersey material to mend lining
(didn't end up using) This T was too white!

Here, you can see the jersey that I ended up
using. It's a much nicer color match.
The piece that was cut from the top of the skirt
is shown here. That section was eventually made
into a headband. 

repairing the lining (where I had to cut around the zipper)

Too bad I didn't actually end up using the lining...

After I cut the top section off, I tried the skirt on
to check it would go around me and to check the length.

repairing a side rip. (The skirt
was fine, but I was a little rough
on it and accidentally ripped near the side seam.)

inside view of the repair

Here's where the process kinda jumps ahead. I'm not sure why I have a serious lack of photos here. It's probably because I took the project to work with me for a few days. I tried to do way too much at once and ended up badly mis-sewing it. I got LOTS of seam ripping practice on this project. I decided to add a panel of jersey and then used elastic from a pair of not-hubby's old boxers for the waist band. I have to say, up until the point of threading the elastic, I was really dubious about how this would turn out.

Once I threaded the elastic, this project really looked promising.  

Sewed up the elastic and then hand-sewed the casing.

Finally, here's a pic of me wearing the skirt and headband, from earlier today.

I can't believe I changed the size of a skirt from an XS to an XL!!!

I miss the Junk Brothers

I think one of my first exposures to "creative reuse" was the short-lived* HGTV show The Junk Brothers. We were chatting about the show today and I was trying to convey the level of awesomeness that Steve and Jim were able to create with discarded items. I really wish there was an online gallery of before/after photos from the show. I've been searching for just that for awhile now. I'll link to a few things I've found.

Jim and Steve pose with their tricked out mega-BBQ

List of episodes with before photos (these aren't nearly as impressive without being able to see what they were transformed into

Interview with the brothers in Make: magazine (has some photos, but no captions...)

This guy made a kitchen island inspired by the Junk Brothers show. This is one of the only "after" photos I have and it wasn't even their project (Although, I remember this one and it's very similar.)

Anyone know if there's some place where you can view a gallery of all the before/after projects? I think I'll try to see if I can find this show on Netflix. It really was inspiring (although, the boys are much better carpenters/reusers than they are actors-sorry guys, but your banter was painful...)

*Apparently, it wasn't nearly as short-lived as I had originally thought. I think I only watched one season, possibly part of the second. Seems like there may have been as many as 4 seasons, though.

Cabinets #reused to make a child's play kitchen

Janell is so crafty!
Go check out the rest of the story.
It'll warm your heart. 

My friend, Janell, made a completely adorable play kitchen for her little one, using mostly reused/upcycled items from the Habitat For Humanity thrift store and a few items from Empower Up's thrift store as well. Go check it out!


Update: Through Pinterest, I stumbled upon two more completely adorable play-kitchens made from reused/upcycled furniture.

Waste Reduction segments (video)

To see videos of my recent waste reduction segments online, click on the links below:

I recently realized that not everyone has access to Facebook and that's where I was doing an ok job of posting my recent waste reduction segments. So, I decided to add them all here. Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions/suggestions. 

An antique camera in the front lobby of the KPTV studios

November (talking about the then-upcoming Check ‘Em Off, Green event) 

Mark your calendars, now! Check 'Em Off, Green will be December 1st this year.

December (talking about reducing holiday waste associated with gift-giving via buying local, reusing, etc.)

January (talking about waste reduction through swapping unwanted items online) 

We also have been having an issue with extraneous amounts of needles found in the recycling stream, so I did a news segment on that as well. (One note: the # of needle sticks quoted in the segment is incorrect unfortunately (or, fortunately depending on how you look at it) The # of people getting stuck by needles is more like 1 per month.)

Special thanks to KPTV for helping us get out the waste reduction message.

Post-holiday swapping of unwanted items

So, the holidays are over (Hope you had fantastic ones this year!) and I bet you might have received some new games, clothes, books, DVDs? If your home is bursting at the seams like mine, you might be considering what to do with items you no longer want/need/use. Consider swapping them! This Wednesday, I'll be going on the KPTV Good Day Oregon MORE program to talk about swap sites. In preparation for that, I've updated my list of swap sites for you. There's 25 sites on my list-I've made sure they're all active.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to vet them all for you, but you can easily click on whichever ones you think sound interesting and check them out for yourself. I'd recommend looking at the total number of items available, what type of feedback system they have, etc. Also, it's probably a good idea to decide what types of items you'll be swapping most often before picking a swap site or two. I'm a long time member of Goozex and it works great for me to swap my movies and video games, but it would not work for me if the majority of what I had to swap was clothing or kids' items. There are other more appropriate sites for that.

Here's an article with some great common sense tips to keep swapping safe.

So, how about you? Have you ever tried swap sites? What are your favorites? I haven't found any that really dazzle me in terms of handling "all" items. You?

Happy swapping (waste reduction) in 2012!

P.S. My list of swap sites is always available under the Resources link to the right.

Waste less this holiday season

Using these tips/tricks:


For me, the time of year when I buy the most "stuff" is, hands down, the holiday season. I'm sure most of you can probably relate. I remember when I first started really "getting into" waste reduction thinking to myself, "Yeah, but to purchase sustainably around the holiday season is going to be near impossible." Fast forward to this season and I can honestly say that every one of my gifts has some (or a lot of) green cred. Most of my wrapping will also sport that claim. In the spirit of giving, I want to share some tips/tricks that have been helpful to me. (And invite you to share your own in the comments section below.)


You've heard me talk about the waste reduction hierarchy before. We're going to use that hierarchy to look at our gift-giving choices. 


REDUCE:
To reduce is to not buy stuff or make waste in the first place. 

A giraffe relaxes in the sun at Oregon Zoo

• For the person who is impossible to buy for, instead of buying stuff, give money to their favorite charity in their name. Are they an animal lover? Perhaps the Humane Society would be a good choice. If they or a loved one have been affected by an illness, donating to research for a cure is a nice way to say you care about them. 
• One of the best ways to reduce our consumption of "stuff" is to give experiences. Giving a membership to the zoo or OMSI not only eliminates material goods, but encourages families to spend more time together. Or, you could give babysitting for a night to a family with a new baby or offer to take your nephew to a football game. Whatever your family members enjoy, try to find a way to allow them to enjoy that experience.
• If you're looking to reduce packaging or the environmental cost of buying something produced out of your area, Etsy can be a great option. Etsy is an online marketplace of handmade products. Often, these products are made with recycled or reused materials. They also allow vintage items, which fall into the category of reuse.
• Buy durable: The better built a product in the first place, the less likely it will be to break down. If it doesn't break down, you eliminate the need to buy a new one. Often, spending more initially for quality will pay for itself down the line when you still have the product years later. (and you don't have to relearn how to use that new toaster!) When something does break, consider repairing instead of throwing away. For that matter, do you have someone in your life that loves shoes? (I think most of us do....) a gift idea for them would be to find a local cobbler and purchase a gift certificate. Keeping their favorite shoes walking another day will eliminate the resources associated with a new pair.
• When wrapping presents, consider reusing comics or other paper. (and thus reducing the need for new wrapping paper.) With a little sewing skill, you can also create some reusable fabric bags. I'm very surprised by how well my family has taken to this idea. Now, the bags are usually considered a part of the present and they make an appearance the following year. 

REUSE:

When we purchase or gift a reused item, we're automatically cutting the environmental footprint of that item in half. (by eliminating a new item from being manufactured, transported, etc.) The more an item is reused, the lighter the load on our planet's limited resources.

• Give the gift of thrift. Shopping at local thrift stores can be an adventure and can result in significant money savings. If you know someone who is a thrift store junkie, many stores have gift cards. 
• Ebay: Lots of the items on Ebay are actually "new" and the site can also be a great place to find something like that scent that your mom loves but they stopped making or that last glass that completes the set your sister loves, but Uncle Stewart broke last season. 
• Craigslist: What's better than reusing *and* keeping it local. If you're concerned about the safety of Craigslist, there are lots of common sense tips/tricks to avoid being taken advantage of. 
• Swap sites: One of my favorite swap sites is Goozex. You send movies and video games that you're no longer using to other members and receive points based on the value of the sent items. Then, you're able to use those points to get used items from other members. Many swap sites work in this same way and there are lots of different sites out there (for things such as books, clothes, children's items, jewelry, etc.) I have a list (unfortunately, has not been updated in quite some time) of many swap sites. But, if you're wondering if something can be swapped, just do a simple search for an appropriate swap site. If it has value, chances are you'll find a site on which you can swap it.

RECYCLE:

Lastly, recycling is always important. We have two duties as consumers. The first (and most obvious) is to recycle everything that is acceptable in our recycling systems. The second, though, is to close the recycling loop by buying products with recycled content. If no one values recycled content, the market for those products dies and recycling (and all the associated savings in water, energy and pollution) die with them.

• As mentioned earlier, many products on Etsy (or at a local bazaar or artists market) will have recycled content. This keeps these items (that may not have a strong traditional recycling market) out of the landfill. 
• Purchasing recycled content can be tricky, but is not impossible. One company that I think has a strong environmental ethic and has many options for purchasing recycled fibers is Patagonia. They also have a fairly new (launched Black Friday, 2011) intiative in which they encourage all steps of the waste reduction hierarchy. 

So, what about you? What waste reduction ideas have you implemented that you're particularly proud of? What would you like to try next season? What are your concerns about waste reduction in gift giving? What are some barriers that you think have kept you or others from implementing waste reduction techniques around the holidays? 

#PurJuly day 5

I picked up sewing for a few reasons. It's a good skill to have in order to be able to repair your own clothing and other textile items. I'm able to make my own reuse projects, like a pillow for the dogs made from a ripped blanket or a drawstring bag from the leg of old boxer shorts. I'm also able to make reusable fabric gift bags (hat tip to my Green Drinks cohort, Laura for the idea.) which my family covets in a strange yet satisfying way. Special thanks to friends Amanda and Sister Diane for helping me get started with sewing.

Today, I purged half of this basket of sewing goodies that I bought at an estate sale. The whole basket cost me .75 (I know!) but I hadn't ever put the time forth to go through the basket and find out what I got for my large investment. I knew there were enough things in it to make it worth the purchase and I also knew there was some stuff I'll never use, so this was a nice excuse to go through it and separate everything.


When I'm faced with large amounts of items that I need to go through, I like to make 3 piles-keep, purge and maybe. Then, I count the maybes and split them down the middle. For me, it's an efficient set of rules that helps me make the decisions.

In this case, I only had 2 items that fell into the maybe pile and everything else was pretty straightforward. I have no idea what those little green things with animals woven into them are, though. Anyone recognize these?  I thought they might be kinda nifty as a quilt addition (In the picture, they're folded into thirds, but they're all actually squares) but I'm not a quilter, so I ultimately had to just purge them. Hopefully they'll find love in someone else's hands.

The final purge:

#PurJuly day 3

I just got some totally awesome PurJuly stories from Josy (see below)

My item today is: A Stitch doll. I have just a few stuffed animals in my home. I kept my Grimm and Lorax* stuffed animals, but I decided I could probably give up Stitch. I honestly don't remember why I have a Stitch in the first place. The only thing I can come up with is that it might have been a gift from a family member who went to Disneyland. If that is the case, I hope they'll understand that I have way too many things. Plus, to me, a stuffed animal should be loved (ala Toy Story) Hopefully, now Stitch will find a new home and be loved. 


*If you are an environmental educator and you haven't read The Lorax, I highly recommend it. I find the book a really easy way to talk about complex concepts like pollution, consumerism, activism, habitat, etc.


Here are the pics and stories behind Josy's purged items:

Item 1: I finally pulled the dryer out of my basement, previous owners left it. I put it by street for scrappers not sure if it worked.  My neighbors across street saw it and asked if they could have it.  Turns out they haven't had a working dryer in 2 years!!!  I helped get it over there and it totally works and they were so happy which made me very happy. 

Item 2: Treadmill went fast 

I guess sometimes getting rid of unwanted items is as easy as purging them from your home and letting others know you've got some items to give away. 


I'm not sure how Josy's going to get weights on those items for the tracking spreadsheet. Crazy! I'm feeling a little bit of that glow-after-purging vicariously. Way to go, Josy! 

Why Recycle?

Curbside recycling is
simple and convenient

Recently, I presented at a series of recycling classes put on by the City and County. Part of the class requires the participants to include a recycling article in their neighborhood newsletter. I thought this one did a good job of capturing a lot of the reasons for recycling that we discussed at the beginning of the class. Enjoy!

So What’s the Big Deal About Recycling?

A lot of us in Hough {Neighborhood} are good and diligent recyclers, toting our big blue carts and glass bins to the curb every collection day.  Most of the time we don’t think about doing it because we know it’s the right thing to do.  During my recent attendance at the Recyclingest Neighborhood Workshop, I was asked the question, “Why do you recycle?”  “For my child’s future,” I replied, but after I answered I was wondering where the concrete evidence was to prove I was doing the right thing.  Luckily, our trainer for the day, Terra, had the answers and they were pretty impressive.

Many of the products found in
the landfill could have
been recycled, if
separated properly.

First, let’s talk conservation since that’s often the moral grounds for recycling.  According to the British Metals Recycling Association, we save approx. 60% in energy costs when we recycle steel and a whopping 95% when recycling aluminum.  When you think about the process it makes sense.  Instead of mining iron or bauxite ore then refining it to get the virgin base metal, we’re simply melting down material that’s already been processed and reforming it.  Recycling most paper products saves approximately 40% and glass 30% in energy costs.  For those a generation older than myself or those from other countries, you may recall sending bottles back to the bottling company to sanitize and reuse.  Guess how much that saved in energy costs compared to making new glass bottles: Over 300%!  Glass bottles can be reused an industry average of 12 times before they are recycled.  

Glass is accepted in
most recycling programs.

So there’s a lot of energy to be conserved by recycling, what about the other major pitfall for our future generations, the environment?  How much does recycling really help us here?  When we can’t eliminate the need for paper completely, recycling it will reduce air pollution by 74% and water pollution by 50% compared to making it from virgin material.  Steel mills using recycled scrap instead of new iron reduce air pollution, water, pollution, and mining wastes by 70%.  Recycling glass and other metals also has substantial environmental benefits in the reductions of pollutants. 

Not enough of a reason you say?  You wanna get down to recyclable brass tacks?  Well here’s where you can put your money where your mouth is.  In Clark County, residents who’ve reduced the size of trash containers from 96 gallons to 64 gallons (because they are recycling so much more in the big blue carts) save an average of nearly $200 per year. (Figure calculated by Waste Connections Waste Reduction Specialist.)  Businesses with robust recycling programs are saving money as well by reducing their trash container sizes and, in some cases, are even creating revenue from their recyclable material.  And the recycling and reuse industry is big.  How big?  Roughly the same size as the US auto manufacturing industry!  And talk about job creation, for each 10,000 tons per year of trash, 1 job is created in the waste industry.  However for each 10,000 tons per year recycled material produced these many jobs are created:  Composting – 4, materials recovery – 10, recycling-based manufacturing – 25, plastics – 93, and computer reuse – 296!

 
All of these reasons are substantial in their own to start recycling today and I encourage folks to take it a step further.  Organize with your neighbors to combine trips to the West Van Materials Recovery Center when you need to get rid of Household Hazardous Wastes or other recyclables that they don’t collect curbside.  Offer to take your neighbor’s collection of plastic bags to the store next time you’re planning a trip.  There are so many ways we can create a more sustainable community and recycling is a key element.  I’m doing it for my child’s future, why are you?


Article reprinted with permission from Brian Boothe

Do you create recycled art or fashion?

If you live in the Vancouver/Portland metro area and create recycled or reused fashions, accessories or other goods, here are some opportunities you should know about:

Do you create fun recycled goods,

like this lightbulb bud vase?

-- The Earth Day celebration at the Marshall Center is getting bigger and better with each passing year. There are still a few vendor spots left this year. Email 

-- For Earth Day, The Stream Team of Clark Public Utilities will be holding a fashion show and are looking for fun fashion and accessory items to show off. Email 

-- In June, the theme for First Friday in Camas is Recycled Arts/Go Green. They are looking for vendors. Email  

--Perhaps one of the most well-known (and certainly one of the biggest!) events to show and sell your wares is the annual Recycled Arts Festival put on by Clark County Department of Environmental Services. This event is all full for 2011, but there is a waiting list. 

--In November, Vancouver Green Drinks is going to repeat their wildly successful Check 'Em Off, Green event. We are looking for creators of recycled/reused goods and also for local businesses to be part of our "local experiences" booth Email

Poster Save = Epic WIN!

One of the really great things about the people I work with is their willingness to go the extra mile to make sure usable items stay out of the landfill, it at all possible.

Recently, my "partner in crime" for Green Drinks, Laura, approached me to tell me that she knew of a large stack of science posters that needed saving. Sure, she could have just thrown them in the recycling container and yes, they would have been recycled.... But, of course she wasn't happy with that outcome for such a resource and neither was I.

I talked to my colleague who works with local schools and he quickly found some interest in the posters. Local Science teachers would love to have these posters in their classrooms, we figured.

Round about this same time, sweet serendipity sent Mark to our January meeting of Vancouver Green Drinks. Mark works with science teachers in our region (Like, all of them!) and was so excited to hear about this "waste" item that we were trying to re-home.

Mark and two of his colleagues show off some of the 3,000 science posters
that are destined for science classrooms instead of a landfill

I'm happy to say that through the efforts of The Reuser, Laura, Gregg and Mark, the posters will serve their highest purpose, educating local children in science classrooms around our region, rather than be relegated to the recycling bin. Epic poster save WIN!

Here's what Gregg had to say about this project: "Setting up this Poster Save was a great idea. Thanks for helping make this happen Terra and Laura, and for connecting us with Mark! Through his work as Science Coordinator for ESD 112 Mark is going to distribute these 3,000 science posters to teachers all over Washington and Oregon."