Green Goat

Lawn & Garden Care

So far Green Goat clients prevented more than 190,000 pounds of the greenhouse gas CO2 & 90,000 pounds of other pollutants from being released into the atmosphere.

protecting people, pets, plants & the planet

Green Goat Lawn Care Incorporated
Somerville, MA 02145
ph: 617.718.GOAT
info@GreenGoatLawnCare.com

Go Green

install Rain Barrels

to water your lawn & Garden

Go Green: Eco-Voyagers Take on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

—Text by Ryan Bradley; Illustration: by Matthew Hollister

National Geographic Adventure December-January 2010

And the award for green cause of the year goes to . . . the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. After decades of anonymity, the floating trash pile located midway between California and Hawaii had a breakout 2009—luring news crews, a trio aboard a raft made of junk, a zero-impact rower, and some hipsters from Vice magazine. Oh, and it was featured on Oprah. But most of the coverage (even you, Oprah) failed to ask one rather important question: Now that we know it’s out there, what do we do about it?

“It’s an impossible cleanup job,” says Captain Charles Moore, who first sailed through the Patch in 1997 after a yacht race to Hawaii and has studied the site since. The Patch’s 3.5 million tons of trash and tiny plastic particles extend a hundred feet below the surface. Any cleanup, Moore says, would harm plankton and other small marine life—that is, if we use current disposal methods.

This past summer, a team aboard the schooner Kaisei experimented with ways to capture, clean, and recycle the plastic bits into diesel fuel, with limited success. Another proposal would utilize a giant floating artificial beach to scoop up and filter the junk. But an immediate solution seems unlikely. “Look, I’m all for cleanup,” says David de Rothschild, an NG Emerging Explorer who plans to sail to the Garbage Patch in the Plastiki, a ship made of plastic bottles. “But 70 percent of all marine plastics are at the bottom of the ocean, and we dump eight million tons more into the sea each year. It’s pushing water uphill to try to clean up this mess.” The best way to eliminate oceanic garbage, de Rothschild argues, is to keep it on land: “The Plastiki is about turning something we’re told is a throwaway into a valuable commodity. If people change the way they see plastic, they may stop tossing the stuff.”

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Simple Ways to Go Green

Recycle

Participate in the weekly curbside recycling program that your city offers to recycle glass, plastic, aluminum, paper and yard debris.

One person's trash is another's treasure: When you want to dispose of an old item such as furniture or electronics don’t make the dump your first stop. Craigslist has a section for free stuff. Other alternatives are:freecycle.org and earth911.org.

Switch to CFL Lights
Consider using compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). They cost a bit more than regular bulbs, but you'll lower your electric bill and pay less in the long run — CFLs last up to 10 times longer than traditional bulbs and use considerably less energy If you want to go a step further, install dimmer switches and use timers, indoors and out.

Choose Energy Efficient Appliances
Look for the Energy Star label, awarded to fridges, washers, and other products that exceed government efficiency standards by using less water or electricity.

Get Off Junk Mail Lists
Call the companies that you don’t wish to send you catalogs or junk mail and asked to be removed from their mailing list. If you don’t have the time to call, write Return To Sender, Remove from Mailing List on the mail and drop it in a mailbox. The mail will be returned to the sender, and you should be removed from the mailing list. You can also register with the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service (dmaconsumers.org) and you'll see a significant reduction in unwanted mail after three months.

Support Local Farms
At eatwellguide.org, you can plug in your zip code and find suppliers of organic and sustainably produced meat, poultry, eggs and more. If you buy locally, you won't have to rely on farms that ship food nationwide, which helps to decrease our dependence on oil and to cut back on gas emissions.

Tote your Own Grocery Bags
Paper or plastic? Neither! At most supermarkets you can purchase your own sack that can be used every time you shop.

Buy Organics
Switch to organic for at least one product that you buy every week.

Compost
The Environmental Benefits of home composting

You will be amazed at how much space you will now have in your bin. Up to 30% of household trash is usually kitchen waste. There are also many further benefits for the environment:

Reduction in generation of climate changing gases such as methane, produced when organic matter does not break down naturally in a landfill site.

Reduction in generation of leachate liquid - This can pollute our water courses when washed out from landfill sites.

Reduction in use of peat-based compost will protect rich and diverse wildlife habitats from destruction.

Reduced need for chemicals and artificial fertilizers will protect your soil, water and wildlife.
Increasing life span of existing landfill sites,therefore reducing the need for more.

E Cycling

Where Old Gadgets Go To Breathe New Life

Some Web Sites Offer Cash for Your Items, Might Also Recycle

By KATHERINE BOEHRET, August 13, 2008 WSJ

Some sites, like Gazelle.com and VenJuvo.com, offer cash for your items and/or will recycle products. Another site, TechForward.com, lets people pay a fee to "lock in" a value for how much the site promises to pay for the product in the future. MyBoneYard.com accepts only laptops, desktop PCs, cellphones and flat-panel monitors, and gives Visa gift cards rather than cash.

Unlike Gazelle, VenJuvo will always take items for recycling and will pay for the shipping, regardless of whether you traded something in for a value.

A useful resource for general electronics recycling is the Consumer Electronics Association Web site, www.MyGreenElectronics.org, which locates nearby electronics-recycling centers according to ZIP Code. And almost every computer manufacturer has a recycling program in place; some will even recycle computers that aren't their own brand.

Read Full Article

Earth 911 - A nonprofit organization with detailed listings of reuse and recycling centers specializing in computers and electronics. By entering your ZIP code on the site you can find your nearest electronics recycling event/location.

EPA eCycling - EPA is working to educate consumers and others on why it is important to reuse and recycle electronics and what the options are for safe reuse and recycling of these products. State and local governments, manufacturers, and retailers, who are already aware of the pressing need to better manage these materials, are providing more opportunities to recycle and reuse this equipment.

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