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Green Wrapping
Smart Holiday Wrapping and Gift Tags by Susan Tatsui-D’Arcy Smart Wrapping Paper:Did you know that wrapping paper is a $2.6 billion dollar industry? With Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa around the corner, millions of pounds of paper will be used to wrap gifts just once and then be piled up in trash cans that line every street around the world. Wasteful! I didn’t realize how much this bothered me until I had a dream about it. When I woke up, I knew exactly what I needed to do. This was kind of like my Eco-Xmas tree dream. So here’s what I did:I drove over to Fabrics R Us (a fabric shop) in San Jose to buy…
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Green Living Earth Day
It’s Time to Set Your Earth Day Resolutions! by ethos Santa Cruz Earth Day is the perfect time to set your earth-loving resolutions for the year! It’s like New Years Day for citizens of the earth when we set our actionable goals and envision sustainable steps forward in our climate-conscious lives. So, it’s Earth Day, and you’re wondering how to use your powers for the good of Mama Earth, not just today but every day of the year. Consider this your call to action to get your hands dirty in protecting the environment. Earth Day is the perfect time to set your earth-loving resolutions for the year! It’s like New…
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Holidays Without Plastic
Holidays Without Plastic By Lisa Catterall If the year 2020 has taught me one thing, it’s to be less judgmental. We’ve all been through loss and fear and seen our friends and family handle it in so many different ways. It’s a year to grow and a year to try new things. My family is enjoying using the extra time at home to start our preparations for the holidays early. I love the traditions of the season. I am from Minnesota and we always hunkered down in the freezing weather and made a very busy Christmas. My grandmother had lived through the Great Depression and it meant so much to…
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Avoiding Plastic Bags: Green Tip February 2020
Avoiding Plastic Bags Green Tip February 2020 By Meredith Keet Americans throw away 100 billion plastic bags annually. That’s 307 bags per person per year! Recycling for these bags was estimated to be around a measly 1%. With plastic bag bans becoming more prevalent, you may be finding it easier to avoid them, but for most of us there may be places where we are finding them hard to avoid. Here are a few suggestions that may help you skip the bag then next time around: Trash Bags: Composting is key! Once you eliminate all that yucky food waste from your trash you’re left with very little (if anything) that…
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One Tree at a Time: Green Family Living February 2020
One Tree at a Time Kids Who Plant Together Save the Planet Together Green Family Living: February 2020 By John Louis Koenig It was more than just a day in the park on a Wednesday for hard working kids from Santa Cruz Waldorf School, as 5th graders helped to plant 25 trees, oaks and maples, as part of Waldorf’s goal of planting 100 trees this school year. “The kids had a blast,” said Leslie Keedy, said City of Santa Cruz Urban Forester and supervisor of the day’s tree planting at University Terrace Park near UCSC. Keedy has been demonstrating to young and old how to plant trees as volunteers help…
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Make 2020 a Year of Less Waste: Green Living January 2020
Make 2020 a Year of Less Waste Green Living: January 2020 By Meredith Keet Happy New Year! Who has resolved to use less plastic and generate less waste in 2020??!! We have! Here are some tips to start you off on your way towards changing your impact on the planet this year: 1) Eat less meat and dairy, even if just a little. This may be one of the most impactful things you can do. 2) Skip the air travel and adventure locally. 3) Try a waste challenge: choose a time period to collect your trash and then evaluate what trash you’ve created. How could you produce less the next…
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Calling All Ideas: Green Living January 2020
Calling All Ideas Waste-Free 2020 Green Living: January 2020 By Lisa Catterall Periodically our faculty comes together to review our school’s mission statement and our three pillars of Academic Excellence, Positive Character Development, and Creative Self Expression. Often during our discussions, the idea of “environmental stewardship” as a fourth pillar arises. Whether it is a pillar of our school, a curriculum program crossing all ages, or a shared value infused throughout the community, it is something we strive to model for our students and children. While reducing plastic waste is a very common goal in our homes and at our school, many of us deeply value the ability to bring…
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Green Family Living: October 2019
Green Family Living October 2019 By Linnaea Avenell An important facet of green living is changing our mindset, not just for us as adults, but for our children starting out in the world. That is, teaching children to respect our natural world and to want to take action to preserve it. At my farm camp, Little Garden Patch, we approach green living from many fronts: boosting imagination and creative thinking, learning social skills to help them work better with others, Linnaea Avenelli’s Garden Patch program gets kids away from their digital toys and into sharing the joys of nature. She suggests parents get their kids into some gardening to help…
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Put an End to Wish-Cycling: Green Tips September 2019
Put an End to Wish-Cycling Green Tips: September 2019 By Meredith Keet of The Zero Shop Wish-cycling is a term used to describe the action of tossing those questionably recyclable items into the blue recycling bin in hope that they can be recycled. We’ve all had that moment when you’re holding some plastic object, maybe a child’s broken plastic toy or the twisty thing that seals the lid on your milk jug, and you wonder if it’s recyclable. You’re not sure, so you throw it into the recycling bin anyways and “wish” for it to be recycled. With a 9.1% recycling rate in 2015 that is expected to be dropping precipitously…
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Is it Trash or Treasure? City of Santa Cruz Offers Free Tours of Recycling Center
Is it Trash or Treasure? City of Santa Cruz Offers Free Tours of Recycling Center By Karen Kefauver Did you know Santa Cruzans place 30 to 50 tons of material in their blue recycle bins every day? It’s a staggering amount. I strive to recycle as much as possible to help our beautiful city and to reduce my impact on the planet. However, after 25 years living in Santa Cruz and being a devoted recycling nut, I had grown complacent, thinking I pretty much knew it all. Recently, I learned from a local expert that I can do a better job at recycling. Last month, I fulfilled a long-held goal…
