Turn your passion for the environment into action: VOLUNTEER with C3 and our partner organizations!
- Are you inspired by Chicago’s green space and want to help ensure it’s preservation?
- Do you want to clean up your neighborhood, but feel like it is too much to tackle by yourself?
- Do you want to be more involved in environmental action and education but aren’t sure where to begin?
Explore Environmental Service with the Chicago Conservations Corps and our partner organizations. This is your chance to get your feet wet and your hands dirty while working along side Chicago’s environmental leaders.
Ready to get started? Check out this month’s featured events.
Continue reading 'C3 Featured Events: June 2011'»
Disposables
Drinking one paper cup of coffee a day = 7 trees cut down a year. And that’s for just one person.*
Based on Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ Goals and Progress report, in 2009 Starbucks™ sold 1,733.000,000 cupped beverages in the US, Canada and the UK — 98.5% of them in disposable cups.**
Some were paper cups — some were plastic tumblers. “Guesstimating” that 50% of the cupped beverages were in paper cups — that would equal
2,373,972 trees cut down — just so we each could have the “convenience” of throwing away our cup.
To their credit, Starbucks’ goal is to increase the percentage of reusable serverware to 25% by 2015. I hope they reach their goal — or better — surpass it.
But what about the other major chains, convenience stores and thousands of independent coffee shops who may not be as sustainably-minded as Starbucks™. How many millions of trees were cut down , will be cut down for those stores. Or worse — gallons of oil used to make the styrofoam cups.
Coffee can often be an “impulse” buy and I understand the reasoning behind some people not wanting to lug around a coffee mug all day. But what about in the morning when you plan to get a cup of coffee….
Stop, Think. Choose….. Use a re-usable “carry mug” for your morning coffee. It could wind up saving millions of trees….
Reduce. Re-use. Recycle.
* Calculation furnished by Starbucks™ and the Environmental Defense Fund. See http://www.starbucks.com/thebigpicture
** See http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/learn-more/goals-and-progress/recycling
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By: David Weiner
Happy Earth Month 2011! April is sure to bring two handfuls of opportunities to get outside, get your hands dirty and get you on the path to exploring environmental service in Chicago. Use the energy you have been storing all winter and take your first bike ride of the season, participate in a community clean-up event or prepare natural areas for the growing season.
Be sure to welcome the kinglets, flickers and over 26 species of ducks flying into Chicago this month. Be on the lookout for flowering native plants like prairie smoke and blue cohosh, the brightness of daffodils, and the dramatic serviceberry bloom that will bring the month to a close.
Click HERE for Events
The ReBuilding Exchange (Chicago’s first building material reuse center), a project of The Delta Institute, invites you to celebrate another great year and help them warm their new house at 2160 N. Ashland, which opened for business March 1! Through a partnership with The ReUse People of America, the ReBuilding Exchange works with customers to maximize reuse opportunities for material.
The event will feature live music with Black Bear Combo, DJ Naomi Walker, food from Sweet Miss Givings and Cafe 28 and refreshments from Bell’s Brewery, Half Acre, and Candid Wines. There will also be a silent auction with items made from reclaimed materials and other original artwork.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
2160 N. Ashland
6:00 pm – 10:00 pm
Get tickets online now until 3/11. Tickets are $32.50 ($40 at the door).http://www.rebuildingexchange.org/rebuild2011.html
It may seem funny to be talking about holiday lights, especially since it was just Valentine’s Day, but the City of Chicago has recently published the results from the Holiday String Light Recycling program.
From December 13 through January 18, Chicagoans recycled more than 1,550 pounds of holiday string lights. Eleven sites participated, see the full results below.
Chicago Center for Green Technology, 445 N. Sacramento: 37 pounds
Chicago City Hall Lobby , 121 N. LaSalle St.: 122 pounds
City of Chicago Southeast Senior Center, 1767 E. 79th St.: 65 pounds
City of Chicago Southwest Senior Center, 6117 S. Kedize: 155 pounds
Edgebrook Ace Hardware, 5423 W Devon Ave.: 459 pounds
Logan Theater, 2646 N. Milwaukee Ave.: 57 pounds
North Community Bank, 5235 N. Western Ave.: 365 pounds
RecycleTech, 11235 S. Cottage Grove: 40 pounds
South Loop Whole Foods, 1101 S. Canal: 36 pounds
Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce, 1414 N. Ashland: 72 pounds
Wright College Campus Center, 4300 N. Narrgansett: 145 pounds
Did you know that it really does pay to recycle? The pop cans and old pipes laying around the house have value, and turning those items into cash is easy — if you know where to look.
The easiest items to cash in are those made from aluminum, such as beverage cans, foil and tins used for baking. Most buy-back centers in the area accept aluminum and pay an average of $0.50 per pound for it.
However, most places don’t list the prices they pay on their websites; you have to call for quotes. It pays to save up recyclables until you have a large amount to drop off. The more aluminum cans, for example, the more you’ll get for them.
Continue reading 'Cash for Cans'»
It’s that time of the year again where an estimated 100 million people across the country come together on one evening to obsess over food and football. Even if you’re not a fan (or are still upset about the Bears performance last week) it’s quite likely that you’ll be invited to a Super Bowl party on Sunday. I like football as much as the next guy (although these days the guy who sits next to me at work is a Packers fan from Wisconsin so he might have the edge), there’s no question that overindulgence during the Big Game produces a prodigious amount of waste. Some ideas that I’ve been thinking over for a more sustainable Super Bowl: Continue reading 'Even Bears fans can be Green on Sunday'»
Turn your passion for the environment into action: VOLUNTEER with C3 and our partner organizations
- Are you inspired by Chicago’s green space and want to help ensure it’s preservation?
- Do you want to clean up your neighborhood, but feel like it is too much to tackle by yourself?
- Do you want to be more involved in environmental action and education but aren’t sure where to begin?
Explore Environmental Service with the Chicago Conservations Corps. This is your chance to get your feet wet and your hands dirty while working along side Chicago’s environmental leaders.
Ready to get started? Check out this month’s featured events.
How you are sustainable or regenerative has a lot to do with the place you are in. Each local ecology has its own set of circumstances, variables and things that are unique to that place. As I think about my personal environmental footprint and my place, I think about it from near to far. In permaculture, they call it zones. So I define my zones in the following way:
- my family and my home (zone 1)
- my block and neighborhood (zone 2)
- my city and region (food shed and watershed) (zone 3)
- my country (zone 4)
- the planet (zone 5)
I have started focusing on zones 1 and 2 by asking myself, “How do I get it so that as much of the needs that my family and community have are sourced locally?” There are a number of benefits to becoming more local and focused on place. Continue reading 'Place'»
Composting, Conservation, Green Building, Lifestyle, Local Food, Primitive Skills, Recycling and Waste, Renewable Energy, Transportation, Urban Agriculture
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Local, Permaculture, Place
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