Smell Like Dirt
In Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Margaret AtwoodArchive for December, 2007
Repurposing your Christmas Tree
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!! The Three R’s of Green Living–and you can practice all three with one simple step. Instead of putting your live Christmas Tree onto the curb for the county to pick up, consider using it to start a brush pile in your backyard. Brush piles are a great way to provide food and shelter for the wildlife that visit your yard. The decomposing wood will attract beetles and other bugs which will in turn feed birds and other wildlife. The shelter from the elements and protection from predators will benefit all types of birds and other animals this winter and will turn into a “places to raise young” in the spring. It will be its on little ecosystem!
Bye Bye Birdie
We’ve all heard about the declining population of songbirds around the world, but here’s a great video by the CBC that does a wonderful job of explaining the impact of suburban sprawl, industrial farming and logging/clear cutting on our bird population. If you’re on this site, your probably already concerned about environmental issues, but I hope this video will inspire you to take your concern to the next level. Wildlife needs more advocates! If not you, then who?
The Tree Controversy
I’ve decided to wade into the controversy of real vs fake trees. Being a diehard “real” tree consumer, I was a little afraid of what I was going to discover when I started my research on which kind of Christmas tree is more eco-friendly. Was I ready to give up the tradition of a real tree if I found out that a fake (or “life-like” as one friend calls his plastic tree) tree was better for the environment? Well, the answer is…..it depends on who you ask. Like a lot of issues regarding the environment, there seems to be differing opinions. One camp says that cutting down a tree to stick in your house for a couple of weeks is crazy. Why, that tree was producing oxygen! Why would anyone cut down a perfectly healthy tree? Of course, the tree would not have been planted at all if it weren’t for customer demand. Another group says that fake trees are plastic, which is a petroleum based product so you are supporting the big oil companies by buying a petroleum based product. And then there’s all the other chemicals that are in the tree and used in the process of making the tree. Then there’s the “China Syndrome”….most of the fake trees are made in China so who knows what’s really in them! Back to real trees. Not only are you cutting down an oxygen producer, but you also have the transportation costs of getting it to you. But, fake trees ride around in trucks too, but overall the carbon footprint of a fake tree is bigger than the footprint of a real tree. Then there’s disposal. Fake trees can be used many years before they are disposed of, which is a good argument for the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra. BUT, when they do end up in the landfill, it will take thousands of years to break down (if ever). My real tree, on the other hand, will end up on the brushpile in my backyard to provide cover for wildlife and food for bugs until it turns into compost and replenishes the soil. But next year, I will have to buy another tree. So the answer is, I have NO idea which is better. Another option is buying a live potted tree, enjoying it indoors until after the holidays and then planting it outside. Which sounds GREAT in theory, but the trees won’t live everywhere in the country, and with the drought in the Southeast right now, planting anything is not a good idea because you will need to keep it watered to give it a fighting chance of survival.So, this controversy is not going to be solved here at Smell Like Dirt. I would be interested in hearing how you feel about it and what you will be decorating in your home this year……Real or Fake?
Rethink Your Wrapping Paper
In an effort to encourage everyone to have a really GREEN Holiday season, here’s our second installment of eco-friendly holiday ideas. When the shopping is done and the wrapping starts, consider abandoning traditional wrapping paper for more environmentally-minded ideas. Save the Sunday comics section and wrap your presents with the colorful paper. Or cut up the brown bags you get from the grocery store and once the presents are wrapped, ask the kids to draw holiday-themed pictures on them. If you have a large present, don’t waste a lot of paper to cover it up, use one of your holiday tablecloths to wrap it! And if you feel you just have to buy paper, consider buying recycled wrapping paper.No matter what you use, when the presents are opened, collect all the paper and fold it up, put it in a brown grocery bag with your newspapers and put it at the curb on recycle pick up day. Who knows, you might even be using the same paper next year!
An Environmentally Friendly Holiday!
The holidays are here! Everywhere you look, decorations are going up and people are out shopping looking for those perfect gift ideas. During the next few weeks, we will explore the many ways you can make your holiday a bit more environmentally friendly, and our first tip is LED lights. You may have read that the tree at Rockefeller Center in New York is being lit with LED lights this year. They estimate that this will cut the energy used by 2/3s. LED’s (light emitting diodes) use 90% less electricity than conventional strings of lights and if everyone replaced their holiday lights with LED lights, an estimated two billion kilowatt hours would be saved in a month. That’s enough to power 200,000 homes for an entire year! LED’s are readily available this year almost anywhere you can buy Christmas decorations. Even if you don’t want to replace all of your lights this year, consider buying a few strings to replace what you are currently using and plan on adding more strings each year. You’ll be saving carbon emissions and money on your electric bill.Stay tuned for more eco-friendly holiday ideas, and Go Green this holiday season!
Smell Like Dirt 