Happy Birthday Green is the New Pink

Today Green is the New Pink Turns 1 year old. YAY!!!

Our first tip was about the environmental evils of plastic grocery store bags.


It take about 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose. Plastics don't biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking down into tiny toxic pieces that contaminate soil and water or harm wildlife.(Baggubag.com)




Since we are all now one year wiser and more eco-conscious we want to suggest you pledge to bring your own reusable bags to the store from now on. The average person uses 300-700 plastic bags per year! Bring your own reusable bags when you shop for groceries, drug store sundries, clothes or ANYTHING!

The Green/Pink Best of Reusable Bags

Most Affordable
Ikea DIMA bag costs $1.50 and we LOVE the chic black and white stripes (courtesy of Mary)

Best to Bag Tuck in Your Purse/Pocket
Baggu bags are incredibly strong (hold up to 25lbs) made of nylon (weigh 2oz) and fold up into a tiny 5" by 5" flat pouch. They come in hot colors and are very reasonably priced at $8.00 each!



Best Socially Conscious Bag
The Feed Bag
1 bag feeds an impoverished child at school for a year through United Nations World Food Programme.
This is the perfect gift for those who have everything.



Now it's your turn....
What have you learned this year from reading this blog?
What environmental actions has Green/Pink inspired or informed you to incorporate into your life?
What issues/products do you want to know more about?

We want to hear from you dear reader. You can post your responses in the comment section or email us at jessicaandlydia@gmail.com. Make sure you let us know what you want to learn more about this year. Any green questions we can answer or demystify for you? Let us know.

Changes we made this year:

Lydia 2007

• bought a Prius (best decision I ever made, 45-50 miles per gallon!)
• changed 50% of my household light bulbs to CFL's
• NEVER take plastic or paper bags from stores, I always bring my own canvas bags
• Started a recycling in my house and at work
• try to walk to places within a mile of my house
• switched to green power with my energy company
• bought a reusable water bottle
• shop more frequently at the farmer's market
• buy local and organic products whenever possible
• order local wines, cheeses, beer even prosciutto etc. whenever possible in restaurants
• save and reuse wrapping paper and ribbon
• send e-cards for birthdays (i love someecards.com) instead of mailing them
• use cloth napkins at home 80% of the time
• buy eco friendly laundry detergent
• buy and order sustainable fish
• registered to get off the junk mail lists
• switched to paperless bills and banking
• unplug household electronics

Lyd's eco-goals for 2008

• switch my household to all green cleaning supplies
• finish changing to all CFL light bulbs in the house
• consistently use green dry cleaning
• walk more
• bike to places instead of drive

Jessica

• Started using canvas bags for grocery and other shopping (never had done this before our first post last year!! It was my first big change!)
• Started eating less meat, especially red meat
  
• Changed 50% of household bulbs to CFL
• Gave all gifts this year in recycled gift wrap
• Switched to green cleaning supplies
• Switched to green detergent
• Switched to post-consumer paper towels, tissue paper and toilet paper
• Switched to green energy with the electric company
• Upped the recycling in my own home
• More conscious about buying organic and local produce
• Stopped being super reliant on the AC and heat--started relying more on fans and clothing choices to keep me at my ideal temp
• Registered to keep off junk mail lists
• Unplug cell phone charger and other appliances when not in use
  
• Changed the power settings on my laptop to be more energy efficient
• Discovered the joys of the L.A. Subway system!! (Really, it's very cool.)
  
• Started the long process of unlearning my horrible habit of leaving lights on in rooms that I am not in!! I am sooo much better now!!

Jessica's Eco Goals for Next Year

• Switch to online bill-pay (even though everyone says this is easy, it is very intimidating and scary to me!)
• Be more vigilant about tire pressure and other ways to optimize my fuel efficiency
• Be more consistent about using Terra Pass when I travel
• Get more involved in the political aspect of environmentalism

But enough about us....we want to hear from you. Go on...leave a comment, drop us an email and take a few minutes today to reflect on all the changes YOU have made both big and small this year!

I Left my Heart in San Francisco

Yeah, we all loved that scene in American Beauty at the very beginning where the lone plastic grocery bag drifted through the street. In theory. Because it was a movie. In real life, we don’t like plastic bags flying around our streets, our beaches, our landfills. We don’t like those plastic grocery bags at all. (It’s kind of like how we all love that scene where John Cusack holds up the stereo in Say Anything, but if a guy did that in real life we would probably think he was an annoying, scary stalker).

So, this week we’re giving props to San Francisco, the bastion city of eco-progression, who has outlawed the old, decidedly eco-unfriendly and flimsy plastic bags from all grocery stores, drug stores and major retailers. Joining the ranks of South Africa, Taiwan, Paris and Bangladesh, San Francisco shoppers will now have a choice of canvas (BYO), recyclable paper or biodegradable plastic.

County Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi says San Fran was producing almost 200 million of these little bags per year and is hoping their ordinance has a domino effect, rippling through the rest of California (who uses more than 19 bullion bags per year, creating 147,000 tons of waste) and elsewhere. Check out the whole L.A. Times article.

So….good for San Fran, and back to you, dear reader. We’ve talked about this before, and felt we were due for a little refresher. Let us put this bluntly—neither paper, plastic or biodegradable plastic are GOOD for the environment. Paper takes lots of energy and trees to produce. Plastic uses bad toxic chemicals and the bags kill animals who think that it’s food. Biodegradable plastic is BETTER, but still creates waste. What’s a shopper to do?

• Canvas Bag it. By far, the best solution because it creates no waste and can be reused again and again. There’s so many cute ones out there now, too.

• Re-Use your paper bags. If you’re buying cartfuls of groceries each week and canvas bags just aren’t feasible, use our old advice. Get paper bags, unload your groceries, put the bags back in your trunk (this is the key part, otherwise you will forget!) and then re-use them the next time you are at the grocery store.

• Re-use your biodegradable plastic bags (if your grocery store has them). Biodegradable plastic bags are not only better for the environment, but are a LOT stronger than the regular plastic that breaks when you put more than one apple in it. So, since paper bags kill lots of trees, if you have biodegradable plastic as an option, then go for it and make sure to reuse.

Besides the "I'm doing my part" warm fuzzies, and the approving looks you’ll get from everyone in line for being such a good recycler, certain markets such as Trader Joe’s give even more incentives to reuse and recycle—like entering you in raffles to get $50 market gift cards or taking a little off your final bill.

What else can you do? Try to get this plastic bag ban over to your city…it’s pretty easy to contact your city officials. Just type in “mayor” and the name of your city into Google. They all have “Contact me” buttons where you can write your suggestion: In light of the new law in San Francisco that bans all non-biodegradable plastic bags from supermarkets, I would like to propose a similar law in _____ (your town), to reduce waste and be at the forefront of green cities in the world.

If you live in L.A., we did the legwork for you:

• To contact Antonio Villaraigosa, go to: http://www.lacity.org/mayor/mayhow1.htm

• To write a letter to the Los Angeles Environmental Affair department, simply email: eadinfo@mailbox.lacity.org

We can all take a cue form the beautiful city by the Bay and move away from our plastic grocery bags. Just think of the next Alan Ball film with a canvas bag floating down the street. Now that is beautiful.