Some of the environmental issues that arise from paper production and disposal include the pollution of air and water, high energy use, large landfill requirements and deforestation. To keep the impact on the environment to a minimum we need to change the ways in which we view paper products and begin to reuse and recycle these produces more in an environmentally safe manner. Some of these ways include the use of reusable grocery bags, buying products made from recycled paper, and using cloth towels and napkins instead of paper versions.

In order to have a smaller environmental impact with paper products, we need to begin by reducing our use of them (obviously!) and reusing products whenever possible. Instead of reaching for the roll of paper towels to clean up a spill, why not use a dish towel? Or, instead of using a fresh piece of paper to write your grocery list, start using the back of a receipt or the back of and envelope that a piece of mail comes in. These all seem like minor things, but the impact of doing them all, or the impact that could be effected if we all did one of them, can be pretty profound.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, paper made up the largest share of municipal solid waste in 2006 at 34%. While about half of paper waste is recovered for recycling or compost, the other half ends up in landfills, where it does not readily decompose. Recycling alone is also not a cure-all; the recycling process as well as production from virgin pulp uses water, energy and chemicals. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), paper mills use 40% less energy to produce paper from recycled material than from fresh lumber, but may use more fossil fuels for recycled paper than for that made from virgin fiber. According to the EIA, recycling also uses fewer chemicals than ordinary paper production, and naturally does not pose the same threat to forests. While recycling paper that we can no longer reuse and purchasing recycled paper products can lighten our ecological footprint, reducing and reusing should not be forgotten. Investing in durable reusable bags can help us remember to avoid paper bags when shopping.

Have you thought about the chemicals that are used in paper products that have been bleached and their impact on the environment? Bleached paper items are done with Chlorine, which can cause dioxin, a highly toxic chemical that can cause cancer and birth defects in humans. Paper mills release these chemicals along with other pollutants, such as sulphur oxides and carbon monoxide into our waterways through effluent polluting, contaminating our water and the organisms that live in these waterways, possibly poisoning humans. Paper mills are the largest industrial polluters in North America. By using reusable grocery bags over paper or plastic bags, we will be helping to minimize the impact on the environment that is created through the paper production process.

Finally, we can’t forget about the fact that making fresh paper requires the harvesting of millions of acres of forest (trees) every year. Deforestation causes a number of problems. It destroys animal habitats, putting species at risk for extinction. It reduces the amount of carbon dioxide that can be turned in to oxygen which increases the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This in turn can contribute to global warming. Finally, actually cutting down the tress, shipping them to mills, and so on consumes a large amount of fossil fuels and generates an unnecessary amount of pollution. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, over one third of the wood harvested in the United States is solely for the production of paper products. Again, we can lessen these impacts by recycling paper products, using recycled products, and beginning to use less paper products in general.

Eco-friendly Christmas Tree Ideas

If you’re looking for a way to stay green this holiday season – and save some green as well – you can get creative with your family and make your own Christmas tree decorations. Plus, you’ll spend less time standing in line at the retail stores and your tree will look unbelievable.

If you enjoy making handmade art or have smaller children who do, you’ll get a kick out of crafting your own sparkle and cheer to add to your tree with these eco-friendly ideas.

1.Snowflake Garland
Rather than breaking out the ratty old garland again this year, try making your own! Simply gather any scrap paper or mail you have laying about and take to it with a pair of scissors. Cut out strips or snowflake-shaped pieces and pile them onto a long string. You can use yarn or fishing wire – as long as you can thread the paper easily. Once you’re ready to take down the tree you can just recycle your garland.

Bring the Outdoors Indoors
The best inspiration for the holidays comes from nature! If you live in an area that has plenty of trees and shrubs, you can use these to decorate the tree in your living room. Clip some holly sprigs and wrap them with string to hang in clusters, or prune some natural evergreen boughs and use those to decorate your tree skirt. The natural smells will make your tree that much more lively.

Sew It Up
Put your needle and thread to use in a fun way, this season! You can use up-cycled scraps of fabric to make unique tree decorations. Trace a design – Santa, a snowman, an angel, or a wreath – onto two layers of fabric, sew them together and cut off the excess fabric. Sew on beads or sequins to make your design sparkle against the Christmas lights.

Foodies Decorate Too
If you’ve got left over popcorn from the Christmas tin you got last year, or extra bags in the back of your cabinet, Christmas time is the best time to use leftover popcorn. Pop the kernels and string them on a long piece of thread or fishing wire. Add cranberries or any other dried fruit (that you can get a needle through) and you’ve got a festive – and fragrant – strand of garland to wrap around the tree. And when Christmas is over, you can toss the garland out for the hungry woodland creatures.

Re-purposed Decorations
It seems every year we collect more and more decorations, especially ornaments. Why not use the material you already have from some of your old decorations and re-purpose them into new ornaments? Grab some garland from here, some ribbon from there and make your own Christmas designs. You’ll feel like an interior designer with the creations you can make without going to the fabric store.

These ideas are a great start to getting you acquainted with eco-friendly decorating. Christmas is a great time of year to try something a little new and maybe shake up tradition a bit. Who knows, maybe you’ll start your own traditions. Just remember to have fun with your decorating and spread some Christmas cheer this year.

I thought I had heard it all, but a national day for DIRT? Comeon! You gotta be kiddin me, right? No? It’s for real? Well, all I can say is, look out for whatever is next! Maybe Air Day? Like Air Ball? :-D

OH!  NOW I GET IT!

Not “earth” as in “plowing the earth”, but “Earth” as in “I come from Planet Earth!” OK – makes a small difference, right?

Well, I suppose I got all the rabid greens really going now, huh? Sorry ’bout that. Didn’t mean to stir up THAT bunch – they can be a real pain, if you know what I mean.

But seriously, a National Day for the Earth? I guess I’m like the women who say “why a national Women’s Day – EVERY day should be women’s day.” I agree with that, and I have the same opinion when it comes to National Earth Day. I truely believe that every day should be “Earth Day” as well – all 365 or 366 of them every year.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you won’t be surprised when you hear that I started looking in the Internet about what else there is to know about Earth Day. I guess the only thing that surprised me (no, I don’t remember it that clearly, I was working in southern Africa at the time, and communications were not then what they are now) was the (rough) connection to the first anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death – now 41 years ago. Being something of a cynic, I might say that the activist greens then attempted (apparently successfully) to take over the public opinon wave of the equal-rights movement and join the two movements into one. That seems to have worked to a certain extent, but I don’t really believe that the black population joined the Earth Day movement strongly as a result. (Here comes the real cynic… ) I suspect that the greens used the situation to recruit the non-blacks in the equal-rights movement into the green movement – where they might feel socially more comfortable?

I expect I’ll get some excited mail about this, and I’m not saying that what I’m presupposing above is true or not – I really don’t know. For the record, I’m sympathetic to both causes; I was a demonstator for equal rights in the early 1960′s when I was in University (yes, I’m that old). And my skin in not black. I’m also a non-rabid supporter of environmental protection in various forms. But my skin is not green, either. Does that make a difference to you? It doesn’t to me.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that there is such a thing as the “EarthDayNetwork” – but they seem to have almost taken on my theory, their website’s by-line is “every day for everybody” – close, but no prize from me. They even have a religious outreach section. Hmmm. Then, my curiosity got the better of me, and I Googled (oops – no advertising intended) “every day is earth day” and the first consistent result I got was a children’s book called the same thing. Then a post from NASA from the ISS – that makes sense somehow, doesn’t it. And then a miscellaneous collection of things – a garbage museum in Delaware, Portland farmers market (Oregon, not Maine as it turns out), lesson planning from PBS, another from an institute for stress management, etc. Nothing really “hard core” there. Maybe a niche market for an Internet entrepreneur? Or the name of our next ring website? Could be! Hmm – everydayisearthday.com is apparently registered by GoDaddy – my absolute favorite domain registrar – but is not active. everydayisearthday.net is an mlm representative’s home page, ditto.org is a very simple environmentalist’s webpage, ditto.biz is empty, and dot-info redirects to dot-net. 3 out of 5 is not a great record. On the other hand, we have the only two domains practical-greenology.com and practicalgreenology.com – everything else there is available! Hmmm, I’m rambling.

Anyway, I want to wish the organisers of Earth Day success, and that for every day of the year, not just the 22nd of April.

Ciao for now,

Craig
for
Sue & Craig Websites

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