GAIA GUILD NEWS FOR JANUARY-----      

           This fragile earth, our island home.........BCP, Eucharist Prayer “C”

TURN OVER A NEW (GREEN) LEAF FOR 2010!

 Please post this page in a handy place to review each month through the new year. 

Think “GREEN” when you make your New Year’s Resolutions this year.  St. Paul’s Gaia Guild suggests choosing one (1) of the following per month, building up to twelve (12) new habits in 2010 to reduce your carbon footprint.

NOTE: Don’t be overwhelmed by these suggestions.  Even ONE positive change in 2010 is a good thing!

1) Been thinking about using less paper and plastic at the grocery store?  Now’s the time to start.  Carry your reusable shopping bags in the car all the time.  And don’t limit your “greenness” to the grocery store.  Carry bags and boxes into all the other places you shop—hardware store and  gardening center, for example.  More stores are establishing setup stands to accommodate odd-sized shopping bags, and check-out clerks are getting used to them. It’s a much friendlier situation than it was a year ago–and about time!

2) Conserve water.  Don’t run the water while brushing your teeth.  Wait until you have full loads before washing dishes or laundry.  Install low-flow shower heads.  Set up rain barrels at gutter downspouts and be amazed at the amount you can store to water thirsty plants.  (Check out www.midwestinternetsales.com/rainbarrels for good prices and good service on sturdy rain barrels made from used olive oil shipping containers, or make your own. ) Turn off automatic watering systems when not needed.

3) Break the bottled water habit forever.  Much energy is wasted in producing and transporting plastic bottles; 2,000,000 plastic bottles are thrown away every 5 minutes in the U.S., and they stay in the landfill forever!  Purchase a reusable water bottle.

 4) Put up a clothesline and give the dryer a rest now and then.  Retractable clotheslines can be attached in the garage, in a porch, or even inside, if you’re hesitant to put up a permanent one outside.

5) Say “no” to styrofoam in all forms.  Carry your coffee cup with you; take a reusable container to restaurants; use newspaper or popcorn for packing material.

6) Think before buying over-packaged items. Look for an alternative—for instance, bulk vegetables and spices, instead of pre-packaged.  And it never hurts to ask the merchant to stock merchandise with less plastic.

7) Practice household composting.  Vegetable scraps, leaves, newspapers, even pine pet litters–they all have uses in the yard for enriching or mulching.

8) Think “less-green” for your lawn.  Beautiful—and almost maintenance-free—lawns can be established with ground covers, mulch, plants, shrubs, and trees. Naturescapes don’t require toxic weedkillers or chemical fertilizers.  Get creative and have fun.  Remember: “Brown is the new green!”  

9) Plan a day a month to leave the car at home and walk, bike, or carpool to work, recreation, or church.  If you can make it a family event, so much the better.

10)Reduce paper waste.  Print on both sides of computer paper.  Don’t make a hard copy if you don’t really need it.  Stop junk mail and unwanted catalogs.  (Write the DMA Mail Preference Service to get off mailing lists at www.the-dma.org.) Call the companies that deliver those excess phonebooks and request to be removed from their lists.    

11) Use up all the household cleaning products in your cabinets and then reduce the clutter permanently. Choose products that come in refillable, recyclable containers.  Write the company if you have a favorite product that doesn’t offer large size refills. Using a spray bottle once, even if it’s recyclable, just doesn’t make sense, when you consider the energy used in manufacturing the bottle.  As an alternative to expensive cleaning products, source the internet for cleaning tips using vinegar and other simple solutions.

12) Ditto to #11 for personal care products. Finish off the multitude of half-used items and choose a few favorites that proclaim “Not tested on animals.”  It’s their world too.

13) Reduce the number of battery-operated products you buy.  Toys don’t have to walk or talk.  Consider rechargeable batteries for necessities.  NEVER toss a battery of any size into the trash. (Coming in January to St. Paul’s parishioners: an indoor recycling station for household batteries and used cell phones, as well as for inkjet cartridges and old eyeglasses.)    

14) This is a tough one, but consider cloth diapers over disposables.   The average American baby goes through 5,000 diapers before being potty-trained.  It’s illegal to dispose of human waste in landfills, yet we’re sending millions of tons of waste there every year in disposable diapers.

15) Buy your food from local producers whenever possible, or grow some of your own.  The average item of food you purchase at the store has traveled 1500 miles to get to your table!

16) Buy less. When the urge to purchase something just-for-the-heck-of-it hits, take a walk, go to the library or to the park. Although fix-it shops for small items are disappearing, most large appliances can be repaired by professionals.  Or try ordering replacement parts for items and fixing it yourself.  What’s to lose? 

17) Reduce the amount of stuff you have to keep finding more storage places for.  Use Freecycle, Craigslist, SwapTree, or that old reliable, eBay.

18) Lower the heat all around.  Go easy by lowering the thermostat one (1) more degree each winter.  Use cold water for most laundry.  (If you don’t believe it cleans as well, do a comparison test with hot water.  You’ll see.) Some people are even able to take cold showers, but why compete with the polar bears?  But cutting down on the time in the shower lowers waste.

19) If you live, work, play, or worship at a place that doesn’t recycle, begin a volunteer recycling program.  Instead of waiting for somebody else to do it, just do it.  St. Paul’s has a model volunteer program, and you can get help here in starting your own.  

20)And at home, RECYCLE, RECYCLE, RECYCLE!  As an ideal, strive to reduce your waste and increase your recycling so that you have less in your trash bin weekly than you have in your recycling bin. Fayetteville has an excellent residential curbside recycling program, but only 56% of residents avail themselves of it. 

The mission of St. Paul’s Gaia Guild is to recognize the sanctity of all creation, advocate the restoration and protection of our natural resources, contribute by our own actions to the health of the planet, and, in all things,  honor God’s presence on this fragile earth, our island home.

Questions or comments welcome: kduval@uark.edu or 443-0635