November 15 is America Recycles Day

While we should ALL recycle each and every day, this Sunday, November 15th is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle AND buy recycled products.

I’m sure you have heard of the term REDUCE-REUSE-RECYCLE. But in the hustle and bustle of your life, have you thought HARD about what those words REALLY mean? To explain this concept, I’ll use paper – a commonly recycled product – as an example.

Reduce – this means reduce the amount you consume. For example, if you email your weekly staff meeting agenda, do you REALLY need to print out 10 extra copies for staffers who MAY have forgotten to print out their own version? Ask them to bring their own copy because there WON’T be extras, or better yet, have them load the agenda to their laptop and bring THAT to the meeting.

Reuse – if you printed out those agendas and there are extras with a blank side and no critical information on the printed side, reuse them by putting them back in your printer. Here at lori hill event productions, we can safely say that we try to minimize the use of our printer, but when we do print, close to 99% of the paper we print out is for office use only. Accordingly, we only place re-used paper in our printer. IF we need to print out on clean, unused paper, we only use 100% recycled paper.

Recycle – so you reduced the number of agendas you printed out and reused the extras by placing them in your printer. The final step is to take any paper that can’t be re-used and recycle it! Never EVER put anything in the trash (which goes to the landfill) if it can be recycled into something else. The landfill should ALWAYS be your last option. Unfortunately, it is the first option for too many. If there isn’t a paper recycling program in your office building, START ONE!

To find out more about American Recycles Day, click HERE to visit the site which includes lots of helpful information including recycling 101.

Have an object that you don’t know how to recycle? Visit one of my favorite web sites: Earth911.com. Just enter the item you are looking to recycle and the zip code of where you live or work and it will tell you where you can recycle. I will admit that sometimes I have not gotten any results for odd items (those evil petroleum-based candles), but just the other day, I directed my sister in Pennsylvania to a laundry list of places where she could recycle an old iron.

Remember, before you EVER throw ANYTHING into the landfill, always try to recycle it. The generations that come after us will be grateful.

Thank You Governor O’Malley

On Wednesday night, I attended a Climate Victory Celebration hosted by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN). lori hill event productions was honored to serve on the host committee. Since we strive to make all our events sustainable (and any events we partner in producing), we provided eco friendly name badges (which we of course collected at the end to reuse again!) and asked our friends at Geppetto Catering to donate corn-based cups, napkins made of recycled content and plates made of bamboo. The bamboo plates were a huge hit! I was surprised that many of the guests in this room full of environmentalists had not yet seen this product which has been on the market for years.

The caterer at the venue offered plastic cups and plates that would be recycled, but we couldn’t stand the thought of CCAN using plastic -- even if it would be recycled. We just need to get away from plastic PERIOD, but that is a topic for another blog.

The purpose of the event was to honor climate heroes who helped Maryland pass the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Act--the strongest climate action protection bill ever adopted by a U.S. state. Go Maryland! Governor O’Malley was one of those heroes. His speech was incredibly moving. You can tell he really cares about our future and protecting not only our shores – but our entire environment -- so that his kids and their kids and the generations that come after us have a beautiful planet that they can live on and enjoy. He even read some incredibly thoughtful and beautiful poetry. After he spoke, he stepped down into the audience and since I was standing by the stage, he came over, shook my hand, and said sincerely, “I really loved giving those remarks!” and I replied, “We really loved HEARING you give those remarks!”

We needed to pass this bill. Climate change is making Maryland one of the top 3 states (next to Louisiana and Florida) at risk of coastal flooding (basically, it’s going to happen). We MUST do something NOW and we have, but we still have a lot of changes to make. We need to change the way we conduct our business and our personal lives to cut down on green house gases which cause climate change that leads to flooding.

Read more about the others who were honored that night.

The End of Suburbia

I just had the opportunity to see a movie that came out in 2004 called The End of Suburbia. It is a very educational -- and disturbing – movie about what will happen now that we have reached peak oil. It discusses how oil’s limited availability will affect our lives – how we work, where we live, how we eat, etc. You’ll realize after watching this that quite frankly EVERYTHING revolves around oil.

It is 78 minutes long and you can watch it online or purchase it to watch with your greenie friends (and to educate your brown friends so they turn green!). I beg of you – please check it out!