Today, March 22, 2011 is World Water Day:

The objective of World Water Day 2011 is to focus international attention on the impact of rapid urban population growth, industrialization and uncertainties caused by climate change, conflicts and natural disasters on urban water systems. – from un-water

Not too many moons ago, my family was in a position of knowing what is like to go without water. No need to hash out family feuds, but the end result left us with no water source while we scrambled to come up with funds to drill a well on our land. I’ve lived through hauling 5 gallon buckets of water borrowed from neighbors, showering at friends houses, waterless cooking and cleaning. Extreme conservation to say the least. I am so thankful those days are over, and I hope my family will never have to deal with it again!

Unfortunately, my short lived perils are common place for many around the world.

Worldwide water quality is declining mainly due to human activities. Increasing population growth, rapid urbanization, discharge of new pathogens and new chemicals from industries and invasive species are key factors that contribute to the deterioration of water quality. In addition, climate change will further affect water quality. Major risks are the lack of water quality data and monitoring worldwide as well as lack of knowledge about the potential impact of natural and anthropogenic pollutants on the environment and on water quality. The lack of prioritization of water quality in many countries has resulted in decreased allocation of resources, weak institutions and lack of coordination in addressing water quality challenges. – Unwater FAQ

Is there something you can do to preserve fresh water resources? Do you have the means to make a difference – on either local or global scale? Even conserving water in your own home, educating yourself and raising awareness of the world wide water crisis is a great first step. Follow and share events from around the world by following World Water Day on Facebook and Twitter. Use and search hashtags #worldwaterday and #Water2011 to learn and share your water facts and events.

Take it from one that knows first hand, you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone! It’s so true!

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

World Water Day 2011

As recent headlines suggest, going green in the workplace is a steadily growing trend. There are even awards for companies that can do it the best. While going paperless and switching to recycled office supplies is usually an executive decision , because going green can be challenging, inconvenient, and let’s be honest, expensive—employers might not be so gung-ho about turning their facilities into an eco-friendly workplace. But that doesn’t mean that you as an individual can’t do small things around the office
that will help in the preservation of the environment. Here are some simple yet effective ways you can go-green at your place of employment.

Green Transportation

Rather than driving to work every day, risking the emission of harmful toxins into the environment, try arranging a carpool with co-workers. Not only will you reduce your carbon footprint, but you can also save a bundle on gas money as well. If your place of employment is generally close in proximity to your home, you can also consider riding a bike to work. You don’t have to necessarily ride your bike every day, but once or twice a week can substantially reduce the amount of carbon released into the air. If your job doesn’t necessarily require you to be in the office, let’s say for instance you’re some sort of writer and can theoretically work anywhere as long as you have computer and internet access, ask your employer about the possibility of working from home. Make sure to tell your boss telecommuting is a good way to eliminate cars on the road and can  also be very cost effective—one less person in the office means less toilet paper and office supplies will need to be ordered.

Green Office Attire

Even if you have to wear stockings and a blazer to work every day, that doesn’t mean that you can’t wear clothes that are safe for the environment. Believe it or not, there are tons clothes made from organic cotton, wool and hemp-based materials. Another option is to buy clothes from thrift stores and consignment shops rather than purchasing them new at department stores. And if at all possible, try to avoid purchasing clothes that need to be dry cleaned as most facilities use cleaning chemicals that are harmful to the environment.

Green Office Practices

There are tons of easy things you can do in your office to go green. The first is to bring a few desk plants to decorate your cubicle. It will make your desk look more pleasant and absorb many indoor pollutions. Bring reusable containers for your home lunches and reusable dishes, silver and glassware to prevent the waste of paper products. Also remember to bring a dishtowel—you’ll need to wash these items and drying plates with paper towels is a no, no. You can also try to eliminate paper all together by emailing letters and converting all you files digitally. If you need to use paper for printing purposes, print on both sides of the paper. Whatever you do, make sure that if you do use paper to dispose of it in the proper recycling bins.
Another good way to go green in the office is to invest in a power strip chord. Because all electronics can be inserted into this strip, including computers, printers, lamps and chargers, conserving energy can be as easy as flicking off a switch.

Strike Up A Conversation

If you want to persuade your coworkers to go green as well, sometimes it’s as simple as leaving your bicycle helmet on your desk. It can spark a lot of questions of why you ride your bicycle to work and you’ll have plenty of answers.

This guest post is contributed by Kitty Holman, who writes on the topics of nursing schools. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: kitty.holman20@gmail.com.

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Guest Post: Simple Green Office Practices

EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: What are some simple things I could do to green the office I work in?
– James Raskin, Framingham, MA

No matter how green your office may be already, there is surely room for improvement somewhere. Here are 10 suggestions to help get you and your co-workers further along on the path to office sustainability:

1. Take your Office’s Green Footprint: The website TheGreenOffice.com, an online retailer specializing in green office products, makes available a free Office Footprint Calculator to gauge what kind of effect you and your co-workers are having on the environment and identify how to make improvements.
2. Save Trees: The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper a year. Refrain from printing when you can, use both sides of a sheet, and recycle so that the recycling industry will have raw material.
3. Power Down: Artificial lighting accounts for almost half of all office electricity use. Turn off lights that are not being used. Better yet, install motion sensors that do it automatically when no one is in the room. Also, shut down computers overnight, and set them to go into sleep mode when sitting idle.
4. Minimize E-Waste: Upgrade or repair the office computers instead of junking them. So-called “e-waste”—toxin-leaching computers and electronics—is a huge problem all over the world now.
5. Telecommute: Encourage workers to work at home when possible to save car trips. For those who must come to the office, encourage bicycling if it is safe. Also some firms now subsidize employee public transit costs to discourage driving. And online video tools like Skype can help cut down on business trips.
6. Green Screen Your Suppliers: Ask your vendors how they are greening their operations. Just posing the question can start them thinking, the precursor to action. Demand recycled paper and soy-based inks from your printers, and buy only green office supplies—which are now widely available.
7. Clean Greener: Make sure your cleaning service uses non-toxic, green friendly products—if they don’t, offer to supply them—so that you can breathe easy when you’re trying to get your own work done.
8. Eco-Renovate: If you need to renovate or upgrade anything, greenest options abound, including non-toxic paints, natural fiber carpeting, energy efficient windows and Energy Star-rated office equipment.
9. Drink Tap Water: Having big jugs of water lugged in and out every week by the bottle water company is not only unnecessary but a big waste of energy. Most tap water is safe to drink; if yours isn’t or you’re not sure, put filters on the kitchen spouts or buy filtered water pitchers and keep them in the office fridge.
10. Put Your Heads Together: Form a committee to organize and monitor your office’s green practices, to ensure that your office’s green goals don’t fall away if one or two committed employees move on, and to reinforce the importance of doing the right thing across the organization.

CONTACTS: TheGreenOffice.com, www.thegreenoffice.com.
SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E – The Environmental
Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication.
Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Request a Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

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Earth Talk: Greening the office

So the readers that visit Eco-Office Gals should have at least one fairly common goal: do what we can to help the Earth, right?  I certainly hope so!  So, when you get all these ideas going of simple things you can do each day to help the environment, where do you go? myEARTH360! A great online source full of great home products to green your home, work, yourself, your family and the pets.  I like that myEarth360 stocks products that are practical, things that you actually use in your home on a regular basis.

However, myEARTH360 goes beyond simply supplying environmentally sound products, portions of each sale goes back to schools to support environmental education and awareness! Here are some great details from the site:

• Development of the I Count for My Earth Campaign, a school program that gets the green message out to kids in an interactive, fun way. Lynn personally developed the campaign before the business even existed and is just something I do because I think enviro-awareness has to start with the kids so they can become the champions at home.
• Schools can participate in the I Count campaign for free, Shop & Share is optional.
• Creating and selling signature I Count for My Earth water bottles at Lynn’s son’s suburban Chicago school.
• Encouraging consumers to ‘vote with your dollars’, by shopping her online store and its diverse array of no-sacrifices-necessary, low-impact products. From essentials (home, school and office supplies, pet care, etc.) to extras (tableware and fashion), everything you buy counts for the earth!
• Launch of myEARTH360 hosted green parties: attendees share ideas on how to buy more eco-responsibly while discovering amazing green products from the eco.practical to the eco.chic in an upbeat, communal atmosphere.
• Regular e-newsletters and blog updates covering important eco-related issues like indoor air pollution, the battle of bottled water and what you can do about them.

This is a great place to shop and know you are really making a difference! So, I got to try a few fun products from Lynn’s store including some beeswax candles and some Shaklee Basic H2 All-Purpose Cleaner.

The Beeswax candles were a first for me and I was excited to try some of these. I do enjoy candles and know how cruddy paraffin candles are. They were great and very slow burning in comparison to paraffin.

Lynn also included a bottle of Shaklee Basic H2 All-Purpose Cleaner from her Shaklee Get Clean Site. Shaklee is non-toxic, biodegradable and manufactured by a green company. The bottle came with a little bit of cleaner, which I just added water to the fill line. The cleaner was truly versatile and cleaned up everything nicely.  There were no strong odors, crazy colors, just clean!

I love the concept behind myEARTH360 and encourage you to visit them for your eco-friendly needs!

Meanwhile, how about a chance to try out some goodies from myEARTH360? Lynn will give one lucky a $25 Gift Certificate to use in her store ! Do as many of the below as you wish and leave a separate comment for each one:

• Visit myEARTH360 and comment here on which product you would love to try or something you learn from the site.
• Blog about this giveaway or the I count for my Earth Campaign and link back to this post.
• Follow @myEARTH360 on Twitter or become a Fan on Facebook and comment that you did.
• Tweet this giveaway
• Stumble this giveaway
• Use other forms of social networking to spread the word about this giveaway.
• Subscribe to my feed to stay up to date with the latest from Eco-Office Gals.
• Buy anything from myEARTH360 and comment 5 times that you did! (I will confirm)

The deadline for entering is Wednesday 10/07/09 at 8pm EST at which time one winner will be randomly chosen.  Please don’t forget to leave a separate entry and any entries that show obvious laziness i.e. a simple “Thanks for the great giveaway” will not be published therefore not counted. It’s just not fair for the people that do know how to follow simple directions. US residents only. Thanks!

Here are your random numbers:

4

Timestamp: 2009-10-09 18:10:45 UTC

Congrats Jessica!

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Flaunt It! Monday: myEARTH360

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Guest Post: Improving Health For Today and Tomorrow

Two important subjects to bring to everyone’s attention before you officially start your weekend.

The Green Crusaders

I was given the opportunity to review The Green Path Comany’s PDF version of the first in a series of The Green Crusaders: The Filaments see the Light.

The Green Crusaders are a group of Eco-superheroes who are dedicated to teaching families about simple ways to lead more earth-friendly lives. Our series of short stories, written for children ages 5 – 10 years of age, centers around Recycle Mycle, Hydro Hannah and Kilowatt Karlos and their sidekicks Plastic Mastiff and Eco-Ally.

Since my 6 year old spent the night at Grandma’s last night and my 4 year old is still crashed out, I read thru this book by myself as I sipped my morning coffee.  The Filaments are an unknowingly wasteful family, but with the help of the Green Crusaders they are put on a greener path.  It was a fun quick read, almost storyboard in fashion, I could totally see this being made into a Saturday morning cartoon! Actually better yet a series of commercials geared towards kids.  Oh I’ll hush what do I know of writing books, cartoons or commercials?  As you can see from the sample I pulled the illustrations are absolutely amazing, too!!

The last pages also include a pledge sheet, a checklist, and a fact sheet for kids to commit to going green.  The book is available on CD for viewing on your computer or printing. I am not sure of the CD format, but the standard .pdf format I received was typical scroll thru which is not so kid friendly, IMO.  I would love to see this presented in an e-publication, flip book fashion.

If you’re looking for a green weekend activity for the kids grab up this CD!

$500 from EcoStore USA: Clean and Simple!

EcoStoreUSA is giving away a $500 Gift Card just for using their Lemon Cream Cleanser! Grab some of this awesome cleaner, with no nasty chemicals and a video camera.  Just 30 seconds of cleaning and creativity can land a $500 Visa gift card in your hot little hands… now that’s my kind of cleaning!

Check out all the details on Ecostore USA’s Blog. May as well go over to their Facebook Fan Page and become a fan now, since that’s where you will post your video. Besides, they’re always doing exclusive giveaways for their Fans, so that’s double incentive!

Now, anyone have a video camera I can borrow? Have a great weekend!!

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

Green Up your weekend: Book Review & $500 giveaway

There are many awesome giveaways going on this month for Earth Day.  While, Eco-Office Gals will promote ours, we can’t be running around the blogoshpere entering other giveaways and not let our readers in on the opportunity! So, today will just be a round up of giveaways found in honor of EarthDay.  How about an extra entry for Green My World, too? Find a giveaway I missed and enter to win, come back to Green My World and let our readers know about it with a link!

• Green and Clean Mom – She has a few going on go check them out!
• Alternative Consumer – Black & Decker Electric Mower & Leaf Blower
• Teensy Green – Disney Earth Giveaway
• EarthTweet – Several, I already won a solar powered radio! woohoo!
• Cosa Verde – Wow! Way to much to even start, just go on over!
• The Green Parent -  Disneynature’s Earth Grab Bag
• Mama Goes Green – RuMe Bags Giveaway

Looks like a short list right now… help me out by finding more and linking to them in your comment on Green My World for an extra entry!

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Earth Day Giveaway Round Up

10 easy steps to help you green up your office routine.  Try it for Earth Day.  Make it a habit.

• Grab an empty paper box and make it a recycle box for your desk.
• Dump your stale coffee on the plants instead of down the drain.
• Shut off the light when you leave the rest room.
• Stop printing emails.
• Going out to lunch? Go local. Walk.
• Sniff out toxic dry erase markers – get them out of the office.
• Collect old magazines around the office and drop them off at a school, or doctors office.
• Got cleaning supplies? Replace with non-toxic as you run out.
• Turn down the thermostat.
• Go meatless – bring in a meatless lunch.

Got an easy step to share? Add it below!
Jen

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10 Things You Can Do In the Office for Earth Day

This morning I was reading The Good Human’s post Your Contract With Life On Earth and I started to think of the contracts we sign when we rent an apartment, house, office space, equipment, etc.

We sign these contracts promising to care properly for someone’s property, right? I really appreciated the post since it made me look at this scenario on the larger scale of Earth.  The Earth is the property of every person and every generation.  When our lease is up shouldn’t we let the next person move into a clean and presentable earth?

Wouldn’t you be pretty ticked off if, on moving day, you found out the last tenants left heaps of trash & filth for you to deal with?  What if the last tenants were your own parents? Yah, the ones that made you go clean your room all the time growing up.  Furthermore, if they had left the place nice and clean for you to move into, wouldn’t you be more apt to do the same for the next person moving in?

This isn’t some unique thought I came up with.  But it was a fresh perspective for me and I wanted to jot it down. Thanks to The Good Human!

Go Green!
Jen

Post from: Eco-Office Gals

To Clean or Not To Clean?