Cleveland Turns onto Green with Projects in Environmental Sustainability

Instead of cheering on the Browns, Cleveland’s reputation is turning green to increasing its environmental sustainability projects. According to an article featured in The Plain Dealer (Sunday Sept. 28, 2008), Cleveland has recently initiated eight major projects for environmental sustainability. Cleveland is gaining rank on SustainLane’s annual survey as the 16th most sustainable city in the U.S. Andrew Watterson, Cleveland’s sustainability director, says Cleveland is moving toward more environmental sustainability. Portland, Oregon ranks number one for the most sustainable city in America and Cleveland is climbing the ladder to be Portland’s top competitor.

Environmental sustainability means that human activity only uses nature’s resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. In order to develop and maintain successful environmental sustainability, communities must work together including city government, local businesses, foundations and neighborhoods. What environmental sustainability projects has Cleveland implemented?

Eight Environmental Sustainability Projects Started Throughout Cleveland

1.  Wind Turbines – windmills which generate electricity
2.  Rain Barrels & Rain Gardens – barrels to collect rainwater and plots of land to divert rainwater from storm sewers (see previous blog here)
3.  LEED Neighborhoods – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards so that declining neighborhoods are revived through environmental sustainability
4.  Green Teams – resident volunteers who suggest environmental sustainability solutions in the community
5.  Deconstruction – dismantling condemned or vacant homes and buildings and reusing materials instead of demolition and filling landfills with debris
6.  EcoVillage – a community of businesses and resident living with close proximity to public transportation; revitalizes empty lots or dilapidated neighborhoods using environmental sustainability such as solar panels and green transit
7.  Green Banks – helping young fish on their way to Lake Erie by hanging aquatic plants along the banks of the Cuyahoga River and shipping channels
8.  Grow & Buy Local Food – encouraging neighborhoods to plant gardens and local farmers to contribute to Cleveland’s various farmers’ markets to help environmental sustainability by reducing transportation costs. Grants are also available to people who grow and contribute produce to local markets.

To learn more about sustainability and environmental sustainability in the Cleveland area, you can read the full article in The Plain Dealer here. If you are a green eco friendly business and would like to further promote your Web site, contact Fair Green Trade today.

Replace Plastic Bags with Earth Friendly Shopping Bags

Although plastic shopping bags are convenient, they are detrimental to the earth. According to the EPA, consumers in the U.S. use over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and packaging each year. Where does all this plastic go? More non-recyclable plastic bags are being buried in our landfills, where they will stay for the next 1,000 years. That is why several cities are demanding that retailers and consumers only use earth friendly shopping bags.

Plastic bags and their effects on the Earth

• Will never biodegrade – sunlight will break plastic into smaller pieces, but never fully breaks down into the earth
• It takes about 12 million barrels of oil to produce 100 billion plastic shopping bags every year, according to the Wall Street Journal
• Approximately 100,000 sea turtles and other marine animal die every year when animals mistake plastic bags for food
• Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation 
• Only about 2% of plastic bags are recycled, and it’s expensive to recycle due to the inks and low quality of plastic material
• Many bags are not even recycled, but shipped to third world countries where they wind up littering trees and crops

Every day people are using up to 1 million plastic bags – and costing retailers $4 million – but the effects to the earth are detrimental and cannot be reversed, unless earth friendly shopping bags replace plastic bags.

Materials used in earth friendly shopping bags:

• Organic cotton – reduces millions of pounds of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and other toxic chemicals used by conventional cotton.
• Hemp – very durable, easy to grow and drought resistant; able to grow in mass quantities; resistant to mold and UV light; best used with frequent wear or use products.
• Recycled tires – decreases landfill waste, economical, durable and fashionable

Fair Green Trade, an eco friendly green directory, offers several links for consumers to buy earth friendly shopping bags and totes. To help the earth, buy and use earth friendly shopping bags everyday in place of plastic bags. Keep a few in your car, one in your purse, and even in your baby stroller; earth friendly shopping bags will help the earth and reduce the plastic bag use mania in the U.S.

Use Organic Cleaning Products to Maintain a Safer Home

Want to be sure that your home is free of all toxic and dangerous chemicals? One of the most effective things you can do is make sure that the products you’re using to clean your house are organic cleaning products. These products should be safe for you, for your family and the environment. The more people learn about where our cleaning products eventually end up, the more likely they are to use organic cleaning products. Because recent research has found chemicals from traditional cleaning products don’t just stay on your countertop, they also travel through the air and water, end up in the soil, drinking water and eventually in very foods we eat people may be more likely to use organic cleaning products.

Ordinary cleaning products often contain neurotoxins, carcinogens, allergens, heavy metals and other agents, which can contribute to cancer and other issues. The phosphates found in many dishwater and laundry detergents can cause algae bloom, which can kill fish and aquatic plants. Algae bloom can also produce chemicals that contribute to toxicity in the water. Trisodium nitrilotriacetate, found in many laundry detergents, is another carcinogen. Those are just some of the chemicals you won’t have to worry about if you use organic cleaning products.

The good news is that organic cleaning products can be substituted for almost all traditional products. For example, organic cleaning products like baking soda can neutralize acid and soften fabrics. It deodorizes, and can be combined in a quart of warm water for an all-purpose cleaner. Borax will prevent mold and mildew and can be great at removing stains. For an effective disinfectant, mix ½ cup of borax in a gallon of hot water. Also, lemon juice works as another helpful stain remover. It’s also one of the organic cleaning products that is great for cleaning glass.

But that’s just the beginning of discovering the world of organic cleaning products. For more ideas on safe and organic cleaning products, check out green organic cleaning products sellers like Seventh Generation, Sun & Earth and Mia Rose. When you use organic cleaning products, you can keep your home safely clean. And you’ll help to ensure a greener tomorrow.

Offering More Sustainable Buildings with Green Architecture

The idea of green architecture may be getting a lot of press lately, but it’s really not a new idea. Green architecture has been around about as long as, well, architecture. That’s because some of the core tenants of the green architecture movement, using local and energy-efficient materials, conserving space and taking into consideration things like local climate have always been important to architects. 

The number of sustainable buildings keeps growing every year. And so has the green building industry. As a $5 billion industry in 2005, green architecture revenues this year are expected to pass $12 billion.

And if Edward Mazria has his way, the green architecture will only continue to expand. Mazria has initiated the 2030 Challenge, a project that seeks to eliminate the fossil-fuel-based energy use in all U.S. buildings by 2030. That sounds like a pretty tall order, even for the booming green architecture industry. But Mazria says that the goal can be reached by building smaller houses that use less energy. 

Of the entire greenhouse gases consumed by the house building process, 25% are produced by furnaces and water heaters. The rest is produced by local utility companies which generate utilities such as electricity.

According to Mazria, we could reduce 50 percent of greenhouse emissions by implementing green architecture that focuses on reducing heating requirements for houses. The easiest way to do this is to reduce the house size. Then, greenhouse emissions can be reduced by modifying old houses and buildings to be more energy-efficient. Also, and perhaps the most simple green architecture technique, Mazria suggests that houses orient their main living quarters southward, so sunlight can be tapped during the day.

The last step for better green architecture, and the one that will probably require the most work, is to switch from old heating, cooling and hot water equipment to energy equipment fueled by renewable resources.

Mazria sees this green architecture challenge as potentially successful because it takes a mixed approach to building greener homes. There’s no single solution. It won’t be easy for green architecture to reduce greenhouse emissions, but most agree that multi-pronged approaches like Mazria’s are the best shot.