A Green Year: Going Green In Every Season

 

If you've got "Go!Green!" overload, but still feel the need to make some positive environmental changes, then I've got just the book for you.

Don't bother with green craft books or organic cook books or any other nonsense. 

Just get Jodi Helmer's The Green Year:  365 Small Things You Can Do To Make a Big Difference.

It's the simplest concept, really.  A daily almanac, organized by seasons, of small steps you can take to tread lighter on the earth.

Similar to a daily devotional, and in a easy-to-carry size, The Green Year is a really good intro for people thinking about getting greener, for whatever reason.  There are energy-saving techniques, cooking and housekeeping tips, consumer product information, transportation and travel recommendations and outdoors and garden ideas.

Here are few samples: 

May 10:  Toss lemon peels in your garden to keep cats from using your soil as a litter box.

October 28:  Stock your bathroom with bars of soap.  The scented body wash in your shower is packaged in a plastic container made of non-renewable, petroleum-based sources and uses a lot more packaging than a bar of soap.  If every household in the United States replaced one bottle of body wash with a bar of soap, it would save almost 2. 5 million pounds of plastic containers from going to the landfill. 

December 21:  Pay a teenager to shovel your driveway.  You could go outside and do it yourself or you could help one of the teenagers in your neighborhood earn some spending money.  Shoveling the driveway by hand is also better for the environment.  Research shows that small gasoline engines, like those used in snow blowers, produce the same amount of pollution as a car. 

Not high-faluting stuff, no technical science, nothing requiring insane levels of carpentry or that you live in a Geodesic Dome home.   But good, daily reminders of the steps you can take for a better world.

Because I'm always interested in the thrift side of the green movement, I asked Jodi Helmer where she found herself in the whole dilemma of thrift stores being simultaneously a "green choice" and an unfortunate by-product of our nation's unrelenting lust for consumerism.

"I fall somewhere in the middle, and here’s why," Helmer explained.  "We do need to evaluate our consumption habits.  We spend a lot of money on things we don’t need or and we don’t know their origins.  We spend less money on things that are expendable – we buy something really cheap and then use it for a year and no longer have a use for it."

She continued.  "We can’t change the fact that once somebody has purchased something, it’s out there.  I think the best place to get it is a GoodWill or a consignment.  Do we need to stop accumulating things and participating in mass consumption of goods? Yes.  But because so many of us have accumulated things, there’s nothing wrong with giving those products a second life." 

Helmer used an example from her own life.  She had been a career counselor at one point and had accumulated a wardrobe of work wear that she found herself no longer needing.  

"The suits already existed," she says.  "I needed them at a point in my life.   I could have tossed them in a trash bag.  I could have given them to Good Will.  I donated them to Dress for Success.  It’s a choice we can make.  It’s a great organization. "

Helmer also points out the obvious appeal of reuse. 

"Somebody was telling me this the other day, about donating newspapers and blankets to animal shelters," she recalls.  "Or pots and pans that are falling apart - you can donate them for food and water dishes for the dogs.  We can’t get away from needing new things.  But what we are going to do with the things we can no longer use?"  

According to Helmer,  about 4 billion tons of clothing every year get thrown away,  4% of which goes into the landfills. 

"We can’t feel guilty about buying the things that we need and want," Helmer says.  "It's  part of our culture.  But we need to reevaluate our idea of need.  And we need to rethink some of our wants."

I think I'm digging Jodi Helmer.  Check her more of her writing here.  

The Green Year makes a great housewarming or wedding gift, and it's ideal for anyone who is reticent about going green and just needs some simple encouragement. 

Comments

[a.nn..fff]

I KIND OF enjoyed some of YOUR VIEW and your writing BUT I PUT YOUR BLOG ON MY BLOG AS A REALLY MEAN EXAMPLE OF ONE PART OF THE WORLD TOTALLY BEING BLIND TO ANOTHER...that would be your post on may in 2007....kind of about me and my customers.....
IM in an outside the box business with no boss and selling old stuff to normal fun people in tract houses... or really big fancy buyers in mc mansions and giant cars........if you get my drift....
i cant make a living selling to the really poor becasue they dont have any money.....
a.f.

[Carrie]

I'm not sure what post you are referencing. You mean knocking the Junk Market people?

[a.nn..fff]

yes..THATS THE ONE....
have you really met any of us????
lots of them are kind of curious creative people who want something in their own vision of whats neat .... something not like hallmark ...you would probablyo like a lot of the if you got to know them....we like to scrounge around, find something neat...use wierd stuff in different ways...make stuff... reuse and re invent...and save things from the landfill...
and the sellers are pretty neat too....and dont have to dress up to go to work...
we are kind of alike i would guess....
ann

[Carrie]

I haven't met you, obviously, but I attended a Junk Market sale and it just rubbed me wrong. The location of the JM folks is off in a typically snobbish area of the Twin Cities, for one thing. The customers, and the sellers, in this instance, were not people I cared to chat with. It was like all the people who normally hit the Galleria were slumming.

Now, I love old stuff, I love remade stuff, I love being creative. What I found completely depressing was that people would buy, say, an airplane propeller, and put it in their living room, and it would be just another piece of decor, subject to being swapped out and changed when the homeowner gets bored of it.

I realize you can't make money with thrifty, creative people as your customer base. This blog is a great example of that - I haven't made a cent and long gave up the prospect. So, in the secondary economy, obviously you have to sell to those empty-headed people who can't think up anything interesting (or who tell themselves they can't...maybe they don't have time? I don't know.) I make money by catering to populations that don't necessarily thrill me myself, but everyone needs groceries, right?

But it comes down to this - I just don't think it's very cool to decorate your house with stuff you know nothing about! Obviously you and the Junk Market buyers know about the stuff - I saw that in your blog where you post what you've learned about various antique pieces - but it seemed to me that these customers don't necessarily have a clue. They are merely chasing fads and trends and style. The Shabby Chic/Junk Chic style stops at, "hey look, this is something chipped/rusty/old!" and then you hand over a wad a cash and accept it, without having any mental or historical connection, or any connection at all with the old things. And it's ridiculous to me, that anyone would let strangers and strange things dictate their environment of their own homes.

I also think a house is a house. Not a ship, or a light house or a tiki bar. So personally, themed rooms and those stupid signs that say RESORT make me bananas.

I know I'm rambling but let me know if this makes any sense.

[Marilyn]

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