Issue #3: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Blog Carnival
October 31, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Gems from Others , add a comment
Through our Reduce, Reuse, Recycle carnival, we have learned so many ways of practicing the three Rs from others. Thanks everyone for contributing to this community-based conversation and sharing great personal experience and tips.
Almost all parents have run into the situation where the kids are starving and the only food around is in the vending machine. Writing from Mindful Momma, Michaela gives great advice on bringing your own waste-free snacks in removable trays or the incredibly cute snack sack. We love the idea!
Edited by Emily King and Jessie Johnston, Intelligent Travel writes in to recommend a nice little private nature reserve in Costa Rica’s last remaining lowland tropical rain forest. The interesting part is that “guests’ food scraps are fed to the lodge’s resident swine. As a result, the pigs produce methane that workers than trap and funnel to the kitchen” to make meals. Reduce, reuse and recycle indeed!
Charles Green writes a very thought provoking entry on the economy of business green practices. As business geeks ourselves, we have a soft theoretical spot for ROI and cash flow. It’s an interesting opinion piece on why many businesses are not willing to go green. Apparently a 10 year, 7 year, even 2 year payback time is too long. Charles provides analysis on this sort of short-term thinking.
Kevin from More4kids suggests raising eco-friendly kids. He believes that “one of the first steps in raising your children to be eco friendly is to be eco friendly yourself.”
Raymond does not think the earth doomsday scenario, because the planet is “a living, intelligent, vibrant organism”. There is all the more reason for all of us to treat it with respect. He suggests seven ways of doing so in our daily lives, and “recycle whenever possible” tops the list.
Wenchypoo dispenses some wisdom from her mental wastebasket. A friend did not know what to do with an odd piece of furniture. Craigslist? Freecycle? Classified ads? The author suggests different ways of reusing it, and reports that the “formerly unusable low bookcase has been turned into a shoe shelf in the mud room.
Related Posts:
Issue #2: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Blog Carnival
Issue #1: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Blog Carnival
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Where did my recycled laptop really go?
October 30, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Fresh Look , 2 comments
What do you do with your 2-year old cell phone when you trade up for a new-fangled iphone? According to EPA, Americans retired 130 million cell phones in 2005. 98% of them went straight into trash then landfill (1). So what happens to the cell phones while they sit in the landfill year after year? Toxins like arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, copper and lead from the cell phone eventually leach into the ground and contaminate the ground water.
Then there is your computer that you upgrade every couple of years, not to mention the monitor, the printer, and other modern day electronic devices. Same as cell phone, most of them land in municipal trash piles, off gassing and leaching into the ground water. In 2010, 3 billion units of obsolete electronics will be scrapped in the US alone.
- courtesy of Basel Action Network
Facing this e-waste crisis, what do we do?
We caught up with James Kao, the CEO of GreenCitizen, a Bay Area company with the mission of helping individuals and organizations recycle electronics responsibly. Before GreenCitizen, James was a successful software entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley. What inspired him to redirect his energy to e-waste? “Bill Moyer,” James recalled that fateful night. On July 19th, 2002, PBS aired an episode of NOW with Bill Moyer, which addressed the e-waste crisis. James found out that 15 European countries had adopted the “Basel Ban”, which effectively banned all forms of hazardous waste exports from the wealthiest countries to poorer countries. But the U.S. continued its opposition to the Basel Ban.
Being an inspired entrepreneur, James began to think about a business that would help address this issue while being financially viable. In April 2005, he launched GreenCitizen. Small first, his store was behind a large Bay Area electronics retailer. Gradually, it moved out and opened its own store in Los Altos, then San Francisco. A year ago, I visited their Los Altos store to drop off an old laptop. The process was easy and the staff there were believers of what they were doing. Since then I have made quite a few trips and sent many friends there.
They track every piece of recycled electronic device the moment it comes into the store, through every stage of shipping and sorting, then all the way to the facility where disassembling takes place. That way, if their tag turns up in an irresponsible bulk recycler’s or another country, GreenCitizen can back track where the misstep was. James has combined his passion for solving the e-waste crisis with his background in software database.
How is GreenCitizen different from other electronic recyclers? James informed us that not all recyclers were responsible. Often the most valuable parts – precious metals, are stripped.
- courtesy of Basel Action Network
After a few other steps of removal, the leftover toxic components either end up in our landfill or are exported to developing countries in Asia and Africa. In fact, “50-80% of the electronics waste collected for ‘recycling’ is exported,” James told us. You could tell that he wished GreenCitizen could take that number down to 0.
GreenCitizen has been qualified as an E-Steward by Basel Action Network, a global organization with the mission to prevent the globalization of the toxic chemical crisis, include e-waste. You can check Basel Action Network website to find E-Stewards near you.
We were very impressed with the efficient operations in GreenCitizen’s warehouse. Monitors were tagged individually and packed with great care to prevent lead spill by accidents. Bins and boxes were labeled clearly and stacked neatly. Trucks came in and out on schedule. James has one hard rule for hiring his employees – they have to demonstrate that they are true believers of the mission. With that he has been able to hire bright young people from elite colleges.
Aside from dropping off at their physical stores, you can also find recycling kiosks at various convenient locations. Additionally GreenCitizen picks up from businesses around the Bay Area. In the last two years, 40,000 people and 13,000 businesses have dropped off their obsolete electronics at GreenCitizen. I feel lucky that one of their stores is two miles away from my home. I wish every consumer had that kind of convenience. “We are planning to expand fast,” James answered our anxious question about more stores.
We really hope so.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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(1)from Earthworks, an environmental non-profit organization
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Green Journal: Stop Idling
October 29, 2007
Posted by CindyC in : Green Journal , add a comment
Up until this week, my green journal actions have been focused on personal changes like bringing my own cups or gardening organically or reusing hard-to-recycle items. However, this week, I’ve join a group of concerned Moms who want to stop unnecessary car idling.
source:Seattle UniversityWhy? Because unnecessary idling gets ZERO MPG but emits the same greenhouse gases as driving. Because stop idling requires no new technology, no additional costs and can actually save you money, not to mention the environment.
Although many states, including California, have anti-idling laws targeting diesel vehicles and trucks, these laws are rarely enforced and passenger cars are generally not included. Only a few places like New York City and New Jersey have explicitly included passenger vehicles. But more often than not, it’s the average driver who idles while waiting for someone, sitting at the drive thru or just running the vehicle until the end of a favorite song.
Because we are Moms, we’ve agreed to start at the local schools, where car idling is rampant during pick ups and drop offs. We figure that schools and concerned parents would be willing to cooperate, if they were aware of both the health and environmental issues. To kick-off this effort, I did some research on the impact of unnecessary idling.
Here are some facts that I was unaware of before starting this effort.
Unnecessary Idling Creates Unnecessary Health Risks
Car exhaust emits nitrogen oxide (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matters (PMs), carbon monoxide and dioxide (CO and CO2). What does this mean? Excessive inhalation of car exhaust can cause breathing difficulties, aggravate asthma, heart disease, headaches and visual impairment. Add sunlight and heat to the mix, you get smog. Add water to that mix, you get acid rain.
Being Inside the Car Does NOT Protect You from Pollutants
Many people believe as long as you are inside the car with the window closed, you are protected from breathing these pollutants. Not so. In fact, studies have found exposure to car pollutants is higher INSIDE vehicles than on the roadside(1). The highest exposure occur while sitting in a line of idling vehicles – like pick up spots at schools or drive thrus.
Idling Costs More than Turning Off Your Engine
A general rule of thumb, if you are idling for more than 10 seconds, you are using more gas and emitting more pollutants than restarting your engine(2). One hour of idling can unnecessarily burn about 0.5 gallons of gas. And one gallon of gas emits about 20 pounds of CO2 (3).
Idling Is Not Necessarily the Best Way to Warm Up a Cold Car
Even on cold winter days, modern engines need little to no “warm up” period – about 30 seconds or less. Driving the vehicle is the best way to warm up the car. Fuel is only partially combusted during idle because the engine is not at peak temperature. This may lead to residual buildup that can damage fuel efficiency and the engine
And just to put idling into broader perspective, our friend at Envirostats mentioned that in 2006, American drivers wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel, at the cost of $78.2 billion, idling in traffic. You can argue that idling in traffic is necessary, which is probably true. But then isn’t that just one more reason to NOT idle UNNECESSARILY?
In addition, I found a great, downloadable Anti-idling brochure, perfect for our efforts.
Our next step is to meet with the local school principal and get on the next PTA agenda so stay tuned….
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Footnotes:
(1) according to study co-founded by California Air Resources Board and South Cost AQMD
(2) supported by Study from American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(3) Per fueleconomy.gov
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Closet environmentalists or just green politicians
October 26, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 3 comments
This blog is apolitical, and we intend to keep it this way. However a couple of recent news pieces are spurring me to mention a few politicians and their recent environmental records.
The Expected
Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize – highly deserving in my humble opinion. Enough has written about his work, so I won’t repeat here. But a couple of other politicians have caught me by surprise, in a nice way.
The Unexpected
Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, signed 18 of the 25 bills on Sierra Club’s list (72%). Nicely done. San Jose Mercury News reported that environmental groups were “surprisingly pleased”. Some of the 18 bills Schwarzenegger signed are:
- Provide $250 million a year in incentives to homeowners and businesses that install roof-top solar hot water heaters, reducing natural gas use.
- Ban phthalates, plastic softeners in toys linked to medical problems in some studies.
- Require statewide programs to collect and dispose of expired pharmaceutical drugs, in response to studies that have shown these chemicals turning up in bays and the oceans.
The other surprise came from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean - French President Nicolas Sarkozys. BBC News reported that “Sarkozys has called for taxes to target polluters and said French use of pesticides should be halved.”
“We need to profoundly revise all of our taxes and charges. The aim is to tax pollution - notably fossil fuels - more, and tax work less,” Mr Sarkozy reportedly said during a national conference on the environment.
He also called on the European Union to spend six months studying “the possibility of taxing imports from countries that do not respect the Kyoto Protocol” - the international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Sarkozy went even further by saying that France would stop the building of new motorways and airports to try to tackle pollution from transport, which accounts for at least quarter of French CO2 gas emissions.
In one of his recent columns, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declared that CFL light bulbs, hybrid cars and solar-roofs did not matter. Electing the right politicians is what counts. While I disagree with him about the complete futility of individual actions, I do agree with him about exercising our citizen responsibility - voting the right politicians into offices do matter for our green future.
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
But Canned Pumpkins Are So Much Easier…aren’t they?
October 25, 2007
Posted by MichelleS in : Fresh Look , add a comment
I am a recycling nut. When I was a teacher, I started a paper recycling program for the whole school. At home, we have separate bins for food waste, paper and plastics/cans. Because of my neurotic tendencies, I cringe when Halloween is over and there is a perfectly good pumpkin drooping on my front porch. Even though canned pumpkin is so affordable and convenient, would it be possible to recycle the pumpkin that I already have?
Here is the scoop (forgive the pun!):
There are special “Pie Pumpkins”, which are smaller, sweeter and smoother in texture than the one you purchased or harvested this Halloween. They are about 8-inches in diameter and are typically available from September through the early part of December. If you wish to purchase one of these specifically for cooking, look for one that is bright orange in color, firm and has no bruises or soft spots.
However, if you are eager to recycle your Halloween pumpkins and make them a part of your culinary festivities, you can easily do so! You may simply need to add some additional brown sugar or maple syrup to your recipe to compensate for its lack of sweetness.
How To Make Your Own Pumpkin Puree:
- Cut out top of your pumpkin and clean out all seeds and strings from inside.
- Slice pumpkin vertically into 3 inch wide strips.
- Place strips onto a baking sheet.
- Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour.
- Once done, scrape the pumpkin from the skins, then beat with a mixer or puree in a food processor until smooth.
Save The Seeds:
- The seeds can be used either to plant pumpkins next year, or roasted to eat this year!
- Place them in a bowl of water and rub them between your hands. Pick out the orange pieces that are floating, and discard them.
- Drain the water.
- Spread the seeds on a dish towel or paper towel to dry…and voila! They are ready for next year’s planting or to roast.
Give It A Try:
Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Bread
2 cups flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs
1 cup mashed cooked fresh pumpkin
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
6 (1 ounce) squares BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, coarsely chopped
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices until well blended; set aside.
- Beat eggs, pumpkin, sugars, milk and oil in large bowl with wire whisk until well blended.
- Add dry ingredients; stir just until moistened.
- Stir in chopped chocolate.
- Pour into greased 9×5-inch loaf pan.
- Bake 55 minutes to 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
- Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely on wire rack. Cut into slices to serve.
Servings: 15
CALL THE KIDS:
- Measure cinnamon and nutmeg
- Crack eggs (in a separate bowl, so it is easier to fish out stray egg shells)
- Measure sugar, brown sugar, milk and oil
- Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices
- With adult supervision, use a hand mixer to blend eggs, pumpkin, sugars milk and oil
- Fold wet and dry ingredients together until combined
Nutrition (per serving): 253.6 calories; 28% calories from fat; 8.6g total fat; 35.5mg cholesterol; 239.9mg sodium; 141.7mg potassium; 41.8g carbohydrates; 0.8g fiber; 20.8g sugar; 41.0g net carbs; 4.4g protein.
Michelle Stern runs What’s Cooking, a Certified Green business in the SF Bay Area, that offers healthy cooking classes and gifts for kids and menu planning for families.
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
When the Lights Went Out in SF
October 24, 2007
Posted by CindyC in : Communities , 2 comments
Following up on my Lights Out San Francisco entry, I found a nice picture of the city on the organization’s blog, including this one:
The effort was supported by many residents, local businesses and government including the Speaker of the House and the Governor. Between 8 to 9pm last Saturday night, supporters turned off all unnecessary lights to raise awareness for climate change and energy conservation. Even Google pitched in and displayed a “dark” screen for Bay Area users to show its support*.
For more information on the Lights Out organization and the next event, please visit Lights Out America
*However, note that Google does not support the notion that a dark background is less energy consuming than its current white one.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Dare to eat your lotion? You are doing it
October 23, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Fresh Look , 1 comment so far
In the last couple of years, many consumers have reaped benefits from moving toward organic produce, grain, dairy, and meat. The word organic has certainly gained some prominence.
So now that you have figured out what to put on your plate, it maybe time to reconsider what you put on your skin. After all, quite a bit of what you apply on your skin gets absorbed into your skin. In some sense, you are effectively eating your lipsticks, your lotions, and your eye shadows. Glamour magazine reported in its June 2002 issue that “women inadvertently eat about 4 lbs of lipsticks” in a lifetime.
Well, do you know that lipsticks used by millions of American women also contain surprising level of lead? Campaign for Safe Cosmetics recently commissioned an independent lab to study the safety of lipsticks in the market place. In September 2007, the lab tested red lipsticks bought in Boston, Hartford, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. Amongst other things, they found that 11 out of the 33 tested lipsticks exceeded US FDA 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy – “a standard established to protect children from directly ingesting lead.” Some national brands have as much as 6 times the lead limit in candy. While I am not exactly sure how much the lead in 4 pounds of lipsticks can harm you, I suspect most women would choose to buy lead-free ones.
Similarly few people can be persuaded to eat the chemical DMDM Hydantoin, which is called out as a “known human immune system toxicant” by National Library of Medicine. It is, however, in many brand-named moisturizers, sunscreen, shampoos, and facial cleansers. How about Sodium Methylparaben? Doesn’t sound that appetizing either. In fact Europe has banned its use in cosmetics. But it can be found in many American brand-named shampoos, anti-aging lotions, and cleansers.
According to FDA, “Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act, cosmetics and their ingredients are not required to undergo approval before they are sold to the public”. So how can an average consumer find out whether their lotions are safe? Study all the ingredients on the shampoo bottles? Lotion jars? Lipsticks? Not an option. Have you ever seen the number of unrecognizable names on any given bottle?
Fortunately Environmental Working Group has created the Skin Deep cosmetic safety database, where one can search for a product or an ingredient and learn its safety score. For example, Olay Complete Defense Daily UV Moisturizer, SFP 30 has a Skin Deep score of 2 out 10, meaning low health hazard. 0 is the best and 10 is the worst. Take it a step further, you can find the score for all the ingredients used in that lotion. PEG-90M gets a score of 5 (medium health hazard) and water of course gets a score of 0.
Just because a shampoo is sold in a health food store, it does not automatically garner a low health hazard score. For instance, Avalon Organics Vitamin C Hydrating Cleansing Milk has a medium Skin Deep score of 6 for containing Benzyl Alcohol, Melatonin, and a few unspecified essential oils.
If you are concerned with a particular ingredient, search that directly. The infamous phthalate has a high health hazard score of 10 because National Library of Medicine calls it a “known human immune system toxicant”. You can then find all the nail polishes, nail treatments, and cuticle treatments that contain phthalate.
The database has an amazing number of products. For example, you can find 656 foundations, 779 lipsticks, 345 hair sprays, 478 tooth pastes, 901 fragrance, and many many more.
Armed with the easily searchable knowledge base, I can now feed my skin healthy ingredients that nourishing and safe. And if I decide to eat a couple of pounds of lipsticks in the next few years, I know which ones to choose…
CindyW at Organicpicks
Related Post:
My favorite shampoo
Anti-fashion fashion
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Green Journal: Visit Your Local Library
October 22, 2007
Posted by CindyC in : Green Journal , add a comment
Our local library is one of my daughter’s favorite places to visit. We go about twice a month and she loves to recycle (e.g. return) books, find new ones and check them out all by herself. And of course we encourage that. But as she was checking out her finds this week, she turned around and asked “How come you don’t recycle books, Mom?” Well, she caught me. While I was busy trying to teach her good habits, I forgot to apply them to myself.
I’ve always been a bit of a book treasurer. You will never find a dog-eared page, food stains or bent covers on my book shelf – unless they belong to my husband. I even used to highlight my textbooks with a ruler so the pages remain neat. Not sure why but just is; so I guess reading well-worn books from the library never really appealed.
However, in the interest of “do as I preach”, I decided to control my little idiosyncrasy and peruse the grown-up selection at the library. I was pleasantly surprised by the available options and services offered. There were plenty of new releases in both hardbacks and paperbacks, in all different gendres. Current issues of a wide selection of magazines were available for on-site reading and of course, you can check out previous months issues. Online catalogs, inter-library transfers and a reservation system for popular titles, CDs and DVDs make it easy to find just about anything. There’s even an advance reservation for soon-to-be available titles, which appeals to impatient reader in me. Rather than buying it, I decided to look for my Green Book Club’s current selection, One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally. It was checked out, probably by another Club member, but I was able to reserve it (for 75 cents) and receive notification when the book comes back. Since I have plenty of time before our next meeting, the wait was not an issue. Not only did I save $17 by using the library, I can now share the library experience with my daughter.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Related Posts:
Recycling with Kids
Reuse Plastic Bags
Reduce Packaging Materials
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
More on sustainable seafood - good, bad and ugly
October 19, 2007
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 2 comments
It seems that my piece on farmed salmon generated a bit of controversy and hostility. My objective for the entry was to express the concern of a responsible consumer – what is good fish and what is bad fish. Though the definitions of good and bad are not entirely clear-cut, factors commonly considered are:
Quality of the fish – valuable nutrients and low toxins
If wild, how abundant the fish stock is and how they are caught – Dredging and gillnetting result in significant bycatch, including dolphins and sea turtles. Harpooning and hook-and-lining are environmentally responsible ways of fishing. Wait, there is also Purse Seining, traps and pots, longlining, trawling, trolling… Who’d know there are so many right ways and wrong way of catching fish?
If farmed, how they are farmed – According to Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood watch, “Open net pens and cages enclose fish in offshore coastal areas or in freshwater lakes. Salmon and tuna are typically raised in net pens or cages.” Issues include: waste from the fish freely passing into the surrounding environment and polluting wild habitat and Diseases and parasites spreading to wild fish living near or swimming past net pens. Other ways of farming fish include pond, raceways, or Recirculating Systems. Again who’d know there are so many ways of farming fish?
As a responsible consumer, I want to be educated about sustainable fishing methods. However I really have very limited time to read upon all the publications out there. Furthermore, industry interest groups have quickly jumped into the foray and created their own statistics. Innocent-sounding organizations have been created to reach consumers with their hidden marketing messages.
So facing a large amount of unfiltered information, what’s a consumer to do? You can often find out where the information comes from, if you are persistent. Google and your tenacity do wonders. A couple of days ago a gentleman called me a liar and thought I should go to jail for my blog entry while fiercely defending salmon farming. Well a few minutes of Google search led me to an organization named Salmon Of The Americas (SOTA) which was founded by members of Chilean, Canadian, and U.S. salmon farming industries. It so happens that the chair person of SOTA shares the same name as our friend. So here is my “dilemma”: trust information from NY Times, Washington Post, NRDC, or a person from SOTA? Hmmm.
When information at large is overwhelming, I rely on a few trusted organizations to provide me with sustainable seafood guide. Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of them. You can download a wallet-sized regional guide and take with you to stores and restaurants. For example, for the west coast, in the best choice category, you will find U.S. farmed tilapia, both U.S. farmed and wild-caught striped bass, and wild-caught Alaskan salmon, among others. The Avoid list includes Orange Roughy, imported swordfish, Bluefin tuna, and farmed salmon. The guide is updated regularly.
With limited variations, Blue Ocean Institution confirms Monterey Bay Aquarium seafood guide. On Blue Ocean’s website, you can find very detailed scorecard for various fish, such as the criteria they use and how they score the fish for each criteria. Pick a fish, the site will tell you in great detail how it is caught or farmed, what food is fed to the fish if farmed, how it impacts the fish stock in the ocean or the environment, why they get a score of 0.75, and etc.
Additionally National Resource Defense Council presents great recipes for sustainable seafood. I have tried a couple and they were even good enough for my non-fish loving children. If you are interested in ocean conservation in general, a good place to start is Seaweb.
With the handy-dandy sustainable seafood guide at hand, I don’t need to comb through the web to find reliable information. We eat fish for its nutritional value and for its great taste. At the same time it also feels great to know that we are not depriving the future generation or destroying the environment in the ocean or on the land.
CindyW at Organicpicks
Related Post:
Eat sustainably from the ocean
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Lights Out San Francisco!
October 18, 2007
Posted by CindyC in : Communities , 1 comment so far
What if everyone in a large city, say San Francisco, turned off all unnecessary lights for ONE hour and installed just ONE energy efficient light bulb? And what if popular landmarks and businesses did the same? Well, that’s what organizers of Lights Out San Francisco want to find out.
This Saturday, October 20th from 8pm to 9pm, San Francisco residents will darken their lights to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, Lights Out (in cooperation with PG&E and Yahoo) are handing out more than 100,000 CFLs for residents to install during their blackout hour. The campaign has also been successful in getting symbolic landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge and the TransAmerica Building to join this effort. Even local restaurants are joining in by serving their customers in candlelight during this hour.
Organizers hope to reduce energy consumption (for an average night) by 15% and raise awareness about conservation with this grand demonstration. So for those San Franciscans out there, take the pledge and “fight climate change with flip of a switch! 1 night, 1-hour & 1 bulb” on Saturday, October 20th from 8pm to 9pm. And don’t be surprised if the San Francisco skyline blends into the night on Saturday.
Btw, if anyone out there gets pictures of this, please let me know. I’d love to see them!
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
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