green31.net

From: Joann Held <joannheld@comcast.net>
Hopewell Valley Green Net Coordinator

Hopewell Valley Green Market
April 17th and 18th
at the Masonic Hall and the Hopewell Train Station

The second Hopewell Valley Green Market opens with a family-friendly evening, April 17, 2009, at the Masonic Hall, 88 East Broad Street, Hopewell, NJ. Come at 7 PM to hear an educational talk from NJ State Beekeeper Bob Hughes and enjoy honey ice cream from The Bent Spoon, followed by a screening of Seinfeld’s hilarious but poignant Bee Movie. The film, talk, and ice cream will cost you nothing. If the weather proves unseasonably warm, the event will take place on the grass outside the Historic Train Station, 1 Railroad Place, Hopewell, NJ.

Events the next day (Saturday, April 18, 2009) run from 10 AM-3 PM. Earth Day occurs four days later, and Arbor Day two days after that, but this event will celebrate simply Emersonian self-reliance. There will be an emphasis on living frugally and sustainably through home-made, hand-made items. Famed traditions expert Meg Cox will join the Pennington Quilt Works in a How To Quilt exhibit and demonstration. Christine Toto from Around the Table will show how to make salad dressing. Internet sensation Leila Darabi from Everydaytrash.com will be present to help us rethink waste. There will be displays by some of the area’s most highly-regarded artisans and crafters, as well as demonstrations by local merchants of wool spinning, drum carding, pot throwing, and how-to-build-a-birdhouse, how-to-make-bird-seed (both dry and suet), how-to-make-pet-food, how-to-grow-a-biodynamic-garden, how-to-make-soup, how-to-can/preserve, how-to-needlefelt, how-to-make-an-awesome totebag-with-only-plastic-grocery-bags-and-an-iron-and-possibly-a-sewing-machine. There will be alpacas to pet and chickens to hold and fresh eggs to inspect. Sterling Planet will be there to sign up residents for clean power. Terracycle will demonstrate their best-selling creations built from recycled drink pouches, yogurt cups, and granola wrappers. Photo Haven will take your picture with the Lorax and Horton the Elephant. All of this, plus much more, including live music, games, and possibly a glimpse into the future of electric cars, will be free of charge.

In addition, there will be hot meals for sale (made by many of Hopewell’s finest restaurants) as well as seedlings, trees, cut flowers, vegetables, green products, and instant garden kits.

We’ll be posting a schedule of events soon. Please use the contact form if you’re curious about participating or if you want to volunteer.

See you there!
Tom Adelman
Chairman, Hopewell Valley Green Market

From Sustainable Lawrence:

If You Think of Yourself…

…as a sustainability activist at all, you will want to make sure you save the dates for an amazing event to take place June 5-6 on the campus of Rider University in Lawrence Township.

Entitled “Stoking Our Sustainability Fire”, this event seeks to build, strengthen and expand the growing sense of community those concerned with this challenge, Nonprofit leaders, business people, municipal officials, religious leaders, farmers, teachers — it won’t matter what you do.  If you’re serious about moving your community, organization or neighborhood deep into the 21st century as a truly sustainable place to be — you want to be with us.

Spend this time coming together, delving into the diversity that is the sustainability community, and learning more about how to live the practice, extend the message, and make real the powerful, positive vision of sustainable life in which you have come to believe so strongly.

Sponsored by a large number of organizations in education, faith, business, and community activism, folks from Sustainable Lawrence will be there in numbers.   Executive Director Ralph Copleman will be leading an all-day track on leadership for sustainability.  SL Board Chair David Prescott will convene the event.  SL founder Pam Mount will also lead a session.

It’s workshops.  It’s community-building.  It could be life-changing.  It’s a celebration, too.

You’ll start seeing full details soon.  In the meantime, mark down the information you see here, and contact us with any questions.

P.S. Forward this e-mail to anyone you think may be interested.  Thank you.

“Stoking the Sustainability Fire” Key Info…  http://www.sustainablelawrence.org/

NATIONAL TEACH-IN ON GLOBAL WARMING at TCNJ
2/5/2009

TCNJ will be hosting a wide variety of activities on campus as part of the National Teach-in on Global Warming on Thursday, February 5, 2009. The schedule of events for the day follows.

All members of the TCNJ community and the public are invited. More details will be posted to http://www.tcnj.edu/climate/nationalteach.html as they are available. The National Teach-In website is: http://www.nationalteachin.org/.

Times, Activities, and Locations

10 a.m. – 4 p.m. National Teach-In Day Video. ½ hour video shown in multiple venues around campus:  School of Business monitors, Brower Student Center lobbies and residence hall lounges.  Also on TCNJ Cable channel #20

11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. “Green Fair” in Brower Student Center atrium : green careers, compact fluorescent light bulb distribution, greening IT, recycling at TCNJ, Environmental Studies Concentration, President’s Climate Commitment Committee, Poster sessions and others.

11:30 a.m.– 1:30 p.m. Plate Scrape in Eickhoff , Eickhoff Dining Hall

11:30 a.m. – 12 noon. Plenary Speaker: NJ DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello, Brower Student Center 202E

12:15 – 2 p.m. Faculty Panel: “Climate Change : Where do we go from here?” Mort Winston (Philosophy), Nate Magee (Physics), Marty Bierbaum (MLUC), Matt Bender (History), Brower Student Center BSC 202E.

12:15 -1 p.m. “Introducing Sustainable Jersey: A Better Tomorrow, One Community at a Time,” Donna Drewes, MLUC, Brower Student Center 210

2 p.m. – 4 p.m. Demonstration test drives in Smart ForTwo Cars, Brower Student Center parking lot 2A

7 p.m. – 9 p.m. TRashion Show: Teams of students will make outfits from trash and compete to win prizes, Forcina Hall 134

Sustainable Lawrence
January 12, 2009

Dear Friends,
Get the straight facts on how to be sustainble at home.  Free.
“GREENER DAYS” WORKSHOPS
TWO FREE PROGRAMS BY SUSTAINABLE LAWRENCE
January 29 and February 5 (7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.)

Lawrence Branch Library, Darrah Lane and US Route 1
The people, businesses, and institutions of Lawrence Township are going “green”, and Sustainable Lawrence, since 2005, has been leading the way.

Spend an evening (or two) with Ralph Copleman, Executive Director and co-founder of Sustainable Lawrence.  Learn how to practice sustainability at home and save money as you do.  Find out what people in your community are doing to meet the greatest challenge facing all of us in the twenty-fist century.

Session 1 (Thursday evening, 1/29) will cover the sustainability story in Lawrence Township, what people all over town are already doing, how the organization started, and what municipal government, public schools, and others are doing to contribute.

Session 2 (Thursday evening, 2/5) takes a close look at ways to be green and save money at home.  We’ll cover energy use, appliances, food shopping, water conservation, composting, and more.  Bring your questions (as well as your suggestions).

Attend either or both sessions.
You’ll learn new ways
to get involved, save money
and be part of town-wide changes.

NO PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
Join us for either or both evenings.

For additional information
Contact Sustainable Lawrence or the Lawrence Branch Library

Ralph Copleman
Sustainable Lawrence

I used the handy “Kill A Watt” measurer around my dorm room today to figure out how much energy my appliances and lights are zapping every day. What I found was that putting your computer in “Stand-by” or “Sleep Mode” really uses no energy (I use a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop) and that compact flourescent light (CFLs) bulbs really DO save a ton of energy! I was able to use my roommate’s lamp with regular incandescent bulbs, and mine with the CFLs.

Findings for the appliances found in my room:

• Lap-top: 24 watts while on
• Lap-top on stand-by: 0 watts
• Standing floor lamp (3-way bulb, at brightest): 90 watts
• I-home player: 4 watts
• cell phone charger while off: 0 watts
• cell phone charger on: 1 watt, 0 when fully charged
• TCNJ desk lamp with regular bulbs: 112 watts!!!! (56 watts for one bulb)
• TCNJ desk lamp with CFLs: 28 watts (both lights on)
• String of 50 small Christmas lights: 18 watts
• String of 50 small Christmas lights (energy-saving): 11 watts
• Small TV: 47 watts
• DVD player: 7 watts

I find this extremely beneficial because the most important finding is that switching your lightbulbs to energy-saving CFLs really makes a difference. The important thing to remember is while CFLs will last for years, they need to be returned to the store where they were bought, or recycled in a proper container at a recycling center once they go out. The EPA also details steps to take if one of the bulbs break; they are a potential hazard in large quantities because of the small traces of mercury in the bulbs. Just one is not damaging, but hundreds of them in a landfill could be potentially hazardous. Main message: recycle your CFLs after use!

It is also important to remember to turn off your lights if you are out of the room for more than 10 minutes, and be aware of appliances left on!

Useful links:

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#fluorescent

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls

I have become preoccupied with paper; how much we use, how much is recycled, how much is not recycled, where it goes after we are done with it, how many trees we could save if we decided to make it mandatory to print double-sided - there’s a lot to think about.

It is something entirely taken for granted in our society and also a product we cannot do without. We breeze through life without ever really noticing that our daily consumption of paper from our 7-11 receipts to psychology textbooks causes forest degradation and adds to the vast pollution of the environment.

After doing some research, I found that each person in the United States consumes about 675 to 700 pounds of paper each year, according to the World Resources Institute. That is a lot of paper being used for everything from magazines and newspapers, to junk mail and printer paper, especially when there are more than 300 million people in the United States.

It is estimated that one ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) and office paper uses 24 trees to produce. Using those calculations, that means that just the student body population at the College, numbering approximately 6,000, could potentially destroy a little more than half a million trees per year.

With every ton of paper taking an average of 16 trees to produce, approximately 1.5 billion trees are potentially lost to paper mills each year.

It doesn’t just stop at the destruction of forests and virgin trees. The American Forest and Paper Association cites paper manufacturers as the third-largest users of fossil fuels worldwide. The paper manufacturing industry releases more than 100 million pollutants into the air, water and land each year through the various processes to acquire pulp from trees to make the paper.

From a report from the World Bank Group, I found significant environmental problems result from the processes of extracting pulp and bleaching it with chlorine or other chemicals. Sulfur compounds and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the air, and chlorinated compounds, organic compounds and metals are released as water waste. Air pollutants from paper mills include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon monoxides and particulates. These contribute to ozone damage, acid rain, climate change and human respiratory problems.

However, the Paper Industry Association Council has announced we are recycling more and more of this vital resource every year. Every ton of recycled paper conserves more than just trees; it saves about 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space. This is certainly a welcome statistic when states like ours face serious landfill capacity problems. New Jersey has reached capacity; there just is not enough space left to accommodate all of our waste. This means we cart our trash out of state, keeping us on the path of “out of sight, out of mind.”

But even if we are recycling more, are we really improving the sorry state of our natural environment? Trees are still being cut down, unsustainable production persists and our planet is facing a future of severe climate changes. I believe, first and foremost, it is up to each individual to make conscious decisions and take action to benefit the environment and preserve natural resources. It is important to re-think how we use paper here on campus and in our daily lives.

Some simple tips to conserve paper and remove it from the solid waste stream:

• Print double-sided or two pages per sheet.

• Use on-line sources like Web sites, Power Point and YouTube videos to get information to a class or organization members.

• Encourage professors or classmates to eliminate excessive hand-outs if the information is accessible online or through e-mail. It can then be up to the student to print their own copies.

• Ask professors if you can e-mail essays and papers (or at least the first draft) electronically.

• Re-use the other side of the paper - make a notepad, scratch paper, etc.

• Reduce fliers and advertise electronically. Facebook, e-mails, blogs, etc.

• Always recycle. Make sure you have access to proper paper recycling bins in your residence.

• Visit the College’s recycling page for guidelines and more information: tcnj.edu/recycle

• Get involved: President’s Climate Commitment Committee: tcnj.edu/climate

Sources: seventhgeneration.com, id2.ca/picture-paper.html,

conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml, epa.gov, ifc.org.

From Ariane Delafosse of Community Green:

Community Green Presents: Green Design

Hosted at Miele’s newly remodeled appliance showroom in Princeton, food and beverages will be served.  All are welcome, Designers, Builders, Fabricators, Homeowners, Entrepreneurs and more!

Space is limited to 60 guests, tickets are available at $50 per guest.

Contact Ariane Delafosse via email: ariane@communitygreen.org
to RSVP and arrange payment for this special event! 

All proceeds will go to continuing Community Green’s Non-Profit Education Programs.

Special Guest Speaker
 Interior Designer
Patricia Gaylor

Other Speakers Include:
Landscape Architect
Michael Fleischacker

Architect Walter Kanzler
Eco Collaborative

Special Guests Include:
Terra Cabinets
Green Demolitions
D-H20

Patricia Gaylor’s work has appeared in many national publications: HOME magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, Renovation Style, and Inspired House.  She has worked with Sarah Susanka, architect and author of “The Not So Big House”– building smaller, better, healthier and more energy efficient homes.  Pat was even featured on Good Morning America!

With over 18 years experience in the filed of Architecture, Walter Kanzler’s project experience includes residential, multi-family housing, commercial, office interiors, entertainment and gaming, theater, library, transportation and educational design.  A strong proponent of sustainable design in NJ, Walter initiated LEED certification for multiple buildings in his own practice and is a LEED accredited professional and member of USBBC.  He is also recently appointed co-chair of the LEED for Homes Committee for the USGBC-NJ.

Michael Fleischacker will discuss the “regenerative” lifestyles and the role collaborative design teams can play in helping people connect to nature and other living systems.  He’ll also talk about confluence of stakeholder engagement, spirit of place, and green sciences and technologies through the medium of living systems (natural, learning, economic, cultural, food, building and others). 

Saturday September 13 ’08  5 - 9 pm • Miele Showroom, Princeton NJ
www.communitygreen.org
Ariane Delafosse
Community Green Executive Director

Together we can make a world of difference!
201-602-4839   www.communitygreen.org

The PSE&G Press Release

   Project financing available to install solar energy systems on homes. Latest segment in program to provide $105 million to spur development in renewable energy sources.

    NEWARK, N.J., July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) today announced that it will begin offering its innovative solar loan program to residential customers tomorrow. The company officially launched the residential program after making a
compliance filing with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. The program, the first of its kind in the country, will help homeowners install solar energy systems on their homes, enabling them to take an active part in greening their homes and reducing greenhouse gases.

. . .

Customers wanting information about PSE&G’s solar loan programs should visit http://www.pseg.com/solarloan. They may also send an email tosolarloan@pseg.com or call the Solar Loan program at 973 430-8460.

Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) is New Jersey’s oldest and largest regulated gas and electric delivery utility, serving nearly three-quarters of the state’s population. PSE&G is the winner of the ReliabilityOne Award for superior electric system reliability. PSE&G is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG) (NYSE:PEG), a diversified energy company (http://www.pseg.com).

 

I don’t always have the “stats” at my fingertips but “being part of the solution” matters deeply to me so I try to bring little “green” acts of awareness into my life as much as possible…  Keeping in mind that there are going to be times when this modern, fast-paced, “disposable-happy” society may not cooperate. There will be the occasional need “when in roam” or just away from my stainless steel favorite, for an emergency water bottle (that I will then carry with me until I find a way to recycle it). There will be times when I have to use just one side of the paper or can’t find a way to recycle the “number 5s and 7s”.

My husband and I have more than once stepped back after reading about the latest ‘green’ recommendation and had to decide the feasibility of immediately making that change in our lives. For example, we aren’t at a point where it’s logical to invest in solar panels or a new alternative energy vehicle. But we can choose to have PSE&G use renewable sources for our energy (and use CFL’s throughout the house) and make sure that my 11 year old Corolla is operating efficiently (32mpg on average!). We can plan errands around one general location and as few trips as possible.

One practical step that I thought would be easier to implement but took some time was converting to canvass shopping bags. It was months before that became a true habit and it’s still not “full-proof”. There are days when I find myself running an errand without a canvass bag and immediately feel guilty. (How do the folks in California do it?) That’s when I have to remind myself that recycling is still a good alternative. 

I think the key for my husband and I, is being just hard enough on ourselves to continue to motivate change but patient with the changes.  Staying deeply connected to the “why” of what we’re doing keeps us moving forward, trying to live as eco-friendly as we can.