EcoMonday: Ecofriendly snow removal

We were walking the Hub hound (yes! we have one of those!) when we noticed something heartbreaking. He was picking up his paws, one by one, until he was gimping about using only two paws at a time. Turns out, there's been a lot of ice and snow around, and the municipality's answer is a lot of salt. That burns our hound's feet, and potentially worse (we can always put booties on the hound), it gets into the groundwater and kills off plants. Not good.
So we did a little research, and we found out about some green snow removal options.

• Rock Salt alternatives: Calcium Magnesium Acetate. It's "about as corrosive as tap water," which means it's not as hard on bridges, concrete, or the environment. And it's biodegradable. Sand and wood ash are good alternatives, too.
• Electric snow blowers: Still not good, but better than gas snow blowers. Lower emissions, just as much snow-blowing power.
• Just shovel it: Nothing better than a little exercise. Of course, if you're really not willing to shovel, you might want to consider something like the Wovel. Heck, why not? After all, a person's got to get to work.

Which reminds us: Snowshoes and cross-country skis make great traveling implements. In the aftermath of one blizzard we used our snowshoes to get to our office. We were the only ones there, but never mind that.

EcoMonday: Ecoresolutions!

...What's a resolution, anyway? In most cases, they're just good intentions, and they often go the way of the dodo by March.
So what's a good-intentioned person to do? And what are the most manageable tips for a good, ecologically sound start to the new year?

• Start small. Even something like changing out just a few of your incandescent lighting sources for compact fluorescent ones can make a difference. Small resolutions can soon lead to bigger ones.
  
• Set a goal for yourself. Say you want to reduce office paper waste by 20% by the tim 2012 rolls around. Make that goal public, and make sure that you post it in a place that's visible every day, so you can remind yourself.
• Make it a team effort. Your employees want to help, too. Crowd-source some good, tangible resolutions for your office, and make sure everyone has a role to play. You'll get a lot more done working together than you will working by yourself.
• Take it outside. Your annual office retreat can work surprisingly well to get people excited about being good stewards of the environment--we have an annual cleanup day in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, and it's a treat to be outside with our co-workers when we're used to seeing them in work togs. Trail maintenance days work as terrific team building exercises, too--the end result of seeing your hard work take shape in a trail that hundreds of people will use makes for a terrific confidence booster!

What are your EcoResolutions for 2011?

EcoMonday: Giftwrapping. What to do with it?

This is going to be a short one, because we know you have a ton of stuff to do in the next FIVE DAYS before Christmas. *Shrieks.* (Have you done all your shopping? We haven't.)
Anyway. We want to take three minutes and talk to you about gift-wrapping. Do you know that, although most plain gift-wrapping paper is recyclable just in your standard curb-side recycling bin, all that fancy pretty stuff with the foil and the glitter and the flocking isn't recyclable? And neither, regrettably, is tissue paper.
That's right, it just gets lumped in with all those unrecyclable plastic adhesive bows. Never mind, it's okay. We know you already have a ton of it purchased.
But hey, there's good news. Gift wrap is totally reusable. We're not going to suggest you make beads out of it, or whatever, like some well meaning and talented people do, but we are going to suggest that you take an iron to the stuff. Yes, you can iron your gift wrap. Takes all the creases right out.

Iron your giftwrap, reuse it next year. Who knew?

As for the plastic bows, well, those are reusable too, but harder to store.
So this holiday season, don't go at your gifts like some kind of sugar-plum-crazed four-year-old. Hang onto the stuff. You'll reuse it next year, feel good about what you're doing for the environment, and hey, save yourself a little money. (We at the Hub Twoffice haven't purchased giftwrap for something like a decade!)

What's your favorite holiday earth-saving tip?

EcoMonday: A Vacation Alternative

It's not only EcoMonday this Monday, but also Cyber Monday: deals on the Internet abound today, and that goes for travel, too.
If you're looking to book a vacation for the chilly winter months or the soggy spring, we've got an option for you. Consider voluntourism. What's that awkward mashup? It's not awkward at all, actually: It's a wonderful blend of rejuvenation and soul-filling glory.
More traditional volunteer vacations, like the Sierra Club's outings, offer you one or two free days of exploring while giving back to the National Park system. All levels of skill and strength can be accomodated, and you'll probably pick up new skills while learning to build trails, paint fences, dig postholes...the list is endless. While you're at it, you'll know that you're helping to maintain some of our most stunning natural features.
On the other end of the spectrum is a group like All Hands Disaster Relief, where you can stay as long as you like, and help with as much as humanly possible. You pay for your flight to one of Hands' existing sites, and you spend all day, every day, rebuilding communities that have been affected by disaster. (Full disclosure: Hands worked with us via ShelterBox, and we think they are the absolute bomb when it comes to disaster-relief work.) You can be on a rubble team, a children team, a hospital runner team, a shelter team...the possibilities are endless.


Somewhere in the middle is a group like Road Monkey. Founded by former New York Times reporter Paul von Zielbauer and profiled recently in no less than O magazine, Road Monkey pairs a week of adventure travel with a week of good work. A recent trip had Road Monkeys bicycling through Vietnam and then working to build a playground with the not-for-profit Catalyst Foundation, which deals with anti-trafficking and educational initiatives for children.

So go on, make this CyberMonday really count.

EcoMonday: What's a VOC?

You know that VOCs are bad for you. You might even know that VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound. And you might even have worked your way past the fact that "organic" typically means something good, but that VOCs are to be avoided. So why are they bad for you, and how can you best avoid them?


Even charts that attempt to describe VOCs graphically can be confusing. Read on to find out more about VOCs.

VOCs aren't anything new. Speaking in broad terms of everyday household items, a VOC is anything that changes into gaseous form as you use it, after which it combines with other gases to contribute to ozone.
Not good, right?
Although you can't really avoid VOCs like methane, you can easily ensure that VOCs have a minimal place in your indoor spaces (The EPA estimates that indoor air quality is often five times worse than outdoor air quality, for obvious reasons: air comes into your home, but unless you've got a constant open-door, open-window policy, it doesn't always make its way out.)
At the Hub, we used low-VOC paints (water-based), and also rely on standards like those from Design for the Environment to ensure that our cleaning products are low-VOC. Our carpets and furniture are also low-VOC. We've also taken a hard look at the Green Seal to help us to hunt down cleaning and household items that allow us to be as ecologically sensitive as possible.

(Yes, it's true. Carpets and furniture, which end up making use of sealants, laminates, or adhesives, can carry a dangerously large amount of VOCs.)
Practically speaking, VOCs may not have short-term effects, although we know a girl who gets woozy at the smell of VOC paint and particle- and press-board. But studies have shown that career painters are susceptible to cancers that can be traced directly back to VOCs.
We buy low-VOC for many reasons, but the health of our employees and clients is top of the list. What types of measures do you take in your office for your employee and client health?
Find a full list of Design for the Environment-certified products here. And Home Depot's Eco Options program is a good source for hunting down low- or no-VOC paints.