The Blue Dot Tour – Maybe The Worthiest Cause Of All.

This is the initiative started by the David Suzuki Foundation to help bring the country together around the issues of our right to clean air, clean water and a safe environment.

This tour has been moving across the country to packed houses and has garnered an incredible amount of support among concerned Canadians.

We would like to add our voice to that chorus of concern. Our Green Directory isn’t just an online shopping experience for people who are looking for eco-friendly alternatives. We like to think that through our blogs we are actively working to create awareness for the efforts of all those whose ingenuity and innovation are helping to make the earth a better place to live.

We applaud the efforts of Mr Suzuki and the Blue Dot initiative for its ambition, its scope, its audacity and its power to help bring about change.

Find out more at http://bluedot.ca

What Will They Think Of Next? How About Solar Roof Shingles.

The wonderful thing about real innovation in green technology is how simple they are. This short article about the development of solar energy roof shingles is a great example of what I mean here. Normally creation of solar energy generating panels requires the uses of rare earth metals which are becoming, rarer as time goes by. So the need to create new energy saving ideas from materials that are cheaper and more abundant is the next big frontier.

This article was posted on the Yale Environment 360 blog. We encourage you to check it out, and subscribe to this blog. This is a big green idea and those are always the best kind.

http://e360.yale.edu/digest/solar_shingles_made_from__common_metals_offer_cheaper_energy_option/3600/

How important is recycling?

This post comes to us from the lovely and talented Christine Maddox from www.4nannies.com.
We have a complete open door policy for guest blogs. If you have an idea for a blog, please email it to me, and if it fits our criteria, I will send you a complete submission guide. We post one blog per week, more or less.   jim.murray@ourgreendirectory.com

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There has been a huge focus on recycling in recent years as people across the world attempt to cut down on the negative impact they can have on the environment. As well as individuals doing their bit, businesses and entire nations are getting involved; coming together to make a difference. With this in mind, are we doing enough to hit recycling targets, or does more need to be done?

Why bother?

There are some people who don’t think there is any point in recycling anything and just throw everything away. However, if you are one of these people, take a moment to consider the impact this actually has. You may find that you want to start recycling some of your items. Landfill sites are filling up rapidly and space is running out for all the rubbish. Nobody wants to be living next to a giant rubbish site, but if the amount of waste keeps building, this is a very real possibility for the future.

A lot of the items that end up in landfill sites can easily be recycled, effectively taking up less room and making space for things that can simply rot into the ground. Plastic bags from supermarkets take years to break down but can easily be reused for your shopping several times over. Some shops have started giving incentives to people who reuse their old shopping bags, while others have started charging for plastic bags in a bid to crack down on the amount of waste these create.

Bigger scale

The amount of waste being created across the world can impact us in a bigger way as well. Many people are concerned about the effects of global warming and the greenhouse effect so governments in various different nations have implemented recycling targets. Wales was recently shown to be on track to meet its recycling target, having a long-term goal of zero waste by 2050. While that might seem like an unachievable goal, they are already hitting over 50 per cent of that target.

If all the countries in the world took a similar stance to recycling, the effects it has on the environment could be drastically reduced. From the point of view of a business, recycling might not be a top priority but it should be. There are various companies that are dedicated to waste disposal and recycling so it would be wise for businesses to recruit these services if necessary. If the nature of the business means that lots of waste is being created but it is not practical for them to recycle or reuse any of it, an external company could sort this out for them.

It’s easy to think that the little things don’t make much difference but if everyone started recycling on an individual scale, the overall results would be breath-taking. Even in a small office, doing as something as simple as putting the empty milk cartoons into the recycling bin can do its bit towards saving the environment and cutting down on the carbon footprint left on this earth. Of course as a business there are professional providers of business recycling including http://www.bettsenvirometal.com/.

How Greener Practices Can Save Your Business Money

This is a guest post from blogger and friend of Our Green Directory, Elizabeth Reed. We have an open door policy for guest blogger. As long as it’s green, interesting and informative we’re happy to post.

No one goes into business to lose money on purpose. As we live in the digital age, there are many ways we can save money around the office while improving efficiency. Practicing “greener” ways of doing business can keep more money available for the things you need. This doesn’t mean you need to sign up with Green Peace or other organizations, but you may need to change your point of view in order to implement some of these ideas.

1. Conversion to Paperless – Much of what we do in today’s world is paperless as it is. Using email, you can eliminate a great deal of the paper that your business goes through. How far can you take a paperless system?

• Accounting software that uses email to send invoices and transactions
• Time card systems for employees that are based on a computer system
• Emphasize email for sending memos throughout your organization
• Payment acceptance systems that email receipts instead of printing them

These are just a few implementations you can enact that could save your business money in both paper and ink. Each one can also be considered more efficient in its own right due to the fact that man-hours are no longer needed to maintain them.

2. Computer Systems – Although new computers are being built to be more energy efficient than those of old, powering down these devices at night can save money on your energy bills. This is aside from the wear and tear internal moving components experience as they sit idle. For instance, most cooling fans have a life of 50,000 hours. Once these breakdown, the computer system can easily overheat and cause additional and more expensive damage to repair.

3. Lighting – Motion detection or timed light switches can prevent the occasional “accident” of leaving the lights on in a room. Many businesses have moved to installing motion detecting switches in the bathrooms and break rooms in order to reduce the energy waste. It makes no sense to leave lights on in an area if no one is there to use them. While it may only be one room, the energy wasted throughout the year can easily add up. Timed light switches are common in areas such as storage units where motion is common in the outdoors. As a cat or dog could set off a motion light, a timed switch will turn itself off until a patron needs to access a unit.

There are many ways that a business can save money by practicing greener methods. In fact, some have even gone so far as to make money by recycling specific products. Regardless of your company’s focus, green innovation allows you to find a better approach to operations that save money. Not only can you do your part in protecting the environment you live in, but you can protect your company’s assets while doing so.

Author Bio:

Elizabeth Reed is a freelance writer and a resident blogger at Liveinnanny.org. She particularly enjoys writing about parenting, childcare, health and wellness. In addition, she is an expert consultant on issues related to household management and kids.

Attacking the Plastic Waste Epidemic Head On

We were very pleased to discover this organization called the Plastic Bank. 

It’s predicated on the idea that waste plastic, which is one of the world’s most daunting environmental challenges, possesses what they believe to be an “abundance of opportunity”.

Their site, www.plasticbank.org, lays out the argument in very lucid terms and you come away feeling that you are looking at a very well meaning and more importantly, well structured organization.  

We don’t have to tell you just how much plastic wastes is created in the world every single day. But it’s easily in the millions of tons. It’s something that concerns everyone and should. But the vision of this group is to create plastic exchanges all over the world and be able to sort and funnel this waste plastic to wherever it can be most easily re-purposed.

This is an admirable mission. And probably something that would be of great interest to a number of different types of recycling organizations.

The world is changing and it’s big ideas like this that helping that change be a change for the better.