By Shawn Dell Joyce

Yard sales are great for bargains, but they also are great for the fact that we are keeping usable things out of our landfills. Each of us produces 1.2 tons of garbage per year, but that figure doesn’t include the usable goods — such as old furniture, clothes and books — that also wind up in the waste stream.

Tighter belts mean people are more reluctant to throw usable goods away and more likely to fix something broken or exchange it with a friend. More and more people are engaging in the time-honored tradition of “freecycling.” This means giving usable goods to someone else for free instead of wasting it.

Groups of parents often exchange children’s clothes in “clothing swap parties,” at which you bring old clothes and arrange them by size. Ideally, you leave with new-to-you clothes and give away all the outgrown ones.

Many churches and community groups also have hosted clothing swap parties and often donate the leftover clothes to migrant workers and clothing collection boxes.

Artist groups often host swap meets at which pricey art supplies are traded, as well as equipment and even art. I even have been to a cookie swap, at which all the participants baked several dozen holiday cookies and then swapped them for more variety.

The economic downturn has been a boon for used-clothing stores and secondhand boutiques. A trip to any local Goodwill or Salvation Army store will reveal well-heeled shoppers rubbing elbows with the usual suspects.

Bigger items, such as used appliances, are not so easy to find or sell. If you can’t find it in the classified section, consider online posting services, such as Freecycle and Craigslist.
Freecycle is an e-mail list organized by city that has networks around the world. The only rule is that the item must be free, so there is no cost to list or receive a usable item. Freecycle is a great place to post that old chair, and everyone who is a member of the local network will receive your e-mail address and photo of that old chair.

Craigslist is a small empire boasting everything from help wanted to romance classifieds. You probably will find what you are looking for on Craigslist, but it will not be free unless you find it in the “free” category.

Some communities have stores that sell usable merchandise redirected from the waste stream. Habitat for Humanity has a series of “ReStores” around the country, at which you can donate or purchase leftover and deconstructed building materials. Some municipalities offer programs through solid-waste programs, such as the Hudson Valley Materials Exchange in New Paltz, N.Y.

This nonprofit organization has redirected more than 20 tons of usable materials from the waste stream over the 10-plus years of its existence. This program relies on public donations, so the inventory changes weekly.

By freecycling usable goods, we are increasing the life spans of merchandise, reducing waste and generating economic impact by freeing up money that could be better spent elsewhere. We also create more positive interactions between friends and neighbors.
Shawn@zestoforange.com

by Shawn Dell Joyce

The chill of fall is upon us and creeping into our homes. But before you turn up the thermostat, consider winterizing your home to use the heat more efficiently.

“Efficiency is our largest untapped natural resource,” according to efficiency guru Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. It’s much cheaper to buy efficiency than energy.

Most homes have tiny cracks and gaps around windows and outlets that leak cold air. If you were to put all these little holes and cracks together, you would have about a 3-foot gaping hole in your wall. It would be like leaving a window open year-round. Use a caulk gun and a roll of duct tape to patch any holes you find in the walls, windows, baseboards and ductwork.

“A typical homeowner may invest $1,000 on his home’s building envelope, but he can save up to $300 on energy bills each year,” states one of the Rocky Mountain Institute’s home energy briefs.

If you haven’t already, change all your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs, which use two-thirds less energy and last 10 times longer. Brighten a room with lighter-colored carpet, wall coverings and window treatments. Using daylight is the most energy-efficient way to light a room, so capitalize on it. Light-emitting diode, or LED, lighting is more cost-effective than even CFLs, as the bulbs last longer. Put certain lights on timers and sensors so that they shut themselves off when they no longer are needed.

“Lighting a whole room so you can see what you’re doing is similar to refrigerating a whole house to preserve perishable food,” Lovins notes.

Insulation should be installed by professionals to achieve the maximum benefits, but it can be done by a knowledgeable homeowner. The cost of insulating will be returned to you as savings on your home energy bills. It is especially important to insulate attic floors and basement ceilings. If you have crawl spaces, basement doors and attic stairs, you can insulate these yourself using rigid foam panels.

“The insulation doesn’t typically stop all of the air infiltration,” George Del Valle, an insulation contractor, recently said on DIY Network.
“So you want to do everything you can to stop that air from coming in.”

If you were to take an infrared photo of your home, you would see heat leaking out your windows and around your doors. Tight weatherstripping around doors eliminates much of that heat loss. Try this test: Put a piece of paper on the threshold of your door, and close it. If you can pull this paper out from under your door without tearing it, you are losing money and energy. Weatherstrip that door.

Also, replacing single-pane windows with efficient double-pane windows is ideal, but if that isn’t in your budget right now, consider sealing the windows with sheet plastic. You can tape the plastic to the molding around the window, creating a dead-air space that insulates against heat transfer. Doing this one thing will make your home feel much warmer and save you considerably more money than the cost of the plastic.

If you have forced-air heating and cooling systems, then you have ducts throughout your house. “In a typical house … about 20 percent of the air that moves through the duct system is lost due to leaks and poorly sealed connections,” according to Energy Star.

Leaky ductwork means that the house feels uncomfortable regardless of the thermostat setting and that your utility bills are always high. Exposed ducts in attics, basements, crawl spaces and garages can be repaired easily by sealing the leaks with duct sealant (duct mastic) or sometimes with just duct tape. Also, insulating ducts that run through un-insulated spaces (such as attics, garages and crawl spaces) can save you big bucks.

Energy Star estimates that knowledgeable homeowners or skilled contractors can save up to 20 percent on heating and cooling costs — or up to 10 percent on their total annual energy bills — just by sealing and insulating. If your total energy bills are $250 per month, that would equal $25 per month in savings, or $300 per year. While this advice can’t replace a home energy audit, it can help you save money and energy in the coming winter.

  Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

As our children go back to school, many parents grow increasingly more concerned about the school lunch program. Most school lunches cost between $2.50 and $3, with government subsidies through the United States Department of Agriculture, public schools receive $2.57 for a free lunch, $2.17 for a reduced-price lunch and 24 cents for a paid lunch. This adds up to about $9 billion total to feed 30 billion children each year. Ironically, most of this money pays the janitor, cafeteria expenses and other nonfood costs as well as lunch.

So what do our kids get for $2.57?

“(Meals) distributed by the National School Lunch Program contains some of the same ingredients found in fast food, and the resulting meals routinely fail to meet basic nutritional standards.” Pointed out Alice Waters, chef and local foods activist, and Katrina Heron, director of Chez Panisse Foundation. “Yet this is how the government continues to “help” feed millions of American schoolchildren, a great many of them from low-income households.”

Waters and Heron started the Edible Schoolyard, a program of the Chez Panisse Foundation, on a one-acre organic garden for urban public school students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. This program connects kids with their food by teaching them all aspects of growing, harvesting, and preparing nutritious, seasonal produce. This school still uses the high fat U.S.D.A. commodities, but it also cooks food from scratch, and has added organic fruits and vegetables to the menu as well.

Most schools don’t actually have a real kitchen anymore, or a staff who can actually cook. Foods distributed through the school lunch program are already processed and cooked chicken nuggets, pizza that just needs to be thawed or heated. Schools also receive bonus commodities from big food producers of processed cheese and other high-fat, low-nutrition junk foods.

Parent organizations have sprung up across the country to demand more nutritious foods in public schools like Two Angry Moms, and Better School Foods. Other schools across the country are integrating gardens into their curriculum, or partnering with local farms to grow produce specifically for the schools.

So what would it cost to revamp the school lunch program to include fresh organic produce from local farms?

“It could be done for about $5 per child, or roughly $27 billion a year, plus a one-time investment in real kitchens,” notes Waters and Heron in a recent New York Times editorial. While that may sound expensive, it pales in comparison to long term health benefits, lowered juvenile diabetes and obesity rates, and better dietary habits for life. As parents, our choices are pay for the cost though better quality school lunches or higher medical bills later.

A side benefit of linking local farms with school lunches is that it will boost local economies rather than leak money out of the school’s community. Most small farms rely on sound farming practices that don’t significantly damage local ecosystems, unlike large scale food growers.

“Every public school child in America deserves a healthful and delicious lunch that is prepared with fresh ingredients.” Writes Waters and Heron. “Cash-strapped parents should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their children’s physical well-being, not to the continued spread of youth obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diet-related problems. Let’s prove that there is such a thing as a good, free lunch.”
Want to change the National School Lunch Program? A few suggestions from www.BetterSchoolFoods.org:

—Have Lunch with Your Child in the School Cafeteria -Experience with your eyes, nose, ears and mouth what your kids are eating. Ask to see ingredient lists for all the food on the menu.

—Grow Your Numbers -Invite other parents in the community to join you in the cafeteria who might not have been aware of what the kids are eating.
 
—Join a Committee or Coalition-Get involved with the nutrition committee in your school or a wellness committee in your district. Create one if none exist. 
Build Your Food IQ -Learn which foods are right for your family – not all foods are good for everyone!  
—Cook with Your Kids-Read books, takes classes, watch cooking shows. Be adventurous and try new foods, test recipes. Make it a family project.

—Grow Some Food in a Garden -Get your kids connected to their food. Create and participate in school gardening and cooking classes that produce real food. Connect the dots between our environmental crisis and our food crisis.
 
—Call Congress-Let them know you support legislation to get advertising and junk food out of schools, and a Farm Bill that supports small farmers and local markets. Let’s flood our schools with fresh fruits and vegetables.
 
—Walk Your Talk as a Family-Eat dinner together whenever possible.
Don’t Give Up! Our children’s health and well-being needs to be our top priority. Take a stand and get involved. Don’t assume someone else will.
Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

In our culture, it often seems that our children are much more progressive than many of us stodgy old-schoolers. Most kids can text, download MP3 files, and tell you what their carbon footprint is without missing a beat. The rest of us probably have a hard time doing even one of those things.

Michele Daly, a senior at Washingtonville High School, in Washingtonville, N.Y., has been trying to get a recycling program going in her school for years. She and her friends are incensed that recyclables are tossed into the trash cans in the cafeteria. Daly and her friends are working with a Syracuse University Project Advance public affairs class to set up a recycling program in her high school.

The school’s principal and staff have been supportive of the children’s efforts, however no funding has been made available for recycling bins. Daly and her friends have been turning in recyclable bottles and cans and saving the money to pay for bins. So far, they have collected almost $50. Daly plans to ask charitable organizations to help.

Teegan Kennedy is a fourth-grade teacher at Goshen Intermediate School, in Goshen, N.Y. She has worked with her class to establish a yearlong recycling program in the school. Using her own money, she purchased recycling bins, which her students decorated and placed outside the doors of their classroom and the teachers room. The students wrote a compelling letter to the teachers urging them to use the new recycling containers. Every Friday, her class collects and weighs the paper and plastic and then posts the numbers on the doors to encourage more recycling.

So far, the kids have recycled 2,203 plastic items, including water bottles and yogurt containers, and 244 pounds of paper. While that may seem like a lot, it is only one classroom’s worth of waste. “We’re trying to let other people see that if all nine of our fourth-grade classes recycled roughly the same amount during the year, we would have recycled approximately 19,827 items. If all the third- and fifth-grade classes also participated in recycling, our numbers would be around 36,054.
Paper weight would be over 2 tons,” Kennedy says.

Now multiply Kennedy’s figures by the number of elementary schools across the country and the need to set up school recycling programs really adds up. Kennedy’s class has been graphing their recycling progress and is working on a school newspaper to encourage other classes to adopt their recycling and composting program.

“I would love to share with others what they have done. I think we’re at a critical point with our environment where people are finally starting to listen, and if a room full of 10-year-olds can do it, so can anybody else!”

Want to start a school recycling program?

—Decide what can be recycled, e.g., paper, plastic, printer cartridges, batteries, clothing, etc.

—Set up a committee or club responsible for the program.

—Determine who will get the recyclables to the transfer station. It could be a custodian, parent, volunteer or trash company.

—Determine where recyclables can be stored until transport.

—Count how many classrooms, lounges and cafeteria recycling containers will be needed, and raise money for containers.

—Have committee or club members make presentations to each classroom about the importance of recycling.

—Weigh and measure recyclables, and post this information for the whole school to see to encourage more recycling.

—Hold contests and competitions among grade levels or classrooms to see who can recycle the most.

—Try to fund the whole program by collecting bottle return money and selling arts and crafts from reused bottles and paper.

—Let the young people lead the way, and try to keep up!

Go to http://www.KidsRecycle.org. It is a great resource for teaching materials on starting a school recycling program.

Shawn@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

If everyone in America spent just ten percent of their disposable incomes on locally-produced goods and services, it would generate millions of dollars in local economic impact in spite of the recession. Lowcountry Local First, a South Carolina business association, tried the ten percent shift as a local stimulus plan. The organization asked all citizens, local businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits to spend ten percent of their annual budget at local, independent businesses.

Lowcountry Local First estimates that if everyone in the region does the ten percent shift, it could generate $140 million dollars in new economic activity, which includes 50 million in new wages, and generates more than 1000 new jobs. Imagine what that kind of money could do in your community.

Making the shift requires planning your spending so that one out of ten stores you visit is a “small-mart,” a term coined by author Michael Shuman in his book; “Small-Mart Revolution.” Shuman suggests:

– Walk or bicycle instead of drive, grow your own food, avoid impulse purchasing, and you reduce the strain on the environment. Can you fix that t.v. at the local repair shop instead of buying a new one? Always ask if you are paying the true cost of this item, or is it heavily subsidized by tax dollars? Skip things like tobacco for example because the real cost is hidden, in terms of health care, quality of life, and subsidies paid to big corporations with tax dollars.

– Buy from a locally-owned stores, preferably selling locally-made goods, using locally-found inputs. For example, buy pies from a farm stand where they grow the apples that go in the pies, rather than a chain store pie that you’re not sure where the apples came from. For buying local to really impact the community, the dollars need to flow through other local businesses in the form of suppliers, banks, advertising, employees, etc.

– Buy closer to home if you have to shop non-local, then it’s better to buy regional, or state. If you can’t buy fruit from a local farm, buy fruit grown in your state instead. It is far better for you than fruit grown overseas and shipped here.
– If you really want Alpaca wool and can’t find it locally, ask your knitting friends to form a buyer’s club and purchase in bulk from a small producer in Canada or Peru. That Alpaca farmer gets four times more money they normally would, yet you pay usually half the retail price you normally would.

– The global equivalent to buying local is buying fairly traded. A Fair Trade seal means the workers who produced this item were paid a living wage in humane conditions. Some items to look for are coffee, cocoa, and clothing.

Shawn can be reached at   Shawn@zestoforange.com.