Green Your Kitchen!!

Ever look through your cupboards of your kitchen and wonder how Eco-friendly it is? Probably not, but now is the time to do so!

There are numerous ways to live with an environmental kitchen such as what stone you use for your counter, the refrigerator you purchase, the appliances you use, and so on.

For a list of 10 Earth-friendly kitchen counters, Click Here! One of the more interesting kitchen counters on this site that caught my eye was the Fuez which is "made with recycled glass, fly ash, stone and shells, it’s more durable than marble." Its eco-friendliness stems from the fact that it's made with "60% to 80% recycled materials, including beer bottles; made using 100% wind-generated electricity."

When I think about "greening" my kitchen, I don't necessarily go into remodeling the countertops or shopping for new fridges because let's face it, a good majority of us are on tight budgets these days. Instead, I attempt the little things like unplugging my appliances when they're not in use. Note that appliances that are NOT in use yet still plugged into an outlet do have the potential to suck electricity and that's a big, environmental no-no!!

In addition, I make sure to purchase recycled paper towels and use them as minimally as I can. Investing in kitchen towels helps to reduce the use of paper towels when drying dishes or cleaning countertops, so take that into consideration as well!

Now let's discuss one of the most important aspects that make up a kitchen: the refrigerator. According to the U.S. Green Building Council: "Refrigerators use 14 percent of a home’s electricity, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Today’s most efficient 20-cubic-foot refrigerators use 47 percent less electricity than 1993 models." If you've perhaps just been convinced to pull together some funds for a new fridge, then check out ENERGY STAR for one that will be worth the money! It's for the Earth, do it for your planet. :]

For even MORE ways of greening your kitchen, check this site out! They've got a lot of useful methods that will blow your mind.

Peace&Love,
Dr. Green T

Works Cited:
Green Home Guide Staff. "Creating a Green Kitchen: From Resource Planning to Maintenance." U.S. Green Building Council's Green Home Guide. 03 Sep 2009. U.S. Green Building Council, Web. 26 Nov 2009. http://greenhomeguide.com/know-how/article/creating-a-green-kitchen-from-resource-planning-to-maintenance

Made in the U.S.A., except not really.

As crazy as it sounds, I’d never given much thought to where my clothes were coming from until just recently after I’d taken a shower, and coincidentally scanned the tag on my towel. The words, Made in Israel, caught my eye quite instantly as a thought crossed my mind as to how many different countries my clothes came from. Of course, my new idea had to be taken into action immediately or else it would become a nagging voice in the back of my mind for days to come.

In any case, I began my adventure as I sorted through my supply of clothing with pen and paper in hand, tallying down every country my eager eyes could distinguish. Unfortunately, not all of my clothing had their tags, and so left me with a few items placed under the "Anonymous" category of my list, and therefore skewing my results by a bit. I made sure to separate my data according to "Pants" versus "Shirts" as I jotted down notes stating my observations on each experiment. (Science nerd, much? :P)

Beginning with the "Shirts" section, it turned out that a majority of my tops came from El Salvador, yet I realized that such shirts were the Cotton ones that I had accumulated from high school-related functions like homecoming, track&field, and basketball. These shirts were kept more as memorabilia rather than for the actual purpose of clothing me. After acknowledging that these T-shirts that had traveled so far and produced so much Carbon Dioxide were just sitting in the back of my closet, I jumped on the bandwagon and donated the T-shirts I decided I wouldn't ever find myself wearing nowadays. Gotta love good ol', Goodwill.

What also interested me about the results from the "Shirts" category was that only four of my shirts were made in the U.S.A. In case you were wondering, I own 57 shirts from 20 different countries, and if I did the math right, this means only about 7% of my shirts were made in the United States. (Math nerd, too?) This, of course, brought me back to my Environmental Science class during my senior year of high school('08!!) when my teacher informed us that the leading reason for the environmental issues of the world is poverty.

Now let me clarify where I'm going with this. The T-shirts I own that were made in the U.S.A. were considerably more expensive than the ones that were produced in say, China or India, because in those countries, large, corporate companies pay their workers less than they would have to if those companies had produced the clothing in America seeing as how the minimum wages in those countries differ greatly than they do here. Therefore the companies don't have to make up for the money they spend on workers by boosting up the prices like they would have to in America, and thus resulting in less business because of the high cost. And we can't forget the most important issue with generating goods from far away, they cause more carbon dioxide to be omitted into the air due to the long travel. Hopefully, I made some sense there. It's crazy, right?

Unfortunately, there wasn't anything interesting about the results I came up with in the "Pants" category. Mainly because I covered it all in the "Shirts" department, haha. However, in case you guys were curious, here are how many different countries my 23 pairs of pants came from: 16. Regrettably, only 2 of my pants were developed in the U.S.A. while the majority of my bottoms were imported from El Salvador (Once again!). Oy.

For those wondering, stores like American Apparel thrive on the fact that their clothes are made in America. The only problem is that they're rather expensive which is what links back to the "poverty" issue. I'm not trying to say that you have to be absolutely poor to not give a darn about the environment, but not everyone can throw down $100 for a pair of jeans that were made in America, when they could simply pitch in $30 on ones made in Taiwan. It's why America is the #1 country to sell foreign goods to; because of our mass consumption. Even if it means hurting the environment in the process. With all this in mind, try checking out your local garage sales, second-hand stores, and even swapping clothes with friends as a clever alternative to wasting the pollution and money necessary to purchase something brand, spanking new. It's all just WANT over NEED.

Remember not to go into the whole "Well, if I don't buy it, someone else will anyways" mindset because the way I see it is that if I don't contribute to buying that one pair of $100 jeans that was imported from Bangladesh, then the company that's producing that clothing will have one less pair of jeans to manufacture in order to make up for the one that I would have bought. Get it? Got it? No? Sorry, can't help you there, but if you do understand, then thank you!! Hopefully my article made some of you think before you buy, even if it's in a small way. Maybe to feel personally impacted by what I'm trying to say, go and tally up the different countries that make up your closet and post back!! We'd love to hear your results.

Peace&Love, Everyone.
-Dr. Green T

Grace Cleaners

It is really interesting what one can find just by taking the time from their everyday life to explore their area. In my case, I was walking my dog through the streets of my city of Pleasant Hill when a small, neon sign flashing the words "Environmentally Friendly Process" caught my eye. This sign was attached to a dry cleaning store by the name of Grace Cleaners, located right across the street from the Pleasant Hill Walgreens. A quaint location placed near the bus stop, allowing for easy access to virtually anyone in the Bay Area seeing as how the buses drive to and from the BART stations every week.

That day I passed the store without another thought in my mind, yet after the January meeting for The Green News; I realized this dry cleaning store should be publicized for its earth-friendly efforts. Besides, I'm sure many of people have passed this store without truly acknowledging it, and I'm hoping this article will help to bring more individuals to such a location that promotes aiding the environment through their work.

I made sure to be prepared for my interview with the workers of Grace Cleaners, so I wrote down all the questions I planned to ask and called in advance to inform them of my visit. The woman who I interviewed was an employee of the store with a clear understanding of the products and methods used to be as environmentally-sound as possible.


Once I entered their store, I conducted an informative interview with the woman employee as she informed me that the reason their store is stated as having an "Environmentally Friendly Process" is because they choose not to use "perc" (Perchloroethylene), a solvent most commonly used in many dry cleaning stores. Unfortunately, short term exposure to this chemical is known to "cause adverse health effects on the nervous system that includes dizziness, fatigue, headaches, sweating, [lack of coordination], and unconsciousness. Long-term exposure can cause liver and kidney damage" as stated by The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Instead, Grace Cleaners use halogen-free hydrocarbon solvents which minimize the risks done to not only the environment, but to the health of the customers and workers involved in the whole process.

In addition to using alternative products, Grace Cleaners re-uses their chemicals on multiple loads before disposing of it. However, instead of simply dumping the final product into the sink, and therefore exposing a hazardous mix of chemicals into the water pipes and sewers, they have their Company come by every so often to take the solutions to a Hazardous Waste site to be properly disposed of. This is a seriously important aspect of being an environmentally-conscious dry cleaner store as it prevents any danger from occurring in the sewer systems and so on.

Over the course of 9 years, Grace Cleaners has performed their environmentally-friendly services for the public as more and more people find the appeal of taking their soiled clothing to a more earth-conscious store. With this in mind, many other dry cleaner stores should think of looking into making their methods of work healthier for the environment because as Grace Cleaners demonstrates, it won't hurt their business, but rather will lure more individuals into the appeal that is to keep not only our clothes neat as a button, but our Earth just as untarnished as well!!

Peace&Love, Everyone.
-Dr. Green T