 | GET A GREAT DEAL ON RAIN BARRELS - SUPPLIES LIMITED!
by Christine Wied
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A rain barrel discount program for City of Ventura residents is now available through Environmental Sustainability and Ventura Water. Working in cooperation with Smith Pipe and Supply at 3060 Sherwin Avenue in Ventura, the Channel/Bushman 60-gallon rain barrel with a retail value of $85.oo will be available for $42.oo plus tax at their store with a Rain Barrel Discount Voucher.
READ MORE.
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Green Business Certification
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Become a State Certified Green Business The Green Business Certification Program is currently available to office/retail and restaurant businesses within the City of Ventura, but other sectors will be added as the program gains traction. Although the certification requirements differ for each sector, the main environmental categories are waste, energy, water, pollution prevention, wastewater, and general staff education.Contact: Courtney Lindberg, 805-667-6502 or email: clindberg@cityofventura.net to set up your FREE consultation.
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Commercial Business Recycling It's THE LAW as of July 1, 2012
What every Ventura Business Needs to know!
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Conserving our natural resources is essential for the health and wellbeing of our community and our planet.
In keeping with this sentiment, beginning July 1, 2012, the State of California has made business recycling mandatory. According to the newly enacted legislation (AB341), businesses that generate 4 cubic yards or more of trash per week (the equivalent of a large commercial dumpster) and all multifamily complexes with five or more units (regardless of the amount of trash they generate), will be required to recycle.
Compliance is determined by solid waste service capacity. Businesses that share trash service accumulating the 4 cubic yards or more of trash per week must comply even if individually, the businesses do not generate that amount of trash. READ MORE.
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What Can YOU Do To Help Preserve Ventura's Environment?
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A Zero Waste Program
to reduce unwanted
mail & phone books
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Did you know that 11 billion pounds of mail was delivered in the US in 2008? That equals 900 pieces (100 lbs) for every household. Out of that amount, only 40% is recycled.
Over 660,000 tons of phone books enter the waste stream annually. Only 20% get recycled. Nearly 70% of adults in the U.S. "rarely or never" use the phone book.
If you are tired of getting tons of junk mail in your mailbox and would like to save trees, reduce the waste that goes into our landfills and care about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, there is a way you can make a difference.
Join along with the City of Ventura's Environmental Sustainability Division and sign up with Catalog Choice to opt-out of getting junk mail deliveries to your home and business.
Catalog Choice is the largest independent mail preference registry in the United States. When you sign up, it's FREE and you get to opt-out of receiving all forms of advertising mail and unwanted phone book deliveries. The great thing about Catalog Choice is that with a database of more than 5,500 titles (and increasing daily) that you choose what you want to opt-out of receiving.
Under the Fair Information Practice (FTC), your information will also be kept private and be protected.
CLICK HERE TO JOIN!
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Stormwater:
Best Management Practices
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Wash your car in the grass, or take to a commercial car wash. Your car has oils and greases that wash off and then flow into the storm drains, polluting the nearby water body. Commercial car washes have special procedures for treating the water that washes off your car.
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Ventura's Natural Beauty
Let's keep it that way!
August 2012
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Saving the World A Drink At a Time: The Green Task Force Hosts Green Drinks at Ventura's EcoLogic Life
By Maryann Ridini Spencer
"Green Drinks" is a term known in the environmental world as a fun, meet up for like-minded business professionals in relaxing, celebratory settings where they can network, exchange ideas and forge valuable working relationships. Well known in international environmental circles, Green Drinks is a network of unstructured meet-ups where environmental professionals and concerned locals get together in a relaxing setting to network, exchange ideas, and forge valuable relationships. At last count, Green Drinks events are hosted in over 600 cities worldwide. The mixture of attendees at Green Drinks events usually include professionals in the areas of: general business, academia, government, non-profit, medicine, home décor, construction and other fields. On Wednesday, August 1, The Ventura Chamber of Commerce's 
Green Task Force (GTF) organized this year's first Ventura-based Green Drinks event at EcoLogic Life, downtown's designer showroom for sustainable home decoration products. The event was a smashing success with over 50 attendees. Tutti's on Main provided the delicious food. Alquimia Tequila provided the green drinks, made from organic agave, no food coloring included.
 | | Green Task Force LtoR: Courtney Lindberg (Environmental Specialist, City of Ventura's Environmental Sustainability Division and Green Task Force Co-Chair), Janis Shinkawa (Veterinarian, Buena Animal Hospital), Diane de Mailly (President DDM Metering Systems and Green Task Force Co-Chair), Kirsten Davis (AdvoCare) and James Davis (Associated Electric) |
"Green Drinks has been around for a long time," said Diane de Mailly, President, DDM Metering Systems and GTF Co-Chair. "Recently, the GTF was asked to step in and organize these events in Ventura. We know they'll be a big success moving forward because Ventura is such an amazing community dedicated to the environment. We plan to make Green Drinks a quarterly event."
 | LtoR: Diane de Mailly and Courtney Lindberg,
Green Task Force Co-Chairs |
"What the GTF strives to do," added Courtney Lindberg, Environment Specialist with the City of Ventura's Environmental Sustainability Division and GTF Co-Chair, "is to promote green business development. We bring local businesses together and educate them about sustainable practices, covering such topics as waste recycling, energy, water conservation, pollution prevention and staff education. We highlight successes and learn from our mistakes so that we can grow as a community with green business practices part of our every day consciousness."
"If you had to paint Ventura one color, it would probably be blue, the color of our ocean. If you added another color, it would be green," Rick Cole, City Manager, City of Ventura. "This is a remarkable community and environmentally-oriented to its core. We all pay attention to the motto 'Think globally, act locally.' Whether it be on a global scale, or a local scale, waste costs money and pollutes the planet. It's also something we don't want to pass onto the next generation." 
In addition to Green Drinks, the GTF organizes a series of quarterly "Best Practices Workshops" where local businesses share their green ideas and practices with others in the community. To date, there have been workshops at Red Brick Pizza focusing on sustainable practices and the YMCA focusing on lighting retrofits.
In May 2012, The Green Task Force teamed up with the office of Assemblymember Das Williams's for the Second Annual Green Jobs Summit held at City Hall.
"The Green Jobs Summit brought a number of businesses together to talk about ideas and sustainable principles," said James Joyce, Field Representative, Office of Assemblymember Das Williams. "Through working together on the Summit, our office developed a great relationship with The Green Task Force. There's so much synergy. It's great to be a part of it."
Stay tuned and read this newsletter for information on future Ventura-based Green Drinks events.
| Saving the World a Drink At A Time: |
| Ventura's Green Task Force Hosts |
VIEW Event Photos on Facebook, CLICK HERE.
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The 3 R's For Back To School
by Christine Wied
The first day of school is just around the corner. Below are some great tips on how to have a more sustainable school year. - "Reduce" is first in the hierarchy of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Don't buy it if you don't really need it.
- "Reuse" for the items you need, check thrift shops, Freecycle, Craigslist and other sites where you may be
 able to find what you need at a lower price. - Avoid vinyl, or polyvinyl chloride, the plastic with the number three in the chasing arrow symbol. This material often found in binders, backpacks, lunch boxes and modeling clay is made with substances classified by the EPA as known human carcinogens. It can contain toxic
 additives such as phthalates and lead that can leach out or off-gas. Since growing children may be more sensitive to these substances look for items made with alternative materials. - Where safe and practical, encourage walking and bicycle riding to school. Make sure that you check that last year's bike helmet still properly fits to maintain optimum safety.
- If your student takes their lunch to school, use reusable containers.
- Buy in bulk and store food in reusable containers to avoid single-serving items.
- For all those computers, printers and other electronic devices, look for those that have been rated by EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool)
 and/or Energy Star to be energy efficient. Plug these devices and chargers into a surge protector. When not in use, unplug the surge protector to avoid phantom energy use. - Provide a stainless steel, glass, or BPA-free plastic water bottle to avoid purchasing expensive bottled water. Remember bottled water is just someone else's filtered tap water in bottles that can leach dangerous chemicals into the water especially if the bottles get warm. Buy a pitcher with a water filter or other filtering device if you don't like the taste of the tap water.
- Use desk lamps with CFL or LED bulbs. Halogen lamps may put out a lot of light but also a lot of heat that can be a fire danger as well as using a lot of energy.
 - If your student is heading off to college and needs to furnish a dorm room or apartment, look for organic cotton or bamboo sheets and towels. Again thrift shops and online sites or recent graduates may have
 good reusable furnishings. - If small appliances such as refrigerators, microwaves, crockpots, toaster ovens or rice cookers are allowed in dorm rooms, look for those with Energy Star ratings. Look forward to a wonderful, sustainable school year!
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Ventura's Refill Shoppe Gets a New Home
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New Location for The Refill Shoppe, 363 E. Main Street in Downtown Ventura
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by Maryann Ridini Spencer
In an environmentally friendly world, the green rule of thumb is Reduce*Reuse*Refill.
The Refill Shoppe, an eco-conscious store that recently moved from 1068 E. Main Street to a new roomier downtown location at 363 E. Main Street, does just that by offering quality bath, body, home and cleaning liquids in bulk so that customers can fill and/or refill their own containers.
Shop founder, Michelle Stevens, claims that even though her store fulfills the three R's by reducing trash in our landfills and reusing and refilling containers in pretty bottles,
"You don't have to be an environmentalist to enjoy the Shoppe."
"It's for anyone who loves different scents, potions and great bottles,"
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Owner Michelle Stevens in The Refill Shoppe's new location
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said Michelle. "The fact that they are doing something positive for the environment is icing on the cake."
The Refill Shoppe, which opened its doors in July 2, 2010, offers mostly products that are unscented so that customers can customize scents and colors at 50 cents an ounce to their purchases by adding essential oils and fragrances such as lavender, tea tree, lemon, wild orange, chamomile, sage and many others.
"My ah-ha moment in creating the store," said Stevens, "began a few years ago when I poured some olive oil into a pretty bottle. I realized then that I wanted to create a fun and creative option for people to enjoy the liquids in their life."
 
The Refill Shoppe products which include such items as shampoo and hair conditioner, body lotion, bath gels and soaps, face care products, baby care products, laundry detergent, window and floor cleaners, are also made from natural ingredients that aren't harmful to the environment.
"Whether your doing your usual shopping, or putting together a pretty gift basket of specialty items," said Stevens, "I like to refer to what we do at the Shoppe as 'Making a Difference One Bottle at a time.'"
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SAVE THE DATE
The 28th Annual California Coastal Cleanup Day,
September 15, 2012
California's beautiful coast and waterways unfortunately has been the dumping spot for accumulations of large debris and trash. Whether deliberately, by people who toss trash onto the sand or near the water, and/or by such toxic urban runoff as: animal excrement, pesticides and herbicides, plastics, bottles and cans, pharmaceuticals and other lethal items, which travel into the storm drain system untreated. No matter what the reasons, these types of lethal substances can be harmful to marine life, damage our state and local economy and ultimately serve as a human health hazard if they get into our waterways.
Urban runoff can't be skimmed from the ocean surface or diluted with various chemicals. Too much run-off pollution as well as carbon absorbed from gas and other emissions in the air, is also damaging our oceans changing their PH balance which then causes lethal damage to marine life.
What can you do to make a difference?
Volunteer!
Coastal Cleanup Day is the state's largest volunteer event. It's been responsible for helping to remove tons of debris from our waterways. It's a vital event for keeping our oceans clean.
Mark your calendar for Saturday, September 15, 2012 from 9:00am to Noon. Bring your friends, family and associates. CLICK HERE to find out how you can Find a clean up near you and what other actions you need to take to participate.
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Sustainable Ventura's NEW TV Season
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The Sustainable Ventura TV Series, seen on Caps-TV VTV's 
Channel 15, is back for a second season on Thursdays at 8:30pm.
The show showcases environmental and sustainable practices, programs, events, issues and happenings taking place and/or offered by the City of Ventura.
 This month's show, brought to you by Ventura Water, offers great tips on how to grow and nuture an Ocean Friendly and Native Gardens. Featured interviews include: Cynthia Hartley, Chair of Surfrider's Ocean Friendly Gardens Program talks about what makes a sustainable garden, Ventura City resident Dan Long discusses the process of making an Ocean Friendly Garden, Professional Garden Designer Lisa Burton (Nature by Design) shows us her gorgeous native garden and talks about plants that do best in the Ventura climate and Dave Williams from Aqua-Flo talks about smart irrigation. The show rebroadcasts Monday-Thursday and Saturdays at 9:00am, Sundays at 8:30pm and every other Wednesday at 8:30pm. LIKE US on Facebook, CLICK HERE! | |
Sustainable Ventura TV Series
Ocean Friendly and Native Gardens
August 2012 Show airing on CAPS-TV's VTV, Channel 15 this month
Thursdays, 8:30pm with rebroadcasts
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| NEWS Highlights from July
| July 4
"Happy Birthday Lady Liberty" was the theme of the City of Ventura's 37th annual street fairwhich ran the length of Main Street from 10:00am-5:00pm, starting at Cemetary Park and ending at the Street Fair Theme "Happy Birthday Lady Liberty" sponsored by the East Ventura Rotary Club. There were 6 stages of entertainment, over 200 artists, crafters, nonprofit organizations & food vendors, fireworks and more.
July 21 - Household Hazardous Waste Event
Every third Saturday of the month (except in December), the City hosts Household Hazardous Waste Disposal Events at Gold Coast Recycling. To make an appointment, call 805-652- 4525. Also visit:
GREEN THUMB POP DISPLAYS  If you happen to be wandering down the isles at Green Thumb Nursery at 1899 Victoria
Avenue, take notice of the "Less Toxic Pest Management" tags (for ants, snails and weeds), that direct consumers to more eco-friendly choices for their home, lawn and garden maintenance.
Listen to Sustainable Ventura
podcasts on iTunes.
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Environmental Sustainability
is Everyone's Responsibility! 
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