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This Month's
Hot Link
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Carbon Footprint
iphone apps
On your iphone App Store, search "carbon footprint" and you'll get a few dozen apps - about half are free - ranging from games and fun approaches to carbon "emissions" to serious calculators that will chart and monitor your environmental impact based on your daily activities.
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Green Star Staff
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Kim Kovol
Executive Director
Jeanne Carlson
Program Director
Lilly Capell
Air Quality Program Assistant
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Shining Stars
Welcome to our newest Green Star members
- Janssen Contracting, Inc.
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Reminders
Green Star is on Twitter and Facebook!Twitter: Follow us for updates, news and green business tips. Facebook: Join our group "Green Star AK." Bike Fridays - Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage will host Bike Fridays on the last Friday of July, August and September. BCA will hand out free coffee and treats during the morning commute on July 31, August 28 and September 25 to bicyclists around Anchorage. Locations include: - Tudor/Elmore at ANTHC campus (6:30am - 9am)
- Chester Creek Trail at Lake Otis baseball fields (7am - 9am)
- Westchester Park at Westchester Lagoon (7am-9am)
Renewable Energy Fair - August 1, 11am-9pm, Delaney Park Strip - Renewable Energy Alaska Project (REAP) hosts this annual fair featuring renewable-energy exhibits, speakers, workshops, crafts, good food and live music.
- Bike commuter demos and bike valet service provided by Bicycle Commuters of Anchorage.
- Be sure to stop by the Green Star booth.
Nonprofit Electronics Recycling - The deadline has passed for nonprofits to recycle electronics equipment and receive a reimbursement. All nonprofits that met the deadline need to be sure that the reimbursement paperwork is submitted to Green Star before July 24 to receive reimbursement. State Fair Recycling Volunteers - Sign up your business team to help recycle at the fair. Recycling is in its seventh year at the fair! Contact Linda at recycling@alaskastatefair.org for available shifts and dates. Volunteers receive free entry to the fair on the day they volunteer as well as a parking pass for their recycling team. |
Brown Bag It! for the Air, your Wallet, and your Waist
What do you do on your lunch hour? Just because you bring your lunch to work doesn't mean you have to eat at your desk. Just ask Bill Huebner with the National Park Service, a Green Star Award certified organization.
"At lunch, I frequently take walks to take a mental break from whatever I am working on and get a little exercise while I walk and eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich," says Huebner. "When I get back to the office, I am mentally refreshed and more able to focus on what I was working on."
The benefits of bringing your lunch to work range from eating healthy and saving money to expanding your horizons culturally and saving the planet. [photo above: The Nerland Agency staff can enjoy time away from
their computers and soak up some Vitamin D during lunch on the
company's back deck.]
"There is also a lot of art to check out downtown," says Huebner. "I always have to find out what is happening at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, or the latest exhibit at the Museum. When I have to get in my car, I become more preoccupied with traffic and less able to take a mental break and get my body moving."
Do you have a favorite "clean air" lunch spot or activity? Please share it with Green Star at lilly@greenstarinc.org.
 [photo: The picnic area behind the Alaska Railroad
Corporation headquarters is an ideal place for employees to take a break, have
lunch and enjoy good weather.]
Health Benefits
Bringing your lunch is the easiest way to eat healthy because you control what you eat and you know how many calories are in your lunch box. You also can benefit from the extra time you gain by bringing your lunch to walk or work out instead of driving to get food.
Environmental Benefits
Bringing your lunch to work not only frees up time for exercise during the lunch hour but also spares the air. For example, say you travel around two miles each way in a vehicle for lunch for a total of four miles. That's the distance from the U-Med District to Midtown. Factoring in waiting in line and finding a place to park, your short lunch trip just cost you $2.08 in gas and vehicle ownership, wasted 15 minutes of your time and emitted 3.66 lbs of CO2.
Financial Benefits
Bringing your lunch to work is a lot less expensive than buying your lunch every day. If you go out to lunch five days a week at $10/lunch, you'll spend about $2,400 on lunch annually. If you bring your lunch, the typical cost is about $3/lunch, or about $720 annually. Over the course of a year, you can save $1,680 just on the cost of food. That doesn't even factor in the cost of driving to get food each day.
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Building a Zero-Waste Lunch
 - Use a reusable insulated bag or lunch box instead of a brown paper bag. A reusable ice pack can be used to keep perishable food items cold.
- Use reusable containers that can be washed and used over and over instead of using disposable plastic sandwich bags for sandwiches and snacks. If you use sandwich bags, you can rinse these out and reuse them. Several companies even sell bag-drying racks for next to your kitchen sink, or build your own!
- Use a thermos or reusable jug instead of a bottle of soda or a juice box.
- Use metal silverware or wash plastic utensils and reuse them instead of plastic utensils that are used once and thrown away.
- Buy in bulk and pack individual servings in reusable containers. Create your own snack packs rather than purchasing the over-packaged, over-priced store-bought versions.
- Use cloth napkins that can be washed and reused instead of using paper napkins or paper towels.
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Thinking Outside the Lunch Box
Lunch at work doesn't have to be a sandwich in a brown paper bag. Jazz it up and enjoy your frugality!
- Keep a bottle of hot sauce at work. It can perk up anything from a sandwich to a salad. If hot sauce isn't your thing, be sure to stock mini salt and pepper shakers in your desk.
- Don't forget snack and dessert time.
- Buy a nifty reusable lunch box. It'll make any lunch more fun and will save you money in the long run.
- Pack your lunch the night before to save time in the morning.
- Keep a few cans of soup or microwave meals at work just in case you forget your lunch or are pressed for time.
- Make extra portions for dinner that can be enjoyed the next day for lunch.
- There should be foods from all of the major food groups, including fruits, vegetables, and grains, as well as dairy products and lean meats.
- Avoid soda and other high-calorie, high-sugar drinks. These drinks contribute to energy loss in the afternoon and add empty calories.
- Check out Fabulous Foods - Brown Bag Lunches for more brown bagging tips and creative recipes for your workplace lunch.
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Alaska Waste
Expands Curbside Recycling Area
 Alaska Waste, the largest waste and recycling hauler in Alaska, has expanded its residential curbside recycling service to include households in East Anchorage and Midtown.
"There has been a lot of support for curbside recycling and people were asking when it was coming to their area," said Katy Suddock, Alaska Waste's Recycling Coordinator.
Alaska Waste has expanded to another 4,000 households in the lower Anchorage bowl, filling in the gaps between its service area and the Municipality's Solid Waste Services area.
Alaska Waste announced its single-stream curbside recycling service in February 2008. The program provides residents with a 96-gallon recycle cart and every-other-week collection. Recyclable materials, including mixed paper, cardboard, PET plastic bottles, HDPE plastic jugs, steel cans, and aluminum cans are commingled in one container with no sorting necessary.
Alaska Waste's curbside recycling is a subscription service that is offered for $10.04 per month. Residents can sign up by calling Alaska Waste at 563-3717 or by emailing recycling@akwaste.com. A map of the current recycling areas can be found at www.alaskawaste.com.
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Biking Photos Wanted
Green Star is looking for fun photos of folks biking around town, to work, school, camp, or goofing off to use for our E-News and other publications. Please email photos to lilly@greenstarinc.org. Any questions? Call Lilly for more information at 278-7859.
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Access past issues of E-News, sorted by topic or date. Please send comments, questions, or suggestions for future E-News topics to us at enews@greenstarinc.org. Forward this newsletter freely. Send us any email addresses you wish us to add to our mailing list. Thank you!
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