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Live Green in Plano Volunteer,
Before last week, my experience with floats and parades was limited to cheering from the curb. The Live Green in Plano Advisory Board enthusiastically embraced the challenge of designing a Live Green in Plano float for the Plano Christmas Parade. I went along for the ride.
Once work began, it wasn't long before there was a gingerbread house constructed of reused and recyclable materials sitting on a trailer. It sported a rain barrel and downspout, CFL bulbs at both the front and back door and solar panels loaned to us by Michael Woodall of Solar Renewable Energy Design.
Gifts wrapped in newspaper were stacked below a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments made from reused materials. A repaintable banner proudly announced our theme: "I'm Dreaming of a Green Christmas". Snowmen stuffed with packing peanuts held placards about the benefits of riding bikes. Volunteers took turns pushing a solar powered lawn mower and walked behind the float carrying reusable shopping bags that held REI water bottles to hand out to the spectators.
Even more fun than walking in the parade, was watching the float take shape on the preceding three evenings. Thanks to these creative and resourceful volunteers: Karen Mitchell, Leeman Tseng, Brenda Steib, Erin Hoffer, Gary Cannon, Cheri Cunningham, Jan Eppard, Angie and Alex Shapira, Jinyun and J'ahang Tang, Michael Woodall and the Faulkenbury, Teng and Moore families.
There will be lots of ways for you to get involved in 2008! Watch for information on apartment recycling campaigns, a Girl Scout workshop and our second annual Live Green Expo on April 12. Check www.livegreeninplano.com for a current listing of opportunities.
The next Live Green in Plano Volunteer Training will be held on six consecutive Tuesday evenings beginning January 8 through February 12. Invite your friends and family to join the program by contacting Deb Bliss at debb@plano.gov or (972) 769-4313.
Deb Bliss
Sustainability Volunteer Coordinator |
| Green Interiors |
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The Inside Scoop 
If your New Year's plans include redecorating or remodeling your living space, join us at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24 at Parkway Service Center, 4120 W. Plano Pkwy., Plano, 75093 to learn your options in making healthy and environmentally sound choices. Denise Bates, Senior Interior Designer with Gensler and LEED Accredited Professional, will explain the issues and options when making decisions about the materials that go into your home.
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| Seminar: Living Green Through the Holidays |
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Entrepreneur Kate McCaulay displayed products from her store Green Living as she gave tips on how to shop "green" this holiday. Her suggestions included looking for fair trade items, solar powered science kits, organic cotton or bamboo-based clothes, reusable water bottles and filters and considering donations to organizations that support the environment. Visit www.green-living.com for additional ideas.
Environmentalist Michele Cary-Dave provided a list of local food resources, a bibliography of books that speak about commercial food production in the United States and a table full of food to sample. Local goat cheese drizzled with honey on whole grain crackers was just one of the simple, healthy and elegant snacks to try.
With an additional 5 million tons of trash generated nationally between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, Recycling Education Coordinator Kim Soto offered some important ideas for managing household waste using the 4R's.
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Reduce: give fewer gifts, try an exchange, draw numbers, spend time together, make donations.
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Reuse: wrap gifts in a dish towel or scarf or reuse a tin from another product, save and reuse bubble wrap and packing peanuts or give them to a shipping business, take your own reusable bags when you shop and use washable dishes at your parties.
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Recycle: be sure your party has a recycle bin, avoid using metallic paper and cellophane wrapping paper, put your corrugated cardboard out with your yard trimmings.
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Resolve to live green all year and share these ideas with friends and family. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Visit www.livegreeninplano.com for a video on this topic produced by Plano Television Network. |
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Vampire Electronics in Households
Joanna Pylko |
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A force as perilous as Dracula is slyly sucking a nickel of every dollar's worth of electricity that seeps from the outlets in your home. This is reported in www.livescience.com.
Those little fang-like plugs on your cell phone chargers, computers, DVD players, PlayStations, microwaves and coffee makers pull electricity whether the appliance is on, off or in stand-by mode. Vampire electronics use 5 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States. That amounts to $4 billion a year.
Picture any appliance displaying a clock. It is continually using little bits of energy. About 40 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while items are on stand-by or recharging. The suggested solution to eliminating energy vampires is to unplug accessories and add them to a single power strip that can easily be switched off each night.
Web sites from the federal Energy Star program, U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list appliances that consume less energy. According to governmental sources, if one in 10 American homes used approved energy-efficient appliances in their home it would reduce carbon emissions by the same amount as planting 1.7 million acres of trees.
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| Volunteer Blogs |
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When Live Green in Plano Volunteer Sandy Kreps couldn't find a forum for green and simple living, she decided to start one! She wanted "a place to chat about modern living in a busy world, where you can do what you can with what you've got and don't have to feel guilty about it."
Kreps says, "The more I bounced the idea off of people, the more I found like-minded people who said 'you should do that -- I'd love to read about stuff like that!' I got emails from members of the Yahoo group asking if they could forward my posts to their friends and family, so I decided it would be easier to create a public blog instead."
In August 2007, http://modern-simplicity.blogspot.com was born. She gets a lot of email and chat board feedback, people asking follow-up questions from her posts or wanting information on something seasonal. Most of it is related to ways to live greener. She tries to answer each one personally and often adds them to her running list of questions and topics to include in future blogs.
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