March is one of my favorite months: spring skiing, my daughter Talia's birthday, school vacation, and well, the official arrival of SPRING! (Yes, I know, the really nice weather is still months away, but let's pretend it won't snow in April this year, as it does almost every year here in NYC). And while this is a not a huge day in my Italian-Jewish heritage, who doesn't love St. Patrick's Day? So Amelia's got some tips on how to really green this already "green" day!
I'm also happy to report that Chryso is back with her beauty column - this time reviewing organic mascaras, and Dede has some interesting news about greening rock concerts with Reduce, Reuse, Reverb. Spring is also the beginning of moving season so check out our featured EcoTip about Used Moving Boxes.
So do you have an EcoPlum Chicobag? We are posting pictures of people with their EcoPlum and BroadwayGreen Chicobags for our Bag the Bag campaign on Facebook and Flickr. See some pictures below and please send us a picture of YOU with your Chicobag. Send it to bagpics@ecoplum.com or upload directly to our facebook page. We'd love to see pictures of our fans from all over the country and all over the world taking a stand against plastic bag pollution!!
One last piece of great news this month: I am thrilled to be working with Amit Aysola again. Amit worked with me at my old company Plan Data Management, and has come on board as our Interim VP of Business Development. Learn a little about Amit below.
Enjoy this month's newsletter, and if you are available, please join me and the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of NY's Sustainable Business Committee on March 18th as we present: Making Green from Green: Corporate Environmental Sustainability Programs. Our featured panelist is Jeff Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation! Hope to see some of you there!!
Best,
Gia Machlin
President and CEO
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and family!
Sure, St. Patrick's day is all about being green, but there's more to
this - or any - celebration than the exact shade of your streamers and
beer. When you're planning the party, keep in mind that there are many
ways to stay on nature's good side. Avoid plastic decorations, and
use recycled paper or green Christmas lights to fancy up a room. If
you're crafty, try your hand at a papier-mache pot
of gold or bowl for a centerpiece. If you use old newspaper and a
flour-based glue recipe, the pieces you create will be entirely
biodegradable. To take it a step further, pick up some organic paints, which lack solvents and volatile organic compounds that can cause serious health issues. If you're serving food, make sure to use compostable plates and silverware.
If you like to host, and do so often, it might be worth getting some
cheap plates and serving utensils from a nearby thrift store, which you
can reuse whenever you have people over. Try a veggie-based recipe,
like shepherd's pie or colcannon. Both are simple, traditional dishes with a small carbon footprint. Irish soda bread is another standby. Read More!
Save money and trees with USED boxes for moving
Enter Boxy and Moving Boxes Man, part human, part box, these
"cardborgs" have built a website that offers gently-used shipping boxes
sold in moving kits with 1-3 day free delivery, nationwide.
They've joined the Used Cardboard Boxes, Inc
network which has revolutionized the moving and shipping box
industries. It supplies high-quality used boxes for moving, packing,
shipping, and storage to both consumers and businesses. They're helping
eliminate the need for "dumpster diving" or "box begging" for abused
boxes that may be damaged or unsanitary. Read More!
Chryso Beauty Buys: Eco-Friendly Mascara
Welcome
to my beauty column! We will devote this space to a new product
category for the month, be it body wash, nail polish, or bath salts.
We'll let you know which brand outshines the other in the categories of
safety, environmental responsiveness, packaging, practicality, and
results so that you can make informed choices about what you slather
on, dust on, and lather up with. This month we take on mascara...
Second
only to under-eye concealer (without it, I can look like a total
raccoon), it's the only beauty product I don't feel complete without.
Adding depth and length and color, mascara makes my lashes pop and my
face come alive. I wear it every day. That's why it has become
important to me to find the perfect replacement for my favorite (not
organic) brand.
According to CosmeticsInfo.Org,
which is sponsored by the Personal Care Products Council, twelve
ingredients are commonly found in mascara: Alcohol Denat, Ammonium
Acrylates Copolymer, Colorants, Copernicia Cerifera (Carnauba) Wax,
Fragrance, Glycerin, Isopropyl Myristate, Magnesium Silicate,
Preservatives, Propylene Glycol, TEA-Stearate, and Water. However, some
mascaras contain Thimerosal, the mercury-derived preservative found in
vaccines which has been linked to brain damage and autism, according to
news agencies such as The Epoch Times. The jury's still out on possible side effects, but why take chances when there are other products on the market?. Read More!
Dede's Green Scene- Reduce, Reuse, Reverb
I know people say that music heals the soul, but can it also heal our
planet? Although music concerts are awesome, they produce a lot of
waste and consume tons of energy. The concert may only last a few
hours, but it has a damaging effect on the environment. Fortunately
Adam Gardner, guitarist for the band Guster, noticed this as well. He
told the Colorado Independent, "You'd come to a concert and everybody
drove there in their own cars and there's a big plastic wasteland at
the end of the night and we got there in our tour bus that guzzled
diesel and it was like, 'God, this is terrible, how do we do something
about this?'" So Gardner and his wife, environmentalist Lauren
Sullivan, formed Reverb.
Reverb is a non-profit organization that helps artists green their
tours and educate concert-goers about environmental issues. Since it
began in 2004, Reverb has greened over 81 major musical tours including
Dave Mathews Band, Maroon 5, Jack Johnson and Sheryl Crow.
Reverb reduces the waste produced from musical tours by setting up
recycling bins, not only for the audience, but for the backstage area
as well. The backstage crew and musicians are given aluminum water
bottles instead of plastic ones. Organic concessions are sold and even
served on biodegradable tableware. (You can view Jesse Carmichael, the
keyboardist from Maroon 5, taking a big bite out of one of the cups
made from corn on the Reverb website.) All the merchandise sold at the
event is made out of organic materials. Read More!
From The Blog:
It's Snowing! Global Warming, Global Weirding, Whatever!
Last Friday I had started to wake up my kids for school, when I looked
out the window and thought better of it. I checked my text messages and
there was a notification from the NYC Board of Education that all NYC
schools were closed - SNOW DAY! Since my son Noah has a particularly
violent reaction to being woken up, I was happy to let him go back to
sleep and save myself from some berating and screaming (my husband
usually is the butt of this behavior, but he was stuck in California
since his flight was canceled due to the snow storm). So I happily
crawled back into bed for a little more sleep and reminisced about the
snow days of my youth. This is the second Snow Day NYC has had in a
month - woo hoo! I started thinking about how people have actually been
using the snow to support their "where has global warming gone?" jokes.
Read More!
Meet our team members...this month...Amit!
Amit has more than eight years of investment banking,
management consulting, and startup experience, which he is leveraging as he
pursues his interests in the renewable energy and sustainability spaces.Amit was most recently with Demeter Group, a
consumer products-focused investment bank based in San Francisco.Prior to Demeter Group, he worked in the
investment banking groups at Robert W.Baird and Banc of America Securities in Chicago.Amit alsoworked for Plan Data Management, a healthcare IT startup, and for
Deloitte Consulting as a management consultant.He graduated with a BSE and MSE in engineering from the University of
Michigan and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.Amit holds Series 7 and 63 securities registrations.He is also on the Advisory Board of Heliux, a
Bay Area solar startup.
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Ecoplum Pie Archives
Now the old Ecoplum Pie newsletters are archived and available to view. Check it out.
Sure, St. Patrick's day is all about being green, but there's more to
this - or any - celebration than the exact shade of your streamers and
beer. When you're planning the party, keep in mind that there are many
ways to stay on nature's good side.
Green Scene- Reduce, Reuse, Reverb
Meet our team members...this month...Amit!
