Betty's Top 5 Beach-Inspired Tips for a Greener Summer

Summer time and I'm blogging to you from the beach today. Seeing people with mounds of plastic water bottles, smelling charcoal briquettes, and picking up litter from fireworks left on the beach inspired this blog topic which I shared with you on 106 the Corner this morning...

1- Can charcoal grilling be greener?? There actually are alternatives to the traditional charcoal grilling with less deforestation, fewer gas and soot emissions, and healthier food. Look for the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label. They have stringent guidelines in six key areas which require, among other things, the use of sustainably harvested wood. At Lowe's and Whole Foods, you should be able to find a couple of brands - one being Cowboy lump charcoal. There is also "Green link" and even one made of coconut husks.

2- Sunscreen: go to the Sunscreen Database at the Environmental Working Group's website. They rate sunscreens on a scale of 1-10 according to hazardous ingredients. My column in next month's Abode magazine comes out this Tuesday about personal care products for more information. You may not realized that cosmetics in this country are not regulated. Unfortunately there are many unsafe chemicals in our shampoos, shaving creams, and sunscreeens. Lead (in lipstick), formaldehyde, benzoate,parabens,BHA, etc - harmful chemicals are rampant so check out their extensive website. And think about donating 5-10 dollars to keep the website funded.

3-Disposables: Plastic cups, foam and paper plates, paper napkins. You've heard the familiar family mantra: "We don't want to worry about dishes, let's just use paper plates." Wrong. Why not feel great about protecting Earth's resources and do some serious family bonding by asking everyone to BYOF - bring your own flatware - and rinse your dishes after the meal on-site. Invest in a couple of tubs - one for washing and one for rinsing or wash when you get home and your family is well on its way to a lower waste or zero waste event (if one of you composts).

4-Water bottles: We consume 160 million water bottles a day in America. The problem according to back2tap.com:

•Picture a disposable water bottle ¼ full of petroleum. That is how much petroleum it takes to make and distribute a single plastic bottle of water.
•It takes THREE bottles of water to make and distribute ONE disposable plastic bottle of water.
•120 grams of greenhouse gases are generated by a single disposable plastic bottle of water.

Encourage family and friends to carry their own reusable water bottle containers and/or invest in a cooler for those big family summer barbeques.

5 - Seafood Choices: Help keep our oceans alive and well by being a smart consumer of fish. Buy sustainable fish. But how? I use the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Card: to download your seafood wallet card.

•Blue Ocean Institute
•Environmental Defense Fund
•Marine Stewardship Council
•Monterey Bay Aquarium
•KidSafe Seafood Program From SeaWeb

Summertime is free and easy and beautiful. Let's keep it that way by being conscious of our choices. Best, BWB

Cooling off in the summer... less is more

Find this article at C-ville Weekly newsstands, online, or right here!

Who doesn’t remember splashing in a sky-blue plastic wading pool, flopping onto a vinyl yellow slip n’ slide, or running through the sprinklers? Nothing beats the hot summer sun like the cold splash of water. But can we have fun without all the plastic paraphernalia and water waste? Here are Betty’s secrets.
Mother Nature: Wait for a summer rain to play.
Share: Join a community pool instead of purchasing your own plastic pool or splash equipment.
Two birds: If you absolutely need to water the garden or your flowers or a brown patch of grass, turn on the sprinkler but avoid the hottest hours of the day: post-lunch to 4pm.
Save the leftovers: Use plastic milk jugs with their tops removed, recycled yogurt containers or big buckets, placing them to catch the water. See how much you can collect.
Awareness raising: Americans uses 100 gallons of water a day compared to much of the world consuming 31 gallons or less per day. So each summer our family celebrates “water week.”
We track our water use, using online water calculators. There’s one that takes less than 10 minutes at wateruseitwisely.com. This tool from Siemens and Facebook shows your water use compared to other friends AND to other countries.
We borrow water books from the local library (check out our fave: A Drop of Water by Walter Wick). We study where our water comes from. And we play in the rivers and lakes. Naturally, water-saving actions arise and we have fun doing it.
Increasing drought conditions and our local water plan controversy help us realize that there is no resource more precious than water. So let’s use it wisely!

Houseplant helpers

Find this article in Cville Weekly's Abode

What do draperies, traditionally dry-cleaned clothing, men's aftershave, and flooring materials potentially have in common? They could be off-gassing formaldehyde, terpene, and other chemicals into your home. One solution? Let beautiful houseplants do the purifying work for you through their natural process of breathing oxygen into the air.

Kelly Agee of local nursery Elzroth and Thompson says, "The broader the leaf, the more purifying it is." You'll be needing over a dozen to really cleanse the air. Here are the top recommendations from National Geographic's Illustrated Green Guide:

Boston fern
golden pothos
spider plants
(known to reduce levels of formaldehyde)

areca palm
moth orchids
dwarf date palm
(reduce xylene and toluene)

gerbera daisy
chrysanthemum
spider plants
peace lilies
(reduce benzene)

Other healthy plants include bamboo palm, Chinese evergreen, English ivy, indoor Dracaena species and the snake plant. Now you can breathe a little deeper knowing your houseplants are helping!

Great Consignment Sale!!

THIS IN FROM A LOYAL BETTER WORLD BETTY-IST

Hi lovelies,

the first is my favorite consignment sale: "Divine Consign." i am one of many consigners who together are selling nearly 13,000 items. you can find ladies clothing, housewares, books, and great gifts for few dollars. if you wear a size 7 or 7 1/2 shoe, for example, there are over 130 pairs that await you . . .


it is located at aldersgate church on rio road and begins tomorrow. here are the dates:


Friday, April 29th

10am-6pm (Full Price)



Saturday, April 30th

10am-6pm (Full Price)



Monday, May 2nd

10am-6pm (25% off most items)



Tuesday, May 3rd

12pm-8pm (50% off most items)



Wednesday, May 4th

10am-6pm (50% off most items)




for more info: http://www.cvilledivineconsign.com/main/Home.html

EARTH DAY 2011

It's hard to believe another Earth Day has come and gone! Here are some of the Highlights from the Betty booth...

32 young people "planted" their seed of intention in edible dirt (above picture - I'm handing the dirt to a surprised little guy!): they wrote one thing they would do for the Earth in the next month. My favorite: check out more books from the library. Some others were:

I will finally make a habit of using my reusable water bottle.
I will start composting.
I will use only one paper towel in public restrooms if they don't have an air dryer.
I will volunteer for Wild Virginia.
I will take myself off junk mail lists.
I will bring my own mug everywhere.
I will recycle my ink toner at work.

Thanks, everyone.

Also... 1061 the Corner played Betty's three Earth Songs. Staple It Together by Jack Johnson, Nothing But Flowers by the Talking Heads, Society by Eddie Vedder from Into the Wild Soundtrack (I love eddie vedder and the tribute to Chris McCandless).

Other cool news: We raffled off 3 Betty t-shirts. We received more than 20 new subscribers to the newsletter. And 7 business owners are already interested in joining our Better Business Challenge launching SOON!

All in all it was a beautiful day of interacting with Betty-loving, Earth-loving doers who want a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable Charlottesville for generations upon generations.

Thank you to my Western Albemarle Student Volunteers: Anna, Hannah, and Leah who helped make edible dirt for the kids and who made beautiful earrings and necklaces made of recycled wrapping paper.

Best, BWB

Like a green neighbor, Betty is there...

Our ability to think creatively is essential for these personally and planetarily challenging times. This month Betty has inventive ideas for saving money and resources, including gas.

Beyond the clothing swap

Bring some clothes to the party, take some home. Easy and fun, right? Why not try a book swap, a DVD swap, a CD swap? What about exchanging meals? Get together with a friend on a Sunday afternoon, each make two meals for two families, and exchange: leave with four meals!

Hardware help

Drills, saws, screws of every size. Toolbox items can really add up and why, if we have a network of close friends or neighbors, couldn’t we all share? Introducing the traveling toolbox. Everyone pitches in money or tools to create a collective toolbox for everyone’s use.

Traveling toys

Parents know how quickly toys pile up and become less than interesting. When my kids were little a group of moms and I started a toy exchange. Once a month we would fill a basket with five to 10 toys, books, and puzzles and then rotate. The goodies were a “new to you” alternative to store-bought items.

The grocery trip tree

Another idea to save on extra trips (and rising gas costs) is to create a phone tree of neighbors who are willing to pick up a couple of grocery items for other neighbors. Like this: before my weekly grocery trip, I call Karen and Frank from the list to see if they need me to pick up anything. I pick up one to two items ($10 maximum) and they pay me back immediately or keep a tally and pay monthly. As a group, you lay the ground rules according to comfort level. I did this with an elderly neighbor and it worked well.

Do you have some other great green ideas?? Email Betty at betty@betterworldbetty.org

SLOW is the (green) way to go...

OK. It's been a while since I got real and shared a green confession. But here goes.

My biggest hurdle to sticking with my e-conscious way of living is the speed at which I go through life.

And I'm not just talking about the fact that it pains me to go 55-60 miles per hour on the highway even though I KNOW that is going to reap the best rewards in terms of gas mileage. I set the cruise to 59 and SLOW down until I realize I'm five minutes late to my time management meeting (only slightly kidding)!

Why is it so hard to slow down?! It's why I have scratches on almost every single one of my fingers and my ankles (I nearly ran over my entire foot today rolling a shelving cart in the library!). I hit the ground running. I've always been this way. And I'm not alone. We are moving SO fast these days.

I remember my parents sitting me down when I was in elementary school, explaining to me that I need to SLOW DOWN and listen to ALL the directions. My teachers were saying I get up and run away mid-sentence. "Like right now!" I remember my exasperated parents saying mid-lecture. I was getting up to go back outside to play.

I get things done by rushing. It's the reason I'm able to be a library assistant, then a mom, then Betty. Case in point I wait until the last minute to think about what is for dinner and end up buying a farm-raised fish --on the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch list, yes -- but it's been flown halfway across the globe, for Earth's sake!

I cut corners, I pause through stop signs, I forget to sign the homework, and I let unmended clothes pile up. I'm not proud of it, but would I really be here as Bettty if I didn't?

All rationalizing aside, tonight I'm slowing down.

Once again it comes from the prompting of my favorite eco-inspirations in the world: one of my adorable sons.

"Mom, you said you would sew that weeks ago!"

"Yup. Pinky promise - I'm doing it tonight."

So I dig out the needle and thread and here I sit, sewing the cuff of my son's favorite jacket (a hand me down from his older friend Stephen) and planning the next few meals deliberately, slowly, consciously so I can actually slip into hugging the tree instead of slamming into it head first. Aaaahhhh. That's better.

BWB