Green Guide

There's a new quarterly magazine that's devoted to informing consumers about green products - and it's from National Geographic. It's called the Green Guide: The Resource for Consuming Wisely. Here's a link: http://www.thegreenguide.com/lp/srb/?c1=GreenGuide&source=goo-TGGLearn

The inaugural issue gives you 10 best ways to reduce your CO2, how to go green and save $60 a week, free your house of toxic chemicals, get better gas mileage out of your car, find safe cosmetics, and more. There's also product reviews and other useful info.

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Green Knights Awarded Johnie Forte, Jr. Memorial Grant

We are so excited and proud of our group! We are one of the 2008 Johnie Forte, Jr. Memorial Grant Award winners. See the complete list of winners at http://www.cleanfairfaxcouncil.org/forte.htm.

Many thanks to the Clean Fairfax Council, the Fairfax County Solid Waste Management Program, Fairfax County Wastewater Management and Vantria Federal Credit Union for contributing to this year's grant program and making it possible.

Our project is to beautify our neighborhood by picking up litter around the school and near our homes and create signs that encourage students to put trash and recyclables in their place and not on the ground.

We ordered some litter grabbers in bright red and yellow. The manufacturer even put labels on them with sayings like, "Keeping Our Forest Clean" and "You Can Make A Difference." Off we went to the field at the back of the school with a bag designated for trash and one for recyclables. The kids had a blast finding all sorts of things on the ground and then deciding whether to drop them in the trash bag or the recyclable bag. When we made our way to the playground, the kids playing asked if they could help too. They improvised, using sticks to pick up litter. It's great to see the excitement of taking care of our Earth spread to others.

One of the requirements of the grant program is that we give a presentation on our winning project. We invite you to come to the Earth Day/Arbor Day Celebration at the Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus on April 19th. The award ceremony is at 1:00 p.m.

Here's more info about the Earth Day/Arbor Day Celebration:
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/publications/recycling/event-earth.pdf

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Photos from January Meeting

The January Meeting entry is updated with photos of the mural.

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Close the Loop

What does that mean? It means purchasing products that are created from and packaged using recycled materials.

When you buy these items, you are saving water and energy. It takes a lot of water, oil and energy to create a new plastic bottle. But it takes a lot less water and energy to melt down that bottle and create another one. It's the same thing with toilet paper. Lots of trees are cut down, lots of water and energy are used to make virgin-fiber toilet paper. But if you buy the 100% recycled toilet paper (Seventh Generation's is soft), you are saving all of those trees and lots of water and energy.

It just takes a moment to look at the label on the packaging to see if it was made with recycled materials and if the packaging was recycled. The higher the post-consumer content, the greater the environmental savings. Post-consumer content tells us how much of the items you and I recycle are used in the making of that product or packaging.

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Helpful Web Sites

Check out these!

www.earth911.org

www.treehugger.com