Stop Junk Mail. Be Eco Friendly. Do Good. The GreenDimes Blog

Tree Planting Hulabaloo

Recently, I posted an article about one of our fabulous Tree Planting Partners called American Forests.  Not a minute after I clicked the publish button all of our other tree planting partners started chiming in.

“What about us?”  “Where’s our write up? “  “Our oaks provide way more shade in the morning than theirs provide in high noon.”  “Blind taste tests show our sap tastes way better than theirs.” “Our saplings go to better schools.” Then our first partner complained, “No, we have exclusive GreenDimes blogging rights.”  And on and on.

Alright, fine I’ll talk about all our partners.   While I am kidding about the entire scenario above, this is serious stuff folks.  According to our next featured partner, Trees for the Future, the earth loses about 100,000 acres of forest a day.

These guys have planted over 50 million trees in 58 countries (wow!)  They've worked with 12,000 villages. And we all know, more trees mean better soil, water, food & fuel which will help the over the 1 billion people who don’t meet basic nutrition standards.

They have specific programs that address problems of women and children around the world. A lot of them have to travel far and carry heavy loads to get what they need from trees.  A lot of them have to deal with pollution from slash-and-burn techniques.

You know what?  Why don’t I let them speak for themselves.  Here’s a 9-minute presentation from Trees for the Future (you can skip around a bit, I promise I won’t tell).

Your Junk Mail TrickorTreatser - Sanjiv

Brrrrr....

It’s Halloween and here in Palo Alto, we’re feeling the fall chill. Growing up in Colorado, October 31 always ended up being the first big storm of the season, without fail. Halloween meant cold, snow, slippery roads (prohibiting our parents dropping us off in the fancy neighborhood where they passed out whole snickers bars)… you know, the whole nine yards. In my memory this happened every year, just in time to squash out trick-or-treating spirits, make our face-paint run down our rosy cheeks and turn perfectly wrapped candy into soggy mash. Talk about frightful.

Ok, ok, I know this sounds dramatic. I’m sure I had some great Halloweens. Like the year I was a Hershey's Kiss and my mom, never one for the crafts, hand-made me a costume that didn’t fit through my third grade classroom door (Mom, I know you read this- and I sincerely appreciate the effort…) Ok, I’ll just say it- this might not be my favorite holiday.

But here I am, a grown woman, finding myself in the middle of another Halloween winter-wonderland. Why, you ask? You live in sunny California, you’re thinking. Yes, but I live in Northern California where apparently it gets cold. Nobody told me that. I don’t think anyone told Sanjiv that either (I am not kidding, I just watched him- with Luna’s blanket wrapped around his shoulders- blow warm air into his hands, campfire-style).

The point- we’re saving energy by not turning on the heat. It was a conscious decision. And it has turned into a bonding experience of sorts, where we commiserate about how cold we are, about how nobody told us that the Bay Area even got this chilly.

But it has also spawned chatter about being environmentally responsible and using our blankets and layers, not heating and energy.

So here’s to a happy (and warm!) Halloween, and the winter ahead.

-Kendra

Moving On

I don’t know.  I don’t know if I want to give up my moving boxes.  I worked hard to get those boxes.    I had to wake up the crack of Trader Joes' operating hours to grab their boxes before they met the compactor.  I had to yell at one of those office superstore aisles for charging $12 a box.  I had emoted with glee when UHaul only charged $2 for recycled boxes (nice Uhaul).  I followed the 2 step assembly instructions and taped and re-taped the edges.  And my labeling system - flawless.   

And now what? My brother tells me I can help out others and the environment by giving away my boxes on Craigslist, and I have to do it?  What if I move?  I mean, I live in the wrong side of Mountain View (is there a wrong side?)  My apartment is bookended by two 7 elevens, can’t be good for property values.  Except it is fun giving out directions.  “If you hit the 7 eleven you’ve gone too far…or not far enough.”

Fine, fine, I’ll give away my boxes.  That reminds me to remind you there’s probably a lot of recycle opportunities on Craigslist.  Good eco-tip, no?  Back to my boxes.  Check out “Free Stuff” in sfbay craigslist and take my boxes… but I’ll keep the memories (little cheese is good every now and then.)

Your Junk Mail Moving Company,

Sanjiv

Ocean Current’s Trash Collection Service

It’s Dan (the General Manager) again! I hope that your week is going as great as ours at GreenDimes. More and more of you are joining as we work harder and harder to eliminate all that junk in your mailboxes.

And speaking of junk, I observed a headline in the news today that caught my attention: “Floating Mass of Trash – Can It Be Cleaned Up?” You may have heard of the Great Pacific (Ocean) Garbage Patch, but I had not. Apparently, there is a large and stewy body of plastic waste floating around the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles north of Hawaii. One marine researcher says that it is twice as big as Texas and it weighs 3 million tons! 

How did this happen? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a two-liter bottle that is inappropriately thrown away in San Francisco rolls into a storm drain and heads out to sea. Once there, ocean currents off the California Coast pick it up and several weeks later it will reach the floating debris. The trash all collects at this single location, the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that circulates along the Pacific Rim. 

Because the bottles and other plastic trash does not biodegrade, it will “photodegrade,” meaning the sun’s UV rays will turn the bottle brittle and break it down into small pieces that makes the patch almost impossible to clean up. The resulting soup is adversely affecting marine habitat as scientists attempt to devise ways to remove it. You can learn more at www.algalita.org.

What does this mean to GreenDimes and our green-conscious members? It means that we all need to do all we can to minimize plastic waste on land – pick up your trash at the beach; recycle; use our nifty reusable GreenDimes bag; and recycle (did I say that again?).

Most importantly, we are preventing the Great Junk Mail Garbage Patch by eliminating it in the first place. Hold on while I pat ourselves (and you) on the back!

GreenDimes- Rocks or Sox?

Here at GreenDimes, and more specifically within the marketing department, the last week has strained a relationship here and there.

Yep- one of us is a Rockies fan (albeit admittedly fair-weather) and the other is a Sox fan (shudder). We tried to keep our differences outside of the office. Oh, we tried. I even held my tongue when someone came strolling in on Saturday sporting (not rockin’, for obvious reasons) a Sox cap…

In the effort of maintaining my professional relationships, I am going to focus my poor-sportsmanship not on Sanjiv but on the sport as a whole. Call it misdirected frustration if you will. Either way, you’ll find the following stats interesting. That, my friends, I would bet on (and no, I didn’t bet any money on the Rockies and yes, for this I am glad).

• I read these today: Putting on a big-time football game ends up pumping around 47.6 metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere—or just 1.35 pounds per fan. For comparison's sake, the average American's carbon footprint is 64.81 pounds per day.
• Though football games are massive productions, at least they're infrequent—an NFL stadium hosts just eight regular-season contests a season.

·      Professional baseball is much dirtier over the long haul, with each stadium hosting 81 regular-season games a year

·     DRAws an average of 2.66 million fans (vs. about 542,000 fans per NFL stadium)

There you have it. My misdirected frustration turned into an environmental FYI. And I like football better anyway.

Kendra

Postal Mail Scam Series

Chapter 4: The Free Fee Equation

Am I the recipient of an unclaimed tax refund?  I sure am.  See, the government is working for you.  I just had my letter opener re-sharpened, so let me use that…Ah, well, it’s not from the IRS, it’s from a government agency affiliated with the IRS.  See, government agencies affiliated with the IRS are working for you.  Wait a minute, this is from a non-government agency not affiliated with the IRS.  I think that means a business. 

And they want to charge X dollars?   I hate paying X dollars.  I thought I was supposed to receive X dollars.  I wonder if the IRS provides refunds for free, they do.  I wonder if this practice is illegal.  It is.

So you’re probably saying, “hey, I didn’t get my fraudulent unclaimed tax refund notice in the mail.”  No, well maybe you got a notice to pay for another free service offered by the government such as:

1.       Child Support Collection

2.       Social security

3.       Property Tax Exemption

4.       Unclaimed funds held in a government agency.

When you read the U.S. Postal Services Mail Fraud’s website, they attach the word ‘scheme’ to each item on that list, and provide further detail.  It’s not exactly beach reading, but well worth it.

Sanjiv = mx +b (y can’t get all the love…I’m such a geek)

American Forests takes on American Wildfires

American Forests (americanforests.org), the nation’s oldest citizen’s non-profit conservancy, announced that they have a goal to match the $2.8 million settlement they received to offset the devastating effects from the California wildfires.  I checked out their site, and they run a really good operation, most notably through their ReLeaf program (5 stars for their play on words).   

For example, Ikea partnered with American forests to plant 33,000 trees a year to offset the CO2 emissions produced from IKEA workers and customers driving to their stores.  American Forests have also set up the Katrina ReLeaf Fund which will restore much of the Gulf Coast urban and rural tree canopy. 

Now, they’re working on the California Wildfire situation.  I, myself, lived less than a mile from the LA Griffith Park fires and witnessed the blank landscape after they tamped down the flames.   

Now I know what some of you are going to say, “Some wildfires are good, they clear the brush  & small trees to allow the larger trees to grow, and the larger trees develop a sort of flame retardant in their bark that prevent them from dying in another forest fire.  Wildfires are also a part of the natural forest cycle that promotes a greater diversity in the ecosystem. “    To which I’d say, “Wow, you know a lot of about trees.”

And then I’d say, “some” wildfires are good, but I take a nimby (not in my backyard) approach to wildfires – little selfish, I know.  Also, the Ice Age was part of nature, too, no?

So, go help our friends at American Forests.  These guys know what they’re doing.

Click to donate to American Forests’ California Wildfire ReLeaf Fund or call 800/545-8733.

Note: American Forests is one of GreenDimes tree planting partners (what, you didn’t think we planted them ourselves, did you?)

The Man Who Lost His Favorite Griffith Park Hike (they’ll bring it back),

-Sanjiv

Junk Mail / Tree Issue Solved!

Finally, the junk mailers have a solution.  Junk Mail Trees!  This is a mere 17-foot prototype of their proposed reforestation effort.    Now you can read your junk mail under the shade of junk mail.   One teenager complained that there’s no space to carve “Jimmy Was Here” in the bark…

No, no, this 17-foot tree was ‘sculpted’ by San Jose artist, Hector Dio Mendoza (pictured) to demonstrate the impact of this wasteful practice.  Even the leaves are shredded junk mail!

For the complete story:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/27/BAGNBGU9K01.DTL

Thanks Hector,

Sanjiv

Junk Mail Horror Story Winner:

We loved this one in the office:

“Well, I don't know if this is necessarily junk mail a "horror" story, but it is kind of sad and makes me laugh at the same time.

When I'm forced to sign up for things online that require a date of birth, I usually just type anything in.  Apparently I typed in a birth year of around 1900 one time a few years ago because on some list somewhere I'm over 100 years old (I'm actually only 29!). 

Then the senior demographic junk mail started.  I was getting junk mail from hearing aid companies, funeral homes, life insurance companies, cemeteries, and health insurance companies targeting those who are on medicare.  I even received an AARP card in the mail!”

-posted by Andrea

Priceless.   Now don’t expect to look as cool in it as Justin in the pic above (he is our Creative Director, after all) but know now you can choose between tee shirt colors black or white.

Junk Mail, begone!

Sanjiv

GreenDimes employee Green Tip O’ the Week

Featured Employee: Ted, Director of Products

Tip: Um, this is tricky, perhaps even a bit un-PC of me as his trusted co-worker. But I have noticed that Ted *always* has dishes on his desk. No, I’m not here to out him for having a dirty desk, not that at all. This is just his effort to cut out senseless waste- right, Ted?

Using dishes from home will prevent your finding yourself in the middle of the plastic fork/spoon/nightmare that most of the American workforce can’t wake up from. So go get ‘em, Ted, you’re doing the right thing. And while we all appreciate your effort to ‘go green’ at your desk, just make sure that doesn’t become the color of mold growing out of your bowl…

A fellow (and observant) GreenDimes employee,

Kendra