The Green Life

Green Music Week: Festivals

Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.

Tip #3: Go to Green Concerts

We used to feel lucky if a concert venue offered recycling bins, but festivals today are raising the bar even higher. For example, the Project 30-90 music festival will be powering its stages with solar and wind energy when it rocks New Orleans on September 5. Find out if your favorite music festival scores green points by checking out A Greener Festival's list of 2008 winners or ask organizers to nominate an ecofriendly festival for the 2009 awards. Get the lowdown on notable festivals such as Rothbury, Bonnaroo, and the High Sierra Music Festival here.

Share your tips: What are your favorite green music festivals?

Respect. Respect Yourself. Respect the Environment. Respect.

Though we may all find ourselves caught up in Bruno mania, let us not forget Sasha Baron Cohen’s original alter ego, the boorish and incorrigible English wankster, Ali G. Here, Ali G speaks with British university professors and politicians about the importance of recycling. Mr. G begs the question, “Ain’t it dirty to use somefing that has been used before?” The answer: No. Recycling is not only necessary in maintaining a clean and sustainable planet, but also completely natural. While he’s horrified to discover that that his old bath water might someday become his drinking water, he still expresses mad respect for the planet, and so can we with the help of a few simple tips:

 

Know where you can go to recycle what: Earth 911 provides an easy-to-use search engine to help you find local recycling centers.

 

Buy products made from recycled materials: Check the labels on clothes, boxes, and containers. Buying recycled products can support the planet as much as recycling can. EPA

 

Reduce and Reuse: Recycling whenever possible is integral in maintaining a healthy environment, but consuming less and reusing products are the first steps in producing less garbage. Planet Green

 

--Julia Gelbaum

Know Your Footprint on Race Day

While training for a big athletic event may keep your body healthy, most competitions aren’t keeping the planet healthy. Plastic cups, bottled water, energy-gel packets, "victory food" served on plastic plates, and the impact of thousands of people racing across a scenic route are all part of the environmental mess of race-day waste. Thankfully, some races are making an effort to clean up.  Here are three ways to find them:

Athletes for a FitPlanet offers consultations to race directors who are working towards carbon neutrality, zero site degradation, and zero waste to landfill. They also help “green the event supply chain” by working with sponsors and vendors who adopt environmentally responsible practices. The company keeps a searchable list of races that have made an effort to become more sustainable. USA Triathlon recently partnered with FitPlanet, and has hired the company to green its four championships this year. 

The Council for Responsible Sport certifies events based on five categories: waste, climate, materials and equipment, community and outreach, and health promotion. Races earn one of four levels of green certification based on their achievements in each category.

The "Greenteam" of Runner's World magazine publishes a list of eco-friendly races on their Web site.   They also provide race directors with a list of green alternatives to race essentials and suggestions for runners wanting to reduce their footprint.

--Sarah F. Kessler

Green Music Week: Instruments

Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.

Tip #2: Make Your Own Instruments

Encourage your children's creativity, or have fun with musically inclined adult friends, with DIY instruments. Tin cans, cardboard boxes, and paper plates can be recycled into a rhythm section. Even vegetables can be musical: the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra performs concerts using only edible instruments. Find tutorials for making "carrot strummers" and "eggplant clappers" on PBS's The Greens Web site. When your concert is over, throw your instruments into a pot and enjoy a healthy dinner.

Share your tips: What are your suggestions for making homemade instruments?

Green Music Week: Musicians

Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.

Tip #1: Support Green Musicians

Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is known for his efforts to reduce the environmental impact of his tours by traveling in biofuel buses, purchasing carbon offsets, selling ecofriendly merchandise, and using his celebrity status to promote green causes. Johnson isn't the only musician looking out for the earth: Check out Sierra magazine to find a list of new musicians with eco-cred. Visit Climate Crossroads to get free downloads from Missy Higgins, The Giving Tree Band, and Minus Ted.

Share your tips: What songs are in your ecoTunes playlist?

Green Your Health: Mind Your Mind

What’s good for our bodies is good for the planet – and what’s bad for the planet is bad for our bodies. This week we’re exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include caring for our own health.

Tip #4: Maintain Mental Hygiene

The link between mental health and environmental degradation isn’t commonly discussed, but if you think about it, it’s when people feel unsatisfied that they’re likelier to overconsume, making the planet a hapless victim. And the unprecedented rates at which people are taking antidepressants and stimulants are polluting our rivers and oceans.

Natural ways to feel better include exercising, getting enough sleep, developing a strong support system, talk therapy, heading outdoors, and pursuing a hobby. If you have to take medications, make sure to dispose of them properly.

Green Your Health: Avoid Plastic

What’s good for our bodies is good for the planet – and what’s bad for the planet is bad for our bodies. This week we’re exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include caring for our own health.

Tip #3: Cut Out the Plastic

Many of us already know how devastating plastic can be for the planet but most aren’t aware enough that the synthetics can harm human health too. From heating food in plastic containers to reusing plastic bottles (and perhaps even using them the first time) to scientific concerns about BPA, there’s an ocean’s worth of reasons to steer clear. Instead of throwaway plastic, choose reusable glass or metal. If you do find yourself having to use plastic, at least be sure to recycle it.

Tell us: How have you cut plastics out of your life?

Green Your Health: Consider Your Diet

What’s good for our bodies is good for the planet – and what’s bad for the planet is bad for our bodies. This week we’re exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include caring for our own health.

Tip #2: Watch What You Eat

In addition to going organic, you can make other dietary changes to help your health and please the planet. Eating less meat, for example, is a huge way to heal the earth (18 percent of greenhouse gases come from industrialized livestock production), as is lessening overall caloric intake. The term “tread lightly” takes on new meaning now that there's research, written about here, here, and here, citing overeating and obesity as causes of global warming.

Tell us: How do your food choices help the environment?

Happy B-earth-day

For many parents, planning a child's birthday party opens a box of eco-guilt filled with balloons, wrapping paper, and landfill-clogging trinkets. EchoAge can help. Children send e-invites using the online service, and when recipients RSVP, they're asked to donate between $10 and $40 in lieu of a material gift. A portion of that money (42.5 percent) goes toward one present of the youngster's choosing. An equal amount goes to one of a dozen charities -- three of which are environmental -- also selected by the child. The remaining 15 percent covers a service fee.

--Avital Binshtock

Green Your Health: Opt for Organic

What’s good for our bodies is good for the planet – and what’s bad for the planet is bad for our health. This week we’re exploring the idea that caring for the earth must include minding our own wellness.

Tip #1: Choose Organic

Whether with food, cosmetics, or clothing, try to ensure that anything you put in or on your body is free of pesticides and other chemicals that pollute the planet and your innards. Choosing purer products might cost more in the short term but in the long run, you’ll be saving more than just dollars. Just look for the seal.

Tip #2: Consider Your Diet

Tip #3: Avoid Plastic

Tip #4: Mind Your Mind

Tell us: What are your favorite organic brands?