TEDxYouth@Monterey

I was incredibly fortunate today to be a presenter at TEDxYouth@Monterey, a part of the international TEDx Youth Day. I had a great time as one of a varied group of speakers. I'll blog more on this later in the week, but for now: What matters to you? What can you do about it? And why not do it?

Back to School!

I've been going through all of my pens, pencils, notebooks, and binders from last year, and most things can be reused! I'll be sharpening and buying new lead and ink refills for my old pens and pencils, and my binders and notebooks are fairly reusable. I can tear out pages from old notebooks to use as regular paper, and I can re-label old dividers for use in my binders.

I hope you guys had incredible summers! I'd love to hear about what you're all doing to get ready for school! Let me know :)

Crazy Summer!

I've had a really busy summer, this year, so unfortunately I haven't been posting as much as I'd like to have been. I've been volunteering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium a lot, an experience I've enjoyed and really appreciated. There have been lots of opportunities over the summer for my family and I to use our reusable cups, and other than one place, they've been accepted. Hopefully I'll be able to get up posts on that experience a couple of other things soon.

Coffee (Make Your Starbucks Trip More Eco-Friendly!)

Who doesn't love Starbucks? We see the logo every day, whether around town or on a paper cup in someone's hand. Often I see my teachers or fellow students with their coffee in the mornings, and when they're done, they throw them out, and unless they're in a classroom, the only place to put them is a trash can, so they aren't even recycled. Putting aside the problem that they aren't being recycled, and think about the fact that it only takes six people to have coffee each day for 1000 paper cups to be used over the course of the school year. That doesn't even account for the ones that don't come to school.

How many people do you see go in to Starbucks, place an order, and ask politely for it to be put in an insulated reusable cup? Not very many. But when it does happen, they almost always are happy to fill your cup, bypassing the wasteful paper cup. Also, your coffee stays warmer for longer. So if ten people at my school were to use reusable cups whenever they went into Starbucks, that would take almost 2,000 paper cups out of the trash over the course of the year. Its just that simple.

You can easily find reusable insulated cups at places like Target or your local grocery store for less than $15, so why not? This is a scenario where the benefits definitely  outweigh the costs.

Movie Theaters

Who doesn't love going to the movies every now and then? A lot of people go in, get their soda and popcorn, and go find some decent seats. When you walk out everything just gets put in the trash, usually. A few months ago, Cinemark came out with reusable soda cups which are fairly expensive on the first use, but from then until the end of 2011, they're really cheap to take back and refill. My family bought a couple, and they've turned out to be really useful.

Last week when we went to the movies (with our reusable cups) I saw a sign advertising a refillable popcorn tub which worked on a similar principle to the cups. We weren't getting popcorn, so we didn't end up getting one, but I loved the idea, as it makes being more eco-friendly even more rewarding.

The other reusable cups which my family has recently used a lot are from our local gas station. They're fairly large cups for using at their soda dispensers, but we've also used them at Burger King, Subway, Erik's, Raley's, and Boudin's, as well as using them at home, so they've been really useful too.

Recycling Old Electronics

How many of you got new electronics recently? I'm guessing some of you did. Say, for example, you got a new cell phone, what would you do with the old one? Recycle it, of course. But how can you be sure where it's really going to end up?

I recently heard about gazelle.com, which is a website where you can answer a few simple questions about your old electronics, and they'll take it from you and recycle it. Usually, as long as whatever you send it is usable, they might even buy it from you and pay for shipping. They aren't the only option out there, I bet, but they seem to be a pretty good choice. I've also seen an article in the New York Times about options for recycling electronics, which I found really interesting.

Although it takes a little effort to get rid of old electronics responsibly, sites like Gazelle can really make it worth doing. So next time you need to get rid of old electronics, try looking at sites like Gazelle, and see if you can make a little money from it! 

The Plastic Bag Challenge

Just over a month ago, my family and I decided we needed to reduce our use of plastic bags. We were already really good at not using plastic bags, because we usually use reusable bags. But when we forgot those, either because they're in the car or because we left them at home, we just used paper/plastic bags. There were occasions when we all went out and my brother and i just bought a couple of small things, and we'd be given a bag, which was really unecessary.

So the Plastic Bag Challenge we came up with goes like this: for every plastic bag you bring into the house, you pay a $0.25 fine. We decided that we would collect these coins in a jar, and count them up after a couple months, and see how we've been doing. The money would then go to charity. How are we doing? Well, after 5 weeks, we only have $1.25! Thats about one plastic bag per week, which I think is pretty good.

The hardest time for me was going shopping with friends. We went out for a few hours one weekend, and I bought a lot of stuff, but I forgot a reusable bag. Somehow, though, I managed to keep everything in one bag, so only paid one fine. Also, when we go out to run errands and my brother and I don't think we'll end up buying something, we have to think about either sharing a bag or going without one entirely.

Its definitely a challenge, but its making us think, and we seem to be improving with use of bags when we don't need them. Why not try counting up the plastic/paper bags your family uses in a week? I'd love to hear about it!