Bota Box, a company that sells wine in boxes, is giving a $2 donation to the Arbor Day Foundation for every new fan that they receive in April on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/botabox.
Bota Box is a environmentally friendly wine supplier. The packaging in printed on recycled paper containing 100% post-consumer fiber and the box itself is 100% recyclable. Soy-based inks and coatings are printed directly on non-bleached Kraft paper, which is bonded together with cornstarch instead of glue. The bag does not contain phthalate plasticizers or Bisphenol-A (BPA).
According to recent studies, bag-in-box wines, like Bota Box, have a smaller carbon footprint than traditional glass bottles. Bag-in-box wines create 85% less landfill waste than glass wine bottles. The transport of Bota Box reduces greenhouse gas emissions because the packaging is 35% lighter on average than glass as well as 44% smaller in size.
Composting has not been on the top of my list. I have considered it and it seems simple, but I just want to get it right. Before I would start and then just abandon the whole thing. We usually put fallen leaves around the trees in our yard, but we don’t use the scraps of vegetable matter-those end up going in the garbage. Last night the Super Bowl commercial with Audi and the green police made me think about composting again. One guy was getting a ticket for throwing a banana peels into the garbage and I thought that is the same thing that I do with my peelings.
Here are some YouTube videos on composting that I am using as a resource for composting. It really answered a lot of my questions. One thing I was doing was putting food scraps on top of the compost and that was attracting a lot of pest. A video gave the common sense solution of covering the food scraps with dry material. As I try to compost once more, I hope to get everything right this time around.
People across the world have reached out to the victims of January 12th Earthquake. One company Good to Grow has donated over 2,000 BPA free bottles to an orphanage in Haiti, The Hands and Feet Project, that has two locations through Haiti and has been helping victims of the earthquake.
The donation to Hands and Feet Project is part of Green to Grow’s Bottles to Babies initiative, whose ongoing outreach gives back to those in need while helping to educate them about issues related to their families’ health and the environment. Last year, through their Bottles to Babies initiative, Green to Grow donated over $52,000 of BPA-free feeding products to non-profit organizations that serve low-income families in the U.S. and abroad.
Green to Grow was started by Mike Ritterbrown and his wife Shelley Aronoff. This couple wanted to have BPA-free bottles for their own child and found the supply of those products limited. They then started the need company out of need to have the BPA-free bottles available for themselves and other parents. Green to Grow products are free of BPA, phthalates, lead, and PVC. Green to Grow manufacturers and distributes a line of BPA-free plastic baby bottles, glass baby bottles, silicone nipples, starter/gift sets, organic cotton baby cloths, totes, and accessories.
More hybrid and battery electric powered cars are being built and the need for the batteries that power those automobiles is growing.
Lithium-ion battery manufacturer EnerDel announced today it will invest $237 million in a new manufacturing plant near its Indianapolis headquarters in order to meet anticipated demand for advanced battery systems used in both automotive and stationary smart grid applications. Backed by a mix of private funds and public incentives, the new facilities will more than double EnerDel’s U.S. production capacity and create 1,400 new jobs.
Whether it is the desire to be environmentally responsible or just to save on gas more consumers are looking for alternative fuel vehicles. In 2008 both Ford and Toyota underestimated the demand for hybrid vehicles and the battery shortage caused a bottleneck in production. A new battery supply company is certainly welcome and as the market recovers they will be poised to fulfill the demand that will take place.
About everyone has a cell phone and knows how to text. You can now text your donations to help the Haitian Earthquake victims.
Several different humanitarian organizations have established ways for cell phone users to text their donations to help victims of the January 12th Earthquake in Haiti. The donation will be added to user’s cell phone bill.
Text the word “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 on behalf of the Yele Foundation, the leading contributor to rebuilding Haiti founded by Wyclef Jean
Text the word “Haiti” to 85944 to donate $5 on behalf of the Rescue Union Mission and MedCorp International
Text the word “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 On behalf of the Internal Rescue Committee
Text the word “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 On behalf of the Red Cross in the U.S.
Text the word “Haiti” to 45678 (In Canada Only) On behalf of the Salvation Army in Canada
Haiti was hit with magnitude 7 earthquake. The quake struck the country southwest of its capital of Port au Prince at 4:53 pm local time. This huge earthquake has caused catastrophic damage to the area. The number of casualties has not been reported, but judging from the damage and photos there is expected to be a significant loss of life. The Prime Minister of Haiti has said that hundreds of thousands may have lost their lives as a result of the earthquake
The quake occurred on the North American plate and the Caribbean plate. Earthquakes are not unusual for Haiti, but it is the strongest that they have felt in a century. Aftershocks have already been experienced since the initial quake and more could be felt in the coming days and weeks.
The United States is sending two search and rescues teams of about 72 each.
You can help by making donations to organizations that will be helping the relief efforts.
CNN Top Ten Heroes tribute in Hollywood was in November and Efren Peñaflorida was name the 2009 CNN Hero of the year. Peñaflorida is from the Philippines and received an award from Pilipino President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on behalf of his organization and its many volunteers.
His organization, Dynamic Teen Company, brings education to children living in the slums of the Philippines that would never get an education otherwise. Children flock to them as they teach and they have helped to change many lives over the years.
Peñaflorida is a young man that has worked to make a difference and use whatever resources that he had to make an impact in the lives of human beings. He really is a true definition of a hero.
News reports over the years have brought to light the plight that many albinos in African have experienced at the hands of the superstitious and witch doctors. They have been killed and dismembered so that parts of their bodies can be used in rituals. One man in Mali said that he was almost kidnapped twice and that is why he escaped to Spain to get asylum. According to the article on the BBC News web site, the process of gaining asylum usually take 2 years , but his was done in 2 years. The man also says that he would like to one day bring his albino brothers to Spain so that they can be safe.
In a few months, the city of Ulysses will get a new machine called a gasifier. It will be used to turn cow manure into electricity. Each unit is small enough to fit on a semi-truck, but is capable of producing enough energy to power 1,500 homes.
“Each cow produces about 8 pounds of manure per day,” says Gene Pflughoft, Grant County Economic Development Director. “They can take that dry manure, gasify it, turn it into a gas, and then run that into a generator and generate electricity.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement tonight on the United Nations Climate Conference. Speaker Pelosi is currently leading a bipartisan Congressional delegation to Copenhagen.
“The agreement reached tonight in Copenhagen is a breakthrough in the global effort to combat the climate crisis and could not have been reached without President Obama’s active involvement and leadership. The President has secured a critical agreement that includes an achievable mitigation target, transparency measures and a financing mechanism – the three key fundamentals outlined in the President’s speech today and embodied in the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill.
“In our discussions in Copenhagen, we have been gratified by the enthusiasm of American business leaders and our colleagues in the European Parliament for the House passed clean energy bill. Our legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs for Americans, strengthen our national security and ensure the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in the emerging marketplace for energy efficiency and renewable fuels. Business leaders from around the world have it clear: addressing the climate crisis is not only sound science and a moral imperative, but good business.
“Our bipartisan delegation, which includes 21 Members of the House, has held two days of highly productive meetings and discussions during our visit to the Copenhagen climate meeting. This morning, our delegation discussed responses to the climate crisis with representatives of many of the leading American companies including such innovators as Google, Honeywell and Whirlpool. These business leaders informed us that their businesses are thriving in the fields of energy efficiency and green technologies. They stressed that the funding provided by the Congress through our Recovery Package has been crucial to their making the investments that are producing jobs for Americans and new products that promote energy efficiency, specifically smart grid technology.
“On Thursday, Members of the delegation participated in a roundtable with other women leaders by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance; held bilateral talks with Indian Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh; and met with leading Danish government officials, including the President of the Folketinget Thor Pedersen.
“The delegation also met with leading representatives of the European Council of Ministers, who explained that their various countries have not only complied with carbon reduction mandates, but have simultaneously achieved economic growth and job creation through new clean energy technologies.
“While there were differences between Members of the delegation, as Congressman Joe Barton said, we all believed this was an historic meeting.”
Bota Box, a company that sells wine in boxes, is giving a $2 donation to the Arbor Day Foundation for every new fan that they receive in April on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/botabox.