April 2009 Archives

The Will County Land Use Department and Lewis University, 1 University Parkway, are partnering to hold an electronic recycling event from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday (May 2) at the Romeoville campus.

They will take broken and obsolete PCs, laptops, monitors, keyboards, electronic mice, hard drives, CD ROM/Zip/tape drives, modems, cords & cables; CDs, DVDs, floppies, etc., ups (battery backups), printers (laser, ink jet, dot matrix, etc.) televisions, vcr, dvd, laser disc players, digital clocks, portable radio/cd players, speakers/stereo systems, microwaves, CB and two-way radios, phones, cameras (film, magnetic tape, digital), palm organizers/hand-held games, video game players, calculators, joysticks/game controls, adding machines, typewriters/word processors, copy/fax/scanner machines, pagers, paper shredders, answering machines.

Basically, load up the car.

For more information, contact Will County Waste Services at 815-727-8834 or visit www.willcountylanduse.com.

Plainfield invites individuals, families, and groups to participate in the 18th annual DuPage River Sweep from 9 a.m. to noon May 16.

Volunteers will help remove debris and litter from the DuPage River and tributary areas to improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and enhance safety for people and animals who rely on the DuPage River for recreation and habitat. Volunteers are also invited to enjoy a post-event barbecue at the Plainfield Park District's Mather Woods facility.

The sweep is organized regionally by The Conservation Foundation and locally by the village of Plainfield and Conservation Plainfield.

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. at Village Hall, 24401 W. Lockport St.; then teams are formed and dispatched to various cleanup sites.

To participate, contact Jonathan Proulx, planning division, at 815-609-6139 by May 1 or visit www.plainfield-il.org.

An Earth Day Kite Fly will be held from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday at Volunteer Park, 1100 Murphy Drive, Romeoville.

"Pack a picnic lunch, bring your lawn chairs and watch the kites take flight as we celebrate National Kite Fly Month, the arrival of spring and Earth Day," organizers boast.

RECYCLING ALERT: Bring your old gym shoes, books, crayons, cell phones, and ink jet cartridges for SCARCE's 2009 rescue programs. Your shoes will be recycled to make new playgrounds, running surfaces, and basketball courts. Please only bring gym shoes; no dress shoes or sandals. Bring your old cell phones to recycle too! The recycled cell phones will help defray the costs of the shoe rescue program. All other items will be recycled and put to good use as well.

Activities include:
Bubble fun
Snow cones provided by Tropical Sno
Cold Blooded Creature performance
Wal-Mart booth
Biodiversity Project booth
Will County Forest Preserve booth
Plant your own seeds
SCARCE Rescue Programs
Giveaways

The Earth Day Kite Fly is free and open to all ages. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Oh, Will County Forest Preserve District, you got me.

The district has scheduled SO many Earth Day events this week that there are officially too many for me to summarize here. Suffice it to say there is really something for everyone this week. The highlight for me is the Get Smart! Get Green! Get Sustainable! Earth Day Celebration on Saturday at Plum Creek Nature Center.

Hop over to their page to see the calendar of events. It's worth it.

It took Earth Day for me to realize just how many companies are hopping on the green band wagon, but maybe not really meaning it.

It's called green washing. Companies say they're doing something green to make consumers buy more, but often it's a largely meaningless effort (like donated 1 cent from every huge purchase to a green group) or a move done purely to save cash (like using a little less plastic in water bottles.)

It's a bit disheartening.

But some folks are doing the real deal for the right reasons. Like the owners of Plainfield's Salazar Packaging and the owners of the LEED-certified restaurant in Joliet. Frankly, I don't think the tree-huggers are rushing into that Denny's, meaning the decision was made for the right reason. Which makes me want to go order chicken strips.

That said, don't be disheartened when you see fake green.

When your co-worker says she only eats organic because regular food is poison, but then she chain smokes, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and assume organic food isn't worth it.

When a show on Planet Green shows a rich homeowner patting themselves on the back for buying a $15,000 room-sized shower that uses 28 low-flow showerheads, don't say to yourself, "That's wasteful. What's the point?" Instead, realize that guy is a tool, that Planet Green shouldn't be praising what he is doing and that you can still make a difference by putting a low-flow showerhead in your two bathrooms. (Or one bathroom, if you're like me.)

So when I finally sucked it up and converted to online bill pay this month, it mattered. It saved carbon from postal vehicles and paper from trees and checks. When I signed up for e-mailed bank statements, it saved carbon and paper, and my bank sent $2 to the Conservation Foundation.

What you do matters because there are tens of thousands, if not more, people having the same doubts about the same green actions. With luck, every one of them will decide to proceed the way their heart tells them, though it's a cliche: to reduce, reuse and recycle.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Morris's city council discussed what to do about a shortage in their garbage fund Monday night. It seems there's a lot of money in the recycling fund, but not a lot of regular garbage. It was proposed that residents start paying for garbage pickup, but still get free recycling.

First off, you weren't paying for it? Count your blessings for the time you didn't.

Secondly, Alderman Brian Feeney had a complaint.

On Wednesday (Earth Day), Whole Foods Market in Naperville will give you a free Earth Day gelato for buying an earth-friendly cleaning product. They've "whipped up a special flavor celebrating the earth" for the day. Just take your reciept showing a cleaning product to the gelato station for your freebie.

A note from Julie: Some prices are hard to swallow, but Whole Foods is pretty competitive on a lot of cleaning products. This is one area where I've embraced green because a.) I don't want to kill the good bacteria in my septic system and b.) I no longer feel like I'm going to pass out from fumes when I scrub the tub.

May I suggest a product from Earth Friendly Products (also labeled as Ecos)? They're based in Winnetka, so you're doing your part for the state's economy, too.

Also, wander over to Whole Foods' Web page using the link above to see some of the other free events they have. There's even an event dealing with chocolate and raw foods. So many of the events are free and involve samples. It's worth checking out.

It's not on Earth Day proper, but The Conservation Foundation will hold its annual Earth Day Benefit Dinner from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Bobak's Signature Events in Woodridge.

Dinner-goers will eat a great meal, take part in a silent auction and see the 2009 video focused the foundation's volunteers. My parents have donated items to this before (and will again this year, I believe) and come home with some amazing things, like a huge, gorgeous rug I'm still coveting.

Individual tickets are $100 each.

Register online or call Carrie Thompson at 630-428-4500 x10 or email cthompson@theconservationfoundation.org for more information.

The Conservation Foundation, which is in the Will County portion of Naperville, educates the public about conserving our land and water and actually helps land owners and forest preserve districts preserve land from development. (They're also the source of some great rain barrels. Check it out.)

The Joliet Public Library's Black Road branch will show 'The Future of Food' at 6 p.m. Wednesday (Earth Day) at the library, 3395 Black Road in Joliet. After the documentary, there will be a discussion and you can enjoy organic popcorn. There will also be info on saving the environment and going green.

This move is fantastic and you will want to have people around to discuss it with. It's sometimes hard to find, short of using Netflix, so this is a great opportunity. Basically, the doc examines genetically modified crops and whether they're bringing about an end to world hunger as promised. It's a sobering watch, and covers so many aspects, like what GM foods are doing to U.S. farmers.

The showing kicks off an Earth Month at the library branch. More to come on that.

Sorry to the folks whose comments weren't immediately posted: I was off for a week, and had some trouble with my phone line that AT&T was eventually able to fix.

Everything is updated now.

And Wednesday is Earth Day! The best part of it being on a Wednesday is that it splits up events on two weekends, so you can attend more.

On Saturday, I helped out at ECO Commission's Reuse & Recycle Extravaganza and Earth Day Celebration in Oswego. I got sunburned. Really, really sunburned on my arms because I stupidly didn't think to put sunblock there. (But mad props to Burt's Bees for a having a great sunblock that kept my face pale without parabens or other badness.)

That said, tons of people volunteered and hundreds of people unloaded everything from videos and books to scrap metal, TVs and office supplies. It was a sight to behold because the entire thing was drive-up and quick as can be. Well-planned, well-executed. They're doing it again in September, so I'm going to have everything I need to get rid of loaded into my car for one stop recycling.

Check out the list of what they accept . It's pretty amazing.

What was I doing in Oswego instead of Will County? My dad's on the commission. The apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.

I haven't done a ton of updates lately, not because there's not a lot of greenery going on.

In fact, you've probably noticed that Earth Day plans seem bigger than ever this year.

A lot of groups are calling all of April Earth Month. If that gives us more access to recycling opportunities and green programming, I approve. Plus, it mean even if you have plans on Earth Day proper, you can still take part in things.

I'll try to get organized and post some of the things going on soon. But do check your town's Web site to see what they're offering. Or take a look at library or green organizations' sites.

In the mean time, I'm going to be sorting stuff in the basement to pull together a bunch of stuff to recycle. This month, there are so many chances to recycle stuff that you normally can't just drop off and get recycled. It's going to be a good month.

I had to go to Milwaukee a few weeks ago weekend for dinner. Don't ask.

We went to the botanical garden and had some time to kill before dinner but, alas, the cheese shop was closed! But in another one of those "beacon of hope" moments, I spotted a Spice House across the street. I love Spice House, but the nearest one to me is in Geneva.

The night before the Milwaukee trip, I ran out of cumin and chili powder in one fell, taco-y swoop. Ruh-Roh. I didn't' think I had time to make it to the Geneva location Sunday, but knew I would have to try. Then, Spice House saved me with a Milwaukee shop.

I found out from the clerk it wasn't just a Spice House. It was the Spice House, as in the first one that spawned the other locations.

I loaded up a basket with cumin, chili power and onion powder and headed up to the checkout, only to be stopped by the dehydrated sweet corn. It's freeze-dried sweet corn, nothing else, and you can just have it as a sweet, crunchy snack. That went into the basket. Then, they had little spice packets with real ginger slices to make ginger snaps. Hello, impulse buy, get in my basket! As I was being rung up, I tried a crystallized ginger slice. Mmmm, and ginger is good for ingestion and all sorts of other things, so that got added in, too.

It's more money than I meant to spend, but it's worth it. See, ever since I had to ditch the MSG, we've been really turning to good spices to replace that flavor boost. My homemade taco seasoning is a great replacement to the MSG packets, but it takes a ton of spices. Ditto for my enchilada sauce, salad dressings, etc.

That's where Spice House comes in. The Geneva shop is just lined with shelves of huge jars filled with every spice they've ever mentioned on the Food Network, and then some. It gives you real, fresh, unadulterated spices at a good price, in any size you want. I get mine in little baggies, instead of jars, and reuse the baggies. With options like tomato powder and real ginger slices, you can get creative.

A word of warning: Some of the mixes Spice House offers contain MSG. If you have a problem with MSG, just look at the front of the big, old jar. MSG is likely to be bolded so you can find it quickly.