Earth Day New York is throwing a party in Times Sq. & Grand Central Station!

What do pencils and insurance have in common? Not much, except that they both have “green” options. My friend Erin T. ran into a common problem when shopping for pencils the other day. She was debating what’s the more environmental choice; mechanical or recycled? She chose the fancy recycled ones only to find out later that the mechanical, which uses less material overall, were the best choice.  I attended a Solar1 event at The Green Space last week where I met people selling Green IT services & Green Insurance services.  Indeed every time I step out the door and into a shop I see “green” products abound.  Everything is washed in green these days.  And just because a company uses the words green, environmental, recycled, natural, etc. doesn’t guarantee that it is doing its best to actually be a responsible environmentally conscious company.  So how do you tell? This is the big question TrueBlueGreen is looking for the answer to.

Luckily, it isn’t all hard work. It’s Earth Day and that means time to celebrate!  New York City is chock full of great events, including where yours truly will be, Earth Day New York. A giant street fair with entertainment taking place in Times Square  and Grand Central Terminal, Inside & Outside (w/live music) this weekend! Follow us on Twitter or Facebook  for the run down. All the exhibitors at this event are carefully screened to meet Earth Day New York standards. See the full list here. It’s a great chance to see great products making the right choices!

Don’t miss the CO2 E Drive: Green Vehicle Drive & Green Vehicle Fashion Show!

Press Conference: 8:00am at Solar One (East 23rd and the East River) CO2 E Drive: 9am – 10:45am

Green Vehicle Fashion Show in Times Square: 11am – 12pm

Green Vehicle public exhibition: 12pm -5pm

Old-Soulz presents: Earth Day New York “Be the E” PSA 2011

Earth Day New York will dedicate a full hour of its live programming and public service time on its Times Square partner screens to the Green World Campaign’s innovative cell phone initiative inviting people to “text TREE” to fund global tree-planting. This work supports the United Nations Year of Forests 2011.

When faking it does not make it. Ensuring the recycling system is honest.

This photo is from a friend of mine’s college cafeteria at Marymount University! A friend, who worked at a restaurant that did the same thing; informed me that at closing time he would just throw both bins into the dumpster out back. Cringe.  I’ve also heard about cleaning people in offices emptying individual waste baskets and recycling bins into the same large bag. So why go to the trouble to make recycling labels only to throw plastic bottles and newspapers into the trash anyway? Why fake recycling?

No doubt, it’s deplorable. Bottom line; sustainability takes a village. Kudos to Hilary Clinton for coining that phrase.  Just like an assembly line, your plastic bottle is counting on a lot of people to make it into its next life as recycled polyester. How do we get folks to change their faking it ways?  It’s common knowledge and given it’s helpful when receptacles are easy to access, but still we truebluegreens wonder how much easier can recycling be?

I’ve heard my fellow green architecture friends lament about something similar with LEED, Leadership in Energy and Efficient Design, which certifies buildings for sustainability. Many credits for LEED rely on operations and maintenance staff to complete important steps in the cycle like delivering recyclables to its designated location. With the amount of time and money that goes into certifying a building it’s sad that it’s devalued by small mistakes.

So, let’s say we make some progress on that end. Some of us still question whether or not our cities are even recycling our carefully sorted items. I would love to put a GPS locator in an aluminum can to find out… OK, maybe not so practical. The next best thing is to research local sanitation departments. In my neck of the woods, New York City, the system seems to be legit (reasons why). But, what’s it like for most local sanitary divisions?

Finally, some will also argue that certain recycling processes like creating recycled polyester from plastic bottles do more harm than good. Lets go down that rabbit hole for that next post…