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Take advantage of the stay-at-home order to do something for the environment

5/29/2020

The global climate action organization Earth Day urges, “as we exercise our individual and collective responsibility to reduce viral transmissions to preserve human health, we can still exercise our responsibility to act for environmental health. We can use this solitary time to reassess our current habits and develop new ones that are better for the planet.”*
Earth Day’s authors suggest “11 actions for the planet during a pandemic”. Check them out here.

*11 Actions for the Planet During a Pandemic," March 19, 2020, https://www.earthday.org/11-actions-for-the-planet-during-a-pandemic/

Buy less, throw out less with online exchange platforms

5/21/2020

How do you put “reduce, reuse, recycle” into effect when you still have things that you need to buy? Look no further than your neighbors who might already have things that you need and are wanting to part with them. Conversely, if you have things lying around your house that have ended their usefulness for you but still have life left in them, how can you avoid throwing them out? Some of those same neighbors could put those items to good use.

Revival of this kind of gift economy helps delay purchasing of new stuff, and thus use of resources for their production and travel to market, and delays their disposal in landfills. On a personal level, this saves you money and the time and energy needed to visit multiple stores.

Online forums for buying, selling, and exchanging items have been active across the country, but more local sites have sprung up more recently. Sites like Craigslist.org allow you to buy and sell items whereas others like Freecycle.org facilitate giving and getting items for free. The Buy Nothing Project reaches across the country with local, independent FaceBook groups including one for our area: Buy Nothing Wallingford, Swarthmore, Media. For materials of interest to artists, builders, and educators, donate or shop at Philadelphia’s creative resource center, The Resource Exchange. Locally published recycling lists also include organizations that accept donations of usable items. Check out the A to Z Recycling and Disposal Guide from the Swarthmore Borough website as well as aFewSteps’ own Recycling tab on our web site.

Photos by Mike Mozart, Flickr

Don’t mow your lawn: saves time and money and is better for the environment and wildlife

5/14/2020

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to mow the lawn? Then don’t! Give up the expense and time and noise and just let the plants grow. Take stock of your yard use. Are there parts of your yard where the kids don’t play and you don’t have a picnic table or lawn chairs? Letting those areas grow will at least reduce the size of the area that you need to mow. Particularly at this time of year, not mowing or delaying for a few weeks allows more flowers to grow which in turn supports more pollinators.

In an article at NRDC.org, Mary Talbot makes the case for putting away the lawnmower. She points out that annually in the U.S., "lawns consume nearly 3 trillion gallons of water a year, 200 million gallons of gas (for all that mowing), and 70 million pounds of pesticides."* Pesticides and fertilizers used on lawns are toxic to wildlife locally and in bodies of water contaminated by runoff. Alternatives are becoming more popular: "These no-mow yards fall into four categories: 1) naturalized or unmowed turf grass that is left to grow wild; 2) low-growing turf grasses that require little grooming (most are a blend of fescues); 3) native or naturalized landscapes where turf is replaced with native plants as well as noninvasive, climate-friendly ones that can thrive in local conditions; and 4) yards where edible plants—vegetables and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs—replace a portion of turf."*

*Mary Talbot, September 30, 2016, More Sustainable (and Beautiful) Alternatives to a Grass Lawn,"
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/more-sustainable-and-beautiful-alternatives-grass-lawn?fbclid=IwAR2lnW6evfXJhzfg99qfIPwdgNxkDUAkL7EO_91QZTZ1I4U5JRrBxvWAGTc

Photo by Susan O'Donnell

Take advantage of the stay-at-home order to do something for the environment

Buy less, throw out less with online exchange platforms

Don’t mow your lawn: saves time and money and is better for the environment and wildlife

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