Learn, Grow, Engage

Last night was the premier launch of Engage Green, Team Green's initiative to educate our listeners, Team Green members and the general Nashville community about simple ways to make your life greener. Engage Green was my brain child about two months ago and I am so proud to see it finally taking off, every First Tuesday of the month (except for in November, due to the election, when it is moved to the second Tuesday). This month's topic was Water Conservation and Preventing Storm Water Pollution. What perfect timing too! Yesterday and today it has rained for the first time since September.

Here is a recap of what we learned:

The historic stereotype of large drain systems pouring neon green waste into rivers with a plant off in the distance are now obsolete. The major form of water pollution today is waste from private property including pet waste, vehicle fluids, garbage, and construction debris. This waste rests on top of impermeable surface area (does not absorb water, such as concrete and asphalt), floods our streets and yards, and is eventually pushed into our water sheds, rather than being naturally processed through the Earth's filtration system (roots, dirt, rocks, and eventually making it to the ground water).

What is our solution? Councilwoman Evans explained that we can create permeable surface area on our private property. You can do this by replacing your impermeable driveways with crushed concrete, shredded tires (much like a running track), or other great options. We learned that the cost of crushed concrete compared to asphalt or regular concrete is minimal and lasts longer. The only maintenance it requires is to be "brushed" or cleaned with a leaf blower twice a year to remove sediment and other matter that clogs the surface. Metro Council is also implementing a fee per property (including government property, churches, houses, and commercial property) that will be added to our water bill based upon the estimated impermeable surface area we own. This fee can be lowered by creating more permeable surface area, including crushed concrete, rain gardens, rain barrels (rain water harvesting), green roofs, and more!

Margo Farnsworth also spoke about habits we can change in our daily lives to decrease the amount of water that we use. "It all goes back into the ground, right?" Wrong. It goes into the sewage system, which is pushed through miles of piping and eventually makes it's way to a water processing plant, which uses electricity and chemicals to purify the water for reuse. By saving water on our end, we save energy and other costs on that end. Here are some tips she gave:

1. When making coffee, only make as much as you know your household will consume. For example, I know that I will drink one cup and my roommate will drink one cup, so I only add 2.5 cups of water and a tablespoon or so (depending on how strong I want) of coffee grounds to my coffee maker. This will make exactly 2 coffee-cups full, and no extra coffee is dumped out.
2. Hamburgers require a lot of water (I'm not sure why, though), so if Americans learn to curb their diets and consume smaller portions (go from a 1/4 pounder to wopper junior), we will save water.
3. Turn the water off when brushing your teeth (duh!) and lathering your hands with soap. That water is not necessary to have on during the interim and will saves hundreds of gallons of water per year per individual.
4. Most of our water use is actually put into the ground. Silly, huh, that we pay to water the ground that mother nature does on her own! Many individuals and companies water even when it's raining! The best tip is to water your lawn or garden early in the morning or late at night and to use dip irrigation (soaker hoses, for example). Why? Because over half of the water used with sprinkler systems is absorbed into the air and never reaches the ground. Using a soaker hose, covered with mulch, ensures that the water only goes into the ground by the plants that you want watered, reduces the amount of water that is released per unit of time (because it drips out, rather than pours out), and the mulch prevents evaporation.

You can find more information about storm water pollution and ways to prevent it at Nashville.gov/stormwater.

We had about 15 people join us at Lipscomb University at their Institute for Sustainable Practice. Although Engage Green was a success for our first seminar (especially considering it was the same night as the debate at Belmont), there are things I definitely want to change for the next one. I had always invisioned these talks as a "How-To" discussion. I believe that many people get it. They understand that there is a problem; although they may not know exactly what the problems are, they get it and want to change. I want these discussions to be an opportunity for people in Nashville to come, learn an overview of the problem, and learn step-by-step how to make changes in their personal life. I want them to walk away with instructions in hand so that they can go home and make the changes over the weekend, and be confident in the process!

For this class, ideally we would have discussed the issue of storm water and the need for water conservation for about 20 minutes, then learned step by step how to create a rain garden, and how to install rain barrels, followed by a short discussion of simple things we can do daily (like the coffee advice above). Everyone would walk away with a handout including rain garden instructions and resources on one side, and rain barrel instructions and resources on the other. I will be sure to make the next seminars more hands on!

Our upcoming calendar will look a little something like this:

November 11th (Second Tuesday)
Location: Lipscomb University, Burton Building, Flex Learning room
Topic: Local Food Options and Composting
Learn about the benefits of local food and where to buy it. Also, learn a couple different ways to create your own composting system, especially with the holidays coming up. You'll finally know what to do with all that left over food (when you just can't eat anymore of it!)

December 2nd (First Tuesday)
Location: Lipscomb University, Burton Building, Flex Learning room
Topic: Energy Saving Options
Specifics TBA

January 6th (First Tuesday)
Location: Lipscomb University, Burton Building, Flex Learning room
Topic: Green Washing
If your new years resolution includes "Going Green," you'll need to know the difference between truely green products and what is simply advertised as green (known as Green Washing). Some products claim to be green because they are made of "all natural" ingredients, but these natural ingredients can still be harmful to you and your environment.

February 3rd (First Tuesday)
Location: Lipscomb University, Burton Building, Flex Learing room
Topic: TBA
Possibly we will discuss Green Building Options. Learn great spring remodling options that will preserve the environment and your money in the long run.

March 3rd (First Tuesday)
Location: Lipscomb University, Burton Building, Flex Learning room
Topic: TBA
Possibly we will discuss the topics missed during the storm water discussion, including step by step instructions how to create rain gardens, rain barrels, the benefits of trees, and other rain water conservation tips just before the "rainy season" hits.

If you have any topic suggestions, or are interested in presenting (all presentations must be non-political, and non-sales oriented), please contact me (kreed@tunedin.com). If you are interested in sponsoring an event (event sponsorship, product donation, food/beverage sponsorhip, or more) please contact Team Green Director, Laurel Creech (laurel@tunedin.com).

Her Nashville

Team Green is now featured in a new Nashville Magazine/Newspaper called Her Nashville. As it may seem, it is a Magazine/Newspaper geared towards women in Nashville. Articles include Her Style, Her Earth, and Her Adventures. Team Green director Laurel Creech writes the articles for Her Adventures and speaks of outdoor activities that are beneficial for women, especially adventures that are historically male dominated. The latest Her Style article focuses on Green Clothing tips, such as organic clothing and remaking your old clothing. Women, after all, specifically housewives, are the number one consumers in America.

Other neat things going on in the world of Green is Team Green Yoga. This weekly event is my own personal pride and joy, and I really hope to see it take off. We are working with Balance Bodywork until the end of 2008 for a trial weekly yoga that will be an introduction class. We will learn the basics of stretching, strenghtening, balancing, and cardio yoga in a great little studio that overlooks the setting sun. I'm thrilled!

Green Greed

This "green" topic is stretching it quite a bit, but I'm going to talk about money (it looks greenish, right?) This is more of a WARNING out there to all of you selling items online. One of my roommates tried to sell his camera over an online bidding site (ebay, craigslist, I don't know) and got screwed out of $1700+! He posted his camera as worth $3300. Someone from England bought it from him and paid in check. They mailed a check for $5000 and asked him to wire the remaining money after shipping costs (which came out to about $1700 in cash). Even though the whole deal sounded shady, he saw that huge check and went on with the deal. He waited to make sure that the check cleared in his bank, then shipped the camera and wired the cash through Western Union. Yesterday he got a call from his bank saying that even though the check cleared through his bank, it did not clear through the international bank. By then, the guy in England had already picked up their cash from Western Union... cash that was 100% out of my roommate's funds since the check for $5000 was a fake. (Didn't he read Catch Me if You Can?!) He contacted the shipping company and had the camera returned to our address. On the bright side he still has his camera, but he's out the $1700 in cash and whatever shipping costs he had to pay. Moral of the story? If he looks like a sham, it probably is a sham! My roomie didn't have that much money in his account to begin with, so now he has to borrow money from his parents to pay off debts. He claims he had some bad Karma building up over the years and just had that feeling.

Have Mercy on Percy

Team Green has had two great clean up this month! The first was the Nashville Clean Water Project: Percy Priest Clean-up on September 13th and the second was the Buffalo Canoe Float in Waynesboro, TN. The Nashville Clean Water Project is a group of representatives from various organizations including Cumberland River Compact, Metro Water, Team Green, Nashville Hiking Meetup, Army Corp of Engineers, the Mayors Office and Think Media. Our goal is to increase awareness of the problem facing Percy Priest Lake and create drastic preventative changes in order to preserve the integrity of Percy Priest and other local waterways. This clean up was the second this year. The first was the largest clean up in Nashville History, and still the shoreline and islands of Percy Priest lake are littered with tires, beer cans, and careless trash. The issue: people boat out to the islands, party, and leave everything there for the island fairies to carry away. This clean up was much smaller, but we used it to get the support from Nashville, Smyrna, LaVergne, and Rutherford County officials. With only 130 volunteers we cleared nearly 350 bags of trash, 40 tires, and numerous large metal items. We will have a significantly larger clean up in the spring, and the mayors have promised to hold a Summit this fall.

The second clean up was at Buffalo River. We launched from Crazy Horse Recreational Park and float down a 10 mile stretch of the river. Team Green had ten canoes, one kayak, and the support of everyone floating with us that day. The twenty one of us cleaned over 15 tires, a hot water heater, grills, Styrofoam coolers, and countless beer bottles and missing flip flops. Many of our canoes were so weighed down by the tires that we were unable to continue cleaning efforts for the last 3 miles of the river, which had more beer cans on the bottom of the current than I could count. Next year I plan to make an over night camping trip of it with a lunch break after five miles. This way we won't be in such a hurry to make it back to land before dark!

Oogle the Google!

Team Green's calendar is now available on Google Calendars!

Garden Poppers

I fried up some Jalapeno Poppers (fresh from the garden) the other day and made the mistake of bringing the extra ones to work, so now I have to blog about the recipe! It is very time consuming if you do it by yourself, but once all of the jalapenos are cut in half and seeded, it only takes a matter of seconds. Why do I call them garden poppers? Well, first to encourage everyone to have a garden, and second, this recipe can be used for any garden variety pepper, including bell peppers, but you will need significantly more cheese!

What you'll need:
PS. My recipes are rarely unit conscious... I don't tend to measure things before I cook them. That takes the fun out of it!

1. Between 10 and 50 jalapenos (depending on how many people you'll be feeding). Each jalapeno makes 2 poppers, and the average person can probably consume 10 poppers in one sitting!
2. At least one other person to help cut the jalapenos and scrape out the seed
3. Deep frier. A sauce pan and some metal utensil to remove the poppers works too.
4. One box (about 8 oz) of cream cheese for every 30-50 jalapeno halves (depending on how cheese you like them).
5. One bag of shredded cheddar for every 30-50 jalapeno halves.
6. Milk
   
7. Parsley, Basil, and maybe oregano would be good too!
8. Salt and Pepper
9. Flour
10. Canola Oil
11. Bread crumbs (this is pretty important. I tried making them without bread crumbs and, well, they tasted pretty crumby!)
12. Paper towel
13. 2 bowls
    

Step One: Halve all of your jalapenos and scrape out the seeds. The seed is by far the hottest part of the pepper and will not be very pleasing (no matter how hot you like your food).
Note: I of course recommend saving the seeds and composting them!

Step Two: Mix your cream cheese and cheddar cheese. Add a tablespoon or so of your herbs for every block of cream cheese. Add a dash of salt and pepper. Stir up really well.

Step Three: Lay out all of your jalapeno halves on a cookie sheet. Add a clump of cheese mixture to each half. I usually do not make the cheese bulge out of the halve, but you can.

Step Four: Put some milk in one bowl and your flour in a second bowl. Dip each stuffed halve into the milk, then into the flour. Make sure that the flour completely covers the halve. Lay them out on the cookie sheet again and let dry for at least 10 minutes. During this time add your oil to the deep frier or sauce pan. Heat oil to 365 degree F.

Step Five: Replace the flour bowl with bread crumbs. Dip the lightly coated stuffed halves into milk again then into the bread crumbs. Lay them out on the cookie sheet to dry for a couple minutes.

Step Six: Place breaded, stuffed jalapeno halves into metal strainer (that comes with a deep frier) or whatever utensil that will allow you to safely remove jalapenos from the scorching hot oil. Keep poppers in the oil until the bread crumbs turn a light to medium brown. Check to make sure that your cheese is not oozing out of the poppers (this can be messy). If your cheese is oozing out, the temperature is probably too high, or you left them in too long.

Finally: Remove the poppers and set them on a paper towel to soak and cool down. I recommend waiting a half hour to 45 minutes before serving (they are really really really hot, not kidding!)

What a Waste!

When I decided last month to rent out 3 bedrooms in my house, one of the most important things to me was that my tenants conserved water, electric and waste. So, I drew up a lease that outlined what should be recycled or composted and where the closest drop of centers were. The guys have tried, but I had to do an intervention. Since I started recycling and composting, I'm lucky if I get even 1/8th of a bag full by the end of a week. When I walked through their kitchen the other day, their trash can was brimming to the top, and I had seen them take out the garbage only 3 days prior!! So, one of my roommates (who actually got me to start recycling in the first place) went through their garbage with me and sorted everything that could be composted, recycled, reused, or worse... still worked! This is what we came up with: Seven grocery bags full of NON TRASH!

From left to right: recyclables (glossy paper and cardboard), compost-ables (non-glossy paper, and food), reusables (plastic cups, plastic forks, grocery bags, cloth sunglass holders, a large sheet of packing material, etc), and recyclable plastic bags (recyclable at Kroger).

From Left to Right: Clothes (mismatched socks and old t-shirts that can be used as rags), styrofoam (can be recycled at Publix), and recyclables (#1-7 plastic, tin, aluminum, etc)

I also found 4 pens and a highlighter that still worked. What we were left with at the end was not a trash can brimming to the top, but rather a trash can with only 1/8th of a bag full, as it should be! Items remaining in the trash can include mystery plastic and rubber items, candy wrappers made of unknown origin, a cd (which I'm sure can probably be recycled somewhere, and food soaked glossy paper (which can be neither recycled nor composted). How much of your trash are you wasting?

Say you take this challenge and sort through your trash, and come up with the same proportion of reusable, recyclable and compostable goods? What now? Well, don't throw them back in the can and say "that was fun!" If you do not have Metro Curby (curbise pickup) at your house, you can call Earth Savers Recycling at 481-9640 and pay only $48 every 3 months! They will pick up your recycling twice a week (compared to once a month through Curby). There are also drop off centers all over Nashville. Many of them are located at Metro Schools. There is even a place for your hazardous waste, large appliances, carpets, and more. Convenience Centers are available in three locations near Nashville.