It's Earth Day!

We only have one earth, but there are lots of us! What activities do you have planned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our beautiful Earth? We hope you'll engage in activities that help protect and restore our state and our planet, while practicing social distancing. Here are some ideas you might consider:

·       Boost your mood and get some fresh air by going on a walk at lunch or in the evening with family

·       Grow a vegetable or herb garden - great for your physical and mental health

·       For take-out orders, opt out of disposable utensils and straws

·       Meal-plan before buying groceries and keep a running list of groceries that are enjoyed in your house

·       Don't throw out overripe fruit, make popsicles with it 

·       Do a plastic audit to begin reducing plastic at home 

·       Use food waste as compost for your garden

·       Develop a storm water runoff plan

·       Unsubscribe from junk mail 

·       Switch to reusable bags

·       Switch to e-books 

·       Repurpose jars

·       Plant a tree

Other ideas for celebrating Earth Day can be accessed by clicking here, here, and here!

Fried Dough, Monkey Races & Energy Saving Tips

We'll be out at the Delta Fair all weekend, so come say hi. We're giving out tote bags to Plink-o winners and energy tips are free for the taking. Look for us in the C Wing.

Green Power! Way to go, Medtronic!

The Memphis Daily News has a great article about Medtronic Spinal and Biologics, one of the city’s largest purchasers of green power, being recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency for its commitment to purchase 600,000 kilowatt-hours annually of electricity generated by the sun, wind or methane gas.

Here's an excerpt:

The EPA has added Medtronic to its Green Power Partnership, which boats 1,200 partner organizations voluntarily purchasing green power.

Paul Sorrelle, environmental health and safety director at the Medtronic Spinal and Biologics business unit, said a company goal is to cut down on its carbon footprint.

With 1,350 employees, the Medtronic campus at 1800 Pyramid Place includes two six-story buildings, a three-story building and a four-story building.

Medtronic is purchasing about 6 percent of its electricity with green power.

“There are no tax breaks or anything like that,” Sorrelle said. “It is strictly a voluntary program designed to promote development of renewable energy sources to produce electricity.”

The green power comes from 15 solar generation facilities operated by TVA, a wind facility on Buffalo Mountain in East Tennessee and methane gas from the Maxson Wastewater Treatment facility that is piped to the TVA Allen Fossil Plant, where it is co-burned with coal.

Read the full Daily News article.
Read more about EPA's Green Power Partnership.
Read more about MLGW's Green Power Switch.

It's Easy To Be Green For The Holidays!

From the December Memphis Downtowner, courtesy of Lichterman Nature Center...

While the holiday season brings good cheer and good will, it also brings a more solid waste to landfills, harm to the environment, and additional debt to the average American family. Americans throw away about 25% more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. That's an additional 5 million tons of garbage! Here are some tips for less wasteful and less stressful holidays. So long, Scrooge, and goodbye Grinch!

Be Green for the Holidays!

Tree-Cycle: You have mulch to gain by participating in the City of Memphis Solid Waste Management's program that picks up unadorned trees from the curb and grinds them into valuable mulch. Check with local conservation groups for tree-cycling programs that provide habitat for fish, lodgings for land critters, and sanctuaries for birds. Many nurseries sell firs with the roots still intact so your tree can be planted as a lifelong reminder of this year's holiday cheer.

Card It: Every year, 2.65 billion cards are sold in the U.S. That's enough to fill a football field 10 stories high! Look for cards made with recycled materials. Create your own cards out of scrap paper or newspapers. Send e-greetings to your high-tech circle. Cut up old holiday cards for nametags and decorations on presents--or to use as holiday postcards next year. Give your old cards to charitable organizations that use them for worthwhile projects.

Wrap It Up: Wrapping paper is typically used once and thrown away. Get creative! Use colorful pages torn from magazines, old maps, or the colorful Sunday comics. Or avoid using paper entirely by "wrapping" your gift in reusable decorative tins, baskets, or boxes. If you do buy wrapping paper, find ones made from recycled paper. If every American family wrapped just three presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. Finally, unwrap presents carefully. Reuse the paper, the decorative bag--whatever was presented to you!

Artful Present-ation: Choose environmentally friendly gifts: a gardening book, refillable thermos bottle, canvas tote bag, battery recharger, or items made from recycled materials. Choose solar power instead of battery power. Other eco-smart gifts include homemade ones--edibles, plants, crafts--and ones that create no waste at all, such as concert tickets, movie passes, restaurant gift cards, a child's first savings account, and gifts of your own time (help rake leaves, babysit, or fix a leaky faucet). Donate unwanted gifts--along with last year's gifts you and the kids have outgrown--to a charity, friend in need, or personw ho would welcome what you don't want.

Shop-aholic: Take your own tote bags or used grocery bags to avoid coming home with an armload of new plastic bags.

Yule (Cata)logs: Like snow, mail order catalogs blanket mailboxes across the nation. Call each company's toll-free number, ask to be removed from the mailing list, and (if desired) added to their email list. Then take those magazines and catalogs to the nearest recycling center. (They can be recycled curbside through the City of Memphis recycling program.)

Party Time! Turn down the heat before guests arrive. The extra body heat of teh guests and the cheer of food and friends will more than warm up the room. For formal affairs, rent or borrow party clothes. Walk to neighborhood parties or carpool, and after the party, don't throw away the leftovers, send home with guests, or share with neighbors, coworkers, elderly friends, or others who weren't at the party.

It's Easy To Be Green, Week 12

This the last installment of Lichterman Nature Center's twelve week It's Easy To Be Green program that MLGW employees are participating in. (We got a little behind as the grand finale of this program was Earthfest, which was held April 26th at Lichterman.)

Congratulations on a job well done! Remember what you learned during the past 12 weeks. Your daily behavior can make a difference on our environment. Just by completing this program you have made a difference already!

Action items:

• Your unwanted household items (e.g. small appliances, tableware, clothing, furniture, toys, and sports equipment) can have a life again if you donate them to charitable organizations. Many of these charitable organizations also provide employment opportunities. Your household clutter becomes a job opportunity for someone.

• Donate your used books to the library.

• Don’t just throw away things if they are broken. Repair them yourself or take them to a specialist repair shop. If an object is beyond repair, dismantle it and salvage parts to reuse, donate or sell.

• Keep your neighborhood clean. If you see trash on the ground, toss it into the trash can.

• Rent or borrow infrequently used tools such as ladders, chainsaws, rug cleaners and garden tillers.

• When shopping, ask yourself, “Is this purchase a want or a need? You will be amazed how much money you can save when you consciously exercise your purchasing impulse control.

• Use networks like Craig’s List and Freecycle to find things you need and to unload things you no longer want.

• Tell them what you think. If you are concerned about how air and water pollution are affecting your family, write a letter to your city council, mayor or local newspaper. Tell them what you are doing to help keep the earth clean and ask them for their help.

You make purchasing decisions every day. Whether you buy groceries, clothes, toys, furniture, electronics or appliances, your selections determine the type and volume of waste you will have to discard. Buying with the environment in mind minimizes the impact on our planet.

It's Easy To Be Green, Week 11

This is another installment of Lichterman Nature Center's twelve week It's Easy To Be Green program that MLGW employees are participating in. (We got a little behind as the grand finale of this program was Earthfest, which was held last Saturday at Lichterman.)

This week's theme is "Reduce & Reuse." An important step to reducing your impact on the environment is to reduce the amount of resources you consume and use. Remember, your goal is to reduce solid waste, so think about “resuables.” The ways in which you can reuse things are unlimited. All that’s needed is a little creativity.

Action Items

• Take a sturdy (and reusable) coffee mug to work rather than use disposable Styrofoam cups. A mug can be washed and used time and time again.

• Get printer and fax toner cartridges refilled when they are empty rather than thrown them away. This not only reduces waste in landfills but also saves you money.

• Look for “least waste” packaging. Consider the amount of product packaging when you shop. Some products are wrapped in many layers of plastic and cardboard even though they do not need to be. Choose items that use the minimum amount of packaging.

• Use rechargeable batteries to help reduce toxic metals in the garbage. An alternative is to purchase batteries with reduced toxic metal. Remember to dispose of them properly at the Memphis & Shelby County Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility.

• Avoid disposable, single use products. They end up in the landfill.

• Many newspapers and magazines are online. Instead of buying the paper version, you can read them online. Print only what you need.

• Coffee cans, shoeboxes, milk jugs, glass jars and other types of containers that we throw away can be used for storage—or they can become arts and crafts projects.

In the United States, we produce more trash per person than any other country in the world. More than one-third of that trash—paper, plastic, glass, metal, cardboard, and Styrofoam—come from packaging.

It’s Easy to Be Green, Week 10

This is another installment of Lichterman Nature Center's twelve week It's Easy To Be Green program that MLGW employees are participating in.

Modern household cleaning products may be fast and efficient but they contain toxic chemicals. Non-toxic “green” cleaning products are “earth-friendly” (biodegradable), less expensive, and you can make them yourself. Finding the ingredients is as easy as opening your pantry to pull out the baking soda, vinegar, salt, borax, and olive oil.

Action Items

• Floors: Add one-half cup white vinegar to a bucket of warm water. If the floor is really dirty, mix a small amount of liquid soap and wash the floor with this solution. Rinse afterwards with a vinegar and water solution.

• Furniture Polish: Mix a teaspoon of olive oil with one-half cup lemon juice in a bowl. Test it on an old piece of furniture with a soft cloth. Rub deep into the grain. Turn the cloth over and buff with a clean portion of the cloth.

• Glass Cleaner: Make a 50-50 solution of white vinegar and warm water. Pour it into a clean, empty spray bottle. Spray on windows and wipe with newspaper. You can also use this solution on your vehicle windshield to act as an anti-fogging agent. A tablespoon of lemon juice mixed in a quart of water removes fingerprints.

• All Purpose Cleaner: Dissolve two tablespoons of borax in one-fourth cup of lemon juice and two cups of water. Put into spray bottle and use like a conventional all-purpose spray.

• Drain Cleaner: Pour one cup of baking soda and a half cup of table salt down the drain, followed by a cup of white vinegar. The vinegar causes the baking soda to bubble away, and the salt acts as an abrasive on the clog.

• Toilet Bowl Cleaner: Baking soda and a brush.

• Household Disinfectant: Two teaspoons of borax dissolved in two cups of water.

In addition to these non-toxic homemade cleaners, use scoring pads and a little more “elbow grease.”

Important

• Do not mix homemade cleaning products with conventional cleaners.
• Keep all cleaning products away from children.
• Keep large batches of cleaning products in tightly sealed containers or reusable spray bottles.

It’s Easy To Be Green, Week 9

This is another installment of Lichterman Nature Center's twelve week It's Easy To Be Green program that MLGW employees are participating in.

Time to introduce your family to nature! Spending time outdoors helps you and your family feel connected to nature, and to realize that the Earth is a living organism. Explore nature as much as possible. It’s fun, invigorating, and healthy. Don’t let nature films of TV be your only experience with the natural world!

Action Items

• Visit a park, zoo, Lichterman Nature Center or similar places to learn about environmental issues first hand.

• Start a nature journal or use Lichterman’s Naturalist Notebook as a model. In this journal you observe nature through seasons and record your findings in words and pictures. Remember to use both sides of the paper.

• Visit Lichterman with your family and check out an International Paper Family Discovery Backpack. Each backpack has 25 activities with binoculars, magnifiers, bug boxes, trowels, filed guides and other tools to help you and your family explore nature.

• Explore nature at night at Lichterman by attending a Family Night Hike. Call for dates and times.

• Give Lichterman Nature Center a helping hand on Saturdays in January and February with Privet Pull. This is a fun way to remove invasive species such as privet, Japanese honeysuckle, and wisteria. These alien plants choke out our native plants.

• Buy a membership to the Pink Palace family of Museums. You will receive free admission for a year to Lichterman Nature Center and to the Pink Palace plus passes to the IMAX Theater and Sharpe Plantarium.

Lichterman Nature Center offers Girl and Boy Scout badge and achievement programs relating to the outdoors and nature. Lichterman also offers Overnight Adventures where your child’s scout troop can sleep over at the Nature Center.

Celebrate Earth Day by attending Earthfest at Lichterman Nature Center with your family on April 19th from 10am-2pm. MLGW will be hosting a booth.

It’s Easy To Be Green, Week 8

This is another installment of Lichterman Nature Center's twelve week It's Easy To Be Green program that MLGW employees are participating in.

Americans waste as much energy as two-thirds of the world’s population consumes. Conserving energy at home helps to reduce emission of greenhouse gases and saves you money. (If you participated in Earth Hour last Saturday, you may have already realized how much energy you personally waste!)

Action Items

• Ask MLGW’s Energy Doctor to do an energy audit in your home by calling 528-4188.

• Lower the thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer. For every degree below 68, you save 5% on heating costs. Likewise, raising the thermostat to 78 degrees (or higher) in the summer saves you money on cooling.

• Set the water heater to 120 degrees. To get hot water quickly and to save energy, insulate your water heater.

• When washing clothes, only do full loads. Using cold water rather than hot water reduces energy use by 75%.

• Use the moisture-sensing setting on your dryer. Better yet, hang out the laundry to air dry. Don’t forget to clean the dryer’s lint trap after each load.

• Switch to compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs. They use 75% less energy and produce 75% less heat. CFL bulbs also last up to 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs. Remember to properly dispose of CFL bulbs at the Memphis & Shelby County Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility.

• Clean or replace the air filters in your heating and cooling units every month.

• Let the sun shine in! On cold, sunny days, open the curtains and blinds to let “sun power” heat the rooms. On hot, sunny days, close curtains and blinds. This action saves energy (and money) needed to cool the rooms.

• Take an inventory of all electrical appliances in your home. How many do you have? How many do you really need?

• Why do you have the TV, radio, computer and CD player on at the same time? Turn off these and other appliances when not in use to save electricity and money!

• Unplug the electricity vampires. Vampires are electrical appliances (Tvs, computers, VCRs, DVD players, battery chargers, etc.) in standby mode that use power when not in use. Vampire power accounts for up to 25% of household electricity.

• Keep the fireplace damper closed when not in use. Otherwise, 8% of the room’s heated or cooled air goes up the chimney.