FROM Florida Renewable Energy Association Newsletter (newsletter@cleanenergyflorida.org)

When: Thursday, May 6, 2010 – 9:30 a.m to 11:00 a.m
Where: HBA of Metro Orlando, 544 Mayo Avenue, Maitland, FL 32751 (map link)
Admission: Free

Through a grant from the Florida Energy and Climate Commission, David Bessette of AllSolar Service Company will be providing information on all aspects of solar energy applications in Florida. The seminar is designed for builders, remodelers, architects, designers, and realtors but is open to the public.

David Bessette is a State Certified Solar Contractor, former president of the Florida Solar Energy Industries Association (FlaSEIA), a Certified Class 1 Energy Rater and a founder of the National Energy Raters Association.

For more information or to RSVP contact Patti at patti@allsolarflorida.com or (407) 321-6447.

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Of course we all know how earth-friendly full-blown commerce and consumption is (consumption as in “Use of final goods by a consumer until disposal.” ¹)

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption

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Earth day has made significant differences since its first inception in the 70′s. For more info checkout the Earth Day website earthday.org or the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_day

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Why did I not call it Green Trends then? Simply because these keyword sometimes have the effect to leave people in a trance like state about a certain product, failing to check if the claims the products make are indeed true or, at the very least, based in truth.

So that’s why I choose Green Trance instead of Green Trends.

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This includes but is not limited to the following items: Aluminum cans, packaging (carton, plastic, etc.) Junk mail, other paper product like office paper waste, food items (kitchen scraps, food past it’s ‘use by’ date, etc.), metals (electronics, cars, etc).² In other words any product that can be recycled after it’s been used and in most cases (unfortunately) would be discarded (in contrast to pre-consumer waste. These are products that have never reached the end-user/consumer consisting of ‘not up-to-standard’ products that would usually be discarded but have never been used ³).

Usually a product will state: this has been made with XX % of post-consumer materials, for example, Paper towels. If they have been made with an X amount of post-consumer materials it might mean that they recycled used office paper, cardboard and used paper products to create the new paper towels. Examples of this can be found in many products like Seventh Generation, Green Forest, Small Steps, and many more (nice list, for paper/kitchen towels specifically, can be found here )

So that’s it, the first post in the “Green Trance” series. Feel free to comment, add or leave remarks, they are always welcome.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-consumer_waste
² http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=3369
³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre_consumer

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The Green Trance series will focus on some of these slogan words. What do they really tell you about a product? Is this word a regulated thing or can it be put on any product? How ‘new’ is the concept? And a whole lot of questions I have heard and personally still have and would like to research.

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• Homepage | http://www.nature.org/
• Initiatives | http://www.nature.org/initiatives/
• How you can help | http://www.nature.org/joinanddonate/
• Blog | http://blog.nature.org/

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Tip: Next time you are going through your closet and thinking of discarding clothes that for whatever reason you don’t want anymore, consider donating them instead of simply trashing them.

Your discarded clothes could be the find of the century for another person. Many places in the US (and around the world) have donation containers and places like the Goodwill centers.

Some donations centers can even provide you with donation receipts which can get you tax deductions, that in the end even give you financial benefit.

Especially in these harder economic times, donating useful items like clothes (or furniture, electronics, appliances) could be a great help to someone in need.

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Useful links

• Homepage | http://repoweramerica.org
• Solutions | http://repoweramerica.org/solutions/
• Taking local action | http://repoweramerica.org/in-your-state/
• Blog | http://repoweramerica.org/blog/
• Donations | https://secure.repoweramerica.org/page/contribute/redonate

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Useful links

• Homepage | http://www.avaaz.org
• Campaign history | http://www.avaaz.org/en/report_back_1/
• Blog | http://www.avaaz.org/blog/en/
• Donations | https://secure.avaaz.org/act/?r=donate&lang=en

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