Getting rid of unused Medications

How many of you have a medicine cabinet full of old, expired or just unwanted medications?  What is the best way to get rid of them?  Don’t flush them down the toilet because the drugs enter our water system that way and many of them aren’t removed during the water treatment system.  Since the late 1990s, the science community has recognized that pharmaceuticals, especially oral contraceptives, are found in sewage water and are potentially contaminating drinking water.  Some of these drugs enter through our waste but we don’t want to compound the problem by flushing unwanted medications down the toilets. 

You can go through a pretty tedious process of crushing the pills and mixing them with coffee grounds or cat litter and putting them in the trash but there are better ways. 

National Take Back Days

Take advantage of community drug take-back programs that allow the public to bring unused drugs to a central location for proper disposal. Call your city or county government's household trash and recycling service (see blue pages in phone book) to see if a take-back program is available in your community. The Drug Enforcement Administration, working with state and local law enforcement agencies, is sponsoring National Prescription Drug Take Back Days⁶ throughout the United States.

<![if !vml]>TakeAway Environmental Return System

A few weeks ago while shopping; I came across TakeAway Environment Return System (there may be other such products on the market that I’m unaware of).  I believe it was about $4 and includes a prepaid envelop that you use to mail your unwanted medications (even OTC) to this company and they dispose of them properly.  You can’t mail controlled substances but most everything else they will accept.  There may be similar products on the market.  This company does make drop off boxes for pharmacies but I haven’t seen any yet.  I think it’s a great concept for those of us that don’t usually make it to the Take Back Days. 

Solar Panels Go Mainstream!

IKEA starts selling solar panels for homes

By: MALIN RISING (AP)

September 30, 2013

STOCKHOLMCopyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish flat-pack furniture giant IKEA will start selling residential solar panels at its stores in Britain, the first step in its plan to bring renewable energy to the mainstream market worldwide.

The company started selling solar panels made by China's Hanergy in its store in Southampton on Monday. It will sell them in the rest of Britain in coming months, it said.

A standard, all-black 3.36 kilowatt system for a semi-detached home will cost 5,700 British pounds ($9,200) and will include an in-store consultation and design service as well as installation, maintenance and energy monitoring service.

"In the past few years the prices on solar panels have dropped, so it's a really good price now," IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard told The Associated Press. "It's the right time to go for the consumers."

The solar panel investment will be paid off in about seven years for an average home owner in Britain, Howard said.

"If you are going to be in your house that long, your energy will be free after seven years," he said.

Some retailers in the U.S., including the Home Depot and Lowe's, already sell solar panels. But in other parts of the world, consumers often have to research a myriad specialist firms before making a purchase.

Howard said IKEA aims to launch the products in other countries eventually. It picked Britain as its test market because it has the right combination of mid-level electricity prices and government-sponsored financial incentives that make investing in solar energy attractive to consumers.

"This is a market by market decision," he said.

The U.K. government offers private solar panel owners the opportunity to sell back electricity to the grid on days when they have surplus production and has a financing plan for solar power investments, which means residents can buy a system for no upfront cost and pay it off gradually.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ikea-starts-selling-solar-panels-britain

Friday Funny - Happy Friday!

The Other Coast by Adrian Raeside

Tree Thursday -- Watch Why Do Autumn Leaves Change Color? - Instant Egghead

Lots of misconceptions on why leaves change colors but here's the real reason ---



Video:

Scientific American editor Mark Fischetti explains how the leaves of deciduous trees perform their annual chameleon act, changing from various shades of green to hues of bronze, orange and brilliant red.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1202686955001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAFNl7zk~,OmXvgxJOvrEZGUO9zkRu0HqtcBY54xr3&bclid=0&bctid=2717700431001

National Costume Swap Day!

A costume swap is a great first step in greening Halloween.  Swapping half the costumes kids wear at Halloween would reduce landfill waste by 6,250 tons, the weight of 2,500 mid-size cars!  It’s not too late to organize one in your neighborhood!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

http://www.greenhalloween.org/CostumeSwap/index.html

General ideas for having a Green Halloween

I’m glad my parents didn’t know about the Halloween fairy!  J

It’s really not about the candy. Kids have fun when their parents get involved and have fun themselves. Part of being green is focusing on people instead of things, so try to reduce the amount of ‘things’ you incorporate into your Halloween by increasing the focus on fun. Here are some ideas for making your Green Halloween fun for your kids and for you:

• Make a big deal of your child’s costume – getting dressed, taking pictures, etc.
• Have a neighborhood party and forgo trick-or-treating all together. Ask your child’s school to consider making their Halloween celebration green as well.
• Have a charity-themed party. Instead of giving out prizes for games, allow children to pick from a list of charities and make a donation in their name.
• Have a Halloween gratitude party. Deliver handmade cards to your local farmer and take a tour of his/her field. Arrange before hand for each child to bring a mini pumpkin home.
• Talk to your neighbors about what they will be giving away in advance. One option is to trick-or-treat only at homes where you know Green Halloween items will be passed out.
• Show your Green by displaying your own Green Halloween sign and ask your Green Halloween neighbors to do the same. Turn looking for the signs into a hunt for treasures. The Green Halloween sign on your own door will announce to trick-or-treaters that they’re in for a great surprise!
• Give kids a full, healthy meal before they go out trick-or-treating so they are not hungry.
• Talk to your kids about what is in candy and why it is not healthy. Ask them to come up with creative, kid and Earth-friendly alternatives that your own family can hand out and feel good about.
• When trick-or-treaters come to your door, shout, “Happy Hallo-green!!!

If your child does collect candy:

• Invite the Halloween Fairy to come to your home. Tell your child a story, or use our book to talk about how the Halloween fairy turns candy into magic fairy dust and so needs as much candy as she can get her hands on. Explain that if a child leaves his bag of candy outside on the porch, the fairy will gladly come to take the candy, and because she will be so grateful for the help with her fairy-dust-making, she’ll leave in the candy’s place a very special gift. Some parents make the exchange while their child is brushing their teeth, others wait until their child is asleep. Either way, make a big deal of it! Act surprised! You may also want to consider letting your child keep a small amount of candy and leaving the rest out for the fairy. Please don’t donate your leftover sweets to charity, though. Other people’s kids don’t need the candy either.
• Have a candy trade: let your kids trade their candy towards other little gifts or give them a “pumpkin point” for each piece of candy they collect. Use pumpkin points to “buy” a toy or do a special activity with your child.
• Let them choose a limited amount of candy to eat (for example, one piece for each year your child is old). In many cities, the leftover candy can be recycled and turned into compost! Just be sure to remove candy from its wrapper first.

Tip for parents: Model healthy choices. Remember that your children look to you for cues. When you take good care of yourself, others and the planet, your child is bound to follow in your footsteps. When you show your children that having a Green Halloween can be just as fun (if not more so) than one that is not-so-healthy, your children will be more likely to go along with the changes and may find themselves loving every minute of it.

http://www.greenhalloween.org/content.php?page=getstarted

Friday Funny

The Other Coast by Adrian Raeside