The LOOP - Issue 38 March/April, 2006 Let's Pick It Up PA Day! 3rd Annual Great Pennsylvania Cleanup; an ambitious statewide effort to remove litter and trash from the state's roadways, parks, riverbanks and open spaces. The featured event will take place April 22, in conjunction with Earth Day, although the entire cleanup spans from March 1 to May 31. Groups registering to participate in the cleanup also can enter to win a weekend getaway in Pennsylvania, as well as a hybrid-powered vehicle offered as part of a national sweepstakes. For information on the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup, and to find or register a cleanup, visit www.greatpacleanup.org website. Outside of PA, please visit www.kab.org (Keep America Beautiful, Inc.) established in 1953, is the nation's largest volunteer-based community action and education organization. Fabric Link Learn what the apparel and textile industry is doing to protect the environment. They have ideas galore for recycling clothes and fabrics! You can donate them to a charity or a theater group, give blankets to an animal shelter, have a garage sale, a fund raiser, or sell vintage clothes for cash. Learn about these ideas and more! http://www.fabriclink.com/EarthDay/Earth-Consumer.html Working to Solve Global Warming It is no small problem. Pollution from vehicles, power plants, and industry is having a dramatic effect on the earth's climate. Left unchecked, global warming will lead to dryer droughts, more intense hurricanes, and more devastating floods. Evangelical leaders resolve to come together with others of like mind to pray and to work to stop global warming in a way that creates jobs, cleans up our environment, and enhances national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, thereby creating a safe and healthy future for our children. http://www.christiansandclimate.org/action Recycle a Newspaper, Keep a Family Warm - A pair of Kalamazoo city officials need your used newspapers to help keep people warm and fight povertyRecycling for Warmth. The newspapers are to be shredded, treated with fire retardant and used to insulate the residences of low-income homeowners, keeping them warmer and potentially saving them hundreds of dollars each month in heating costs. For the complete story, click here. Locate the least expensive gas in your town in a second! MSN Autos strives to bring you the most up-to-date gas prices possible. Their partner, OPIS, obtains pricing data from participating credit card transactions, and other survey methods. To find the cheapest gas in your town, visit: http://autos.msn.com/partners/sponsorpage.aspx?page=gas&src=msn>1=7774 Learning more about wood chips, stalks & switch grass for fuel on NPR: Switch grass grows up to 8-9' tall throughout the US, and is a native plant. This crop can be produced cheaply with a high yield per acre with low production cost and can yield 1000 gallons of ethanol per acre (at $1.50 per gallon of fuel, that's $1,500.00 per acre income). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5183608 . What about using TDF (tire derived fuel), especially for commercial power generation? While it may seem counterintuitive to anyone who's seen an uncontrolled tire fire, there actually can be environmental benefits to controlled burning of scrap tires or TDF chips for energy. TDF produces slightly more heating value than coal with similar emissions. Reschner points out that reusing, retreading or recycling tires is preferable to burning them for economic reasons as well as environmental ones. But in the absence of viable recycling alternatives, Reschner writes, tire-derived fuel "is a perfectly reasonable use for scrap tires." Read more on this subject at:http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/recycling/awareness/facts/tires/tirefuel.htm Some cool online organizations: http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/index.asp - Online quiz to measure your impact on the Earth's resources. Marketplace Exceptional Products from Close the Loop: All of our recycled products are proudly Made in the USA! Rubber Mulch, Rubber Pavers & Tiles, Rubber Landscape Timbers, Recycled Plastic Post & Rail Fencing, and more! Please visit our website at www.closetheloop.com for these and many other high quality recycled products. Close the Loop offers quality of service, ease of ordering, timely deliveries & fair competitive pricing on all items! We're not just selling productswe offer solutions to environmental problems. New Product this Month! Soda Bottle Bear: Made from 100% recycled materials. Inspirational Quotes: Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize his values.... God made life simple. It is man who complicates it. --Charles A. Lindbergh, Reader's Digest, July 1972 Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. --Mahatma Gandhi Grassroots is the source of power. With it, you can do anything-without it, nothing. --Gaylord Nelson The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. -- Albert Einstein When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. -- Benjamin Franklin With best wishes for a happy spring! -- Close the Loop |
