Tuesday, November 11, 2008

How to Adopt a Green Attitude (and Drain)

Getting your family and little ones excited about evironmental stewardship doesn't have to mean sacrifice and Saturday's spent with other volunteers hauling away debris from parks, etc. What it can mean though is taking an active role in your micro-community or neighborhood to ensure that green stays green.

A couple tips to make it happen.

- Always pick up litter you see on the sidewalk or roadside. Keep a couple of recyclable plastic bags in your jacket pocket and car so you'll always have something on hand to carry away garbage. Always be careful with what you pick up and let junior identify the litter while you handle it.

- Adopt a Street or Drain in your neighborhood. Seattle has an excellent program that's becoming very popular to protect the over 78,000 storm drains in our city from clogging after our what seems weekly torrential downpours. Participants are asked to adopt at least 4 drains to keep free of leaves and debri. The city provide reflective vests, rakes, yard waste bag and pick up services in return. GREAT idea for a neighborhood group or a few families to undertake. Same thing for adopting a street.

But look, you don't need a bureacracy to get help the environment. If your city or town doesn't have a program in place, make your own program and promote it on local mom blogs, your Facebook page, a flier at the organic produce market you frequent and anywhere else you can reach an audience. Thanks.
So get out there, enjoy the fall colors by adding a little green to the pallette. Stay dry!

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