Last summer, I was walking through the mall with my wife when we came upon a brand new car sitting near the food court, not far from the Macy’s. Some mobile service company was running a drawing — and you could WIN a BRAND NEW CAR.  Sophia said we should try for it. I said it was phony. The owner’s daughter ends up winning the car. She said, “What do we have to lose?”

We never did win that car. But for a year now, we have been getting junk mail from this mobile company.  We also were sent a whole lot more promotional mail, mostly for cable TV and to better our credit rating.  When we signed up to win this car, we obviously didn’t read the small print on the bottom about the selling of our name and address to direct marking companies.

I’m not sure if the winning car was a gas guzzler or not, but all this junk mail is certainly not earth-friendly. I usually toss out these envelopes before even opening it.

The WorldWatch Institute presents these amazing facts about junk mail:

More than $56 billion was spent on the production and distribution of 41.5 billion pieces of mail advertisements in the U.S. in 2005. Each year, the junk mail industry destroys about 100 million trees to cart its promos, pleas and promises to and from incinerators, garbage dumps and recycling centers. The production and disposal of junk mail consumes more energy than 3 million cars.

These mailings make waste. They also waste our time. Each of us will spend an average of eight months of our lives dealing with junk mail!

Direct mailers like this form of advertising because it is cheap and easy. They do not make it easy for you to opt out of these mailings.

The #1 step in preventing junk mail from showing up in your mailbox is NOT to sign up to win a free car in the mall. Be careful who you give your address to because the main purpose of these drawings is to gather up addresses. There are companies that make a fortune just buying and selling your name for mailing lists.

Another essential step is to remove yourself from existing lists. The Direct Marketing Association runs a mail preference service that will help you remove yourself from consumer mailing lists. You can register online at register online at www.dmachoice.org/dma/member/regist.action.

If you’re anything like me, you receive tons of pre-approved credit offers. Although thes mailings are coming from an assortment of banks and financial institutions, some real and some shady, these unsolicited mailings are lists bought from the four credit-reporting bureaus: Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and Innovis, who love to sell your personal information to mailing list companies. You can contact each of these companies to opt-out of these “services” or call 1-888-567-8688 (that’s 888-5OPT-OUT) or visit www.optoutprescreen.com. Using this service will give you the opportunity to choose either a five-year removal or a permanent removal. I haven’t tried it yet, but call me skeptical.

Many companies now have their catalogs online, and utility companies such as electricity and heat,  can e-mail you your bills. While these mailings are not in the category of “junk mail,” eliminating the need for this paper is another energy and tree saver.

Frankly, I love my mail, so I may not to choose to eliminate all of my catalogs and offers. Going online is getting a piece of mail delivered. But who needs all this junk and crap from marketers? This is one time where doing the “green” thing is not a sacrifice, but would enhance my personal life. Credit card offers — be gone!

I was in a nostalgic mood for comfort food last night, and I was thinking wayyyy back into my childhood.  I went onto Twitter and asked people if they still produced “Spaghetti-O’s,” one of my past favorites.  Sarah, who also blogs here at Brita, sent a message that she buys an “organic” knock-off of Spaghetti-O’s for her son. I made fun of her for being overly-green.

“Organic Spaghetti-O’s?  Now that’s going too far!”

Since I don’t have kids, I sometimes joke with my friends who are parents about their over-protectiveness of their kids. I was raised on formula and Spaghetti-O’s — and I grew up to become semi-normal!

A little research online has made me better understand the fear of parents. While organic Spaghetti-O’s may be on the extreme part of the spectrum, there are legitimate reasons for parents to be on watch, especially with products containing fruits and vegetables. While children are the ones who most need these healthy foods, they are also most vulnerable to the pesticides and chemicals that are used in production.

As we all know from every visit to playground, the growth rate of children is very fast and their metabolism is on overdrive, so they eat more in relation to their body weight than do adults. Many of the tests done by the government and the EPA concerning pesticides are conducted using adults, so the exposure levels do not take into account the faster growth rate of children.

Studies in 2003 and 2006 showed that children who ate a conventional diet had six to nine times higher amount of pesticides in their urine than those who ate organic foods. That alone should give some pause to every parent out there.

I still believe that the “organic” label is being manipulated by some food companies and grocery stores for profit. Not every product is dangerous to us, and I don’t always make the organic choice for myself. I have no idea if organic Spaghetti-O’s are any better for a child than the conventional ones. I have no problem eating regular Spaghetti-O’s myself. In fact, I’m still in the mood to buy some today and see if I still like them! However, now that I better understand the special concerns for children, I will not make fun of Sarah anymore for her organic choices.

Writing this blog has pushed me into asking questions that I hadn’t done before.  I now ask myself, “What is the path that is best for the planet?”  Sometimes, I am confronted with a choice without a clear-cut answer.

Last night, Sophia and I made vegetable pancakes for dinner.  We had bought too many vegetables the week earlier and needed a quick way to used them up before they spoiled.  We chopped and cut the vegetables, and the result — the pancakes — was delicious.  But we were also left with a huge pile of food scraps and vegetable peels.  This presented us with a decision on how to get rid of the scraps — push them into the garbage disposal in the sink or throw it into the trash.  I was not sure which was the better choice.  Landfill or sewage system?

I did some research online, and it seems that the correct approach is to use the garbage disposal.  It did not occur to me that most food waste is water, so these scraps can easily be treated at the water treatment centers.  If the scraps were thrown into the garbage, they would have to be trucked to landfills (energy used), and would then decompose, producing dangerous greenhouse gases.

Last year, more than 13 million tons of food scraps were sent to landfills.  By grinding the food in the disposal instead, the water treatment plants can produce methane gas to run the facilities.  The scraps can also be recycled into fertilizer.

Most modern garbage disposals are safe to use.  They can usually grind food to less than 1/4 of an inch, which makes it safe for household and municipal pipes.  Plumbers recommend that you run cold water down the drain for a few seconds after using the disposal to prevent the food from setting in the pipes.  One warning — never put fats, oils, or grease down the drain.  These can lead to backups.   It is better to put the grease into a container and throw it into the trash.

From now on, I am going to use my garbage disposal a lot more.  It is the green thing to do.   And it is fun using the disposal and hearing that cool grinding sound!

Do you have coins lying around your house — in your cushion, pants, laundry machine? I know I do. I have so many pennies, dimes, nickels, etc.  that I now have four huge jars full of these coins. It never occurred to me before today that these coins are a wasted resource. By keeping them out of circulation — sometimes for years! — the government has to produce new coins, which involves mining, refining, energy-wasting and shipping.

One of the reasons, I don’t put these coins back into the system is that once you start collecting them, it becomes an annoyance to get rid of them. Who wants to walk around with heavy coins in his pocket? I use my credit card for most purchase and usually carry bills in my wallet. Every day, I return home with a few extra coins in my pocket.

There are some coin machines in supermarkets, but it bothers me that they take a cut of the money. I once used one of these machines and it took a higher percentage than a Hollywood agent. Banks will not accept a bucket full of coins. They want you to sort them into rolls. Frankly, I don’t understand why banks DON’T accept buckets of change. These machines do exist. I have seen them used in Las Vegas casinos. They even sort the change automatically.

Coinstar, the maker of most of these supermarket coin change machines, estimates that there are $10 billion in coins sitting idle in American homes. If only 15% of those coins were re-entered into circulation, it would save 82 million showers worth of water and 12,000 cars worth of CO2 emissions! A great reason to recycle your nickles and dimes!

My plan this week is to figure out what to do with these coins.  I have at least $500 worth of money.  Perhaps I will spend the day rolling them into wrappers (make it a 4th of July tradition!)  or search for coin machines that don’t take a cut.  Or even better — give a portion of the coins to some environmental charity.

My local 99 cent store now charges three cents for each plastic bag.   This has inspired me to bring along my own bags.  While I’d like to say that my motivation for carrying shopping bags is 100% to help the planet, saving the fifteen cents per trip is an added incentive.  This brings up a question that has fascinated me since starting this blog — should green decisions be solely determined by the marketplace or should public policies be in place to help create this change?  For instance, should state and federal governments be subsidizing mass transit more fully to make it LESS expensive to ride subways and buses, and to encourage more passengers?  And is this fair to all taxpayers?

I pay a lot of money for car insurance.  I was intrigued when I read about a proposal to subsidize pay-as-you-drive auto insurance policies.  Under this subsidy, auto insurance would be based less on location and age than on the per mile use.  Someone who travelled great distances would be required to pay higher insurance than the neighbor who drove to the supermarket on the weekend.  Is this fair?  Maybe not.  But this proposal would create a disincentive to drive, sort of a gasoline tax in reverse.  If a driver knows that a trip would cost extra money for insurance, he might choose to take public transportation instead — and that would be a green choice.

I’m not sure yet which side of the debate I am on.   While I am usually for government intervention, I also believe in the free market.  Plans such as this bring up many issues.  Do we want being green to be an individual decision, or do we want the government using our pocketbooks as bait to get us to do the right thing?  Pay as you drive auto insurance would work for me, although I might complain when I wanted to take a long drive to Las Vegas!

This is an important issue because I doubt that we will do enough, on our own, to stop the destroying of our planet.  We are short-sighted, and always pushing things off onto the next generation.   It is necessary to have policies that help us make the right decisions NOW.   The carrot and the stick exists because it works.

I thought I was doing good. I would help the planet by growing things on my patio. It would beautify my home. I would be “green” by growing my own tomatoes.

And then I encountered the same problem as large agricultural companies — insects were destroying my garden. I went to Home Depot, where the employee recommended a certain pesticide to kill the aphids and other pests that have been attracted to our “garden.” As I read the warnings on the pesticide can, I realized that my attempt to be green was turning into the opposite. I was going to be poisoning the environment.

Our main pest, aphids, are small, soft-bodied insects that suck the sap from soft leaf and stem tissue, feeding on the leaves. I did some research online and discovered a whole new world of “cultural and habitat” management which could help stop some of the infestation without using chemicals. I didn’t realize that growing some plants could be so complicated!

One of the most important management steps is making sure that the plants are not over fertilized. Aphid reproduction is directly related to the nitrogen levels of the plant. Pruning should be regulated to avoid the growth of nitrogen during certain seasons. I also could have made smarter choices in what plants to buy. Some plants are less susceptible to aphid infestation, and better suited to the natural environment of Southern California.

Other safer methods of aphid control include water-blasting certain areas to prevent migration, and the introduction of natural predators, such as the lady beetle.

Several companies are currently devising creative methods to control other types of insect infestations. One successful technique involves manipulating male gypsy moths with the spraying of female hormones into the air. The male moths basically go crazy when they can’t find the females to breed. Clever!

I haven’t yet figured out if any of these methods actually work on my patio, but this small experience has opened up my eyes to the challenges of professional growers, and makes me better understand the higher prices of organically grown produce. It takes a lot more time and effort to avoid the use of easy pesticides!

In my last couple of posts, I have kvetched and overanalyzed, but done very little in action.  It was time to look at my life, thinking of some new ways that I could be greener.

As I am in Los Angeles at the moment, I immediately focused on the car.  I use the car ALL the time when in town, even when I take short trips to the store.  It was time for a change!  I went into the garage and dusted off my old Schwinn 10-speed.  I used to ride along the beach before I got married.  I hadn’t used it in so long that I had to fix one of the wheels and add air to the tires.

But as they say — you never forget how to ride a bicycle!  I jumped on the seat, and did a practice run around the block.  My community has bike lanes, so I felt relatively safe.  My biggest problem was… being out of shape!  All in all, it was fun, and I felt like a kid again.

Driving and traffic is bad for the environment.  We all know that.  The American driver spends up to 1600 hours of his life each year sitting in traffic, breathing the fumes.  Public transportation is not available to everyone.  Walking is a good solution, but it isn’t always the most efficient method of getting from place A to place B.  Not everyone lives in compact cities, or has the time to spend walking.  A bicycle is a relatively fast form of transportation, but emits no harmful fuels.  It is also a good exercise.  Yay for bicycles!

My plan was to use my bicycle for local trips to the grocery store, a destination that was a little too far away to walk, but not necessarily far away enough for me to drive my car and waste energy.  Preparation was the key.  I would need a lock in order to safely store my bicycle, as well as a safe way to carry my groceries back home.

My first run to the supermarket was a success.  I borrowed a basket from a neighbor, which I affixed to the front of the bicycle, making me look like wicked neighbor stealing Toto in the Wizard of Oz.   I purchased some food in the store, and left with two grocery bags.  One bag I placed in the basket, and the other I hung on the armrest.  There was a bike rack right in front of the market for me to lock the bicycle.

I made it home in the same amount of time as it would take driving my car.  Granted, I was more sweaty and took a shower, but I got some much needed exercise.  And it was fun!  This does not mean I am giving up my car.  I just rediscovered a childhood way of transportation for smaller trips.

The next day, I returned to the market, proudly pedaling on my bicycle to the store.  While in the store, I received a call from Sophia.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“At the supermarket.”

“Good.  Can you pick up some eggs, a a 12-pack of Diet Coke, and a turkey?”

“Uh…”

Later on, I had to return to the supermarket with my car.

No plan is perfect.

The most famous skyscraper in America is the Empire State Building. I think it would make the perfect spokesmodel for a green movement for our homes. I wish I could make the PSA, with the New York icon as the star. Why? The Empire State Building is undergoing a $20 Million dollar makeover, which will reduce the building’s carbon dioxide emissions by 105,000 metric tons within 15 years, which is similar to reducing the yearly emissions of 17,500 cars.

The main aim in this retro-fitting is to reduce levels of the greenhouse gases from the operation of the building. The upgrades will include replacing the Empire State Building’s 6500 windows with insulated glass, as well as changing the ventilation system, water, and lighting systems.

Work should be completely finished by 2013.

The building’s owners are not doing these changes solely for environmental reasons. The makeover with help save 4.4 million dollars in energy costs.

In New York City, emissions created by the more than 900,000 buildings citywide contribute 79 percent of the city’s total. There is definitely a need for more attention to be paid to the environmental dangers of the famous skyline, as much as that given to that of the traffic.

Former President Bill Clinton is involved with the foundation which is helping with the environmental upgrades. During the announcement at the Empire State Building, he said, “We have to prove it’s good economics, and we have to prove we know how to do it,” he said. “Every person on Earth who cares about this knows about the Empire State Building.”

Every house, even that of the typical suburban family, has the same green issues as the Empire State Building. The heat, air-conditioning, electricity, and water all contribute to gas emissions. Hopefully, the retro-fitting of this famed old-timer will be an inspiration to all of us to make our homes greener.

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m not fired from this gig. Unlike the other bloggers, who always seem to have grown in their commitment to green lifestyles, each week coming up with new and innovative ideas, my blog seems to be about my green failures.

Take last weekend. I’m in Los Angeles, where my wife is overwhelmed with the chaos in the garage. A week earlier, while she was pulling into the garage with her Prius (Prius! She’s greener than I am!), a box almost fell on top of her, and no woman likes to have her new car scratched by a fallen box in the garage.

My assignment: clean out the garage and make it more organized.

There are two major happenings that can put excessive stress on any marriage: traveling together in the same car AND cleaning out the garage. We argued over what to throw out. Sophia wanted to give away my collection of Matchbox cars. Impossible! I wanted to toss out some shoes that she hasn’t worn in fifteen years. She was insulted. After three days of battling and moving boxes back and forth, we finally had huge piles of garbage and stuff to give away. We drove to Goodwill, where they accepted some materials, but not all. We returned back home to face the pile of garbage sitting in the middle of our garage. We were exhausted, and wanted to be done with the chore. So, yes, into the trash went everything — in one big swoop — old bags of soil, non-working toys, radios with broken knobs, paperwork from 2003, stained towels, even cans of corn that expired three years ago.

Do you see where the major FAIL occurs in this story? After months of writing this blog, I still tossed massive amounts of junk into the garbage bin, with little thought of recycling, public safety, or the planet. I just wanted all of this stuff to be out of sight and out of mind.

Most of us do this every day, and I understand why. It is easy to tell oneself that one person doesn’t have that much of an influence on the world.

Now I feel guilty. At least this blog has had some effect on me! If I were doing this chore again, I would have dealt with the problem ahead of time. I would have conceived a plan of what and where I would do with certain types of trash. I would separate, rather than throwing everything into one big pile, which just makes it too overwhelming later on.

My experience is not that different from that of big companies or even the government. When there is a major operation going on, which will produce a decent amount of trash, one cannot depend on “winging it.” One needs a green plan, a policy in place, BEFORE you make your first move.

The word “green” is becoming so ubiquitous that it is losing the meaning. What does it mean? How do you make the green choice? One of the more confusing categories is “green clothing.” What makes a t-shirt green? Why should I choose one shirt over another? I’ve given some thought to this, and have created my own criteria. This is my own logic, not an “official” rulebook.

First and foremost, are the materials. Natural is better than synthetic. Organic natural is greener than natural alone. If a piece of clothing is made from organic materials, this means the cotton, etc. has not been treated with synthetic chemicals, and that no toxic dyes have been used. This is good for the planet.

The secondary choice would be the type of company involved in the production. Production and distribution are an important part of an business, and there are choices that can be made to limit the environmental impact, such as type of energy used and transportation methods. Selling organic clothes is just a gimmick if the company itself doesn’t commit itself to green production methods. If I had a choice between two organic natural t-shirts, I would choose the one made by the more responsible company who extend their green vision beyond the materials used. To learn this information, I would probably need to know more about the company by looking at their website or Googling them.

Of course, the price of a product is always an issue, especially during downturns such as the one we are in now. I’m just worried that the word green will become meaningless if we couldn’t create a hiearchy of reasons something is green.

In review, my criteria for buying green clothes is:

materials used
production methods involved
company commitment to the environment

And, naturally, whether it looks good on me! Off to go shopping.