Gift boxes

Reuse: cereal boxes

A great 2nd life for a cereal box is as a shirt box. It is a little late for this holiday gift giving season, but next year just "pass" on the shirt boxes offered by store clerks and use your empty cereal boxes. The paperboard box is nearly the perfect size and shape for most clothing gifts. Any paperboard box will work equally well...smaller boxes (i.e. cracker and cookie boxes, etc.) work nicely for smaller gifts.

Our Decrepit Food Factories

From Michael Pollen's latest NYTimes article:

For years now, critics have been speaking of modern industrial agriculture as “unsustainable” in precisely these terms, though what form the “breakdown” might take or when it might happen has never been certain. Would the aquifers run dry? The pesticides stop working? The soil lose its fertility? All these breakdowns have been predicted and they may yet come to pass. But if a system is unsustainable — if its workings offend the rules of nature — the cracks and signs of breakdown may show up in the most unexpected times and places. Two stories in the news this year, stories that on their faces would seem to have nothing to do with each other let alone with agriculture, may point to an imminent breakdown in the way we’re growing food today.

Click here to read more.

The Story of Stuff

Check out:

The Story of Stuff

Extreme Marketing to Kids

See story and action on McDonald's marketing to kids in Florida on their own report cards.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/621/t/4886/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=21959

Recycling Service- Batteries, Bulbs, Phones, Packaging, Etc

Gift Wrap & Recycle Drop Shop
405 West Rosemary Street

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516
(next to the Skylight Exchange and Fuse nightclub)
Bring hard to recycle items such as batteries, fluorescent bulbs, old cell phones, and styrofoam packaging waste.

HOURS
Wed . Dec. 5 & 12 - 3-7pm
Thur. Dec. 6 & 13 - 3-7pm
Fri. Dec. 7 & 14 - 3-7pm
Sat. Dec. 8 & 15 - 2-6pm

Free Service - Repurposed Architectural Drafts as Wrapping Paper

Free gift wrapping using old posters and architectural drafts at the Gift Wrap and Recycle Drop Shop. See above post for details.

Complete the Streets!

Could we do this in NC? It is now official policy in the entire state of Illinois. How about starting with Carrboro...

http://www.completestreets.org/

Build Your Own Rain Barrel for $30

Build Your Own Rain Barrel Workshop - WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2007, 2:00-3:30 pm - OWASA Community Room, 400 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro

Click for more info.

The Kids are Alright

From Kids tell town how to save, Chapel Hill News:

Thirteen-year-old Connor Bernstein told the Town Council that the Chapel Hill Police Station consumes 420,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year at a cost of $25,000.

“That’s a lot,” Connor said.

Wearing button-down shirts, dress pants, sweaters and sneakers — including one pair of Converse All-Stars — seven young men appeared before the council Monday to present the results of an energy audit they conducted at the police station on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Click here to read full article.

Don't throw those oyster shells away!

From Shelling For Sustainability, Chapel Hill News:

Every Thursday, Greg Overbeck pulls his silver Ford pickup to the back entrance and loads heavy boxes of empty oysters shells into the truck bed. He drives to Carrboro and delivers them to Tom Robinson at Tom Robinson's Carolina Seafood, in a tiny freestanding building in the parking lot behind Armadillo Grill.

Robinson in turn drives the shells to the beach on his weekly fresh fish run and turns them over to fishery workers, who dump them back into the ocean to help replenish diminishing oyster beds. Young oysters prefer to grow on the backs of bigger oyster shells.

Click here to read full article.

Help Preserve Carrboro Greenspace

From Carrboro Greenspace re property at 116 Old Pittsboro:

In the last few weeks a REAL chance to save one of the only green spaces left in downtown Carrboro has emerged; but we need your help to make it happen! As of November 19, we received news that there is a potential buyer willing to help purchase the property and support its preservation IF they can a) partner with the town, b) be assured of community investment in and support for purchasing and conserving the land.

We know for a fact the town is interested, but we need to convince them that a) residents really, really want this, and 2) that this is economically viable. The town was recently sent an official proposal and a request to partner… this means that if there was ever a time to save this magical property, it is probably now. Please help us make this effort a reality

Click here to help.