freeThinkBham

Hopefully, everyone without recycling pickup is taking their cans, glass, paper, and plastics to the AEC Recycling Center Downtown. If you do, then you also know that the center only accepts #1 and #2 plastics. Well now you can start saving those #5 plastics also!

Whole Foods has a #5 plastics recycling drop-box. Just save them in a separate small container or bag and take it to Whole Foods the next time you go. It’s right inside the building if you come in the main entrance and head to the right. Happy recycling!

admin Business, Green AEC, recycling, Whole Foods

I’ve decided to compile a few places where Birminghamians(?) can do their Holiday shopping this year without sending all their money straight to irresponsible gigantic corporations. This list is for people in Birmingham who want to try to avoid the superficiality of the Galleria and Summit and get a gift with a little more soul while putting money back into the local economy.

1. Bottletree’s Holiday Craft Bazaar – this is by far the best thing you can support this Holiday season. Hand-made gifts by local artists and artisans, selling them altogether in one of the finest local establishments for music and vegetarian food. This event only happens for 2 days so dont miss it! Sat, Dec. 5th, 11-5 and Sun, Dec. 6th, 12-6.

2. Pepper Place Farmer’s Market General Store and Holiday Market – Although the general store is not usually open on Saturday, on Dec. 5th from 10am to 3pm, Pepper Place will host artists and farmers there for a special Holiday Market. You’ll be able to pick local winter veggies and all sorts of crafts. If you happen to miss the Holiday Market, the General Store is open Tues-Fri 10-4 and offers all sorts of local jarred veggies, jellies, relishes and other potential gifts made in Alabama.

3. Whole Foods Market – While Whole Foods is a big company, they support local and regional farmers and coffee roasters. On top of offering environmentally-responsible food and drink for your Holiday dinners, they also have a wide variety of items that would make great gifts. They have shirts dyed with Alabama clay, local candles and soaps and tons of items that you can be sure didn’t come from a sweat shop!

4. Nomad Supply – This is a great locally-owned shop that sells handmade clothes, hand-blown glass, jewelry, art work, soaps, oils, incense, drums, organic fair trade coffee, stickers, patches, gauged ear jewelry and other random stuff. While you’re there, you can also enjoy the free coffee, tea and wifi! Also check out Golden Temple Health Foods’ boutique in 5 Pts for a lot of similar type gifts.

5. Space One-Eleven’s DIY Holiday Gift-making Workshop – Why buy gifts when you can make them yourself? On Dec 15th, make up to 6 handmade gifts with the help of local artists for only $20. Food, wine, and fun included! RSVP for the event from the site.

I’ll add more places soon but I wanted to get this up quickly to highlight the events going on this weekend! Happy shopping! Leave comments with any more suggestions for local, responsible gift ideas!

admin Business, Green

I had the regrettable experience of driving from Montevallo to Birmingham this morning in rush-hour traffic along I-65. Along the way, it became abundantly clear that Birmingham has made absolutely no sensible steps towards easing traffic congestion or the strain placed on the environment because of it.

As I drove past Pelham, I noticed they are widening the interstate. Genius. Let’s widen the road, so for a short amount of time people can feel like it’s alright to live 40 miles outside of Birmingham and still commute. This will cause more people to move out to the fringes of the city leading to urban sprawl, downtown abadonement, longer air-polluting commutes, and ultimately MORE TRAFFIC ON THE WIDENED ROAD. It’s an unsustainable feedback: widen the roads, more traffic, widen the roads again, etc.

Why not reallocate the money being used to build and maintain these roads to actual lessen the traffic that’s already there? Tax breaks could be given to employers who offer telecommuting or flex-hours. Tax incentives could be given to people to buy houses inside the downtown area. Better buses with park-and-rides could also help ease the traffic. The easiest and most glaring option, however, would simply be to make HOV lanes. It would cost peanuts to paint a strip on the road and put up a few signs but the benefits would be fantastic. This would encourage coworkers to start commuting together because they would get to their destination much faster which, in turn, would lessen the total number of cars on the road, making it a safer and more pleasant experience for everyone. We wouldn’t need all the fancy exit ramps from the HOV lane that other cities have, just one lane. How hard could this be? The fact that we don’t have this yet is a testament to the lack of judgement and thought involved in our city and county planning. I know there are people who care about Birmingham’s citizens and environment so I can only hope that one day we bond together and nudge–or shove–our leaders in smart and progressive directions.

admin General, Green, Politics environment, flextime, highways, HOV lane, telecommuting

There are some simple things you can do to save money and help the planet with man’s best friend. I have a Lab-mutt and a Greyhound and this is what we do to try to stay green around the house.

1. Compost Dog Hair – You spend all day sweeping it up, why let those nutrients go to waste? Compost it and use it in your garden.

2. Let the Dog Pre-rinse Your Dishes – Rather than wasting a lot of extra water to pre-rinse your dishes, scrape the big chunks off and let your dog do the rest. You can then stack them to wash later, or load them straight into the dishwasher.

3. Use Dog Food Bags as Trash Bags – Large bags of dogfood aren’t usually recyclable and they practically take up half your trash can to throw them away. Why not just use it as the trash bag itself? The big bags are the perfect size for tall kitchen trash cans and they are much stronger than plastic bags.
Read more…

admin Green dogs, gardening, recycling

A lot of people are probably going to the Magic City Brewfest this weekend, but probably not a lot of people were planning on riding their bikes. Well now, if saving money, being green, and having fun weren’t enough, there’s even more incentive for doing so. Birmingham’s bike advocate, Bici Cooperative, is going to be doing bike valet at the Brewfest. In case you’re wondering what that is, just think regular car valet, except with something a lot more fun and green: a BIKE!

That’s right. Just pull up on your bike, get a ticket from them and go inside and drink to your heart’s content knowing that your precious two-wheeler is in safe hands. Even if you’re coming from out of town, you could just find somewhere to park that’s free (I don’t believe Sloss Furnace has free parking) and then ride into the fest to save some money. Or, if you’d rather, participate in one of the 2 park-and-rides going to the Brewfest. Of course, by ride, I don’t mean sitting in a van… I mean riding your bike. Bici will be leading a ride from Birmingham Botanical Gardens (2:15pm) and one from Crestwood Coffee (2:45pm).

So now, on top of saving money and the planet, being outside (of your car) on a nice summer day, and looking cool/hip/smart by riding your bike, there’s also the assurance that your bike will be safe while you’re enjoying Brewfest. So why wouldn’t you ride your bike there?

admin Events, Green bici coop, bikes, Brewfest, Free the Hops

If you’ve ever been sitting outside at a restaurant like Rojo when the bug-spraying truck drives by, you know what an off-putting feeling it is. Everyone’s wondering “What am I breathing in right now?” or “What are they spraying on the food I’m eating?”

Well there’s a letter written to the Bham News about it that claims to have talked to the driver of the truck and found out the chemical is Pyrethrin. Apparently, this chemical is extremely toxic to aquatic life and bees and, in toxic levels, can cause a host of problems in humans.

It would be great if Birmingham had an opt-out program like Laramie, WY’s No-Spray Program that keeps the city from spraying in your area unless there is a West Nile virus outbreak. Obviously, that will never happen. I guess I’ll just continue to take a side of Pyrethrin with Rojo veggie tacos!

admin Green insecticide, Rojo

Today the Birmingham news reports:

The American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air report ranks the Birmingham metro area No. 5 in the country for pollution from fine particles, or soot in the air.

Also, according to the report, Birmingham ranks No. 20 in the country for ozone pollution.

They also actually mentioned how it’s-obviously-affecting the poor and minorities disproportionately. This is what’s wrong with Birmingham: lack of solidarity. If Greystone or Mountain Brook had as much soot in their air, these factories would be shut down. Since it’s just affecting the poor, however, we make special rules so these companies can pollute MORE than the national limit and don’t think twice about who it’s affecting. It’s just not right! I know these people are upset about it, but there’s no organization structure in place to use the numbers of the have-nots against the power of the corporations. And so, Birmingham continues to make it’s place as one of the worst all-around cities in the country.

admin Business, Green pollution

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has contacted the Guinness Book of World Records asking them to ignore a potentially record-breaking size “chicken dance” to be performed at the Talladega Superspeedway beacause it is sponsored by KFC. PETA has a campaign against KFC that they call Kentucky Fried Cruelty.

According to the president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk:

The Guinness Book of World Records celebrates real achievement—it should not
be used to publicize stunts by cruel, unethical companies such as KFC.

I know a lot of people think PETA makes a bad name for themselves with their protests, but it’s just marketing–just like KFC is doing by trying to get lasting recognition in a world’s record book. This protest will get PETA’s name out to a large number of people that might have never heard it and perhaps never thought about animal suffering. Can anyone blame them for that? At least they’re marketing for something that will make the world greener, healthier, and happier.

admin Business, Green activism, Nascar, PETA

FreeThinkBham has talked about the infamous B’ham-based McWane, Inc before. Now national environmental organizations–such as Earthjustice, Environment America, Clean Water Action, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and the Southern Environmental Law Center– are talking about them. They have released a report called “Courting Disaster: How the Supreme Court Has Broken the Clean Water Act and Why Congress Must Fix It” that documents cases of how the Clean Water Act causes legal confusion.

The case of McWane and the Avondale Creek is a perfect example of this confusion:

In 2005, a jury found that employees of Birmingham pipe manufacturer McWane Inc. knowingly discharged oil, lead, zinc and grease into Avondale Creek, which flows into Village Creek and residential neighborhoods of Birmingham. But those Clean Water Act convictions were overturned by an appeals court because prosecutors had not shown the pollution’s impact on a navigable waterway.

Hopefully, Washington will listen to these environmentalists and corporations will finally have to own up to the pollution they’re dumping on the rest of us–even right here in Birmingham.

admin Business, Green Black Warrior Riverkeeper, mcwane inc, pollution

To me, buying a new book is a guilty pleasure. Despite how fun book collections are, in the back of my head I always know that the library also has the book and thus, it was a waste of materials and money for me to actually own it.

I can be guilt-free, however, for enjoying the latest “book” coming out of Birmingham. Kevin Wilder and Carrie Rollwagen are publishing a serial-fiction work as a blog called Some New Trend.

From SomeNewTrend.com:

Some New Trend is a book-length fiction story published as a blog. We write and publish a new chapter each week.

We like the idea of publishing as we go, getting feedback from readers along the way via comments and emails. Serialized fiction is nothing new—Dickens seemed to like it—but it seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years. We’re bringing it back!

They’re having a launch party Saturday night at Urban Standard, 7pm. Details are in the Event Finder. Come out and see what they’re all about!

admin Green