I was listening to Marketplace on public radio the other day and as part of their sustainability news series, the reporter plugged an interactive assessment tool called “Consumer Consequences” on American Public Media’s website. Consumer Consequences will tell you how many planets it would take to support your lifestyle on a planetary scale and provide [...]

I can’t believe it’s been almost four months since I impetuously decided to give up bottled water. I pledged to go the entire Charleston summer without a single bottle touching my lips, and I have to say it was easier than I thought. It made me realize what we were missing before bottled-water became omnipresent [...]

The Sustainable Seafood Initiative is a community-wide effort that has been underway since 2002 to promote the conservation of fishery resources and the use of locally and domestically caught seafood in restaurants. Sustainable seafood refers to fish that are caught or farmed with consideration for the long-term viability of individual marine species and for the [...]

Plastic bags consumed this year: RbBagCounter.Add(); This morning I blew off sniping photos of poor trash management in favor of playing with my two boys – easy decision. So instead of posting a photo, I thought I’d post this numerical reminder of how blind we are to our consumption. Over 500 billion plastic bags are [...]

As I was reading through the Fall issue of Charleston Home, I learned some interesting things to help my green thumb and my green gardening knowledge. First, it’s not too late to plant some Fall veggies! One of Charleston Home’s “to-dos” for Fall is “Grow a new vegetable.” In the article “Fall Task List,” Sidi [...]

I just got the September edition of “Water Lines“, Mount Pleasant Waterworks newsletter, and they have a great list of water saving tips that I thought I’d share. And I have to say, I love the fact that an organization that makes money from the amount of water we use is encouraging us to conserve. [...]

One of the first really green things we did was to reduce our dependence on non-essential paper waste. This included paper towels, cups, plates, toilet paper, tissue, and napkins. Paper accounts for the largest amount of solid waste in landfills, and we wanted to reduce that. So, Jen picked up 16 cloth napkins and put [...]

Quoted from today’s Post & Courier: Town Council voted Tuesday to negotiate to buy 43 acres on the northern side of Shem Creek from developers who plan a marina and condominiums on the property. As a resident of Mt. Pleasant, I’m happy to see Town Council actively working to preserve land; especially water front property. [...]

Bottled water is a huge environmental issue, both in the amount of plastic waste created and the needless carbon produced during the processing and transport stages. This is a topic we’ve covered pretty extensively at Go Green with Chad’s ongoing initiative to avoid bottled water altogether, an effort I think we’ve all adopted. If you [...]

I’m a Disney geek. To me, one of the many benefits of living in the Charleston area is the relatively close proximity to Walt Disney World. Only a six hour drive (in the Prius!) and we’re practically in the Magic Kingdom. We try to make it down annually, if the budget allows, and we avoid [...]

The Charleston County Council is meeting tonight to review spending proposals from the Green Belt Program. Meetings are held on the second floor of the Lonnie Hamilton, III Public Services Building, 4045 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston. You can read more at: Green Belt Program Proposals

When I wrote about road trip recycling and other things last week, I forgot to mention that I finally purchased some carbon offsets for my vehicle. We’ve made major efforts to green up our summer traveling (recycling, cruise control, slower speeds, tire pressure, filling up at night, etc.), so offsetting our vehicle’s carbon emissions was [...]

I’m in some sort of green-shock after walking by a couple of Mount Pleasant Town Center stores this weekend whose doors were wide open. It was hot, and Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works were the only stores brazen enough to coax foot traffic off the sidewalk with energy-guzzling cold air. This marketing tactic [...]

The Sustainability Institute (which deserves a post of it’s own — more later) is presenting a conservation workshop on Tuesday, June 26th from 6 to 7 pm at 1441 East Montague Avenue in North Charleston. The workshop is sponsored by the Charleston chapter of One Corps, which is the “official local action arm” and advocacy [...]

Here are a few stories I found that I thought you might want to see: Walking and biking are great ways to decrease your impact. Now you can hop on the Ravenel bridge and go a 1/2 mile longer. The turtles are back on Folly and IOP! I found the LEEP blog, but it doesn’t [...]

Here are a few interesting and newsworthy links from the outer reaches of the green Web… Surprise fellow Americans…! The U.S. rejects EU emission reductions. What’s global warming look like? Ask Australia — they’re getting hit hard right now… will the world take notice? CNET’s Green Tech column breaks down 25 things you can do [...]

Have you met Mossy yet? Mossy is probably the youngest green blogger in South Carolina, and he would like you to take The Mossy Challenge. From the results of our first poll, I know a lot of you are already on the CFL bandwagon – but the point here is that a 10-year-old is more [...]

Whether or not to turn your computer and monitor off after daily use is a point of confusion for many. The bottom line is turn them off. And better yet, unplug them. If you work in an office environment that requires you to leave your PC running so IT can push out system updates, at [...]

Keeping things out of the landfill is a huge part of being green. When you re-purpose an old item, you are flexing your free market muscles by saying “Hey, I don’t always need to buy new stuff.” New stuff is made in carbon-spewing factories and delivered to the energy-hogging Wal-mart on a greenhouse gas-emitting truck. [...]

I have to admit, I’ve been reading about freecycling for years, but never really got involved. I avoid the landfill by using garage sales, Goodwill, and the ad boards at work, but I suppose that’s not much of a “cycle” if I only give stuff away… I need to try to get some stuff too. [...]