If you want to support The Sustainability Instititute, be sure to stop by the Mount Pleasant Whole Foods on March 31st. Whether you’re buying lunch, or food for the week, 5% of your purchase will help fund The Sustainability Institute and and all their amazing programs.

The Sustainability Institute is throwing a huge shindig down at the South Carolina Aquarium tonight, at $35 will get you in the door. This is a great chance to enjoy an evening with Charleston’s green community as they honor those who are furthering the cause. Congrats to Nikki, the Battery, and LLF!

It is reassuring that a regional, but large, grocery store is utilizing the farms here in the Carolinas. The shipping required for our daily diets is costing us more fossil fuel and energy use than we dare to realize. Buying local is an huge step towards lessening our environmental impact.

Other than Whole Foods, I’m not certain if this trend is offered at other chain grocery stores. I chose this Harris Teeter because it’s located three miles from home, but mostly I tend to stick with Whole Foods for stocking our pantry and fridge (apples from North Carolina, hooray!)

As I learn how to adjust our menus according to what is in season, I’ll have to admit I’m not perfect. At seven months pregnant, those clementines from Peru look like the best candies known to man. I give in, here and there, but continue to try and shop for foods with little or no packaging and lesser miles traveled.

Here are some local food links:

• Lowcountry Local First
• Fields to Families
• Boone Hall Farms
• Edible Lowcountry
• Mount Pleasant Seafood

Local farmers markets:

• Charleston Farmers Market
• James Island Presbyterian Church Farmers Market
• Mount Pleasant Farmers Market
• North Charleston Farmers Market
• Stono Farm Market
• Summerville Farmers Market
• Whole Foods Market

My favorite part of the demonstration was the appeal to people who happen to walk by. Students were asking walkers if they would “like a new coal plant”, while handing them a small flower pot filled with chunks of coal. Enevitibly, each walker would say “No thanks,” and everyone would cheer, “They don’t want a new coal plant!” Good stuff.

I thought Carly Sothoron (rainbow wig) dig an amazing job speaking to the crowd, as did Ian Sanchez and Dr. “other guy” (sorry, I forgot your name…I’m just a blogger!) All in all, a great effort – keep up the good work APE!

Check out all the photos after the jump >>

My boys and I are outside. Our excursions almost always involve outdoor activities. We love the county parks, and visit them at least weekly. Charleston County Parks provide wonderful playgrounds and scenic trails that families can enjoy together. And while walking through wooded trails, don’t forget to ask, “Who lives in the forest?”

Observing wildlife is an important factor in learning about nature. The South Carolina Aquarium provides multitudes of natural settings with beautiful marine life. As a coastal community, we need to show our children who else is living here with us.

Francis Marion National Forest is home to many endangered species. The Sewee Visitor and Environmental Education Center in Awendaw is wonderful. They provide hands-on educational programs, and the freedom to walk their trails and observe wildlife, including Red Wolves.

There are many resources for our children about ecology and global warming. There are many interactive sites on the Internet. Cooper and I have browsed EPA’s Climate Change site for children, then headed outside!

I am firm in my desire for my children to have a bond with nature. I have always had a profound respect for nature, and I want to share this with them. Playing in natural environments ensures that they will have an ample understanding and appreciation for the outdoors.

A portion of the site details Santee Cooper’s corporate efforts to become a more environmentally-focused company. Here you will find info on their ambitious (but vague) plans for using renewable energy sources, environmental education programs, energy recycling, and internal corporate efforts to become more green.

More useful is the Go Green with Santee Cooper section. There you get access to free energy audits, basic green building info, and a smart energy planning guide. The energy planning guide does a good job of explaining why costs and environmental impact go up when we use power at peak times. Here you’ll also read a brief statement on green energy buy-backs. This is important because Santee Cooper is beginning to experiment with net metering, which helps increase residential and commercial solar panel adoption rates. Hello – SCE&G – where are you???

In the end the site is well aimed, but does feel a little too warm and fuzzy (you know, in a Public Relations kind of way). But this is still a great step for Santee Cooper to have taken – one that every energy company should do. Keeping the lights on, while keeping this planet healthy, is becoming more and more challenging each year. If corporations continue to spearhead efforts like this, and consumers continue to purchase with a green mind, then together we can keep moving in the right direction.

I used a few Kleenex on Graham’s little face, and it was delightful. The tissue was extremely soft and incredibly effective. By the end of the day I found little wadded balls of Kleenex in my pockets. I threw them in the trash bin.

So, at three a.m., I googled “Kimberly-Clark”. What a professional and eye-pleasing website. Disposable hygiene with an enormous profit their stockholders love. Then, I googled “Kimberly-Clark forests.”

The web site is Kleercut.net. Greenpeace, thankfully, put pressure on Kimberly-Clark after seeing the destruction from logging in the Boreal Forest. The logging company is partly owned by, you guessed it, Kimberly-Clark. So, Kimberly-Clark has just been biggering along, making more thneeds which everyone needs.

Disposable hygiene, all white and soft and clean for us to just flush away. Only 19% of the product sold to us is made from recyclable pulp. It takes 90 years to grow a box of Kleenex.

Being a ballet dancer, and now a mom, it’s never really been in my budget to buy a lot of paper products. My mom used wash cloths and towels and rags for cleaning, as do I. We don’t use paper napkins or paper plates. I try to buy recycled paper towels and t. p., though, have you noticed the Target in Mt. Pleasant? It’s been about two months since they’ve stocked their shelves with Seventh Generation’s products. Sounds like I may have a mission.

We still have one box of Kleenex in our pantry. I’ll set it out for company I suppose. They are really soft, but they should cost us a lot more, considering where they came from.

I’ve already ordered some handkerchiefs for Chad, shhh…it’s a Christmas surprise.

That’s why I’ve turned to Amazon.com year after year to help reduce my trips into the seasonal chaos. And while this is a welcome convenience, all those boxes do generate a mountain of waste – think of how many shipments Amazon makes each holiday season!

Fortunately, most of this packaging material is recyclable. Here’s a quick rundown on how you can recycle your Amazon.com packaging:

• The cardboard box is 100% recyclable. Store the broken down boxes with your other cardboard, and take them to a Charleston County Recycling drop site for recycling.

• Recycle the invoice. There really isn’t any personal info on the invoice that can’t be found via Google, so toss it into your blue bin with your other paper recyclables. If you’re worried about identity theft, shred then recycle.

• Amazon.com marketing materials are recyclable too. Yep, those glossy paper pamphlets they throw into the box are 100% recyclable. So after you’re done reading about Amazon Prime (a great program BTW), toss those brochures into your paper recycling bin.

• Recycle the brown paper padding. Some boxes will come from Amazon.com stuffed with crumpled brown paper to protect your purchases. This material is similar to brown paper bags, and can be put in with the rest of your paper recycling.

• Dream of recycling the plastic #4 bubble padding. OK, this is the one thing from your Amazon.com purchase that can’t be recycled (along with the shrink wrap around book orders). Unfortunately, plastic #4 isn’t collected in our area.

In the end, I have to give Amazon.com credit for using recyclable materials – except for that #4 bubble pack (Hey Amazon…get on that!) The good news is we can all help keep this stuff out of the landfill. So as the packages start showing up these next few weeks, stop to think how their contents could end up in your blue bins instead of your trash bins – and make it happen. Happy holiday recycling!

I’ve blogged about this before, but this post was inspired by Rick Michl, who’s long winded defense of Limited Brands left me wondering if he had drunk all of Victoria’s secret Kool-aid. All Most corporations have entire philanthropic departments doing amazing things, and Limited Brands is no different. But not all corporations tout their environmental stewardship while giving store managers the go ahead to waste energy – that is why this should embarrass Limited Brands, Les Wexner, and the store managers in Mount Pleasant who prop those doors open each morning. However, they are not alone…

White House Black Market, Style Exchange, and Birkenstock should all close their doors too, and I encourage you to stop by or call to let them know. The big difference is these retailers don’t have parent corporations actively branding themselves as eco-aware (Can you believe Birkenstock doesn’t have some kind of environmental stewardship section on their website?)

Help us get these retailers to close their doors and stop wasting energy.

Victoria’s Secret at Mount Pleasant Town Center
843-216-8620

Bath & Body Works at Mount Pleasant Town Center
843-216-1828

White House Black Market at Mount Pleasant Town Center
843-881-3907

Style Exchange at Mount Pleasant Town Center
843-884-2244

Birkenstock by Footloose at Mount Pleasant Town Center
843-216-3533

Please call or stop by these stores and politely ask them to close their doors. I actually open with, “Did you know your doors are open?” In the mean time, we’re working on a more formal program to help draw attention this issue – something like the Doors Closed Campaign in Ontario.

Previously on Go Green:

• Limited Brands Still Cooling the Earth
• Victoria’s Secret Revealed: She Wastes Energy

When I spoke to the store managers last week, they said they would look into it – but clearly nothing has changed. People are concerned, which is evident by the blogosphere reaction here, here, and here. I am concerned too. Apparently I’m going to have to contact Limited Brands headquarters if I want to see some real action. I’ll keep you posted.

In the mean time, I hope to get down to King Street to see how bad the open door situation is there. I promise there are more posts and photos to come.