Here are fourteen new additions to the Local Guide – Give ‘em some love!

• Avani Concepts – sustainable building and concrete
• Eco-Deco – eco-friendly paints & flooring
• WOK – World Oriental Kitchen – sustainable dining
• The Dust Bunnies – local green cleaning
• Earth Friendly Landscapes – sustainable landscaping
• MUSC Farmers Market – downtown local food
• Green Street Logistics – eco-friendly delivery services
• Healthy Home Foods – green food delivered to your door
• Stubbs, Muldrow, Herin Architects – LEED certified
• Charleston Waterkeeper Blog – protecting your water
• Little Fish Blog – local green thoughts
• bluesphere: Earth Art Expo – sustainable local art
• The Lap Log – eco-friendly iPad accessories
• Biohabitats – ecological restoration

If your organization or business should be on our guide, just let us know.

This means you can start throwing plastics labeled #3, #4, #5, #6, and #7 into your blue bin along with the #1 and #2 plastics. They will accept all plastics except plastic wrap, plastic bags, and Styrofoam (all things you can easily avoid using with minimal effort). And don’t forget, they also started accepting cardboard for curbside pickup in April – epic awesomeness!

The Charleston Post & Courier had this quote from Charleston County Council member Colleen Condon:

Expanding Charleston County’s Recycling Program to recycle all plastics #1 through #7 allows us to provide better service to our citizens and move closer to our 40 percent recycling goal with this important step.

Cheers to the Jenny and the CCR team, the Council, and everyone else who made this happen. I know it’s been a long time coming, and something that all of us local greenies have been hoping for. In fact, it’s the most common question we get from Go Green readers, and now I have the answer they want to hear!

Tri-County Carolina Yard Experience is based on the Carolina Yards & Neighborhoods program, which helps people work WITH the environment around their property – not against it. Sounds cool!

This is a free, environmental event focused on the home landscape-including environmentally friendly gardening practices, recycling, rainwater harvesting, pond management and much more!  Hands-on demonstrations and educational displays by county extension agents and Master Gardeners.

A ton of local sponsors, including Clemson Extension Tri-county Master Gardeners, DHEC, and Charleston, Berkeley & Dorchester County Recycling, have made this free event possible. On Saturday, March 13th, head down to the The Charleston Exchange Park, Ladson SC from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and get your green yard on!

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jezpage/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

This baby toy from Vulli would be a great gift for that green rug rat in your life, especially if they are teething. Sophie the Giraffe, as she has been known since 1961, is produced manually in France with 100% natural rubber derived from the hevea tree. Our 10-month-old girl definitely found it soothing, and was excited when it would squeak from time to time. You can definitely tell the rubber is natural, as it has a soft, almost moist feel to it. As an added bonus, it came in sustainable packaging. Green-wise, the only problem I see here is that it is imported all the way from France.

If you’re interested, head over to DwellSmart (map) or purchase online.

Note: For the next couple weeks, we will be reviewing products that would make good gifts for the greenie in your life. Our friend Mary Gatch, owner of DwellSmart and local green goddess, provided this product free of charge to our family for review on this website.

• Charleston Moves
• Charleston Parks Conservancy
• Charleston Waterkeeper
• Coastal Conservation League
• Fields to Families
• Lowcountry Earth Force
• Lowcountry Local First
• Sea Island Habitat for Humanity
• South Carolina Aquarium
• SC Green
• SC LEEP
• The Sustainability Institute
• The Sustainable Warehouse

Happy dogooding everyone!

It’s like you can actually take Fall and stuff it in your pile! Take those pumpkins, break them up, and fold them in. Rake your yard before you mow, and toss all that goodness in. Edge your yard and gardens, and toss the trimmings in. Clean the Summer out of your garden, and throw it on. If you’re going big, ask some neighbors for their pumpkins and leaves. Our pile was looking very happy after Halloween. Happy composting!

Learn more about composting:

• Composting Update :: Tis the Season!
• Composting Update :: Got Brown?
• Compost Update :: Root of the Problem
• Composting Update :: We Have Steam!
• Composting Update :: Now with Starbucks!
• Turns Out Charleston Digs Composting
• Best Season to Start Composting: Fall

SC Biz Magazine says,

The sustainability director will create long- and short-term goals and lead projects that promote environmental sustainability within city government and in the community. The new director also will lead some green initiatives the city has already pursued.

I really like the sound of that – a leader. The City of Charleston has organized a Green Committee, created some bike paths, and recently launched some public recycling options, but I feel that very little real progress has been made since Major Joe Riley signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2005 (almost five years ago!) Remember, movement and progress are not the same thing – I’m hoping that Brian’s leadership can help convert some of this local movement into real progress.

Brian, I cannot wait to meet and work with you. The Charleston community is ready and willing for you to lead the charge – just be sure we are running toward something BIG, and not something that’s simply “better.” Charleston is the perfect size to really make a difference, and I hope you brought some of that great Portland ingenuity with you! Good luck!

What are you working on eliminating? Oil-based gas, plastic bags, food from far off continents? Bottled water, dirty electricity, resource-intensive meat? Let us know in the new Go Green Poll.

Results from the last Go Green Poll, Summer is here – what sustainable action are you focused on?, can be viewed after the jump >>

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

One thing to keep in mind: If you have a compost pile near palmetto trees, watch out for their crawling roots. I went a little too long without turning our pile, and it looks like nearby palm roots have infiltrated the bottom 12 inches, robbing the pile of some of the oldest and best compost. I’m wondering if I should have put a barrier at the bottom of the pile to keep the roots out – any reader advice is welcome.

Here are some other compost notes:

• If you have river birches or other trees that drop leaves early, be sure to collect them for your pile. August always brings our birch leaves down in droves, so this is a great source of brown for our pile – I always rake before I mow.
• Turn your pile! For many reasons, you must do this regularly. Two strange reasons I do: to keep the palm roots from eating from the bottom up, and to keep the fiddler crabs from eating from the top down.
• Look for bugs…you want bugs. If you see worms, that’s good. If you see termites, that’s bad.
• During peek fruit fly season (now), you might need to make more trips to the backyard pile. Our kitchen composter it too tempting for fruit flies, so we take our scraps out right away.

That’s all for now. Here are some previous compost updates:

• Composting Update :: Tis the Season!
• Composting Update :: Eureka, Black Gold
• Composting Update :: Got Brown?
• Composting Update :: We Have Steam!
• Composting Update :: Now with Starbucks!
• Composting Update: Pumpkins are In

And back to the “unneeded” part (every year some phone book advocate shows up touting the greatness of their publication for small business advertising…yawn). Both The Real Yellow Pages and The Talking Phone Book have great online directories, so I think this year I’ll cut the cord and begin using them. Why use 3,800 pages of paper to do something the Internet can do faster, cheaper, and with less impact on the environment? To stop the phone book from being delivered to your home or business, you can simply opt out! Here’s how:

• The Real Yellow Pages: Fill out this form.
• Talking Phone Book: Email their distribution department.

If you want to take it up a notch, here are some great ideas from YellowPagesGoesGreen.org on how you can work with your local goverment to establish better practices for the distribution of phone books.