Share and Voice: Urban Bike Rentals

Earlier today while I was thinking of putting my bike away for the year (It's too chilly for me, I'm a wimp) I remembered this cool program I read about a while ago and thought I'd share with all of you.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.niceridemn.org/explore_by_bike/

In Minneapolis this past June an organization called Nice Ride Minnesota opened 65 bike rental locations throughout the metro area. I think this is such a great idea because it provides people with healthier more eco-friendly (yet easily accessible) transportation options.


This bike rental system requires a subscription ($60/year or $50/year for students) and once you have subscribed you can rent a bike any time day or night. If you return the bike to another bike station within 30 minutes, you incur no additional charge. For trips longer than that (or if you somehow forget to return your bike) additional charges apply.

With a variety of bike rental locations all over the place, this system would be a great cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to get around town (especially for students).

I'm not sure how well this would go over in Duluth (even though I know everyone loves biking uphill) but I just thought I'd share this really cool idea with you all.

Reflection: Weeks 5-8

It’s hard to believe we’re all done with the second portion of this course already! I found these past few weeks to be really interesting and fun. Here’s a summary of the things I learned these past few weeks:

We all had a chance to finish the books we chose for our Read N’ Seed assignments by week 7. I think we all had the opportunity to learn a lot from this experience, not only from reading our own books but by following our group members posts as well. The book I chose, The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier, helped me learn a lot about organic foods (why they’re better for you, how to incorporate it into your diet, how to find good prices, etc). 

We also had the opportunity to learn from several eye-opener activities. First, we all looked up one or more cosmetic products we use frequently and entered it in the environmental working group’s cosmetic safety data base. The website then calculates the relative safety of any of the products you enter (in my case, Aveeno moisturizing lotion) by telling you the toxic ingredients, and what possible health risks may be associated with the contents of the cosmetics. Overall I learned a lot from this activity and I think it encouraged many of us to change the products we use on our body every day. 

The other eye opening activity was related to junking/reusing old products for new purposes. For this assignment, we began by looking up local resources where we could find used clothing, goods and services. I found this aspect of the assignment particularly interesting and practical because many of these resources we can all put to practical use (I plan on checking out a few new thrift stores and shops in the near future). For this assignment we also had the opportunity to access the junkmarketstyle webpage peruse the variety of projects posted there. We then got to choose at least 3 projects that interested or inspired us which I’m sure gave many of us a lot of excellent ideas regarding how we can reuse things we would normally throw away (and it probably helped us get ideas for our junking projects). 

The videos we watched in class were also very interesting and I felt like I learned a great deal from them. We watched the documentary Fresh in week 6, which discussed industrial farming and agricultural practices in the United States. I learned a lot from this film about the harmful aspects of this type of farming and mass industry, and also had the opportunity to learn about the benefits of local, more sustainable farming practices. We also watched the documentary Tapped which discussed the detrimental aspects of the bottled water industry in the United States. This movie basically opened my eyes to the fact that the bottled water idea is actually really way too expensive, toxic, harmful to small communities, unregulated (for the most part, by the FDA), and CRAZY. 

Overall I learned a great deal the past few weeks, from the course material, eye opening activities, and my fellow blogmates. I think these environmental health topics are really exciting and inspiring and I look forward to learning more throughout the rest of the course. 

Eye Opener: Junk on the Brain

Part I

Antiquing: Antiquing is a process of seeking out, shopping for, buying, selling, or trading antiques. This can be done at garage sales, estate sales, etc. Antiques themselves are older decorative objects or household items.

Junk: Any old or discarded material such as metal, paper, rags, etc.

Flea Market: A flea market is a place where a collection of used or inexpensive goods can be sold or traded.

Thrift Shop: A retail store that sells used or secondhand products at bargain prices.

Upcycling: A process that attempts to convert older useless or damaged products into higher quality more environmentally friendly products.

Resale shops: A store or shop (consignment shops, resale stores, or thrift shops) that sells gently used clothing or goods.

Part II

The terms listed above describe different ways of shopping that have less of an impact on the environment and on your wallet. By purchasing antiques, junking, or checking out a thrift store, you're helping eliminate waste that could possibly accrue if these products were not re-used. Reusing or upgrading old products is also a great way to shop more cost effectively.

To partake in this sort of shopping, here's a few options:

Antiquing: Father Time Antiques- 395 S Lake Ave #1 Duluth, MN 

(218) 625-2379

Junking: Andy’s Auto Recycling- 1040 State highway 45 Old, Carlton, MN 

(218) 384-3930

Flea Market: Hinckley Flea Market- 701 Fire Monument Road Hinckley, MN

(320) 282-6096

Thrift Shop: Savers- 1740 Mall Dr, Duluth, MN 

(218) 722-1894

Upcycling: Unable to find an upcycling resource for Duluth, MN

Resale Shop: Dannie Duluth- 932 East 4th street, Duluth, MN

(218)724-8507






Of the resources I listed I've only personally been to Savers and Dannie Duluth. Savers is great if you're looking for halloween costumes, for example, or need to dress up for any other occasions. It's also great for finding furniture and other odds and ends. Dannie Duluth is a pretty nice store for finding every day clothes at a great price. I've found lots of great brand name clothes there for fairly cheap and I highly recommend it.






Part III

I thought this was a really cool project I found on the website junkmarketstyle. I always wear hats and I also love gardening, so using old garden trowels to make a hat hanger seemed like an awesome idea to me!

I also really like this picture frame/ window project. I have a lot of photos and finding frames or thinking of clever ways to hang them up is always a challenge for me. I thought this was very creative and I plan to spice up my photos using similar framing techniques. 

Lastly, I thought this was a really cool idea for a coffee table. Having the old buckets built right in seems like a good plan to me. Coffee table + storage is great and I love the bright colors. 

Read 'n' Seed 5: Fourth Quarter and Final Review of The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier

 I just finished the last couple pages of The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier. The last two chapters- Price: Real Costs and Value of Organic Foods and How to Get Started Eating Organic- wrapped up the book very nicely. Here's a brief summary of each chapter before I move on to what I thought of the book as a whole:

Price: Real Costs and Value of Eating Organic
This chapter said that people generally choose food based on five basic criteria:

1. Price
2. Taste
3. Quality
4. Food Safety
5. Health and Nutrition

If price is your biggest concern, the author says organic food is NOT for you. He describes organic food as more or less a gourmet food in which you pay more for superior quality, taste, nutrition, etc. For many of us college students, it seems like buying organic may be cost prohibitive. For those who are still determined to buy organic however, the author suggests picking one product you eat a lot of and committing to consistently buying that product organic. 

How to Get Started Eating Organic
This chapter provided some pretty good tips for people who would like to begin eating organic but don't know where to start:

• Once again, pick one product you eat a lot of and commit to buying that product organic
• Taste test organic foods to find ones you enjoy and start adding them to your grocery list
• Get to know organic drinks: sodas, milk, juice, or wine
• Buy organic coffee beans
• Start buying organic treats like chocolate bars, cookies, or ice cream

These tips encourage you to start small and learn what organic foods are affordable to you that you enjoy eating. I hope these helped.

Overall, I thought this book was a very interesting introduction to organic eating. The book provided helpful information regarding organic food. Origins of organic farming, health and nutrition of organic foods, how to decipher food labels, taste, price, and how to get started eating organic were all covered in this short 75 page book. 

The most important information I got from this book:

 - The philosophy of organic farming. I learned the importance of striving to maintain the integrity of the entire ecosystem. Recognizing that food does not come from the supermarket- it is just shelved there. 

- The health of organic foods. Organic foods are often healthier. Products such as because the lack of pesticides, fungicides, etc. can weaken a plant and block their ability to manufacture beneficial nutrients. Organic farms, which use no pesticides, fungicides, etc. breed stronger plants higher in healthy antioxidants and phytochemicals. 

-Factors that contribute to higher cost of organic foods. Organic foods often cost more because of the many extra required steps involved in organic farming. More manual labor, more research costs, more regulations, and less preservatives (and thus shorter shelf life) all contribute to the increased cost of organic foods. 

All of this information was really helpful to apply whenever I consider buying food or eating out. I think it's important to keep in mind the origins of our food instead of just blindly grabbing a box off a shelf. This book has helped me be mindful of where my food comes from and the extensive process it undergoes before I eat it. This book also helped me recognize that, in paying more for organic foods, people are typically paying for superior quality (in terms of health benefits, safety, etc). 

I would recommend this book as a very introductory book to organic eating. I enjoyed reading this book and it provided a lot of helpful information. It's a very fast read. The only complaint I have is that the book is a bit outdated- published in 2004. I think a more current publication could provide more extensive information and more current statistics in relation to organic foods and farming. Overall, a great introductory book to help get anyone started eating organic!

Share and Voice: The Cove

(Image Courtesy of TakePart.com)

I decided for this Share & Voice to let you all know about this documentary I watched recently. The Cove is a documentary released last year (2009) that exposes the exploitation and brutal killing of dolphins and porpoises in Taiji ,Japan. The meat from these animals, which contains high amounts of mercury is then sold as food (often disguised as another food product) throughout Asia.

This film has raised a great deal of awareness since it was released in 2009. There was a temporary ban of dolphin hunting off the coast of Taiji and residents of Taiji have been tested for mercury. This film was also shown in Japan where this hunting takes place. I don't want to give away too much of the movie here, but I highly recommend it if you're interested in learning about these issues. 

Feel free to check out The Cove Movie website before you see the movie. Also, if you do decide to watch the movie and want to learn more about how you can help, this site provides a page that gives you more details about what you can do. 

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

For this week's eye opener I went to the Environmental Working Group's website. This site allows your to see how potentially hazardous many every day cosmetics can be. By typing in the product name, the site calculates a list of products that match it and then gives you information about the ingredients and how hazardous they could possibly be.

I decided to investigate how bad (or good) my daily moisturizer is. These were my results:


Aveeno Active Naturals Daily Moisturizing Lotion with Sunscreen SPF 15

- This product ranked a 4 out of 10 on the hazard scale

- This product was also linked to a variety of health concerns

I found these results to be a bit alarming. Nowhere on the packaging of this product does it list or describe any of these potential health problems! I use this moisturizer nearly every day because I've been told it's healthy to moisturize daily, yet the information provided here leads me to believe I should probably stop using this product ASAP.

 I also find this to be really shady because I know Aveeno products are distributed by Johnson & Johnson: A company that appears to be forward thinking if you look at their website, yet judging by their product ingredients, is anything but.

I definitely feel like my eyes have been opened here. I'm not sure if I'll throw my moisturizer away just yet but I definitely plan on searching for a better one. In fact, I plan on checking most of my cosmetics to learn about the hazards I never would have known about otherwise. 

Share and Voice: Shower Timers!

So, I just had an idea and it might not be news to you all but I just thought it would be worth sharing since I know many of us are searching for ways we can minimize our impact on the environment. I just sort of stumbled upon the idea of using a shower timer to help minimize water loss and heating etc.
According to the EPA website, even a 5 minute shower can use up 15-25 gallons of water! That seems like it's pretty wasteful to me, and I know many of us are probably in the shower a little bit longer than 5 minutes. So, although this is a pretty simple idea, I think it has the potential to make a big impact and would be worth trying out.

Luckily, you don't need to buy a specific product in order to time your showers. Here's a few ideas:

• Set an alarm on your cell phone
• Listen to music and be prepared to leave the shower after 1 or 2 songs
• Ask a roommate to knock on the bathroom door to remind you
• Hang up a small sign that says something to remind you

Otherwise, if you want to be more official about it and actually buy one, you can check out some of these cool shower timers here .