October 8, 2009

Add green to your home
How to be environmentally friendly indoors and outdoors

The green possibilities are everywhere.

From the products you use to clean your windows or get grubs out of your lawn to the paint, carpet and more, the idea of “green” housekeeping has been catching on. Looking for ideas to make the next renovation or the garden you’re planning for next spring a bit more Earth-friendly? Inside and outside, there’s a way to work a little green in everywhere.

Grow green to go green
How to be earth-friendly in the garden
By Henry Homeyer letters@hippopress.com

Want to go green? Grow green.

One of the best things you can do if you want to reduce your carbon footprint is to grow some of your own food. The average food item in the grocery store travels 1,500 miles requiring fuel, packaging and refrigeration. Food from your back yard does not. Most food is produced using significant chemical inputs: fertilizer, insecticides and fungicides — all of which require energy inputs. You can grow your own lettuce and tomatoes without chemicals. And of course, home-grown food tastes better. Now is the time to plan a garden for next year.

If you are willing to devote 15 minutes a day to gardening and are willing to give up a piece of your lawn roughly the size of the parking spot for your car, you can grow a significant amount of good food. Food that is organic, food that is tasty, food that is healthy. Don’t hide your garden in a dark corner of the yard. Choose a spot that has full sun — which means six to eight hours of sun per day — and is as far away from trees as possible. Tree roots can compete with your plants for water and nutrients.  

First, I recommend getting the soil of your garden-to-be tested by the State Testing Service. You can download the instructions and a form from the Web at extension.unh.edu/Agric/AGPDTS/SoilTestingForms.htm.  If you are not Web-connected, you can call them at 862-3200. The test will tell you what minerals your soil has and give you recommendations.  Look carefully at the percentage of organic matter — lawns are generally low in organic matter, but you need 4 percent or more to do well. Aim for 8 percent. Also get your soil tested for lead and heavy metals, especially if the plot is near an old house that may have been painted with lead paint. You might have to move to a different site if the lead levels are too high. Test before you dig out all the grass.

The hard part of starting a new garden in the lawn is getting rid of the sod. Get to work on that now. No, you don’t want to rent a rototiller to make it disappear. Chopping up the grass does not get rid of it. Even a scrap of root is enough to start a new grass plant. So you must dig it all out. You can slice through the sod with a shovel and cut it into one-foot squares. Pry out each square with a garden fork or weeding tool, shake off any topsoil attached to the roots, and put the sod in your compost pile.

You can build boxes to contain the soil and your plants, though that is an added investment in time and money. Gardeners Supply Company (www.gardeners.com or 802-660-3500) sells a variety of things for making those sorts of raised beds. If you go that route you will have to buy some soil to fill the boxes. Or you can just make a garden that consists of two mounded raised beds of soil with a walkway down the middle.

To make mounded raised beds you need to loosen the soil that you exposed when you removed the sod. Use a garden fork, plunging it in and pulling on it back to loosen the soil. Then rake the loosened soil into beds. Start by raking the soil away from the edges of the lawn, creating a 6-inch perimeter around the edge of the garden. This will remain a moat to keep the grass from creeping in. Then create a walkway up the middle of the garden, raking soil toward each of the two beds.

You will also need to add compost. Lots of compost. I recommend buying a good grade of composted cow manure such as Moo-Doo. It comes in 30-quart bags, and you will need four bags of it for each of your two beds. Dump it on top of the soil and mix it in.

The last addition to the soil is some bagged organic fertilizer. Pro-Gro, made in Bradford, Vt., is excellent. Unlike chemical fertilizer that only has nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (plus lots of filler), organic fertilizers are made from a variety of natural ingredients such as seaweed, oyster shells, compost, peanut hulls and alfalfa meal. These ingredients provide the three basic minerals, plus a dozen more — the micronutrients. You will probably have to buy a 25-pound bag which is more than you need, but you will need some every year. You’re investing in your soil and your garden. Sprinkle about six cups of it on each bed and stir it into the top three inches with a hand tool. Now you are ready for planting, come spring.

In one of these little gardens last summer I planted the following: 2 tomatoes, some carrots and onions, 2 broccoli, 3 peppers, a teepee of pole beans, 1 zucchini, 6 Swiss chard plants and a cucumber on a small trellis. We also got 8 heads of lettuce early in the summer that grew around the tomatoes.

Americans love their lawns and spend outrageous amounts of money on them, trying to make them “perfect.” Well, get over it. If it is green and you can mow it, it’s a lawn. You don’t need to kill every weed and you will have a healthier lawn if you have some biodiversity. Instead of applying chemical fertilizers and herbicides, spread a light layer of compost on the lawn this fall. It will add organic matter and attract the earthworms that will aerate it. Just dump some on the lawn and rake it around until it seems to mostly disappear. You can also spread some organic bagged fertilizer once a year, either now or in the spring.

Many of America’s apples are now coming from China, particularly the inexpensive kind sold in the big supermarkets. I don’t trust the Chinese to produce my food — there have been too many incidents. But you can grow good apples without pesticides. A semi-dwarf tree will start producing within five years, and often in just three years. You can plant one this fall or in the spring.

So have at it. Start small. Start this fall and next spring you’ll be ready to plant. Visit the garden daily. Pull a weed, water when the soil is dry and pick your beans and zucchini before they get big! It’s as easy as that. If everyone did so, we’d have a much greener planet.

Henry Homeyer is the author of three gardening books including Notes from the Garden: Reflections and Observations of an Organic Gardener and The New Hampshire Gardener’s Companion: An Insider’s Guide to Gardening in the Granite State. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.

Land-loving landscaping
How to get green green grass
By Jeff Mucciarone jmucciarone@hippopress.com

Peering out over a brown, dried-up swath of earth doubling as a lawn, it might be easy to spray on some chemical fertilizers and watch as, in a matter of days, the grass turns to green. But to those opting for the organic side of things, chemical fertilizers are nothing more than a quick fix, and a quick fix that may do more harm than good.

Martha Coutts-Eisenberg, who runs a landscaping company out of Francestown that uses only organic, environmentally friendly practices, likened chemical fertilizers to drugs for grass. The chemicals quickly green up the grass, while also killing off much of the natural composition of the soil, leaving the grass dependent on the chemicals for survival.

 “It’s like a quick fix,” she said. “The grass is addicted to the chemicals. It needs a little fix every few months.”

If people want real, long-term, healthy results, then organic fertilizers are the way to go, says Chester Mandrik, owner of Yard Spice Organics in Hudson. Mandrik does everything 100-percent organic. Not only does he run a landscaping company, two years ago he opened a retail store, which is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, because his customers kept asking for it. To him, it’s not just about using organic products, it’s just as much about the educational component. People who work with Mandrik get both.

 “Some garden centers are providing organic products, but what’s missing is the education,” said Mandrik, who gives free lectures on organic treatments for lawns and gardens. He calls them Tupperware parties as people will invite friends and neighbors to hear Mandrik talk about proper fertilization, how to naturally build up a soil or how to get the most out of the vegetable garden.

 “My whole thought about it is doing it the way Mother Nature does it,” said Coutts-Eisenberg, who said she tries not to use heavy equipment unless it’s a particularly big job. “Chemicals that are killing bugs are kind of killing yourself a little bit.

Synthetic fertilizers go straight to the roots. Whatever the roots don’t take up is leached right away into the watershed or it lingers in unusable forms. Along the way, it kills all the microbes and insects that could be beneficial to the lawn, professionals said.

Patience is key when using organic lawn fertilizers. Lawn care professionals say it takes about three years to get lawns green and weed-free using organic fertilizers, but the result is a healthier soil and no risk of exposing children or pets to potentially harmful chemicals. The time frame is a tough hurdle to clear sometimes. But after that third year, Mandrik said, he doesn’t lose any customers.

“Organic is a little slower,” Coutts-Eisenberg said. “You have to be a little more patient. Sometimes it’s a personality thing. Some want stuff yesterday.”

Mandrik said he’s been able to keep his prices competitive with other landscapers. Some tell him he’s a little less, while others say he’s a little more, he said.

Coutts-Eisenberg said she has found organic products more expensive and she doesn’t understand why.

Still, John Tyler, owner of Pleasant Pond Landscaping in Bennington, said using organic fertilizers is often less expensive over time as there are fewer applications. Lawns that have been on a heavy synthetic program cantake longer to get back to natural health, but once they get there they take less maintenance, Tyler said. “Ultimately, it takes a lot less input and overall a lot less cost,” Tyler said. “For instance, maybe you would fertilize twice per year, where with synthetic you would fertilize four or five times per year.”

It’s not just switching bags of fertilizer; people need to change how they treat their lawn, Tyler said. Over-mowing or mowing too short or using a dull blade can all hurt the lawn, he said.

Mandrik, whose father was a grounds caretaker, saw a connection between his father’s contracting Parkinson’s disease and the chemical pesticides he sprayed year after year. That pushed Mandrik toward the organic world. He’s seen his customer base expand every year. He now travels well into the Boston area and north into the Concord area.

Tyler remembered one spring day when he had just applied pesticides to his own lawn and his kids and dog wanted to play outside. He couldn’t let them play on the lawn because of the chemicals.

“I thought, ‘This is pretty stupid,’” Tyler said.

Organic fertilizers allow microbes in the soil to flourish and let healthy insects and worms back into the soil. They all help to decompose the soil, making it rich, landscapers said.

Tyler’s full lawn care program involves aerating, de-thatching, proper mowing and fertilization with organic products. First, Tyler tests soil to measure its pH and see what types of microorganisms are present. Organic fertilizer feeds microbes that in turn feed the plants.

Tyler looks for the right plants for the right locations. If there’s a shady spot with particularly acidic soil, he’s going to recommend a plant that thrives in the shade and that type of soil. It takes lots of fertilizers to keep a plant alive in a place that’s not suited for it.

Even with the slow economy, Tyler said he’s seen business grow this year. Lawn care professionals agreed the public is becoming more environmentally conscious.

“I think people are beginning to wake up,” Coutts-Eisenberg said.

Mandrik as well has seen business spike in recent years.

The fall is the best time to use organic fertilizers; there are no weeds to worry about and the ground is soon to be snow-covered anyway. Organic fertilizers will help keep the soil healthy through the winter, and keep lawns nice and green in the spring. If people are using synthetic fertilizers four times a year, they might switch the fall fertilization to an organic fertilizer. “That’s a 25-percent reduction in chemicals being put into lawns,” Mandrik said. “Twenty-five percent, my friend, is a big deal.”

“I can’t think of the last time I used a chemical fertilizer,” Coutts-Eisenberg said. “Sometimes we sacrifice perfection for organic. I think that’s OK.”

Clean it green
Keep house while keeping the planet and yourself healthy
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Remember that mantra from elementary school? Adults can still rely on it to keep the kitchen and the planet clean. 

Non-toxic scrubbing (reducing)
“We don’t have a lot of options because our philosophy is you don’t need a cleaning product for all the different items in your house. One cleaning product should really do everything,” Debby de Moulpied of Real Green Goods in Concord said. Americans have been told they need different ones for tile grout, wood, etc., she said.

Companies like Seventh Generation are making noise about the fact that the cleaning product industry is unregulated, de Moulpied said. Cleaning product companies still don’t have to tell you their ingredients.

People have a right to know what they are eating, putting on their bodies or putting in the water, de Moulpied said.

“We have a bumper sticker that says ‘We all live downstream’ and it’s really true, all this stuff going into our water system,” de Moulpied said.

Real Green Goods sends out monthly newsletters (www.realgreengoods.com) where they talk about things like nano-silver technology, which now in lots of products and is supposed to kill bacteria but is “totally untested,” de Moulpied said.

“It’s important that we do our homework,” she said. If something says “antibacterial,” ask what’s going into it, she said. “Studies do show washing your hands the old-fashioned way for 20 seconds is just as good” for  keeping healthy, Debby said.

Nano-silver is being found in sewage plants and lining washing machines.

“So many cleaning products and laundry products have phosphorous,” which is contributing to algae blooms.

To get away from toxic cleaners, there’s baking soda and vinegar of course, she said. Real Green Goods works with organic and vegetable-based Vermont Soap (www.vermontsoap.com). Charlie’s Soap laundry detergent (www.charliesoap.com) has been popular at the store. Mothers who wash cloth diapers with it say the detergent gets them clean, takes out the odor and keeps the diapers absorbent, while most detergents leave residue, she said. It’s inexpensive because you only use a tablespoon’s worth per load, de Moulpied said. Real Green Goods doesn’t carry Mrs. Meyers products because they use artificial fragrances.

You can reuse T-shirts as cleaning rags, or try a green product. Real Green Goods carries Twist sponges, made from wood pulp with loofah for scrubbing. You can compost them (make sure there’s not much soap left in them), she said. Microfiber cleaning clothes are the latest, but make sure they aren’t embedded with nano-silver or other such things, de Moulpied said.

1 World Trading Co. in Nashua (1worldtradingco.com) also carriers environmentally friendly cleaners and has found Biokleen products have been popular, particularly the laundry detergent. You can buy it by the quart at the store if you bring a container. 

People have even turned green cleaning into business, locally. Bernadette and Don Douzanis and Rob and Jocelyn Deoleo run A Cleaner Solution, a commercial building cleaning service that uses environmentally friendly products. Their company is about a year old and they operate in Greater Manchester (www.acleanersolutionnh.com). A Cleaner Solution mainly uses Green Seal-certified (www.greenseal.org) Clean by Peroxy, which is hydrogen peroxide-based, they told the Hippo in February.

Getting stuff out of the house (recycling)
The municipal recycling rate in New Hampshire is OK, but it’s been stagnant at about 20.5 percent since about 2002, Donald Maurer, supervisor and solid waste technical assistant of NH Department of Environmental Services, said.

Compare that to the 70 percent diversion that eastern townships in Canada are now achieving. “It’s pretty remarkable,” Maurer said.

The Gaudreau company in Canada (www.groupegaudreau.com/en/collecte.aspx) contracts to do curbside pickup. It provides households with a large bin for single-stream recycling (everything recyclable goes in one place and it’s sorted at a facility), a small bin for compost, and a small bin for trash.

“Recycling in the state is a big business. I think people don’t understand that,” Maurer said. Last year, it was worth about $57 billion in the U.S., and about $250 to $300 million in New Hampshire, with about 5,000 people working in the industry in the state, Maurer said. Towns could be getting some of that income, rather than paying for trash disposal, he said.

A number of factors are slowing down New Hampshire’s recycling, Maurer said. Most towns haven’t changed the way they do business. Maurer is looking forward to seeing what Concord does with the pay-as-you-throw program, for which households will be charged for trash removal.

“I think most people believe they are good recyclers but there’s a lot of recycling myths,” Maurer said.  People know newspapers are recyclable, but don’t realize the glossy inserts are. Basically any paper you can tear is recyclable, Maurer said. A lot of the scrap heads to China and India, which don’t have a lot of forest, but some of the largest paper plants in the world are outside of Beijing, Maurer said.

Paper is about 33 percent of the waste stream in New Hampshire, he said. 

Nationally, the plastic bottle recycling rate is only about 8 percent. One reason is that it’s hard to recycle on the go, Maurer said. (Recycling bins at gas stations, anyone?) Another reason is that a business like a small lawyer’s office might be so small that someone has to go out of their way to take recycling somewhere — it’s hard for a small place to get such things picked up.

If you you think about a TV dinner, the cardboard box it comes in is recyclable. The plastic cover and the tray are as well. If you don’t like the food, you can compost it, Maurer said. (Of course, some foods shouldn’t go in the backyard compost, although meat, milk and eggs can be composted commercially, he said.)

The state has a hierarchy for solid waste: “reduce, reuse, recycle; then, finally, dispose of it,” Maurer said. “When you buy something you should consider what its impact is,” Maurer said. You can reduce the number of bottles you use easily by bringing a refillable one to work, rather than buying water. Maurer pointed to a CNN poll last year: “I think it was 70 percent of the U.S. did not know that plastic comes from oil.”

While there’s a good market for number 1 and 2 plastics, towns often don’t pick up other plastics because they don’t generate enough of the stuff to make it worthwhile.

That’s one of the reasons Maurer is excited about single-stream recycling. Presumably more material could be caught.

Some municipalities collaborate. Pittsfield lets other towns bring aluminum cans to be baled. When they have a tractor trailer load it’s shipped out and income is shared. If you can send a whole truckload of something, you can about double your income for the material, Maurer said.

Many grocery stores take back plastic bags, which are recycled into plastic lumber. Maurer said he thinks it would be difficult to ask U.S. stores to go to a European model, where many groceries charge for any bag they give you, encouraging reuse. However, some cities, like San Francisco, have banned plastic bags, he said.

There’s a market for recycled polyfoam (Styrofoam), but it’s hard to deal with because it’s light, and few towns take it. There’s a very good market for polystyrene.

Some shipping companies will take Styrofoam peanuts. But all those Styrofoam Dunkin’ Donuts cups? They go to the landfills, Maurer said.

“A number of states have gone to producer responsibility” for taking back products to recycle them. Recently Oregon decided those that sell paint in the state must take waste paint back.

A number of states say the same of electronics, and mostly it’s a directive to the manufacturer, not the retailer, Maurer said. Big computer companies like Dell take back old computers, which have lots of steel, plastic and electronic components that are recyclable, including gold, and copper, which goes for about $3 a pound, Maurer said.

In 2008, New Hampshire municipalities recycled about 4.3 million pounds of electronics, Maurer said. That doesn’t include commercial, he said. When electronics end up in the waste stream, the plastic and steel aren’t going anywhere useful, and a box full of air occupies valuable landfill space. Plus, they often include material that is hazardous if incinerated, or unhealthy if it leaches out of the landfill, like lead, Maurer said. The state of New Hampshire has a ban on electronics with high lead content, he said.

Landfills in New Hampshire can probably accommodate until at least 2025, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t recycle, Maurer said. “It recovers valuable material and also preserves landfill space,”  Maurer said.

Of the 235 towns in New Hampshire, only about 30 have curbside pickup. Most residents need to bring their own trash and recycling to transfer stations or drop-off centers, Maurer said.

“I get calls all the time from people who live in apartments,” Maurer said. They have one dumpster and want to recycle. They need to ask their landlord about providing for recycling, although some locations don’t have room for a recycling dumpster, Maurer said. Paying to get rid of the recyclables isn’t as costly as getting rid of solid waste, and most dumpster removal companies also have a recycling stream, he said. It costs an average of $75 to $80 per ton to get rid of garbage in New Hampshire, Maurer said.

It’s illegal to put yard waste in landfills in New Hampshire. People in the northern part of the state just drag yard waste into the woods, Maurer said. Otherwise, towns are pretty good about collecting and composting yard waste but usually don’t pick up food compost, Maurer said. He noted that pumpkins from Keene’s pumpkin festival go to the town’s compost pile, and Keene has “some of the blackest-looking compost you’ve ever seen. It’s good stuff,” Maurer said.

You can get rid of rechargeable batteries for free, said Dean Robinson of NH DES. Transfer stations should take them. Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation provides collection boxes to towns (www.rbrc.org, www.call2recycle.org). Unfortunately, no one is recycling regular alkaline batteries right now. No one is making any money from them, Robinson said.

Kevin Shepard of Manchester’s Dept. of Public Works said Manchester’s Drop-Off Center accepts TVs, computer monitors and other CRT items at no charge to keep them out of the waste stream. It’s now illegal to put electronics with cathode ray tubes in landfills. Some other towns charge fees to recycle electronics.

Manchester’s drop-off center also accepts construction materials for a fee, much of which ends up in landfills, according to Shepard. “There are possibilities now of recycling that,” Shepard said. ERRCO, Environmental Resource Return Corporation of Epping (www.errco.com), recycles a good portion of construction and demolition debris, Maurer said. Many towns work with them, Maurer said.

Things like toasters and microwaves still go in regular trash in Manchester, Shepard said. Refrigerators at the drop-off center are evacuated of CFCs.

Maurer said small appliances have a lot of steel, and most towns will put a toaster in the metal bin, for example. Things like broken microwaves and hairdryers all just go in the trash, Maurer said.

So get to know your town’s public works/transfer station/highway/solid waste department. What time is the transfer station (or dump) open and what can it accept? What don’t they want in the trash stream? When is household hazardous waste collection day? How do you schedule pick-up of large items and is there a fee? If your town limits what it will pick up curbside to a city-issued cart, can you drop off more and is there a fee?

Greening indoors
Sustainable and healthy products from bed sheets to throw pillows can outfit a home
By Heidi Masek hmasek@hippopress.com

Tom Minnon of Derry started working at Solar Components Corp. in 1974, and helped found the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. Tom and Hope Minnon finally got to installing their own photovoltaic in 2009 at their home in Derry. They showed it along with other major green renovations during the Green Building Open House tour organized by the New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association Oct. 3.

While visitors talked solar and geothermal, Hope Minnon also took time to show her sustainable interior design work in progress. The house uses Interface carpet tiles, Benjamin Moore Aura paint, and bamboo, and she’ll be trying her hand at hanging 52-inch-wide wallpaper made from recycled materials. Woodwork is by a local finisher who works with a mill that provides local wood on request.

Hope worked with an interior designer on the project. Other people are looking to green their indoors when they renovate, and a certificate in sustainable design program may soon be launched at Lakes Region Community College.

When it comes to furnishings, reusing is green, so consider buying from consignment or antique stores. You can also talk to local furniture makers or carpenters as Hope did, and discuss using local or reclaimed wood for your home projects.

Talk to your local hardware or furnishings stores to find out what products are Earth-friendly, or find an interior designer with expertise. 

Keep in mind also when you decorate that using light colors and mirrors reflects light — which makes better use of daylighting (natural light from your windows).

Meredith Gonzales opened Your Home, Your World at 138 North Main St. in Concord in November 2006, which carries sustainable interior products. Gonzales thinks the first room to green should be the bedroom. You spend eight hours there at night while your body is trying to heal itself from the day, Gonzales said. It’s where you want organic mattresses and zero-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint that won’t be off-gassing.

In January 2007, the federal government changed how fire retardant a mattress should be. It went from a test in which a lit cigarette was dropped on a mattress to a test of holding a Bunsen burner underneath it. To cope, most companies are just dumping more chemicals on new mattresses, Gonzales said. These PBDEs build up in your body, and tests are showing they are “potentially dangerous, especially to developing fetuses and young children. They have been shown to affect the memory, behavior and ability to learn in lab animals,” Gonzales said in a store newsletter. 

She carries mattresses made with natural rubber, organic cotton and wool. Wool is naturally fire-retardant and anti dust-mite. It is comfortable and priced comparably with high-end mattresses, she said.

When you open up a paint can, the smell is of organic compounds that help it dry quickly. “As they evaporate, they give off chemicals that are bad for you and bad for the ozone,” Gonzales said. Some people have strong reactions and get nauseous or dizzy when painting a room because of volatile organic compounds, she said.

“There’s a lot more to VOCs than you’re hearing about,” Gonzales said. The federal government only regulates the VOCs that are bad for the ozone. They don’t regulate the ones that are bad for your indoor air quality, Gonzales said. That means you can buy paint that says it has no VOCs but is actually bad for your body. Some paint stores sell zero-VOC white paint, but the colors that are added do include VOCs. Some add formaldehyde as a preservative.

Some VOCs are OK for you, like rubbing alcohol, she said. The paints that Gonzales sells are fine for pregnant women to use (other paints contain warnings about that). They range in cost between $42 and $49 per gallon.

Gonzales has all kinds of flooring options. “When it comes to green there’s no black and white ... it’s all shades of green,” she said.

“In my personal opinion I would say the greenest option is reclaimed wood,” Gonzales said. There’s a lot in New England, but it tends to be the most expensive sustainable floor option since it’s so labor-intensive to take apart buildings, remove nails and remill. 

Next on her list is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council, www.fsc.org) certified sustainably harvested hardwood, particularly North American hardwood. FSC is a nonprofit supported by conservation-minded nonprofits. Gonzales said she doesn’t trust other green certifications for wood, because they are created by the lumber industry and are basically policing themselves.

For other green product certifications, she likes Green Seal, Skal (or Eko for organic cotton), SCS, and Cradle to Cradle among others.

Gonzales thinks cork, which can be reharvested every 10 to 11 years, is as green as FSC, and doesn’t kill the tree. Bamboo would be the next on the list. It’s renewable but has to travel far to get here. You also have to be careful because some people are cutting down forests to plant bamboo, or using adhesive with formaldehyde.

Marmoleum is made from linseed oil, pine resin, sawdust, limestone and pigment the same way linoleum was about 150 years ago, she said. She sells floating snap-together or click-and-lock marmoleum and cork flooring which you can install over your floor. “Adhesives are not going to be very healthy,” Gonzales said. 

You may notice new carpet gives off a strong smell, Gonzales said. Finishing sprays to help resist staining are one reason for that. Gonzales sells natural wool carpets that have no bleach or dyes but still come in four natural colors. Adhesive is made from natural rubber, and they don’t have anything synthetic or toxic, she said.

She’s started selling FLOR modular carpet tiles (Interface, Inc. is their parent company) made from partially recycled content which pass an indoor air quality test. The company will pay to ship back a tile if you damage it, and they plan to use all recycled material by 2020. Their factories are almost off the grid, Gonzales said.

Countertops are another item to look for. Gonzales carriers IceStone. The Brooklyn company uses about 70 percent recycled glass with concrete. PaperStone uses recycled paper, mixed together with a natural resin from cashew nut shells.

How green is granite? “That kind of depends on the person’s point of view,” Gonzales said. There’s the argument that it’s natural and very durable. It’s reusable. If you get rid of the counter you can break it up for use as yard paving stones or something, she said.

“I’m not terribly comfortable with granite myself,” Gonzales said. New Hampshire’s granite is porous. The “really beautiful granite” used for countertops usually comes from China, Brazil and India, which are known for bad working conditions in the mining industry. Plus, there’s the energy impact from shipping something that heavy that far. When you shop, the place where the stone came from is often listed on it, Gonzales said.

New England used to be known for slate and soapstone but regional laws have slowed the quarrying of it. So you might find a Vermont company selling soapstone from Brazil, Gonzales warned.

Window treatments are another design item. Gonzales carries organic shades and hemp liners. The hemp comes from China but it’s Fair Trade, she said. All hemp currently comes from China and Romania, although it was recently legalized in Canada, she said.

Tiles, of course, are green in general, she said. Although it takes a lot of energy to make them, they don’t off-gas and they last forever, Gonzales said. She keeps a couple tile lines made from recycled glass at Your Home, Your World.

You can also look for cotton and hemp shower curtains there, to avoid off-gassing of plastic or vinyl shower curtains. Others have recommended glass shower doors.

You can also find “green” décor and linens at places like Your Home, Your World. If you want sustainably-made furniture, Gonzales will send you down the street to Bartlett Design/Home Studio in Concord, which sells sustainable furniture. The businesses are members of Green Concord, as is Real Green Goods.

Debby de Moulpied of Real Green Goods said her store carries décor that is made sustainably or with reclaimed content, like candles, frames made from reclaimed wood, hemp pillows and decorative recycled fabric.

For the kitchen, they carry items that help you live green, like counter compost products, as well as low-chemical or nontoxic food storage.

Their food storage is mainly stainless steel or glass. “Food-grade safe plastic is nice until you microwave it,” de Moulpied said.

People are starting to seek out non-electricity-hogging kitchen gadgets, such as old-fashioned hand-cranked egg beaters. They offered a hand-cranked blender last year, but the price was rather high. “We did have people purchase them who were off the [electrical] grid,” de Moulpied said. People keep asking for coffee grinders. It’s hard to stock high-priced items in a recession, but off-grid folks want to buy coffee in bulk and need a way to grind it, de Moulpied said.

She carries a large selection of bamboo products for the kitchen, like cutting boards, salad bowls and utensils. “You do have to be careful about what companies you use. If it’s laminated you want to make sure [it has] food-grade safe adhesives. Of course we always check for the labor background on the companies,” de Moulpied said. 

They carry stainless steel ice cube tube trays, which came out in the 1940s; the industry switched to aluminum, which leaches. They also carry things like storage containers made of jute, soap dishes, market baskets and lunch boxes.

1 World Trading Co. in Nashua (1worldtradingco.com) sells items like permanent coffee filters, recycled aluminum foil, sugarcane plates, corn plastic cups, and corn plastic trash bags and compost bags, and recycled-paper paper towels and toilet paper. You can also find milk-based paint there, which uses an old-fashioned recipe. “Usually people who come in looking for things have done research.... When they find out what really is in some of their stuff, they look into the alternatives,” said staffer Justin Keegan.

Green events
Have an upcoming green event? Let us know at listings@hippopress.com. Put the words “green event” in the subject line.

• The University of New Hampshire at Manchester, 400 Commercial St., will screen selected films from the Pare Lorentz Film Festival that address issues of social justice, societal problems and green themes. Four of the films are by documentary film maker Pare Lorentz (a filmmaker during the 1930s and 1940s). The schedule includes The River and The Fight for Life on Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m.; The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936) and Nuremberg — Its Lesson for Today (1948) on Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m.; Burning the Future: Coal in America (2008) on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and Island Out of Time (2001) and Oil on Ice (2004) on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 7 p.m.
• The New Hampshire Energy and Climate Collaborative will hold a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2 to 6 p.m., at the Local Government Center, 25 Triangle Park Drive in Concord. See www.des.nh.gov.
• Manchester’s Urban Pond Clean-Up continues on Saturday, Oct. 10, 9 a.m. to noon, at Stevens Pond (boat launch on Bridge Street Extension), and on Saturday, Oct. 17, 9 a.m. to noon, at Nutts Pond (Precourt Park on Driving Park Road). Latex gloves and trash bags will be provided; wear rubber knee boots or old sneakers. See www.manchesternh.gov/urbanponds.
• Bonin Architects & Associates and Old Hampshire Designs will hold a free Green Home Seminar and Green Open House on Sunday, Oct. 11, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The seminar will take place from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Best Western Sunapee Lake Lodge, 1403 Route 103 in Newbury; the tour of a green home under construction will take place on Summit Road in Sutton from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call 504-6009. Events are free; registration appreciated but not required. See boninarchitects.com and timberframeblog.blogspot.com.
• The Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce has a Green Committee of members focused on green practices. They formed a joint sustainability partnership with the city this summer. The Green Committee next meets Oct. 14 at 8 a.m. at the Chamber (889 Elm St., 666-6600, www.manchester-chamber.org). The committee is holding its second Green Summit with a focus on green buildings and energy efficiency Wednesday, Nov. 18, from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., at the Derryfield Restaurant. Its first summit discussed current and future energy production in the state.
• An International Day of Climate Action is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 24, by 350.org, a group founded to bring international awareness to global climate change. About 10 local events are planned on the day. Vendors, speakers and music are planned at the Statehouse Plaza in Concord from 9 to 11 a.m. The Concord Farmers and Arts Markets will be open during the event as well. In Manchester, go to Livingston Park at 3 p.m. to carve pumpkins (BYO pumpkin) with 350-themed designs. The Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Milford will hold an event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. including a multi-faith service, a parade, a party, lunch, speakers and more. See www.350.org and click on “Day of Action” to find more events.
• Concord Green Drinks will be held the third Tuesday of the month at The Barley House on Main Street in Concord from 6 to 8 p.m. See www.greendrinks.org/index.php?country=USA&city=Concord.
• Red River Theatres, 11 S. Main St. in Concord, 224-4600, www.redrivertheatres.org, and Green Concord have partnered to present an environmental film series beginning in November. Details to come soon; see the Red Rivers Web site.

Free help
Call the Family Home and Garden Center at the University of New Hampshire at 877-398-4769. It’s a free hotline staffed by trained volunteers and professionals who field questions about gardens, lawns and landscapes, fruits and vegetables, pest problems, household food safety and food preservation, tree planting and care, backyard livestock and more.

Celebrate the harvest
Celebrate the fall season of New Hampshire food with these festivals and dinners held in honor of the harvest and locally grown goods.

• Beaver Brook Association, 117 Ridge Road in Hollis, 465-7787, beaverbrook.org, has two upcoming classes about enjoying the flavors of herbs. On Friday, Oct. 9, at 10 a.m. it’s “Herb and Root Teas.” Take a hike to see the herbs growing at Beaver Brook and then enjoy herbal root teas. The cost is $10. On Thursday, Oct. 15, it’s “Herbal Soup and Bread” at 7 p.m. Learn to cook herb-flavored soup and bread. The cost is $12.
• The UNH Department of Hospitality Management will host a gourmet dinner — “Season to Remember” — featuring six harvest-inspired dishes on Friday, Oct. 9, at 6 p.m. (cocktail hour with dinner to follow) at Stilling, 20 Ballard Drive in Durham. Tickets cost $50. See www.wsbe.unh.edu/gourmet-dinners.
• The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire (NOFA-NH) will host its First Annual NH Herb and Garlic Day on Saturday, Oct. 10. Titled “Backyard Medicine,” the daylong conference will feature herbal workshops and nature walks with some of New Hampshire’s top herbalists. Participants will learn how to identify wild plants, harvest herbs from the garden, make remedies and use plants to enrich their lives and health. The event will feature how to grow and use garlic, too. The event is open to all levels of interest. The event takes place at the Massabesic Audubon Center, 26 Audubon Way in Auburn, from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. The pre-registration cost for full conference attendance is $35 ($45 at the door). An all-day “Herbal Marketplace” vendor fair plus a raffle will be held during the conference. Lunch featuring local, organic and herbal food will be available. Registration is limited to only 150 attendees. See www.nofanh.org or contact conference coordinator Maria Noel Groves, at 268-0548 to register.
• Miles Smith Farm (56 Whitehouse Road, Loudon) will hold their annual Farm Day on Sunday, Oct. 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be hay rides, a petting zoo, a cemetery walk, music and food as well as Scottish Highlander beef, chicken, goat, and lamb meat for sale. Admission is free. Hayrides are $5 for adults and free for children under 12. Go to www.milessmithfarm.com for directions.
• The Fall Harvest Festival will be at Herban Living (242 General Miller Hwy., Temple, 878-0459, herbanlivingbandb.com) on Sunday, Oct. 18, both 3-6 p.m. A fall harvest celebration of local food, community and the bounty of a loving earth featuring chef Mike Webb and farmer Lisa Beaudoin with music by FolkSoul. Cost is $60 per person. Call 878-0459 for more information or to register.
• Riverworks Restaurant and Tavern, 164 Main St. in Newmarket, 659-6119, www.theriverworks.com, will hold a four-course harvest wine dinner on Thursday, Oct. 22. Unlike most wine dinners, this one is vegetarian — featuring fall vegetables as its central theme and wines from Perfecta Wine Company paired with each course. The dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. with a soup course (creamless butternut bisque) and a 2008 Duck Pond Cellars Pinot Gris from the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The appetizer course features a Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad with a 2008 Urban Riesling from Germany. The entrée is white pumpkin lasagna paired with a 2007 Terre des Papes Cotes du Rhone. The dessert is an ice cream sandwich of spicy oatmeal raisin cookies and finished with a chunky apple caramel sauce paired with a hot apple cider laced with Sortilege, a liqueur made from Canadian whiskey and pure Canadian maple syrup. Advance ticket purchase is required. Tickets cost $45 per person ($40 if purchased before Oct. 19). Call 659-6119.
• The Enfield Shaker Museum, 447 Route 4A in Enfield, will hold a culinary symposium titled “Food for Thought: A Study of the Past Through Food” on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The day’s events include writer, historian, and contributing editor to Gourmet magazine Anne Mendelson discussing small-scale dairy farming, and author Sandra Oliver talking on how every dish has a past. The Symposium ends with a reception featuring artisan demonstrations and local cheeses, wines and ciders. Plus a New Hampshire Growers Dinner follows, featuring Hanover-Lebanon Co-op Food Stores’ Chef Jason Dacier and his staff. The symposium costs $75 per person, which includes a box lunch and the reception. The registration includes one ticket to America’s Kitchens, the traveling exhibit organized by Historic New England and on view at the Museum of New Hampshire History in Concord. The Growers Dinner is an additional $40 for symposium participants, $45 for museum members, and $50 for non-members. Call 632-4346 for reservations or e-mail info@shakermusuem.org by Oct. 19.

On the kitchen bookshelf
Cooking green, cooking seasonally and cooking locally — it all sounds very altruistic, very model citizen.

And while making your meals from locally grown produce that is in season and doesn’t travel thousands of miles to get to you does have all kinds of Earth-friendly benefits, it also tends to mean that you’re eating tastier food and — not that this is the main concern, of course — is likely to help you lose weight.

You totally don’t have to tell people that’s why you’re shopping from the farmers’ market.

Mark Bittman did, however, in his book Food Matters, which came out just under a year ago. In Food Matters, he explains how his attempts to decrease the carbon footprint of his food also decreased the waist measurement of him.

Since then, oodles of cookbooks have come out covering all facets of green eating — from cooking along with the harvest (the investment in a few of which is key if you join a Community Supported Agriculture plan) to canning and more. Most of these books not only explain a greener cuisine but have recipes and photos for dishes so decadent-looking you almost want to nibble on the pages. This is not your mother’s granola and bean sprouts. Here are a few that have hit shelves recently:
• Clean Food: A Seasonal Guide to Eating Close to the Source With More Than 200 Recipes for A Healthy and Sustainable You by Terry Walters (2009, Sterling Epicure, 290 pages) After an introductory section that gets to the benefits of different foods and food groups (reminding you why, for example, you need to eat that kale or the digestive as well as taste benefits of ginger), she goes through the seasons helping you figure out what to do with what’s available. Walters lives in Connecticut, according to her bio, so her options (winter-friendly root vegetables for her “Sweet and Savory Root Vegetable Stew” and her “Wholegrain Pancakes”) are similar to ours. She also offers recipes that can be made anytime and have specific nutritional benefits (sautéed garlic greens, for example, which can be made with whatever dark greens are around or sweet potato and black bean burritos with cashew cheese). Her recipes appear to be mostly vegan as well (without having that “how do we replace the meat” thing that some vegan cookbooks can have).
• FARMFood: Green Living With Chef Daniel Orr, by Daniel Orr (2009, Indiana University Press, 258 pages) Orr takes a Midwestern approach to eating local — and a chefier one, which means that opening pages introduce us to some classic spice combinations and the first major recipe is “Cattail Pollen Muffins.” It also mean meat — there’s a fruit sauce to go with game, many new approaches to chicken and lots of hearty approaches to fish. And because it’s Midwestern eating, there’s fried (fried smelts with garlic, citrus and parsley), cheese (“the chevrette” — a goat cheese pizza) and sweet (pumpkin and sweet spice cheesecake). Along the way, look for chapters on gardening and mixed drinks as well.
• Hudson Valley Mediterranean: The Gigi Good Food Cookbook, by Laura Pensiero (2009, William Morrow, 317 pages) As the title suggests, this cooking is both geographically closer to our homes and thematically more Italian. All of the seasons are covered, winter just as sumptuously as the others (Orange Cranberry Crusted Leg of Lamb, biscuit-topped chicken and root-vegetable stew), for those looking for another resource for the coming season. Though not strictly speaking green, the book does attempt to translate Mediterranean regional flavors using New York ingredients — an approach that makes eating green not just virtuous for the planet and your health but also a culinary adventure.

And here are some more to look for:
• Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life, by Louisa Shafia (paperback, $15.18, Ten Speed Press, 208 pages, Nov. 24) Eighty recipes using Earth-friendly food choices.
• Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, by Anna Lappe (hardcover, Bloomsbury USA, 304 pages, March 2010)

Healthy mowing
One of the easiest things people can do to help create a healthier soil is to leave the grass clippings right in the lawn.

Organic matter in the soil breaks down the clippings, creating a richer soil. The problem with synthetic fertilization programs is that there’s nothing there to break down the clippings, because the chemicals in the fertilizer kill off healthy microorganisms. Tyler said that even if someone is using a synthetic program, it’s still better for the lawn to leave the clippings, though they should check periodically to see if a layer of thatch is building up.

Mowing higher is another way to help grass stay healthy. Taller grass creates more shade, which reduces evaporation and allows the lawn to retain more water. It also allows for more root growth and a thicker lawn, Tyler said.

“The longer the leaf, the more sun it can get,” Tyler said, adding that cutting lawns extra short is like taking the leaves off a tree and expecting it to live.

People should also keep mower blades sharp. Sharper blades make for cleaner cuts, which puts less stress on the lawn. Sharper blades also allow the lawn mower engine to work less hard, resulting in better fuel economy.

NH Invasive Plant Species List
These plants are prohibited from sale, transport, distribution, propagation or transplantation in New Hampshire:

Autumn olive
Black swallow-wort
Blunt-leaved privet
Brazilian elodea
Burning bush
Common buckthorn
Common reed
Curly-leaf pondweed
European barberry
European frogbit
European naiad
European water-milfoil
Fanwort
Flowering rush
Garlic mustard
Giant hogweed
Glossy buckthorn
Hydrilla
Japanese barberry
Japanese honeysuckle
Japanese knotweed
Morrow’s honeysuckle
Multiflora rose
Norway maple
Oriental bittersweet
Pale swallow-wort
Parrot feather
Purple loosestrife
Showy bush honeysuckle
Tatarian honeysuckle
Tree of heaven
Variable milfoil
Water chestnut
Water-flag iris
Yellow floating heart

Black (muddy) gold
How to make compost

The trick to composting is that there’s really no trick to it.

“Composting is the time-honored practice of using natural microbial processes to break down organic materials,” according to the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension’s Home and Community Food Gardening section. Compost increases the organic matter in soil, improves soil’s physical characteristics, helps the soil retain and release moisture and supplies essential nutrients for plant growth.

There’s not much that can’t be composted.

“Pretty much everything,” said Martha Coutts-Eisenberg, who runs an organic landscaping company out of Francestown. She’s also an advanced master gardener. “No oils. No protein. All greens and browns. Green makes the heat and brown feeds it.”

Think of things like dead leaves as the brown, and grass clippings as the green. The pairing will actually heat up and will feel warm to the touch, Coutts-Eisenberg said. Coffee grounds, old plants and flowers, including ones from this year’s garden, vegetable and fruit scraps, paper napkins — along with creating rich compost, this also serves to reduce organic material in landfills.

In cold composting, materials can be simply tossed in a compost bin, available at home and garden stores, or just piled up in a shady spot. It will take several months or a year for matter to properly decompose, but there’s essentially no maintenance. Frequent turning can speed up the process.

Hot composting is more involved but produces rich compost in a matter of weeks. It involves layering high-carbon and high-nitrogen materials, aeration, adjusting the pile and watering. The pile will reach up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. See www.nrcs.usda.gov/FEATURE/backyard/compost.html.

Avoid putting weeds that have already produced seeds into compost bins, as those seeds will produce more weeds the following year. The seeds can lay dormant for some time as well. That can be avoided by snagging weeds before they make seeds. In that case, pop those weeds into the compost pile.

Coutts-Eisenberg uses compost as mulch in her garden. Not only does it feed the soil, but it also protects against weeds. Compost can also be used in potted plants.

Many tomato plants in the Northeast were hit with blight this year. Infected tomato plants should not be composted.

If you’re looking to go organic, be wary of compost from landfills, as it can include ingredients exposed to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. — Jeff Mucciarone

Auto tips
Cars can go through some pretty serious deconstruction — much can be recycled. Check with your area salvage yard to see if you can drop off auto wastes like batteries if your town doesn’t handle them. Learn about a “Certified N.H. Green Yard” from Hippo 2008 story, “Where your car goes; Salvage yards are salvaging more these days” (www.hippopress.com/080626/news3.html). Find yards in the DES “NH Green Yards Program” at des.nh.gov or call 271-2938.

Don’t throw out that CFL
Keep in mind that fluorescent lights contain mercury, so although that CFL is saving the planet by cutting electricity use, when it’s dead, you shouldn’t throw it in the trash. Check with area hardware stores to see if they collect them, or call your town offices. There are also programs that let you mail in your used bulbs. GreenPoma (www.greenpoma.com), an online company based in Concord that sells efficient light bulbs, recommends checking www.lamprecycle.org and also sells a recycling kit.

Reusing
“Every time you go to a store and you buy something new, that sends a message back to the manufacturer to make a new one,” Walter Alderman told the Hippo in May 2008. The UNH Manchester instructor teaches a sustainable business course.

There’s a lot of energy involved in making new items, which relates to issues in global warming and military conflict as well as cost, Alderman said.

“There’s so much clothing in the world ... we could probably stop making clothes right now,” he said.

What does clothing have to do with energy? Product life-cycle.

For clothing made of cotton, the cotton is probably being grown in an unsustainable way on a giant monocultural industrial farm with fossil fuel fertilizer and petrochemical insecticide using genetically modified seed. That cotton is probably being exported to a country that has low labor costs and then shipped back to the U.S. as name-brand attire. “So the amount of energy is astounding,” Alderman said.

Everything that is made uses materials that ultimately come from the earth, whether it’s iron or cotton. A lot of those materials are renewable if they are created in a sustainable way but a lot are finite, he said.

So if you are trying to get things out of your house, here’s a list of ideas for where to put them so they can be reused. No time? Hire an organizer or errand service:

Sell
• Hold a yard sale or donate items to a charity yard sale.
• Classified ad
• Pawn shop
• Flea market
• Craigslist.org posting
• Consult an antique dealer, auctioneer or jewelry appraiser.
• Make an appointment with a consignment store. They often consign furnishings, decorative items or clothing (and may do estate sales).
• Use auction Web sites, or find a local bricks-and-mortar business or acquaintance who will do the online auctioning, plus shipping, for a fee.
• Find local stores to sell your books to or try to resell them online at sites like www.powells.com or swap them at places like www.swaptree.com.
• Try to sell CDs to local record stores that stock used CDs, or try sites like lala.com and secondspin.com.

Give
When donating goods, don’t dump and run. Some organizations have lists of items they can’t accept, or wish lists, or instructions for how and when to drop off items. Some can work with you to pick up donations from you, and provide a receipt for your tax records.
• Offer your extras to friends, family, coworkers, neighbors.
• Freecycle! “It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills,” according to www.freecycle.org. There are rules and etiquette to abide by, but basically once you are approved to join a local online group, you can send out e-mails about items you have to offer.
• Thrift stores
• Keep your eyes open on your daily errands for donation drop boxes of various sorts. Some businesses hold collections for charities. 
• Check with area human service agencies or religious organizations that work with immigrants; refugees; fire, flood or other disaster victims; people transitioning from shelters to permanent housing, or others who could use household goods.
• Some libraries collect books for book sales to help fund library projects/programs.
• Check with teachers looking to build classroom libraries, schools, shelters or other groups that collect books for their clients or students.
• Check with nonprofits that might be looking for office furniture, youth programs seeking books, etc.
• Local soup kitchens, shelters, religious organizations and health centers often collect clothing or household item donations.
• There’s no shortage of charities that will remove a broken car for you and provide you with a tax deduction. You can also try scrap or salvage yards or auto recyclers. Some will pay for metals or haul away your problem vehicle.

Here are a few more ideas, but call or check their Web sites to make sure what you want to donate meets their specifications: 
• New or almost new gowns can go to the Cinderella Project of New Hampshire, www.thecinderellaprojectofnh.org, 210-1415, which has several drop-off locations.
• In-season, in-fashion office-appropriate clothing can go to Dress for Success (224-8683, www.dressforsuccess.org).
• Eyeglasses can go to your local Lions Club. See www.lionsclubs.org “Vision Programs.”
• Cell phone recycling services include www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com and www.recellular.com/recycling. See if your wireless company collects phones. You can return them to Verizon Wireless stores for HopeLine, www.verizonwireless.com/hopeline.

Vinegar is your friend
The Vinegar Institute Web site, www.versatilevinegar.org, has a long list of ways you can use vinegar for bathroom, house and laundry cleaning, and more. Thanks to Debby de Moulpied for that tip. She also recommends checking the Environmental Working Group Web site at www.ewg.org for research on how products can affect your health or the environment.

You can also cut down your household hazardous wastes by checking lists of alternative household products posted by the Nashua Regional Planning Commission at www.nashuarpc.org/hhw/alternatives.html, and the DES “Alternative Household Products” Fact Sheet at des.nh.gov. Also check book stores or the library for books on cleaning.

America Recycles Day
Sunday, Nov. 15, is America Recycles Day. Visit americarecyclesday.org, for more about the event, which NH DES is promoting.

Keeping your water clean
Why don’t you want to just flush toxic products and other cleaning ingredients? Learn more about how and why to protect New England’s water systems. Organizations like the Lake Winnipesaukee Watershed Association (www.winnipesaukee.org, see “Keeping the Lake Clean”) or the Merrimack River Watershed Council, Inc. (www.merrimack.org) have information and volunteer opportunities.

A surprisingly readable resource all about our water is the “New Hampshire Water Resources Primer” available at des.nh.gov.

Environmental and artistic
Clotheslines add color to Concord

Perhaps nothing hits an environmentally friendly note quite like a clothesline full of laundry swaying with the breeze as it naturally dries.

That’s what the Concord-based Project Laundry List (www.laundrylist.org) was hoping for last month during the first annual “A Touch of Color: Clotheslines at the Capital.”

Featuring different themes each day, clotheslines graced the Statehouse lawn as well as the windows of about 16 downtown merchants to promote air-drying and cold-water washing from Sept. 17 to 21. With the help of volunteer artists, businesses displayed their own designs on their clotheslines. The main clothesline at the Statehouse was first themed red to represent autumn fashions; then themed white, to promote Project Laundry List’s mission; then blue, for the five branches of service; and finally green to symbolize the idea of “together green.”

Michael St. Germaine, who owns Concord Camera, had the winning window display. Germaine’s windows were designed by Aimee Leduc of Lavender & Lotus Interior Design and Cyndi Rogers of Mariposa Designs. The display included old photos of clotheslines and interviews with the photo owners, said Lisa Swan, owner of KAZA Designs in Concord.

Alex Lee, executive director and founder of Project Laundry List, promotes air-drying clothes as an easy way to lessen energy consumption. He said tumble dryers account for about 10 to 20 percent of the median residential electricity usage, and about 80 percent of households in this country have dryers, whereas many foreign countries place far less importance on them. He said only about 3 percent of households in Italy have dryers.

According to Project Laundry List, air-drying clothes and cold-water washing can save about $25 per month in electricity costs. Not to mention that sunlight naturally bleaches and disinfects, indoor racks can act as humidifiers in dry winter weather and dryers account for about 17,700 structure fires each year. — Jeff Mucciarone

Don’t be a hazard
Manchester only has two household hazardous waste collection days per year, and one of them is Saturday, Oct. 10. Between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., Manchester residents can bring toxic household products to the Manchester Drop-Off Center, 500 Dunbarton Road, off Front Street, for free. Things like oil-based paints, wood stains, poisons, cleaning products, pharmaceuticals and pesticides are accepted.

You can’t bring tires, explosives, infectious or biologically active materials or commercially generated waste among other things. Find brochures at various city offices, call Manchester’s Dept. of Public Works at 624-6504, or visit www.manchesternh.gov/publicworks.

DES keeps a list of Household Hazardous Waste Collection Days around the state and information about which materials should go there at des.nh.gov — or call 271-2047.

You can also call your town offices or check its Web site to find out when household hazardous waste day is.

Also, since it’s fall, check the yard waste removal schedule if you have curbside pick-up.

Dean Robinson of NH DES works on household hazardous waste programs. One of the most sustainable or environmentally friendly things to do is to reduce demand, he said. Being an informed consumer helps with source reduction. You might see bottles that say they have a new eco-friendly design, when all along it’s still the product that’s the problem, he said.

Household hazardous waste collections usually run between spring and fall because the materials can do “funny things” in cold temperatures, like freeze and burst.

Call your town first to see what it will take or if it has contracts with other places to take wastes. Be aware that big box stores may charge a car battery fee to take yours, while most salvage yards will take them for free because they can turn a profit from them, Robinson said.

A chain store is charging a “state recycling fee” for batteries. “There is no such fee. They made it up,” Robinson said. New Hampshire authorizes towns to run an automotive reclamation fund. Towns that choose to do that can use the money to recycle or dispose of automotive wastes.

Disposing of hazardous household wastes often just comes down to a lot of calling around, Robinson said. Auto shops may take used oil if they use it to heat their building (they have special furnaces).

The EPA passed a mercury ban in 2008, and transfer stations should be collecting old mercury thermostats and battery buttons with mercury, Robinson said. They are part of what’s called universal waste, which includes compact fluorescent light bulbs, which also contain mercury. You can drop off up to six fluorescent bulbs at participating Ace or True Value stores, he said.

Honeywell, other thermostat manufacturers and DES are funding thermostat recycling. Towns are given bins to collect them, and Honeywell will demanufacture and take mercury out of thermostats.

Many smoke detectors have radioactive elements, but sometimes you need to have the original packaging to send them back to the company for disposal. Robinson thinks it’s a way for companies to get around having to take the product back, he said.

The biggest household hazardous waste in the state is paint and paint-related items, Robinson said. Latex is only hazardous when wet. You can dry it with kitty litter and sawdust somewhere out of the weather, where pets won’t get at it. Or use it up. Look for groups to donate to who could use paint, like scouting groups, theater groups who make sets, or summer camps. “I encourage people to use stuff up,” Robinson said. See if a neighbor wants your extra half gallon of antifreeze or leftover WD-40.

Usually you can just recycle the empty cans.

What the heck is Energy Star
It’s way more than a symbol on your computer monitor. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy head this program, which is meant to help people save money and help the environment.

Energy Star ratings can be found for everything from washing machines to commercial griddles to entire homes (an Energy Star house needs to have features that make it 20 to 30 percent more efficient than a standard home — energy-efficient mortgages are available). 

Find out more about Energy Star-rated products at www.energystar.gov, which also hosts plenty of sound home improvement advice regarding how to address high energy costs and moisture issues, among other problems.

In the bathroom
When you are at the hardware store or working with a remodeler, ask for water- and energy-conserving low-flow fixtures and aerators.

With a dual-flush toilet, for example, there’s a button for a half flush (or for number 1, as it were) and a whole flush (number 2).

For about $5 or so, you can find a shower shutoff valve that you screw in between your shower head and pipe with some Teflon tape. That way, you can pause the water flow without having to readjust the temperature.

More resources
Visit the Green Roundtable/NEXUS Green Building Resource Center (www.nexusboston.com, www.greenroundtable.org, 617-374-3740) in Boston, which is affiliated with the U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org), which develops LEED ratings. USGBC keeps a long list of “Green Building Links” that can help with your sustainable interior design research.

Besides EnergyStar.gov, you can research home products at www.toolbase.org, under “Green Building.”

Partial reading list
Places to start learning about product life-cycle and other topics:

• Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model Interface, Inc., by Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface floorcovering and interior product company (Peregrinzilla Press, 1999). (rayanderson.com)
• The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability, by Paul Hawken (HarperCollins, 1993) (www.paulhawken.com)

On the kids’ bookshelf
Local writer Kathy Brodsky embraced eco-friendly concerns in her two most recent picture books, My Bent Tree (2008) and The Inside Story (2009). Both books originated in Manchester — local artist Cameron Bennett did the illustrations and Wedu Design did the graphics. The books have be-kind-to-the-planet themes and they’re printed in the U.S. on recycled paper.

My Bent Tree (www.mybenttree.com) is about friendship, loyalty, social action and conserving green space.

The Inside Story (www.theinsidestorybook.com) is about recycling, change and the mail system.

Both books list questions for parents, teachers and the inquisitive child pertaining to the topics covered.  

See more about Brodsky at www.helpingwords.com.

Greening your roof
Anne Cruess of T.F. Moran said the engineering company installed plant containers about five years ago, covering a small area of its roof in Bedford. It was an experiment, and also to “walk the walk,” since the company has suggested green alternatives to many clients.

“Up until fairly recently no one’s been too interested,” but now it’s becoming more popular and cost-effective, Cruess said. T.F. Moran used GreenGrid Roofs (www.greengridroofs.com) from Weston Solutions, which has an office near them in Bedford.

T.F. Moran testified about the concept before a modular green roof was installed on the new connecting portion of Manchester’s City Hall in September 2007. Mary Tebo, the community forestry educator for UNH Cooperative Extension, was behind the project (extension.unh.edu/FHGEC/GreenRoof.htm). About 75 square feet were covered with a protective sheet and four-inch-deep recycled plastic containers with hardy, drought resistant plants. “This a demonstration site,” Tebo said about choosing City Hall. The roof was paid for with grants and sponsorships, not city tax dollars (www.manchesternh.gov/green).

Absorbing rain water, which is slowly released through evaporation or drainage, prevents runoff that usually picks up whatever gasoline, oil and other pollutants are on the ground and puts them into the storm drain system. Rain runoff can overload treatment plants during flooding, which can then result in a flow of untreated sewage into the Merrimack River, Tebo said. Green roofs can help prevent that.

The modular roof added about 15 to 18 pounds per square foot when soaking wet, but most new construction flat roofs are built to withstand 60 to 80 pounds per square foot of snow, Tebo said. In fact, the roof life is usually extended because ultraviolet rays are not hitting it, Tebo said. There’s no maintenance required.

Learn more about green roofs from the Nashua Regional Planning Commission. Visit www.nashuarpc.org/itrac/ref_energy.htm and scroll down. — Heidi Masek