Green Tips from The Daily Green

This comes from the daily green. Tips to keep yourself more green at home!

"As a stay-at-home mom, I have made recycling one of my hobbies. It's part of a lifestyle change my family has made for daily green living. I'd like to share some of the tips I've learned.
Recycling is actually the third in a three-step program of conscious actions you can take to:

1. Reduce
2. Re-use, then
3. Recycle

The planet is awash in waste, and everyone has to participate to make a change. The first step is at the supermarket. Reduce trash when you shop by being a smart consumer. I always try to buy those products with the least amount of packaging. When you’re shopping, try to choose reusable and refillable containers instead of disposable items. If you reduce the number of disposable items, you're reducing landfill overflow.
Paper or plastic - or neither? How do you carry your items home? Grocery shoppers use nearly 40 billion bags each year. Most are only used once and thrown away. Plastic bags are made with petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and they do not decompose as organic materials do. Paper bags are just as bad, since using them depletes our shrinking forests. A sturdy cloth bag is a nice long-term investment to replace plastic or paper grocery bags.
I don't have very many plastic bags at home because I try to remember to use the re-usable cloth bags (I have an arsenal, for the BIG store trips). Sometimes I do forget to bring them, but I always request the bagger put as many items in each plastic bag as possible.
But, the bags I do bring home NEVER just get thrown away. I re-use them as liners in the trash receptacles in my bathroom and kitchen. If you don't have any re-usable cloth bags at home, and your favorite store either doesn't carry them or they’re too expensive, go to a thrift store or a Goodwill store. You can find them for under a dollar.
What about re-using things you used to throw away? For example, keep a personal size plastic bottle and re-fill it from a jumbo size container. It’s also money-saving, because you pay for the small-size packaging. You will need to keep a variety of plastic funnels, but make sure you write “TOXIC” on those funnels used for re-filling cleaning products, so you don’t mix it up with water funnels. And, speaking of water, how many personal water bottles do you buy in a year? They're all sitting in a landfill somewhere right now. Those bottles can certainly be re-filled from a gallon jug and re-used several times, and all it takes is a funnel.
I recycle EVERYTHING I can; I have six places to throw away trash in my home! A basket for glass, one for plastic bottles, one for aluminum cans, one for biodegradable garbage, a trash can for any other recyclables and another can for regular trash. When we have guests over, I explain where everything goes. If they forget and they throw anything recyclable in the regular trash, I automatically dig it out and organize it, no matter how dirty or disgusting it might be. That's what hand soap is for! It's like a daily ritual for me, and it can be one for you too. Once it becomes a habit, you separate the things you're throwing away without even thinking about it. Every little bit helps, and it only takes an extra 30 seconds each time you throw something away.
It’s the little things that make the biggest difference! If each person just recycled their trash, and did nothing else eco-friendly, it would make a huge impact. Recycling is easy and available in most US cities.
The more we, as humans, care about our daily, individual environmental impact, the better off we’re leaving the planet for future generations.
- Susie Feldman"

Cycle For Survival! Over 4 Million Dollars Raised!

This past weekend Sloane Kettering Memorial held Cycle For Survival; an event to raise money for Rare Cancer Research involving Indoor Cycling bikes and getting teams of people to raise money and spin for a great cause. FEDWW helped to supply bikes and sponsor this great event for an amazing cause.

Cycle for Survival is an indoor cycling fundraiser benefiting research for rare cancers -- forms of the disease that are uncommon and lack the funding necessary for advancements in treatment. Research that helps these rare forms of the disease also help better funded and prevalent cancers such as lung, breast, prostate and colon. A full 100% of the monies raised from these benefits rare cancer research.

Founded in 2007 by patient Jennifer Goodman Linn (formerly named Spin4Survival), the initiative has raised more than $800,000 in support of pioneering research for rare cancers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. These funds have already made an impact by supporting clinical trials that have led to new chemotherapy regimens used to treat lesser-known forms of this deadly disease. This treatment was in fact used to treat Jennifer Goodman Linn during her second battle with cancer.

"Each rare cancer affects fewer than 200,000 individuals," said Dr. Robert Maki, associate attending physician and co-director of the Adult Sarcoma Program in Memorial Sloan-Kettering's Department of Medicine. "Rare cancers are frustratingly difficult to diagnose and treat. In aggregate, they have a profound impact on the lives of our patients and their families. Cycle for Survival underscores our steadfast commitment to finding new ways to fight cancer in all its forms."

This weekend long event in NYC area gyms helped raise over 4 Million Dollars! What great work to benefit something that has been so devasting to so many of us. hats off to all who raised so much money for this great cause. Keeping up all thisgreat work can help end Cancer for good!