We shouldn’t just celebrate Earth for one hour or one day, we should celebrate it every day. The community of Serenbe does just that. Located below Atlanta, Georgia this is a green community that was built on the concept of sustainability.

“Each home is certified to EarthCraft Homes “green” standards.” - From Serenbe website

What first struck me after the gorgeous land and homes was the eclectic style of the community and people. Everything from street-lamps, trash cans, and benches were made from recycled/repurposed materials. The lawns at each home have no grass (to probably save on water usage), and where there is grass it’s allowed to grow as nature intended it. It makes you wonder if this community can do it, why can’t these ideas be implemented into other communities around the nation?

Serenbe is separated into three districts: Selborne - center for arts, residential homes; Grange - organic farms, stables, and forestland;  Mado -  still in the planning stages, but should have an upscale hotel, destination spa, etc.

HGTV Dream Home 2012

Inside Serenbe is the new 2012 HGTV Dream Home. If there’s any ‘Dream Home’ to win this is the one. Not only do you get a fantastic eco-friendly home, but a community based on reusing, recycling, and repurposing.

The Organic Food

If you can only do one thing at Serenbe grab a bite to eat. With two restaurants and a bakeshop (and a vegetarian restaurant planned for the future) there is something for everyone, even gluten free options. It would make sense that the food is so fresh, real, and delicious since both the founders Steve and Marie Nygren have backgrounds with food.

“The Hil” was our choice of food for Earth Day dinner. From Crispy Calamari to a Margherita Pizza almost everything on this menu is from there organic farms.

Here’s a few menu items we tried and would recommend (some might not be available all the time):

• Organic Whole Wheat Bread with Butter
• Crab Fitters with Remoulade Sauce (this is made of almost ALL crab, highly recommend!)
• The Hil Burger with Shiitake Mushrooms, Swiss Cheese, Smoked Bacon, H1 Sauce and “Hil Made” French Fries
• Pan Seared Maine Scallops and Crispy Braised Pork with Roasted Turnips and Mustard Jus
• Warm “Hil Made” Waffle with Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream and Bourbon Caramel Sauce (I think this was everyone’s favorite of the night.)

You can see more photographs here or learn more about this green community here.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Live Earth Day Every Day in Serenbe

Today’s “Recycling Mondays” video is about recycling glass.

Start from the beginning:

• Part 1

Previous Video:

• Part 5

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 6

I’ve always recycled grocery bags, but over the past two months grocery bags have actually become a commodity here in Montgomery County, MD. A law was passed to require certain stores to charge five-cents on each plastic or paper bag they provided us. Being a green enthusiast I am all for this! The Law which is similar to Washington D.C.’s Bag Law was designed to reduce the use of disposable bags by bringing reusable bags.

Reasons Behind the Law

• Plastic bags are the biggest single source of waterway litter.
• Montgomery County spens 3 millions dollars to clean up these plastic bags.
• To have a trash free Potomac River.
• The county’s way to meet state-mandated MS4 stormwater permit requirements.
• To reduce litter and therefore pollution in the Anacostia River.

Other Facts

• Retailers retain 1 cent of each 5 cents for the bags they sell to a customer.
• The leftover 4 cents goes into the County’s Water Quality Protection Charge (WQPC) fund.
• Awesome Visual Aid about grocery bags and the effects it has on the environment - Washington Post
• Click to read more about the bill and the FAQ’s.

Now, I make sure to always have a reusable bag in my purse and a few extra in the car (for those unplanned grocery store stops). Since these bags are actually worth money now, I thought they deserved a nice container to put them in. Being an Etsy addict I went instantly on there and found the most stylish Eco-friendly grocery bag holder made of 100% cotton from Sunshine Sisters. I ordered the “Pernilla’s Journey Paradise Green Mamba” designer print and waited only a few days for it to arrive in the mail. Getting a package is always exciting, but knowing it has the personal touches of an Etsy seller makes it so much more enjoyable.

About Sunshine Sisters

Janna Perry a mother, teacher and fellow Creative who sells not only these grocery bag holders, but also cloth dinner napkins (another item to use for less waste and also fits into the grocery bag holder), etc. Check out Sunshine Sisters store on Etsy.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Reduce & Reuse Grocery Bags

Today’s “Recycling Mondays” video is about recycling plastics.

Start from the beginning:

• Part 1

Previous Video:

• Part 4

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 5

All about metals…

Start from the beginning:

• Part 1

Previous Video:

• Part 3

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 4

Ever had one of your electronics break on you and knowing there’s got to be some place to recycle it (instead of just tossing this once pricy item in the trash)? When the lens to my old Nikon film camera broke I packed it away until I found someone or some company to recycle it. Thinking there would be plenty of places to recycle a broken lens I ended up only finding one (where I wouldn’t have to pay them money to recycle it). Gazelle.com My lens ended up being valued at $0 so they didn’t offer me any money or free shipping, but I am always willing to pay for shipping if it means the item gets reused or recycled.

About Gazelle.com

Gazelle.com is a company that first tries to reuse a product, then if the retail or wholesale channels they have don’t work they find the right people to recycle the product. The business started back in 2006 and they currently have more than 20 categories (see items below) of products that they recycle. If your product is valued $1 or more you get free shipping, and they might even give you money for your product.

The process was fairly easy:

• Just type in the items you are trying to recycle in the search.
• Select what type of condition its in
• Give more basic information on it and what accesories you’d also be recycling
• They’ll then let you know if they can offer you any money for the item
• Then you “checkout” - your information is collected and you are given instructions on how to recycle your items and where to ship it to.

Categories

• Blu-Ray Players
• Calculators
• Camcorders
• Camera Lenses
• Cell Phones
• Desktops
• Digital Cameras
• E-Readers
• External Hard Drives
• Gaming Consoles
• GPS Devices
• Home Audio
• Laptops
• LCD Monitors
• Movies
• MP3 Players
• PDAs
• Projectors
• Satellite Radios
• Streaming Media
• Video Games

*They currently don’t accept CRT Monitors, Printers, or Fax Machines, but will help you find local recyclers who might.

You can read more about this company and what of your electronics you can recycle at Gazelle.com

If you know of another company or place to recycle broken camera lens comment below!

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Camera Lens Recycling

Did you know that when recycling paper the part of the process is “lifting the type off of the paper” with what’s called the deinker? Learn more about it with the video below…

• Part 1
• Part 2

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 3

Seeing that today is recycling day here in my neighborhood I thought it would be perfect to continue the video series on what happens to all the things in your recycle bins when they leave your house.

If you missed the first part of the series click here

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 2

Came across this fantastic series the other day. It breaks down how recycling works. Might be a great series to show as you try and get the people around you to recycle more!

I know most people understand how to drop paper/plastic and metals in a bin and put it on the curb but it’s really interesting to see how it works out after the truck grabs your recyclables.

This is going to be a weekly series - Recycling Mondays, a great way to start the week. I’ll keep posting the videos from this series and then find some other great recycling topics for you every week.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Recycling - The Process Part 1

I have a very systematic way of going through my snail mail and other paper goods.

One major part of this habit is to shred personal information - including account numbers, address and pretty much anything that has my name on it. For the longest time I was tossing my shredding into the garbage, then I started to put all of the shreds into my recycling “They’re paper, right?”

Turns out I might have been wrong! (Unheard of, I know.)

EcoCycle.com cites three reasons why it might not be a good idea to recycle shredded paper

1. When you shred paper, what you’re actually doing is cutting the lengths of the individual paper fibers, thus cutting the future recycling potential of that fiber. The length of a paper fiber determines its value since a longer fiber can be used to make a higher-grade paper and can be recycled more times.
2. At the recycling facility, mixed paper from households and businesses goes over an automated screen that makes the paper product cleaner by shaking out non-fiber contaminants like bits of glass, etc. The only problem is that the shredded paper gets grabbed by the fingers on the screens and gets pulled into the reject bin, and off to the landfill.
3. The paper mills that buy recycled paper must do a quality sort on the material before they put it into their multi-million dollar machines, and it’s just plain impossible to do a good quality sort of shredded paper. Many contaminants can hide in the shred, such as plastic strips from a document cover that were accidentally shredded along with the paper. For this reason, paper markets don’t like to buy shredded paper and don’t like to see it in with the higher-grade junk mail and office paper.^[1]

The website Recyclenow.com program suggests you contact your local recycling or waste management authorities. If they do allow you to recycle your shredded paper Recycle Now provides a couple good guidelines for recycling shredded paper.

Prepare your Shredded Paper for Recycling

• Make sure it is free of plastic.
• Don’t put it loose into open recycling boxes as it will blow away!

Can’t Recycle your Shreddings?

Then why not make your own paper?

• Wikihow has a great article about homemade paper making.

What better way to ensure your personal information is never obtained? By making it disappear and using your homemade recycled paper as thank you notes or scribble pages at school or work.

Here’s a great Flickr set dedicated to homemade paper for you visual learners!

Remember - the sun is a natural whitener so if you let your paper dry in the sun or lay in the sun you will get whiter paper without using harsh chemicals like bleach.

This feed comes from Green Behavior The specific article's link is: Shredded Paper - Fit for Recycling?