NRCM Blog

MOO(Milk) Needs YOU!

Seems like we hear it everyday: “Buy local.” “Go green.” “Buy organic.” “Support family farms.”

When a group of Maine farmers worked together to create MOOMilk, they probably were taking all that consumer buzz to heart. Their product fits all the criteria: MOOMilk is organic milk that is produced by Maine farmers. The kind of product we’re looking for so we can “walk the talk,” right?

Hmm. Maybe not.

As the Bangor Daily News is reporting MOOMilk is in danger of closing up shop, taking with it a great example of Maine’s entrepreneurial spirit in action – and the kind of product the public has been giving lip service to.

Fortunately, it’s not too late, and you can help by simply buying the product. It’s tasty and healthy, and it gives you the chance to put into action all those bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans about saving the planet – in this case, one farm at a time.

Actually, SIX farms—three in Aroostook County, three in Washington County.

And how about this for additional inspiration: in the wake of the MOOMilk’s struggles, the Aroostook County farmers could have begun shipping to another market but knew that if they did, service to the Washington County farms would stop, as they are too far out of the conventional trucking route for hauling their milk to be profitable. Instead, the Aroostook farmers have continued to band together with the farmers in Washington County.
If these farmers, whose very livelihood is on the line, can choose to stick together for the sake of a quality product like MOOMilk, can’t we stick with them, too?

MOOMilk is available at Hannafords (which recently lowered the price so that MOOMilk can more fairly compete with national, out-of-state brands). It’s also available at IGA, Shurfine, and elsewhere.

For more information about MOOMilk, please visit http://moomilkco.com/.

Allison Wells
Senior Director, Public Affairs
Natural Resources Council of Maine
(and Mom to a MOOMilk-drinking Family!)

Give Your Beauty Products a Makeover

Check out this great new video from the makers of the “Story of Stuff.”  If you’ve been wondering what nasty chemicals are lurking in your shampoo, deodorant or even toothpaste, this is the video to watch. When you’re done, don’t forget to send a message to our congressional delegation. Thanks for helping make our products safe!  - Matt Prindiville, Toxics Project Director

Making a difference in the Gulf

I received an email a few weeks ago from the librarian at Nobleboro Central School. The fifth grade students there spent the year selling items that range from pencil erasers to bubbles to "locker buddies" and more in their school store. Now that the school year is over, they got to choose where to donate their profits. This year, the class chose to donate their money to the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in order to help with their clean up of wildlife, like sea turtles and pelicans, affected by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the Natural Resources Council of Maine is the state's affiliate of NWF, we were asked if someone from NRCM could come accept the check from the students and thank them for their donation.

I was delighted to be able to go to Nobleboro on Tuesday morning to thank the students, read an award of appreciation and letter from NWF, and accept their giant $300 check (I came back to NRCM to ask our bookkeeper if she could start paying me my salary on a giant check...it seemed much more fun and exciting than a regular payroll stub!).

The students were very attentive while I talked about NRCM and the work we do to protect Maine's air, water, forests, and public health. They were all sitting at their desks doing work on their laptops, so I talked briefly about Maine's e-waste law and our work to protect Mainers from toxics in various toys and other household items. One boy in the front row raised his hand and asked if I had heard about the "McDonald's cups." I said that I had...that 12 million Shrek glasses had to be recalled because of toxic chemicals found in them. It was so great to see young students so aware of current events related to the environment!

I thanked them for their decision to use their money to help wildlife in the Gulf. We talked about how it's important to help your friends and neighbors (and even your brothers and sisters...though that is sometimes harder!) nearby, but it is also important to help others (people and animals) around the country and around the world. We talked about how their gift was going to make a big difference to the wildlife clean up efforts along the Gulf Coast.

These students should be commended for their hard work and dedication to helping others. In years past, their school store funds have gone to local food pantries, animal shelters, and toward home heating assistance programs. This year, they decided to do what they can to help wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. Way to go Nobleboro Central School! You are making a difference - here in Maine, and far away. I hope others are inspired by your good deeds and do all they can to help those affected by the disaster in the Gulf.

- Beth Dimond
NRCM Public Affairs Coordinator

"Haul-o-well" - new trash reduction pilot project in place

Hallowell, where I live, does not have municipal trash removal—each household has to contract with a trash hauler on its own to get curbside pick-up.  Riverside Disposal of Chelsea, my hauler, is offering a pilot project in which they will cut the customer’s weekly fee if you can get down to a single, 10 lb. bag of trash per week. They will recycle the rest, which they’ve broken down into two categories: containers and paper. They pick up one category per week, alternating from one to the other. 

They are also providing food composting buckets to customers.  We already compost, but the 5-gallon plastic bucket (for short-term storage inside the house) has been a great improvement for us.

My household is enthusiastically taking part, with 20 or 30 other customers.  After we signed up for the pilot project, they monitored our trash for a couple of weeks and told us that we had 36 lbs per week!  If that is truly average, that equals over 1,800 lbs a year—almost a ton for our three-person, two-cat operation.  So just knowing that was an eye-opener. We have two cats and a toddler, so diapers and kitty litter will probably make it very difficult to get down to 10 lbs., at least for a while.  We change the kitty litter once a week (in theory); I reckon that is 10 lbs. right there.  We may switch back to a scoopable litter; Riverside suggests one called Swheat Scoop.  Any other ideas out there?

It’s interesting that Riverside is doing this by weight, not by volume.  Some towns do pay-per-bag municipal trash pick-up (the residents must pay for bags) that are based on volume, at least nominally—though once the trucks get to the landfill the issue is weight. We are recycling a lot more plastic now, but it doesn’t weigh that much. Kitty litter, food and diapers seem to account for most of the weight.

But even recycling more stuff is kind of a “tailpipe” strategy. As I pondered our trash last weekend, I thought, “Reduce, re-use, recycle.” There’s a reason the words are in that order.  Start by reducing what you buy or bring in to your house. Think about the packaging of the products you buy, especially food, and favor items whose packaging is easier to re-use or recycle. Lastly, think about what you can re-use before tossing it into a bin.

There are more subtle strategies you can use.  We will move our recycling bins closer to the kitchen, the center of a lot of activity, and move the trash barrel further away.  (We also moved the paper towel roll far away from the sink, where they were always close at hand when I “needed” one.  I know we shouldn’t be using paper towels at all, blah blah blah...So sue me.)

I don’t think it’s much of a direct savings for the customer: Riverside already picks up recycling at no additional cost, as mandated by the city of Hallowell, and the price break is not big. But it’s a great program anyway.

As I mentioned, we’re already recycling our food waste in a composter in our vegetable garden—a good way to cut down on garbage volume.  The Maine Resource Recovery Association is offering low-cost composters to communities that sign up. You have to contact your town to see if it is taking part.   The city of Gardiner is:  http://www.kjonline.com/news/gardinercity-offering_green_-products_2010-05-06.html

And of course, the Natural Resources Council of Maine has been working for years, with great results, to keep toxic items out of the waste stream:  mercury-containing products and electronics, most notably. Governor Baldacci signed a landmark bill in March that makes “extended producer responsibility” part of Maine law: http://www.nrcm.org/news_detail.asp?news=3546

How is your city dealing with your garbage? Send us your trash tales!

-Mathew Scease

It's National Spring Cleaning Week - how will you celebrate?

So, my boss walked in my office yesterday and told me that it's National Spring Cleaning Week. I am not sure if she told me that because I have papers strewn all over my desk, along with a couple of mugs that haven't made their way to the kitchen yet, some hand sanitizer, a few assorted pens without their caps, ... I think you get the point. My office is not the paragon of cleanliness today.

I am not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, but luckily I have dodged the "pack rat" gene that some of my relatives possess. I am working hard to declutter my home - and today, looking around my office, I realize that a little decluttering here wouldn't hurt. And any time I think I may want to keep something that I really don't need, I think of the new shows about hoarders, and then I suddenly want to get rid of everything! I have been taking a lot of my clothes and household items to the local thrift store rather than just throwing them out - I know that my items are going to someone who needs them, and I am not adding to the local landfill.

Several years ago, when I first started at NRCM, I got to help put together a brochure about clean housekeeping. I spent a lot of time researching ways to make non-toxic householder cleaners, and learned a lot in the process. You can download this brochure or order a copy online at http://www.nrcm.org/publication_housekeeping.asp. There are non-toxic recipes for pest control (ants, slugs, fleas, etc.), toilet bowl cleaner, copper cleaner, and more.

Do you have suggestions you could share with us here about ways to replace toxic chemical cleaners with non-toxic alternatives? Please post a comment here and share your ideas with others.

I am not sure that National Spring Cleaning Week will ever replace my birthday as my new favorite holiday, but maybe I will try to celebrate it this year - using suggestions found in our Clean Housekeeping Guide. Happy cleaning everyone!

-Beth

Going on (a green) vacation

I read an interesting column in today's Kennebec Journal about the columnist's difficulty staying "green" while she and her family went away for a vacation.  You can read the full piece by Liz Soars here: kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/view/columns/6774323.html.  But I will share a piece of it with you now:

"We are avid recyclers, and have a system at home involving plastic bins for returnables and plastic milk jugs, a wooden box for newspapers and, of course, our city-issued green buckets for cans and glass. We wash the tins and jars and toss them into the appropriate bucket or bin. Then we set them out on the curb on the appropriate day.

Couldn't be easier. And yet, nothing could be harder on vacation. The cans and glass still accumulate; actually, at a faster rate, as I don't want to be whipping up meals from scratch three times a day when I'm supposed to be enjoying a retreat from everyday duties.

But while we carefully rinsed and stored (in yet another brown paper bag) all our returnables, the other cans and glass went straight into the trash."

So, this got me to thinking - what is it that you do to make your vacations greener?  Do you think about all of the things that Ms. Soares thought about?  I wonder if you have tips for going green while going on holiday.  If so, please share them here so that others can take them into consideration when they head out before summer's end or as they travel this fall and winter.

I know that there are even some travel agencies who specialize in "green travel" - have you ever used one of these agencies?  If so, what has been your experience?

Have you stayed closer to home this summer because of the economy?  If so, did you find a great vacation location right here in Maine?

I know that most of the summer's weather didn't cooperate with vacations (with my vacations anyway...I picked the rainiest weeks of the summer!), but now that the weather is better, I have been out and about enjoying the warm summer weather.

My mother and I went on a windjammer cruise out of Portland - two hours on an 85-year-old schooner that was built in 1924 in East Boothbay and has sailed all over the world.  What a beautiful way to see Portland Harbor and the Portland waterfront - as well as Portland Headlight, Bug Light, and Spring Point lighthouse.

I hope you are all having a great summer!  Hope to hear from you!

- Beth, Public Affairs Coordinator

Maine's environment loses a champion

Everyone at NRCM is very saddened by the death of Harry Richardson.  As a leader of the Republican party in the Legislature in the late 1960s and early 70s, Harry championed many environmental causes, including leading the effort to create the  Land Use Regulation Commission. He was appalled by Plum Creek’s proposal to develop the Moosehead Lake region and for the last three years had represented Maine Audubon and NRCM in opposing the Plum Creek proposal in front of LURC.  He led our legal team with passion, enthusiasm, and humor, playing the anti-Plum Creek "Ballad of Moosehead Lake" at high decibels in his convertible in the parking lot of the hearing!  He will be sorely missed.

Read the full Portland Press Herald news story about Harry here.

Cathy Johnson
North Woods Project Director and Staff Attorney

The bride wore green

One of the favorite parts of my job is reading the news each day to see what is happening in the world of environmental advocacy.  As I came into work early yesterday in order to beat the snowstorm, I came across an article in the Portland Press Herald about a green wedding contest in southern Maine.  (You can read the full article here.)  The finalists for this contest were selected, the article said, "not for their cutting-edge environmental strategies, but for the little ways they celebrate being green each day and interpreting that in a way others can understand."

The article goes on to describe some of the things that these finalists do each day to live a greener lifestyle like buying locally grown foods and supporting local businesses, and giving gifts that are homemade with recycled materials.  Two of the finalists are school teachers - one who has gone paperless in her art class and another who is doing composting with her students.

When I first saw the article, I thought it was going to be about how to plan and host a "green" wedding, but I was pleased to see that it was more than that - it focused on the ways these couples and their families are making changes in their everyday lives to make the planet healthier.  

What are some ways you and your family have made changes to make your lives more environmentally friendly?  If you have ideas you would like to share, I encourage you to post them on here so that others can be inspired and maybe come up with some ideas of their own. Also, NRCM has some ideas of their own that can be found by reading our Tip of the Day at www.nrcm.org.  I also encourage you to take part in our global warming challenge at www.globalwarmingmaine.org. 

And to all of the couples who are finalists in the "Green Wedding Giveaway," we wish you the best!

Beth Dimond