All Posts Tagged With: "materials"

My husband, the Eagle Scout, came home from Target recently with literally a bucketful of plastic. The bucket ITSELF was plastic! It looked like he had won some kind of shopping spree contest. Everything you can fit into a laundry basket in five minutes. In addition to what you see here, there was also contact lens solution, which comes in a cardboard box, but the solution itself is in a plastic bottle that has a little plastic safety seal on it.

What made me really take notice of this is – I had just been teaching a 4-week course called "Your EcoBlueprint ." In the third week, we played with the Plastic Tracker, which is an audit worksheet to build awareness of the amount and kinds of plastic that comes into our lives. Where they come from, what their purpose is, and what we do with them after we’ve used them. Read through this post to find out how you can win a copy of the Plastic Tracker to try for yourself.

In the fourth class, we talked a bit about the experience of using the plastic tracker. How surprised we were to learn just how much of this stuff is in our lives. For those of us who think of ourselves as fairly environmentally aware, this can be a real revelation. Continued

What’s Working is a team of professionals brought together by green building expert David Johnston who have worked in the field of green building and sustainable program design since the early 90s. They serve customers with practical, effective services in green building program design, policy development, strategic planning, resource tool development, design and materials consultation, marketing, facilitation and training. Whether a business, a municipality, a developer, an architect, a supplier/ manufacturer, or simply a homeowner, What’s Working can assist you.

Opened in 1984 as the first non-profit program of its kind in the nation, The Loading Dock, Inc. is a Baltimore-based, non-profit, low-cost building materials reuse center. Its mission is "to increase the supply and use of affordable building materials for housing and community improvement by redirecting landfill-bound, reusable materials into productive use." Since its beginning, The Loading Dock has saved low-income housing and community projects over $16.5 million and has rescued over 33,000 tons of building materials from landfills. As they accept just about all kinds of materials, visit their website to find out what’s in stock and see a workshop schedule. Get a listing of other salvage and reuse centers including Maryland, Pennsylvania Virginia and DC on their website .