The Economy Has Boaters Up A Creek

I had watched some newscast about abandoned boats "littering" the seas and our coastlines awhile back and thought I should share the gist of the story. Being that I don't have a boat, it's not something I think about. Apparently though, boat owners who have found that they can no longer afford to take care of their boats, paying dock fees and such, and unable to sell, simply let their boats adrift at sea. I'm not just talking small fishing boats, but some are huge yachts, just rotting at sea.

The owners are actually sanding away the registry numbers in hopes of not being connected to their discards, but more and more laws are being brought forth to try and deter people from doing this.

There are many reasons why these laws are so important. For one thing, these boats carry toxins like lead, chromium, copper, mercury and zinc that are seeping into our waterways. This, of course, affects the wildlife. Secondly, the boats are causing problems with other vessels trying to navigate the seas. Once a vessel becomes a hazard, it has to be removed, which is expensive and guess who has to pay for that...us! We're paying for it in more ways than one.

Join the Million Baby Crawl‏ and say “NO” to toxic chemicals found in household products

Thanks to Zach for letting me know about Seventh Generation's Million Baby Crawl‏ to Washington "to demand a law that will regulate toxic chemicals found in household products".

In their words:

The federal law that should protect us from health-harming chemicals just doesn't work. Since 1976, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing on only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals on the market. We need a stronger chemical law to keep our families safe and healthy.

If you want to read more about the specifics, go here. On the site, you can create a crawler of your own or, by all means, support my crawler here.

Here are some videos Zach shared with me about the cause:
Babies on a soapbox
Babies crawling to Washington

Movember: Mustaches Fundraiser For Cancer

This isn't really about going green, but it has everything to do with humanity and so I'm posting it on all my blogs.

My husband is taking part of Movember, where men grow their mustaches for the month of November in order to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG). My husband is part of Team Mo Bicless.

If you can't afford to give yourself, you can join the team to help support and to help raise money for the cause. You do not have to grow a mustache to be part of the team, so ladies you can join too as a MO Sista "A woman who loves a mustache".

After losing my father to cancer, I've heard so many people's stories that I don't believe there's anyone who hasn't been affected by cancer.

I am selling sets of mustache magnets and stickers here. A portion will go towards the charity.

Re-purposed Round Up

These little coin purses are made from milk cartons. You can get the tutorial at Cut Out + Keep.





Make a wrist support pillow out of an old shirt sleeve (from Kelly Georgette)


Elephant Purses made from old sweaters. There are actually quite a few examples of these floating around. I think they're awesome. I love bags and my son is really into elephants so he'd probably love if I made myself one of these.

Monica Wants It has some great makeovers, starting with some pretty gaudy stuff and making it chic. This is just one of them:



Monica Wants it also has a tutorial on making some folder holders out of Priority Post office boxes (left)

I did a similar thing years ago with cereal boxes for my scrapbooking stickers and things (right). Sorry, I probably should have straightened them a bit. I'm usually more organized but I've been crafting a lot and you know how it goes.

WILD9

I was recently contacted by a reader, Alex, who turned me on to the WILD Foundation's World Wilderness Congress, aka "WILD9". According to Alex, Wild9 is

the longest running environmental forum and occurs once every four years. This year's conference will be held the week of November 6th in Merida, Mexico, and will feature speakers Jane Goodall, Stephan Harding, and Pav Sukhdev.

Registration is open to the public and will be available until Tuesday, October 27th.

I don't know that I can do Wild9 justice, as I am just learning about it myself. However, you can go here for more information.

Is Gordon Ramsay Killing The Planet?

Okay, here's the deal, I love Gordon Ramsay. I watch all his shows, Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, The F Word, but there is something about all these shows that kills me. The amount of food wasted on these shows is crazy.

I mean I get that there's a certain level of quality expected from his kitchens. Still, I can't help, but hope that there's some poor families in the back digging into these 3 inch think cuts of prime beef that they throw out consistently because it has been waiting more than a few seconds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a vegetarian, but animals have died here. What a shame it is that they should be discarded like that, especially when there are so many starving people out there.

Of course, it's not just Gordon Ramsay but I don't see behind the scenes at a lot of restaurants so I have to point out what I see, but it is a general message for all wasteful chefs.