Category: Blog

While the holidays are meant for appreciating time spent with family and friends, our impact on the environment and air quality can be overlooked in the midst of all the gatherings this time of year. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste such as food, holiday cards, decorations, wrapping paper, bows, ribbons, and shopping bags increases by more than 25 percent. As a result, an additional one million tons of waste heads to landfills each week.

These statistics may come as a shock, but thankfully, there are a variety of ways to incorporate sustainability into our favorite holiday celebrations. The more people who participate in these energy and resource-saving activities, the greater and more positive effect they will have on our planet. With that in mind, here are just a few of the many ways you can go green for the holidays, celebrating to the fullest while minimizing any negative effects on the environment:

• Send Out eCards and Recycle Old Cards – Send holiday wishes to loved ones via ecards to save time, postage and trees. This is the optimal choice not only because there’s no paper needed, but also because there’s no delivery vehicle involved that contributes to harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Consider reusing the fronts of old cards as holiday postcards or gift tags.
• Choose Greener Travel Options – If possible, consider traveling by bus or train to your destination. These are the greenest options and can offer a certain level of convenience, particularly if the weather and roads are bad along your travel route. If you must fly, check to see if you can get an affordable nonstop flight to help improve the air quality by cutting back on carbon emissions that come from takeoff and landing.
• Gift Differently – Consider giving a homemade gift such as a knit scarf, painting, homemade bath bomb, jar of jam or other tasty seasonal treats to loved ones this year. Gifting a used item from a second-hand shop or looking for items in your own home for a holiday exchange are also great ways to cut back on cost and green your holiday shopping.
• Shop with Reusable Bags – Holiday shopping is great fun but also a huge producer of plastic shopping bags. Keep reusable bags in your car so they’re always available and you don’t have to worry about forgetting them at home. Using and reusing cloth bags can help to clean the air by reducing the thousands of bags that end up in landfills.
• Use Eco-friendly Wrapping Alternatives – Newspapers, old posters, maps and reusable gift bags all are great ways to present your gifts this holiday season. Scrap fabric lying around the house also makes for beautiful, personal, and unique gift wraps. If you choose to buy gift wrap, look for recycled content gift wrap paper whenever you can find it.

A few small changes are all it takes to give the gift of helping the St. Louis region breathe easier this holiday season. For more tips, visit www.cleanair-stlouis.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @gatewaycleanair.

As Thanksgiving quickly approaches, it is a special time to reflect on the many things to be grateful for this holiday season. We often think of being grateful for the many people and blessings in our lives — our families and friendships, health, career, a warm home, a Thanksgiving feast with loved ones, complete with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy and turkey galore. Often overlooked in our society, however, is the quality of air we breathe every day.

As we plan out all the dishes that will be on our tables this year, it’s also important to consider the impacts that certain holiday traditions have on the planet. This Thanksgiving consider giving your holiday celebration extra meaning by making your day of thanks a greener and more eco-friendly one. A green Thanksgiving will enrich your family’s holiday experience by reducing the impact on the environment as you do your share for cleaner air. That’s something for which everyone can be thankful, but it’s particularly meaningful for children, older adults and those who suffer from lung diseases that make them especially vulnerable to poor air quality.

Start by sourcing as many of your ingredients as possible locally to help reduce emissions produced by transport trucks.  The less your produce has to travel, the less waste is produced, and the smaller the environmental impact. With so many friends and family gathered at the table for Thanksgiving dinner, it’s also not uncommon for regular plates, cups, napkins and silverware to be swapped out for disposables. Instead of buying tableware for one-time use, opt for your favorite set of dishes this year. While this may lead to a little extra time spent at the kitchen sink, this small change leads to a much bigger impact, helping the region breathe easier.

With the holiday season also comes the spending season where so many take advantage of Black Friday and other exclusive deals. The thought of a new computer or flat screen television for an unbeatable price might sound enticing, but the environmental impacts of consumer spending are tremendous. Rather than participate in the Black Friday mania this year, consider keeping your wallet and the environment happy by cutting back on unnecessary spending and eliminating all the extra auto emissions associated with running from store to store.  For those who can’t pass up the tempting Black Friday deals, consider online shopping from the comfort of your home. Doing so will help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from consumer travel while delivery services optimize routes for fuel efficiency.

This Thanksgiving, when counting life’s blessings and listing those things to be grateful for, don’t forget to add clean air to the list. And thank you for all you do so we can all breathe easier. To learn more, visit our website tips section at www.cleanair-stlouis.com, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter at @gatewaycleanair.

It’s that time of year again where Halloween fun is right around the corner, but the holiday has become a bit scarier for the environment. From decorating our homes and painting pumpkins to hosting frighteningly fabulous parties and passing out loads of candy to trick-or-treaters, these popular traditions that we know and love can wreak havoc on the environment, and ultimately our air quality.

Rather than buying mass-produced products that take a lot of resources to manufacture, you can invest in quality costumes and decorations – or even make them yourself at home to last for years to come. Here are some helpful tips to consider for those upcoming spooky festivities without creating a nightmare for the planet and your wallet!

• Rent, Swap or Make Your Own Costume – Total spending for Halloween is expected to reach $9 billion this year in the United States alone. Browse thrift shops, flea markets or gather some inspiration from your own closet instead to save money. Avoid buying store-bought costumes that are often made up of nonrecyclable petro-chemical based plastic and synthetic fibers that release harmful toxins in their creation and breakdown. Going for a greener option this Halloween will ultimately help to improve the air quality.
• Choose Eco-Friendly Decorations — Make a dent in the waste this Halloween by creating your own homemade decorations with recycled household items. Also, use solar-powered or LED lights that will conserve energy, as will refraining from using inflatable ghouls and goblins that require electricity to operate. Doing so will help save on electricity costs and cut back on emissions to help clean the air.
• Green Up Your Halloween Pumpkins – Remember to compost your pumpkins this Halloween to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions that result from rotting in landfills. Save the pulp from inside the pumpkins for pies, muffins, soup and other tasty recipes, as well as the seeds that make for a great fall snack when roasted with a little oil and salt!
• Host a Green Halloween Party – Your party this year can be as Spooktacular as ever without negatively effecting the environment. Send out electronic invites instead of paper to guests to help save time, postage and trees. When shopping for supplies, look for recyclable or compostable plates, cups and utensils rather than the kind that end up in the trash and put out recycling bins for any bottles and cans.

By making sustainability a part of your Halloween celebrations, you can do your part to help the St. Louis region breathe easier. To learn more about the link between living greener and our air quality, visit our website the tips section at www.cleanair-stlouis.com, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter at @gatewaycleanair.

When it comes to the three Rs, we always encourage people to Reduce and Reuse first, but for those who also find themselves with items to recycle, the process could be changing very soon. With China no longer taking U.S. recycled materials because it was receiving too many non-recyclable items, a policy change has some local cities worried about the future of their recycling programs.

Many fear that this could cause the cost of local curbside recycling programs to go up and lead to cancellations. Experts say the best way to prevent that from happening is for residents to be more vigilant about cross-contamination of mixed recyclables. All too often plastic bags, styrofoam and other miscellaneous items are making their way into recycling containers where they don’t belong.

To help combat this issue, the city of Kirkwood and St. Louis County are providing helpful tips to area residents, along with a full list of items eligible for curbside, single-stream recycling. The more material that gets properly recycled, the less that goes into landfills, ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions for cleaner air. For more information on changes coming to local recycling services and details on how one community is responding, visit http://www.kirkwoodmo.org/ and help spread the word!

Every day, the average human breathes in approximately 2,000 gallons of air. As a source of life, it is important to be aware of the air one breathes, as breathing in polluted air can impact one’s health. Air pollution is a critical environmental concern that affects all of us, with ozone pollution being of greatest concern in our area during the hot summer months.

While ozone is not visible to the naked eye, the effects it has on one’s health are crystal clear; and those effects can be from both short-term and long-term exposure to ozone air pollution. Here are five facts about air pollution you might find interesting:

1. Children are more susceptible to the negative impacts air pollution. Because they are so active and breathe in a great deal of air, the negative impact of poor air quality can be greater on kids. As children’s lungs continue to develop, air pollution can hinder the development of their lungs, and lead to them having a decrease in lung function as adults. Developing lungs are also more prone to infection from exposure to air pollution. It can even affect babies while they are still in the womb, with studies revealing increased exposure to particle pollution resulted in a higher risk for preterm birth and lower birth weight.
2. There’s a link between poor air quality and cardiovascular disease. Studies show that air pollution can increase the risk of both heart attacks and stroke.
3. Going outside for a breath of fresh air might be more dangerous than you think. Depending on the day, breathing in air on a poor air quality day can be more harmful than staying inside. During times of orange and red air quality days, it is advised to skip the run in the park and opt for indoor exercise.
4. Where you live matters. Studies have shown long-term exposure to traffic pollution can lead to poor cognition and may increase the risk for dementia. Those living near busy roads and highways are at the most risk with an increase of air pollution from vehicles expanding up to one-third of a mile away. Asthma attacks can be another linked effect of traffic pollution.
5. You can make a difference. Air quality can be improved by reducing pollutants in the first place, which can limit the negative effects on health and the environment. Carpooling, using transit, telecommuting and supporting programs to limit idling can all help reduce emissions, as can using less energy at home and avoiding the use of gas powered equipment when doing yardwork.

Knowledge is power. Knowing more about the air you breathe can help make a difference for everyone. To learn more about health effects of exposure to air pollution and actions you can take to reduce emissions visit, cleanair-stlouis.com or www.lung.org.