Organic garden at the White House

One week ago, our blog was about Roger Doiron's campaign to establish an organic vegetable garden in the White House grounds. His work with Eat the View, along with other groups, including White House Organic Farm Project and others, has paid off.

Michelle Obama announced her intention to establish an organic vegetable garden at the White House. Though details are not confirmed yet, speculators predict that the garden will be planted on the South Lawn near the fountain. The residence staff is also expected to be responsible for the upkeep of the garden, rather than the National Park Service staffers that are generally responsible for the White House Grounds.

Once built, the Obama's garden will be the first at the White House since the Roosevelt's Victory Garden, built during World War II.

Activists hope that the White House garden will set an example to the nation about growing and eating healthy food. Obama seemed to confirm this when she said she "want[s] the White House to be a place of education and awareness."

Earth Hour

March 28 is approaching quickly. Next Saturday, the organization Earth Hour is asking people to turn their lights off for one hour to "vote for the Earth." Leaving the lights on, on the other hand, is a vote for global warming.

Earth Hour was started in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million people turned their lights off for one hour. By 2008 it was a global phenomenon and major landmarks including the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Colosseum participated in the event. Over 50 million participated that year.

This year, Earth Hour has a goal of 1 billion votes for the Earth. Those interested can find out more information, including how to spread the word at their website.

Phone Books

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has a program to reduce and recycle phone books. It offers suggestions to reduce the numbers of phone books that you receive from various vendors and gives recycling suggestions.

They also provide a link to the Phone Book Project, an initiative by the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI). The PSI worked with various phone book companies, recyclers and local governments to develop a voluntary pledge for phone book distributors, that includes:

- Opt-out (subscribers can request NOT to get the phone book).
- Environmental production components (e.g., use of recycled content, soy inks, etc.).
- Recycling best practices.

According to Oregon DEQ, only 20% of phone books are recycled on a national scale. By making this information regarding phone book recycling and opt-out policy more public, the amount of phone book waste can be greatly reduced.



Phone Book Project
Oregon DEQ - Phonebooks