October Tiny Challenge!
By tinychoices | October 1, 2008
After all the talk about an August Tiny Challenge, um, we kind of fizzled. See, there were vacations, and summer, and …. well, do you forgive us? do you want to try again? Because we’ve got a REALLY GOOD idea!
We posted an easy peasy tip this weekend that suggested we all take a moment and help out a friend to make an environmental decision.
The examples we gave on the Easy Peasy tip were simple, but have the opportunity to really help a friend out:
- If you borrow someone’s car, pump up the tires to specification pressure (at least) before you give it back.
- If you’re adding air to your own bike tires, do so for a friend as well.
- Do you have lots and lots and lots of reusable bags? Maybe you’ve acquired them at conferences, or through donations to your favorite charities? Give your friends gifts in the extra ones, and tell them there’s no need to return.
- When you visit your relatives, on the way out the door ask if they’ve got any old batteries you can take to recycle.
For (another) example: in August, Jenn lent Karina her travel soap dish so Karina didn’t have to buy a new (and most likely plastic) one when she went away on vacation last month. And last week Karina was at a committee meeting where dinner was served, but without a recycling bin. She gathered up the empty bottles (even stuck some in her purse!) and carried them until she found a recycling bin. These things weren’t so hard, but they were really helpful!
So how about this: we each try to do at least one green good deed every week. We’ll check back in once a week and see how y’all are doing, and you can tell us all what kinds of green good deeds you’re doing. It will help our friends, it will help the environment, and it will help float some goodness out into the universe.
Are you in? Let us know in the comments!
Topics: Activism | 6 Comments »
So hello everyone. First post here though been checking in for a while now.
My green good deed for the week was to gather up the unusable ribbon samples – there are LOTS – from around the office and donate them to the YMCA to use for arts & crafts activities in their asylum seekers program. Easy because I know a volunteer there, and partly inspired by the recent article I have read about Tom Szaky from TerraCycle, who makes new products from unusable packaging.
I’m sure there are lots of companies that have unusable or defective products that go straight into the bin without being recycled or re-assigned. Any thoughts on this?
For full disclosure I work as a designer in creative marketing for Ingredients Matter – developer of fabrics from recycled materials.
that sounds like a great program, Andrew! I’m not sure if something exists to collect or if you would have to just call around.
We have something like that here in Denver called Creative Exchange. My husband is a teacher and we discovered the organization because they collect the donations and let kids use them for art projects and so on. Here’s the link: http://www.geocities.com/anitaclark_crx/index.html
I’m going to join in this challenge! I take public transit to work two days per week and notice gads of trash (cups, candy wrappers, soda bottles) on my one mile walk from the train to my office. I’ve been thinking about bringing a bag with me to collect some of the trash along the way. I will commit to finally starting that this month!
We have one of these plsces, too. It is called the Reuse Exchange and is operated by our local Keep America Beautiful affliliate. You never know what you might find there. Once I found thousands of dollars worth of Italian tiles! Not the best color selections, but perfect for teaching kids art projects using recycled materials.
Just like a recycling bin, our office has set up a re-use bin with items that eventually go to this center.
[...] was very inspired by the October Tiny Challenge to do small deeds that help others make green choices. I’m going to take it further by doing [...]
[...] it’s been a while since we announced our October Tiny Challenge – to do a green good deed! and it’s time to check in. Also, there is just ONE MORE WEEK left [...]