Guests:

Oram Miller and Emily Barker are here to talk to us about the Northland Bioneers Conference coming up October 24th and 25th at Willey Hall on the U of M campus.   They will have DVD presentations from the main Bioneers conference held one week earlier in California.  There will also be seveal local speakers as well as round-table discussions for local participants to engage in the green conversation.  This event will also be a no-waste event thanks to the help of Eureka Recycling.  Come to this conference to hear some of the best local and national voices in the green movement!

Cecile Andrews is here to talk about simple living and her new book - Less is More. Now available in bookstores as well as on Amazon.com, Less Is More (New Society Publishers) is an absorbing collection of essays by the Simplicity and Sustainability movements' leading thinkers and philosophers. Co-edited with Wanda Urbanska of the Simple Living television series, Less Is More is a fitting complement to Cecile's previous works, including Slow Is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (New Society Publishers, 2006), The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life (HarperCollins, 1997) and as a contributor to Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.).

Green Info and Tips:

Green Tip #1031 - Green Your Halloween

• Skip the plastic costumes - The hidden dangers and environmental impact should outweigh the convenience of buying a cheap plastic costume for you or your kids.  Watch out for the soft vinyl—similar to shower curtain material—in many mass-produced costumes: that's likely polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which releases dangerous chemicals.  Not exactly something you want covering your face (or your child's)—plus, it can't be recycled.
• Get creative at home - So what to do instead?  With a little planning and creativity, even the least handy DIYers can put together a costume with items they have at home——try stringing old ping pong balls for Wilma Flintstone's classic necklace, or bending old wire hangers into butterfly wings.  Scour your closets (and your friends', and neighbors', and local thrift stores) for flashback fashions you can pair up, trim down, sew together, or dye (naturally, of course).
• Eat—and decorate—locally - Draw inspiration from the harvest bounty; think pumpkins, gourds, straw bales, and corn husks (all from your local farms, of course).  Serve up snacks and nibbles made from other farm-fresh, seasonal produce, like squash soup, carrot cake, and apple cider.  Check in with Local Harvest to find farms and other local spots to get the best of the harvest in your neck of the woods.

DARK GREEN TIP #543e425 - What to do with your VHS Tapes!?!

• If you’d like to help out a worthy cause while cutting back on your clutter, you can donate your old VHS tapes to the Alternative Community Training (ACT) organization. This Missouri based organization provides work for disabled individuals. They currently have more than 55 employees erasing and repacking donated VHS tapes and floppy disks. This program brings in about $500,000 annually. ACT accepts several types of old media for recycling. If you would like to send them your old VHS tapes, click the following link to find out more and to fill out a form.