Our favorite recycled seedling containers

If you're ready to start your garden seedlings indoors, there is no better time than the present. We love the idea of recycling things you already have for seedling containers, so here is a short list of our favorites.

Image and tutorial found here

Yogurt Cups

Let's face it, these cups are plentiful in most households, and they make good starter cups for seedlings. The only word of caution we give is that these cups are a little small for a mature root system, so you may have to transplant them a little sooner than other containers.

Image and tutorial found here

Paper Towel/Toilet Paper Rolls & Plastic Containers

Staying with things that are probably common in your home, there isn't anything more common than toilet paper rolls. This tutorial works with any cardboard roll, and a plastic container, like one for a grocery store rotisserie chicken or salad.

Image and guide found here

Egg Cartons

Egg cartons are great for seedlings, especially cardboard ones. With these cartons you can plant them directly into the ground, as the cardboard will biodegrade directly into your soil.

Image found here, tutorial found here

Newspaper

Newspaper pots have the same advantages of egg cartons, in that you can plant them directly into the ground. They also can look very interesting depending on what section of the paper you use!

These are our favorites- what are yours? Share them in the comments!

Recycling Information Visualized

Yesterday we found this great graphic that shows just how huge the impact of waste can be, in terms that actually make sense to us. Today's blog post is just us sharing this great infographic with you. What are your thoughts? Does this make the issue of Recycling (organics and otherwise) anymore real to you? Let us know! 

Infographic found here.

Featured Article: School Districts Going Green With GreenRU & Chamness Technology

Today we're featuring a piece by GreenRU, all about the work we're doing with them to help reduce organics going to the landfill in a couple of school districts in Iowa. It's great work, and has been a very eye-opening experience to the schools and ourselves as to how much food and other organic products are wasted.

Read more here.

Featured Article: Students Ask Lawmakers For Compost Bill

We love featuring articles about people who are trying to make a greener difference on our blog, however this time we got a chance to sponsor some of them as well. This team of students went to the state legislature to do a waste audit and show them the true effect of organics on the waste stream, and to ask them to consider a bill that would help to make Iowa a little more green through composting.

Check the story out, they're a dedicated group of students and their story is a great show of progress. Read about it here.

Photo Friday

This week we visited Pella Community School District and Ottumwa Community School District, who are implementing GreenRU in their cafeterias, free of charge. Chamness is donating tipping fees at our facility and GreenRU is donating pickup services for the rest of the school year for the districts, and we snapped this photo of one cook slicing pineapple and tossing the scraps directly into the composting GreenRU bucket! Nice!

Photo Friday

Hello everyone, and happy Friday! This friday morning is pretty foggy here in Central Iowa, but we'll let you be the judge yourself with our photo friday post!

Featured Article: Hy-Vee and GreenRU Partner to Keep Organic Waste out of Landfills

Organics recycling is a huge service, but it is one that is fairly new on a commercial scale in the midwest. GreenRU is one company that is working to provide that service in Iowa for Grocery Stores, Restaurants, Hospitals, Schools & Universities, and many other locations. The company has been doing work with a few Hy-Vee locations as well. Hy-Vee is a well known grocery story in the midwest, so it is encouraging to see some of their stores picking up this program. 

This article summarizes some of the work the two have done together, and talks about why the grocery stores using GreenRU decided to transition into organics recycling. It's a great little story, it takes about as much time to read as this blog, and we think you should definitely check it out! 

Read the article here.

Green Gift Wrapping Ideas

During the holidays it is easy to excuse that ever growing pile of barely used, discarded paper because we use it to wrap presents. However, most of this paper isn't recyclable and is heading straight to the landfill every year. Instead of filling a landfill, why not try one of these green gift wrapping ideas?

Brown Paper Packages tied up with string

There is something classic about presents wrapped this way. They're simple, but still nice looking. Using a heavy stock brown paper can be a great choice if you have some careful gift un-wrappers. You could re-use this paper for shipping items, but for the holidays they can be used to make pretty parcels for under the tree. You could also reuse old paper shopping bags to wrap with brown paper. This paper is also recyclable, so you don't have to send it to a landfill once the gifts are unwrapped!  If you like the gift tags on these check them out here. They're free to download! 

Use What's in Your Recycling Bin

Old newspaper can make some surprisingly elegant wrapping! It reuses something that you can recycle, and it curls like ribbon, so it can be just as festive! This picture tutorial explains the method pretty well. 

Reusable Shopping Bags

Reusable shopping bags make great gift bags- it's a present in itself! Another great idea might be a purse. These can be tied simply with a ribbon and they look festive and bright, but don't end up getting tossed out the next day. 

Recycled Wrapping Paper

There are many vendors who now offer 100% Recycled paper with a minimum of 50% post consumer waste. These papers are already recycled and you can find them in a variety of styles, thickness, and colors. The top vendors we've found include Fish Lips, Botanical Paperworks(which offers seed paper, so your giftee can plan the paper later) and Of The Earth.

An Old Sweater

You know your friend who's a bit of a wine collector? Well, now you have a sustainable method for their gift! Sections of an old sweater can be great gift wrapping. The sleeves work especially well for bottles, check out this easy tutorial to make the wrap pictured above here. 

These are our favorite green wrapping ideas, do you have some other ideas? Be sure to share them in the comments! 

Photo Friday

Happy friday everyone! Hope you're all having a good start to December with these unusually warm temperatures, although we're kind of missing the snow we're used to! However, we still fondly remember green grass!

Featured Article: 5 Steps to Prep Your Compost Pile for the Winter

Winter coats are definitely out of closets with the weather we've been experiencing in Iowa lately. It's important to remember your plants when winterizing, but it's also important to remember your home composting pile. One definite benefit of dropping off your compostable to a commercial composter is that you don't have to winterize your heap, the commercial facility will handle that for you. However, if you do have a low level of organic waste and compost at home, this article will really help you out. It's got all the easy steps you need to take to make sure your organics recycling is effective year round.

Do you take any other steps to winterize your heap? Let us know in the comments!

Read the original article here.

Photo Friday

Happy friday! This week our photo shows you how we turn our compost! Some of you may be familiar with how to turn a home compost heap, but this is how we do it.

Did you snap any great shots this week? Feel free to post the links in our comments!

Featured Article: Carbon Neutral Higher Education

This featured article is a little different than our usual bizarre sustainable. This week we're exploring the idea of being carbon neutral in higher education. Luther College in Decorah, IA is hard at work toward their goal of being carbon neutral, and the school is doing a great job.

As Professor Jim Martin-Schramm says, "Colleges aren't supposed to be a mirror for society, we are supposed to be a model." Schools enstill values in their students, and many private and public college across Iowa are aiming to be more sustainable. It's showing their students that a sustainable lifestyle is goal worth working to attain.

As a company that deals with compost, we've worked with a diverse group of companies and institutions to make them more sustainable through their waste stream. When speaking about sustainability waste stream is a part of the topic often left out in favor for wind and solar power and electricity saving measures, or local produce shopping. Part of that may be the 'yuck' factor associated with talking about what we waste, but it is a crucial element of the conversation.

We commend Luther for their efforts, and we hope that they reach their carbon neutral goals. If other colleges wish to shrink their footprint as well, we encourage them to consider their waste stream and think about what could be diverted from landfills. We also encourage them to contact us about organic waste diversion.

Read the original article from The Des Moines Register here.

Steps to a Greener 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We're blogging a little early today, so we can get to you before your cook-out! According to an estimate by the U.S, Department of Energy, around 60 million Americans have BBQs today! With all the celebrations going on it is hard to remember to keep your grilling 'green'. However, we have a few simple steps to make your holiday cooking a little more eco-friendly.

Compostable over biodegradable- We hate to say it, but the word biodegradable has been tainted. Companies use the term all the time, even if their product is only biodegradable over 50 years. Compostable products, however, can go straight in with your compost and have to be certified in order to be labeled compostable.

Clean your grill- leftover food and grease in your grill leads to excess smoke, and just isn't healthy for your grill or the environment. Make sure to thoroughly clean your grill and you'll be good to go! Baking Soda is a great, natural grill killer too, just use a wire brush and an equal parts mixture of Baking Soda and water and you'll have a clean grill in no time!

Recycle your cans and bottles- Make sure you're sorting and recycling your waste. Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour on average, and the majority are thrown away. Recycling your bottles and cans is an easy way to make your cook-out a little bit greener.

Use organic charcoal in your grill- Overall, charcoal grills aren't great for the environment, however if you use an organic charcoal it will burn cleaner, as it is made from untreated wood, rather than traditional charcoal which is treated with chemicals and other additives to make it burn longer.

Buy a vinyl tablecloth, rather than a paper or plastic throw-away- This will save you the money of buying a flimsy tablecloth each year, and you're keeping that paper/plastic one out of landfills.

Use recycled aluminum foil for your grilling- Some brands now offer 100% recycled aluminum foil, most in cases made from 100% recycled paperboard.

Buy your food locally- buying from local farmers means you can find pesticide-free produce and you'll boost your local economy! It also doesn't hurt that those farmers just have to drive it into town, rather than across the country.

Use natural pest remedies- Nobody likes having bugs at the party! We have a full post about natural bug repellants, but another trick is to throw sage and rosemary on hot coals, if you're using a charcoal grill. They will make your yard smell great, and it will keep Mosquitos away. Citronella candles also make great bug repellants.