go green

School Bus Driver Shortage? Organize a Walking School Bus

/ go green, traffic safety /

What do you do when your school district doesn’t have enough school bus drivers to pick up all students in time for class? Some school districts tell parents to drive their kids to school. Others instead encourage parents to organize a “Walking School Bus”. A typical walking school bus is a group of elementary school children walking together to and from school along a fixed route. Kids who live along the route can join the group when it passes their home or designated stops. Depending on the size of the group, one or more parents supervise and teach the kids how to safely navigate car traffic and street crossings. The concept is used around the world, but the pandemic-induced school bus driver shortage has put a spotlight on the concept also in the car-centric United States.

A walking school bus stop sign in Rome, Italy.
A walking school bus stop sign in Rome, Italy, that we snapped in 2016.

Montgomery County, MD, is Leading The Way

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Sharing Bikes

/ go green, thoughts / , ,

Divvy Bikeshare in Chicago photo by the funflector BlogThe first web browser I ever used, had no clickable links. Instead the user had to type in the link that was displayed in the text. It was at CERN (where the world wide web was invented) in the early 1990’s and although it wasn’t super practical, we saw the potential and jumped right into it with excitement. Five years later, I found myself working on the 3G Mobile Network standards and had to explain to friends why it would be handy to have internet access on a cell phone. “Can’t people wait until they get home?!?” was a common comment by most, who only saw Internet as entertainment. Fast forward almost 20 years …

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5 Things to Do for Cute Polar Bears

/ go green /

Are there polar bears on the streets in Sweden? In my teens, I traveled a lot and I surprisingly often got this question from non-Europeans. NO, no, no, of course there are no polar bears on our streets!!! (The gulf stream keeps northern Europe much warmer than northern USA and Canada at those latitudes.)

Polar bear during the blue hour at Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, December 28, 5 pm.
Majestic polar bear at Brookfield Zoo on a cold December day..

Polar bears are adorable and a source for many aww’s on pinterest boards. However, real life polar bears are having a hard time coping with the shrinking ice on and around the North Pole. We all need to step up our efforts to slow down global warming. Did you know that global warming and melting ice is the main reason that more and more cubs get orphaned when their moms can’t find enough food?

Polar bear paw print safety reflector

So what can you do? Here are 5 ideas:

  1. Walk and bike instead of driving, but don’t forget safety reflectors if you are out at dusk or later. As much as you love polar bears, you don’t want to be as invisible as a polar bear in a snow storm!
  2. Replace your gas guzzler with a car that gets more miles on the gallon. Here is some help to find a car that fits your needs  – and the polar bears’!
  3. Your house needs a sweater and a wind breaker. Make sure it has both! Thick fiber glass insulation (sweater) does not help if the air flows straight through (no wind breaker). At a recent energy audit of my own house, I was shocked to see draft coming out of the latch plate in the door frame in a new part of the house. Cold air was coming straight down from the attic and channeled by the frame work. I thought the many inches of fiberglass in the attic would keep my new rooms warm and snug. Ha! If you live in metropolitan Chicago, contact Energy Impact Illinois to find out how to get access to government grants to improve your house. It is easier than you think! You will get a more comfortable home and the polar bears will thank you.
  4. Replace incandescent light bulbs with more efficient ones. If you don’t like the CFL bulbs, there are now LED bulbs on the market for most light fixtures and for dimmers. Choose LED lights with the Energy Star seal to make sure they perform well in the long run. It will be a while until you need to get up on the ladder again to replace the bulb in that ceiling fixture…
  5. Contact your congressman and your senator and tell them you are concerned with global warming and urge them to step up the efforts to increase power from renewable energy sources, protect the arctic from exploration and push for higher car fuel standards.

And, finally, here is today’s fun fact about polar bear fur: It’s long been thought that polar bear fur conducts UV light down to the body to keep polar bears warm. Well, it turns out not to be true. Polar bears appear black on UV cameras, because the fur absorbs the light but it does not make it into the skin and it does not keep the polar bears warm. You can find more in this article by the North American Bear Center.

The funflector team

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The Ultimate No-Brainer / Small Foot Print #4

/ go green, neat stuff / , , ,

There is no Planet B. (duh!) Earth Hour (March 23rd at 8:30 pm) and Earth Day (April 22nd) are here soon to remind us to be careful with the only planet we have. However, it is not enough to be reminded, we also need to TAKE ACTION to leave a healthier planet behind for our children and for our grandchildren. As our followers know, we are all for walking and biking instead of driving, hanging out laundry to dry, reducing waste and recycling and more.

norwex_enviro_cloth
Superclean with just a cloth and water!
norwex_consultant_elisabeth_hubbard


Here is another one, the ultimate no-brainer: With LESS effort, LESS time, LESS money and NO chemicals, you can get a cleaner house, office and car, a healthier family and a happier planet!!! Everyone is a winner: you, your wallet, your kids and the earth – can it get better? So, let me explain:
With Norwex cloths you can clean your house, office, vehicle, windows, kitchen and bathroom – and your face! –  with just water. It is not magic, just Scandinavian technology of incredible skinny polyester fiber (quality microfiber) that picks up everything – dirt, grime, grease, crumbs and dust without additional chemicals. Read more in the Norwex product catalog!
So how can you get your hands on these amazing cloths? Here are three suggestions:
1. Buy them, either online or at my next party in Libertyville, IL (email info(at)funflector.com for dates and directions)
2. Get them for free! Book a real or online/catalog party. Introduce your friends to the amazing cloths and reap the rewards from the generous host gift program. As your consultant, I will guide you through and the online host portal will make it a breeze reaching out to friends and family near and far.
3. Earn an income on them! As a consultant you don’t only get free products, you also get a commission on every sale! Norwex has a figured out how to get you started with no startup cost! I did this a year ago and it’s been an amazing journey where each hour at work makes an impact in someone’s life! Be your own boss AND surround you with an inspirational team.
Take action NOW –  go green AND help yourself get more time for the things you love to do more than cleaning!

Take care,
Elisabeth Hubbard
Owner funflector.com & Norwex Independend Sales Consultant

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Small Foot Print #2

/ go green, thoughts / , ,

We are big fans of making our footprints on earth as small as possible. There is no planet B. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about harnessing the wind. So what more can you do?

Here is our second suggestion: Redefine “bargain”—add the life time of the product to the bargain hunting game. You’ll be surprised how many nice quality items you can buy and still save money over time!
Let’s start with an example. While living in Europe, I used to buy a quality brand of indoor slippers. They would typically last for two years indoors and then be abused as back-yard slippers for another two years. After moving to the US, I bought the same brand of slippers, but a completely different model. At first, I was happy to find them at about half the price compared to Europe. However, after only one year of indoor use, they were ready for the land fill. Instead of leather, the materials were all man-made and were fraying everywhere. The straps had stretched, so the slippers did not stay on my feet any longer. So much for a bargain!

This is how much more it cost for four year’s use of “cheap” slippers:

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Small Foot Print #2 Read More »

Small Foot Print #1

/ go green, neat stuff, thoughts / ,

We are big fans of making our footprints on earth as small as possible. Taking good care of the only planet we have, seems to be the obvious thing to do. So what can you do?

Here is one idea: Harness the wind — hang your laundry to dry in your back yard and save electricity and/or gas (and save on your utility bills)!
We had our clothesline put away during the winter months, but now it is out again! A big load of shirts and pants dried in just a a few hours. If you have some trees to attach the clotheslines to, it’s an investment of a couple of dollars for a clothesline and some clothespins. If, not this Dutch drying rack might be the best solution. We bought ours a couple of years ago and it is still standing strong. A friend recommended it after trying several cheaper ones which didn’t even last through their first Midwestern storm. I was happy to see that this model is still available at Gaiam. For a couple of more days you can even get a $20 discount (and free shipping)! It is easy to mount, folds up quickly and can easily be lifted out of its base to be put away. As an extra bonus, the scent of wind dried clothes and sheets is the best!
The Clothes Line Shop has clothespins and some practical accessories like baskets for clothespins to hang on the line. Good to know for when the green pouch, that I got in France 15-plus years ago wears out.

By the way, did you know our website is 100% powered by windpower?  Isn’t that neat?!

Elisabeth

Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm in England. By Steve Fareham at Wikimedia commons.
Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm in England. By Steve Fareham at Wikimedia commons.

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Walk to School

/ go green, thoughts, traffic safety / , , , ,

Kids benefit so much from walking to school, but fewer and fewer do it on a daily basis. A local walk to school program is a great way to get kids into the habit. Parents at Vienna Elementary (VA) organize “Walking Wednesdays” and here they share their story:

Vienna Elementary, a school with just under 400 students, has been participating in the October International Walk to School Day and a local spring Walk/Bike to School Challenge for several years. Almost all of our students live within 1/2 mile of the school, but about 3/4 are bussed because of  two heavily traveled roads near the school. Bussed students are allowed to walk if accompanied by their parents. Our turnouts for these walk and bike to school days was as high as 120 walkers during nice weather.

Safety reflectors for kids walking to school
The bright orange hand was one of the pedestrian reflectors that Vienna Elementary students could get in their walk-to-school program.

This year we received a grant from Prevention Connections to implement a “Walking Wednesdays” program that was launched on this year’s International Walk to School Day (October 9th). Every Wednesday that a student walks, they are given a small foot charm to put on a chain. A local coffee shop, Cafe Amouri, has donated free coffee for the parents. The program has been an overwhelming success. We are regularly seeing over 150 students from all over town walking on Wednesdays and the charm and coffee table has become a small social scene.
As part of the grant, we purchased several hundred funflector reflective charms to give away on a few special days each year. We gave them out this year on December 7th and 14th and let the kids know there would be a special surprise for walking. Now that it is getting dark early, we wanted to help keep the children be safe when they walk in the dawn and dusk hours or on rainy or overcast days. Turnout was high and the children were very excited to see the reflectors which were in the Paw and Peace Hand designs. Now, almost all of our walkers have one on their backpacks to help make them more visible. Kids like the designs and proudly display them on their backpacks. Because it is not obvious that the funflector tags are highly reflective, we are sending out followup information to the parents about the pedestrian reflectors. Close to St Patrick’s day, we’ll have another funflector day with the shamrock design so that students will have one for their front (typically jacket zipper pull) and one for their backpack if they choose.

Sean McCall, a father of two Vienna Elementary students, is engaged in the PTO walk to school committee and contributed this post. Thanks for sharing your project and experience with our readers!

Elisabeth

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