By Craig Jung, StLouisGreen.com Healthy Planet Green Living Editor
Finally, fall is on its way here, and with it comes all the great events we are used to seeing every September!
The Green Homes Festival you might remember from last September is a little different this year. It is the Green Homes and Great Health Festival, and the new focus on health means that you can get all the same great information about greening your homes, as well as yoga, Tai Chi, free health screenings, and everything else you need to know about sustaining our lives here on Planet Earth. It’s 9am to 5pm on September 24th.
If you are looking for a cool volunteer opportunity, you’re going to love this one. The Rams need friendly volunteers for their Green Team. You get in free to the Rams game, and you’ll work alongside other volunteers to collect recyclables from fans. This could be a fun volunteer activity to do with a group from work, your church, or even a family activity that parents and kids can enjoy together. Just email lboaz@rams.nfl.com if you are interested!
Don’t forget, you can still participate in the Cardinals “4 A Greener Game” program to collect recyclables between innings.
If you don’t yet know how to green your Back to School experience, here are a few tips to get the school year started off right. Green school supplies are widely available – especially paper and notebooks made with recycled products. Bagless lunches have become a no-brainer. There are so many great reusable lunch bags, food containers, and even cute washable sandwich bags available for sale. Do you have a favorite washable or reusable lunch product? Tell us what it is on our St. Louis Green Facebook page!
The Butterfly House is having a great event for kids ages 7 and up with their families. From 11am to 2pm, kids get to learn about Monarch butterflies, their life cycle, migration patterns, and how to tag live monarchs. The class is included with the price of admission. Get more information about this class and these amazing creatures at
www.butterflyhouse.org.
Now that it’s cooling off just enough to go outside and get your hands in the dirt, it’s time to start thinking about fall planting. As much work as scientists are doing on carbon sequestration, don’t forget one of the best and easiest ways to deal with carbon is by planting a tree. And fall is the best time to plant many trees! As you are planning your fall plantings, be sure to save your plastic pots for the Missouri Botanical Gardens recycling drive. They collect plastic plant pots of all types every fall, so just set those aside until it’s time to recycle! What else should we be doing in our gardens this fall? Tell us on Facebook and share the idea with us all!
And make sure you stop by the 2nd Annual Food & Farmers Expo, Sept. 18, 10 am – 4 pm, at the Webster Groves Recreation Center. Sponsored by The Healthy Planet. There will be plenty of great samples from the people who grow your food.