Category Archives: Living Green

Shift Your Spending This Holiday Season

The official holiday shopping season kicks off the day after Thanksgiving with a day known as Black Friday. Practically everyone knows that.

But have you heard about Small Business Saturday? This shopping holiday is held the Saturday after Thanksgiving and encourages shoppers to visit their local brick and motor businesses.

Local First Utah’s Shift Your Spending Week kicks off on Friday, November 29th with a similar goal. They suggest setting a goal to shift 10% of your spending this holiday season towards locally owned businesses.

According to them, if we all shift just 10% of our spending to local businesses, on a yearly basis, $1.3 million will stay in the Utah economy.

Shop e2

Salt Lake City’s e2 businesses are local businesses that have made a commitment to reduce their environmental impact.

Be sure to stop by Earth Goods General Store, Liberty Heights Fresh, Cali’s Natural Foods, Artistic Framing Company, C.G. Sparks, Retro Rose, The King’s English Bookshop, Golden Braid Books, Landis Lifestyle Salon, Matrix Spa, Sacred Mountain Healing Center, Cactus and Tropicals, Especially for You and Huddart Floral Company this holiday season.

Local First Utah’s Top Ten Ideas to Shift Your Spending this Holiday Season

Support local artists! Check out local galleries or pottery studios for unique, handmade gifts.
Spend a day in a neighborhood business district. Stroll through your nearest cluster of locally-owned businesses. In Salt Lake City, check out OnlyInSaltLakeCity.com for detailed neighborhood descriptions.
Give the gift of fine dining! Many locally owned restaurants provide gift certificates which can be used year round.
Shop locally, online. Many local retailers and manufacturers also have a convenient online option. There is no need to send the money to an out-of-state megalith.
Browse and buy at a your local bookstore.
Give an educational adventure. Buy memberships to local museums, gardens, zoos or aviaries.
Make a gift basket filled with Utah’s Own products.
Give the gift of experience: buy certificates to a locally owned spa, yoga studio or cooking school.
Donate to a local non-profit on behalf of a like-minded friend.
Winter markets abound throughout the state allowing craftspeople and artisans to sell their hand-crafted goods directly to the public. Pick up a one of a kind gift at a market near you!

Creative Ways to Spend Black Friday

Sotto via Flickr

Over the past decade, the day after Thanksgiving has come to be known as Black Friday. Heralded as the beginning of the holiday shopping season, big box retailers across the country open early and stay open late, offering special promotions and discounts to draw in shoppers.

If fighting the crowds isn’t your cup of tea, we’ve got some creative ways to spend your Black Friday. Continue reading →

Tips to Green Your Thanksgiving

Photo Credits: misterjt, The Vault DFW, oogoom, trpnblies7 via Flickr.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner! And we have some tips to help you “green” the holiday that is synonymous with giving thanks (and over indulgence).

Buy local.

Stop by the SLC Winter Market this Saturday (November 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) to pick up essentials like root vegetables (carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams), hearty greens like kale, and specialty items like honey.
Also check out Cali’s Natural Foods, a Salt Lake City e2 business, for tasty local produce (open on Fridays and Saturdays). If you need some inspiration, Buzzfeed has delicious vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes!
What about the turkey? If you cannot imagine Thanksgiving without one, there are some great local resources for free range, hormone-free (dare we say happy?) turkey. Liberty Heights Fresh, a another e2 business, offers two choices, in addition to lots of other local veggies and specialty foods. Continue reading →

Have a Green Halloween!

Photo Credits via Flickr: Paul Stein, Nick Thompson, Steven Depolo & Pamela Link.

Happy Halloween, Salt Lake City!

Tonight, think outside the candy bag with some creative ideas from Green Halloween.

A few of our favorites:

Crayons
Acorns
Honey sticks
Fruit snacks or fruit leather
Feathers
Mini granola bars

Check out the full list at GreenHalloween.org.

Film Screening: The City Dark

Thursday, October 24 at 7:00 p.m.
Broadway Centre Cinemas (111 E 300 S)
Suggested donation of $5-10

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1fTkF8PIu0&w=560&h=315]

Join KUED and the Utah Society for Environmental Education for a FREE film screening of The City Dark.

Is darkness becoming extinct?

When filmmaker Ian Cheney moves from rural Maine to New York City and discovers streets awash in light and skies devoid of stars, he embarks on a journey to America’s brightest and darkest corners, asking astronomers, cancer researchers and ecologists what is lost in the glare of city lights.

Blending a humorous, searching narrative with poetic footage of the night sky, The City Dark provides a fascinating introduction to the science of the dark and an exploration of our relationship to the stars.

A panel discussion will follow.

Winter Farmers Market Arrives Nov 9

Although the Downtown Farmers Market is in its final days of the season, another farmers market is on the horizon for Salt Lake City residents.

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and the Downtown Alliance recently announced the arrival of a new Winter Farmers Market that will take up residence in the Rio Grande Depot.

Opening day is scheduled for Saturday, November 9. The Winter Farmers Market will take place every other Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through April 26.

Officials are heralding this as an important step towards a year round market, similar to those seen in Seattle, Portland and Madison, Wisconsin.

Roughly 50 vendors are slated to participate, offering fresh produce, meat, bread, honey, eggs and other items.

Extra ‘Leaves Only’ Bins Now Available

Crisp air, bright colors and falling leaves — fall is in full swing in Salt Lake City!

But what should you do with all of those extra leaves?

Place them in your curbside compost bin (i.e. tan can) for weekly pick up. Raking weekly should keep your leaves from piling up.
Try composting your leaves at home with a backyard compost bin, or by mulching them into your grass, flower beds or gardens. Gotta love free soil amendment!
Request an extra ‘leaves only’ bin.

Starting today, Salt Lake City is offering special ‘leaves only’ bins by request. Here are some quick facts about the program:

Bins will be provided on a first come, first served basis.
‘Leaves only’ bins are provided free of charge and are intended to supplement resident’s curbside compost bin in the event of excess leaves.
Bins will be collected weekly on your curbside collection day throughout the fall.

To request your ‘leaves only’ bin, call (801) 535-6999 or email SLCgreen@slcgov.com. Please provide your name, address and phone number.

Questions? Let us know!

Gold Fever Film Screening this Thursday

Westminster College, 1840 S. 1300 E., Malouf 201
Thursday, October 17 @ 8:00 p.m.

Watch the trailer.

Tragic and inspiring, Gold Fever witnesses the arrival of Goldcorp Inc to a remote Guatemalan village. 500 years after the conquistadors invaded, and still reeling from decades of US-backed repression, the Mayans of San Miguel Ixtahuacán find themselves on the front lines of an increasingly globalized world. Together with members of their divided community, and in the face of grave consequences, Diodora, Crisanta and Gregoria resist the threat to their ancestral lands.

Meanwhile, in the North, fearful investors flock to gold and some call for the return of the gold standard. Commentators Noam Chomsky, Magalí Rey Rosa, and “economic hitman” John Perkins draw connections between the stratospheric power of Wall Street and San Miguel’s struggle, asking “what is the value of the one place we have to live?”

Winner of the Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prix at the 2013 Montreal First Peoples Festival, Gold Fever is a hard-hitting documentary about the destructive and exploitative impacts of transnational mining.

Are you up for a challenge?

October 5-12, 2013 is Eat Local Week in Salt Lake City, and there are many events taking place to celebrate our community of local-foodists.

Eat Local Week aims to increase awareness of our foodshed, provide information and resources for eating locally, and build a community hungry for local food–making Utah a more nourishing place.

Eat Local Week also introduces the Eat Local Challenge! The Challenge is simple, eat as local as you can. The standard challenge is only eating food that comes from within a 250 mile radius. Not ready for that? Come up with a challenge that works for you! Choose a couple of food groups to get locally and stay true to them. Be creative, challenge yourself, and have fun!

Continue reading →

Fairpark Takes a Promenade

This is a guest blog written by Sara Rose Tannenbaum of Salt Lake City’s SmartTrips Program.

On Saturday September 21^st, over 40 neighbors gathered on the corner of 300 North and 900 West. While adults mingled under the shade of the giant Coca-Cola billboard, kids chased chickens and discovered eggs in the maze of sunflowers.

The reason for their gathering was the Fairpark Promenade, a collaborative “Community Walk around the Block” hosted by the Fairpark Community Council, the Urban Growth Garden and SmartTrips Fairpark.