http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-ways-to-show-trees-the-love.html
5 Ways to Show Trees the Love
Melissa Breyer, Senior Editor, Healthy & Green Living
A holiday devoted to trees, now isn’t that the best? The idea of Arbor Day started on January 4, 1872, when J. Sterling Morton, then a member of the Nebraska Board of Agriculture, introduced a resolution that: “Wednesday, the tenth day of April, 1872, be and the same is hereby especially set apart and consecrated for the planting of trees in the State of Nebraska and the State Board of Agriculture hereby name it Arbor Day; and to urge upon the people of the State the vital importance of tree planting ….” Since then, the holiday has spread across the country. How can you celebrate this noble day? Well, plant a tree of course. You can visit the Arbor Day website for step-by-step instructions. No yard? you can also explore different ways to give a gift of a tree or tree-planting.
Besides actually sinking a tree into soil, there are other ways to support arboreal respect and abundance–here’s five places to start.
1. Mind your paper towels and napkins. Virgin fiber is that which comes straight from a tree. Doesn’t it seem a waste to use a tree for a single-use item? Well how’s this: If every household in the United States replaced one roll of virgin-fiber paper towels with 100 percent recycled paper towels, we could save 1.4 million trees. If every household in the United States replaced just one package of virgin fiber napkins with 100 percent recycled ones, we could save 1 million trees. With those numbers in mind, using virgin fiber for single use items seems simply outrageous. For more facts and details about alternatives, see Paper Towels and Napkins Vs. Cloth.
2. Embrace your “trash” trees. Sumacs, pincherries, chokecherries, wild plums, and lots of other fast-growing native trees–weeds, as some people like to call them–spring up and grow like mad. While many look at these “trash” trees as a nuisance near refined gardens, a tree by any other name is still a tree! The best part? Most of these trees are heaven for wild bird populations!
3. Read The Lorax. Start an Arbor Day tradition with an annual read of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, the amazing children’s story that strikes an ecological warning about the dangers of clear-cutting, pollution, and disregard for the earth’s environment. Read Eric’s awesome lit crit post about The Lorax here.
4. Tame the junk mail beast. In a single year Americans receive 19 billion catalogs in the mail. That boils down to 3.6 million tons of paper at the cost of 53 million trees. Ouch. And that’s not to mention all the rest of the junky junk mail that seems to flood our mailboxes like a swarm of locusts. Read Stop Junk Mail, Save a Tree to learn how to beat the pulp out of this ongoing problem.
5. Get in the tree spirit. According to ancient Celtic lore, there is a magical tree associated with each month of the year. Find out which one is your helper and learn valuable information about your personality from the wisdom of the trees. Read Your Celtic Tree Horoscope to see which tree you are.
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27 comments
add your comment »I like these suggestions. We read the Lorax at our library on Arbor day and it sparked quite a discussion! Thank you.
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thankyou...
Kabin
Konteyner
mega kabin
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Thank you very much, great ideas!
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Yes! We must love the trees.
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Thank You.Excellent ideas!
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We are also planting Giant Sequoia and Incense cedars, they eat large amounts of CO2 are disease resistant and Sequoia are humidifiers and are insect resistant. Along with the hardwoods we will start planting soon we also plan on some giant bamboo. It is called Moso, it produces culms up to 70 feet tall, it is used for timber, flooring, and the shoots are edible, this is the kind that is grown in vast forests in China, If we grow it here as a crop in NC perhaps we can get some of the flooring and furniture factories to reopen to use the product and get some folks back to work.
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We are also planting trees. We plan to cut the dying pines (bark beetle killed) and use the timber and replant with native hard woods for the area, nut and fruit trees for wildlife, and hybrid poplar for fast growing firewood. We plan to put in solar water heater for domestic and radiant floor heat so we won't need kero or firewood so much. Our electric comes from coal. We have cut our use with insulation, insulating curtiain liners (lowes 20-25$ per single window) cfls and leds, lcd monitors, we have not done this overnight we have been at it for about 7 years or so. We have only been in this house for just over 2 years but have cut our energy use by almost half. The local electric coop rep was dismissive when I brought up solar panels a few months ago..oh you ll never make your money back, let us install a cutoff that shuts down your ac and water heater during high use times..I said well I plan to put in a solar water heater it wont be your concern and a solar panel set up for our well pump(and a water tank to take the strain of the pressure tank off the pump. We estimate that using rain water, solar water pump/heat and gray water irrigation in the orchard will save 40,000 gal and another 60-100$ month off the power bill. The goal is to take our power use from 3300kwhrs(all time high), current is 1200-1500kwhrs down to 500kwrs. So far we are more comfortable, have tv puters and not sitting in the dark. Fridge and induction cooker are next(they are failing) we recycle them.
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We closely limit the paper towels and other paper products we use. A roll lasts a couple weeks generally.
I have microfiber towels that are supposed to last for years, before that i always kept a rotation of cloth rags to clean up in the kitchen. I have cotton napkins that go in the load of sheets. Taking napkins from fast food place does not stop the trees from being chopped and chipped up for paper. We have done all we can to get off mailing lists..I contact who ever and say well I'm not going to buy, "I am on a fixed income, but your junk mail makes nice mulch for my garden". To recycle paper I would have to drive 40 miles to the nearest city. Our local recycle only takes aluminum and steel cans, #1 & 2 plastic and news paper card board is in a town 20 miles away, I save it till I have several errands to run there then take it with. We also really limit packaging , and are growing a garden so we won't be buying our veggies from the market. We also get honey, eggs and beef from local free range, no hormone , grass fed, and our neighbors don't grow gmo things so the honey is pretty much pure and natural. Our place is 8 3/4 acres 2 1/2 ac yard that is becoming food garden-edible landscape and 7 ac of woods.
We plan on rain harvest and gray water reuse.
We saved up and bought a Bosch Nexxt 500 uses only 1 tablespoon of soap and 1 tables spoon of oxyclean (make my own with equal parts baking soda / borax) will switch to soap. will try soapnuts based soon.
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Every Spring, since I bought my property 6 years ago, I have planted trees. This Spring I planted 3 so far, with 1 more to go in the ground tomorrow. I love my trees!
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Excellent ideas! :)
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