If you’re looking to eliminate waste from your daily routine, join I Love A Clean San Diego for our free Green Routines Webinar on Wednesday, November 1 at 5 p.m.
During this one-hour webinar, we’ll cover:
Zero waste practices to adopt in the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and home common areas
Sustainable product swaps
Recommendations for local zero waste businesses and shops
Recipes for DIY zero waste cleaning and personal care products
The founders of Scisters Salon and Apothecary, a local zero waste salon and refill shop, will be joining as our guest speakers to share more about their zero waste journeys in their business and personal lives.
Registration is required. Participants that cannot attend live are encouraged to register to receive the recording and additional resources. Thank you to the County of San Diego for sponsoring this event!
Did you know that we produce almost 400 million tons of plastic each year across the globe?
Join I Love A Clean San Diego on Thursday, February 22 at 5 p.m. for our free Say No To Single-Use Plastic webinar on eliminating plastic waste through zero waste swaps!
During the one-hour webinar, you’ll learn:
How to properly recycle or dispose of the plastic waste you do create
What happens to plastic after we use it and throw it away
Zero waste product swaps for single-use items
Why it’s so important for our health and the health of the environment to reduce plastic usage
Registration is required. A recording of the webinar and resources will be shared to all registrants after the event. Thank you to the City of Encinitas for sponsoring this event!
Join ILACSD as we team up with the City of Carlsbad to bring you Seaside Sustainability: Ditching Disposables on Wednesday, June 20th from 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM! We are excited to help spread the word about sustainable practices and make it easy for residents to implement these actions into their everyday lives by providing FREE a reusable 3-in-1 spork and a stainless steel straw! At three locations throughout Carlsbad, ILACSD will be talking with community members about minimizing consumption of single-use plastics, reducing food waste, and building sustainable habits. Communities member will then be able to put that knowledge into action by using the reusable items that will be handed out. Stroll through Carlsbad, enjoy a bite to eat, and take pride in the plastic utensils and straws that won’t end up in a landfill!
Stop by the ILACSD booth and grab your reusable utensils and straw at one of the following locations:
Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant | 2968 State Street
Las Olas Mexican Restaurant | 2939 Carlsbad Blvd
C’Est La Vie | 2805 Roosevelt Street
Our education team just celebrated the end of our first series of community workshops! by hosting a Zero Waste Summit!
The Zero Waste Summit, a culmination of our Sustainable Living Series, brought together participants from throughout San Diego County to learn the ins and outs of going zero waste. At the Summit, participants explored Ocean Knoll Farm, while exchanging ideas for incorporating zero waste practices into their everyday lives. With help from The City of Encinitas, Jimbo’s, the Solana Center, Healthy Day Partners, and ILACSD, workshop goers went home with zero waste toolkits to jumpstart a more eco-conscious lifestyle. Take a closer look at how the event unfolded!
Participants were given the opportunity to meander through Ocean Knoll Farm, which provides fresh produce for local Encinitas school lunches, and check out the incredible work of Healthy Day Partners.
Thank you to Healthy Day Partners for providing an incredible space for our workshops at Ocean Knoll Farm!
Host a swap & shop at your office or your next get together with friends and family!
Participants discussed tips and tricks for going zero waste with experts from The City of Encinitas, Healthy Day Partners, ILACSD, The Solana Center, and Jimbo’s. Each booth focused on a specific zero waste topic including recipes for natural cleaners, the importance and simplicity of at-home composting, the personal and environmental benefits of purchasing local and organic produce, and were provided reusable containers and bags for restaurant left-overs and grocery shopping.
At the summit, participants visited our partner booths to get zero waste tips, tricks and giveaways!
The speaker panel that included representatives from The City of Encinitas, EDCO, Snooze Eatery, and Kitchens for Good, provided participants with valuable information, advice, and personal experiences to build the foundation for starting a zero waste lifestyle.
Participants enjoyed letting their creativity shine as they repurposed glass bottles into decorative vases and hummingbird feeders.
Repurposing is a great way to keep everyday items out of the landfill. Wine bottles become decor, or an old toy could become a planter.
Workshop goers were given the opportunity to enter a free raffle where they had the chance to win compost bins and a variety of reusable items including reusable produce bags, travel utensils, water bottles, metal straws, coffee thermoses, and more!
All of our participants walked away with at least one new tool to start on their way to zero waste!
A huge thank you goes out to all of our participants and partners who made the Sustainable Living Series such a success!
To participate in an upcoming workshop or cleanup, visit CleanSD.org!
It is never too early to take action towards waste reduction. After meeting with the Fallbrook Street Elementary School Recycling Club, Emily wanted to share the students’ enthusiasm about recycling with all of you! Read on for some inspiration to start a recycling program at a school or office near you!
From the time students enter the halls of Fallbrook Street Elementary School, they are coached to become strong leaders. Joshua Mills’ 5th grade class is a shining example, leading the school in efforts to be more environmentally active. As part of their rotating class jobs, students serve as recycling collectors, traveling from classroom to classroom “like ninjas” so as not to disrupt the learning environment. They compile the school’s recycling into a central bin and remove any non-recyclable items.
You don’t have to be a student to be a recycling ninja! Check out the Ocean Conservancy’s Recycling Ninja pledge here.
What keeps them motivated to be dedicated recyclers? “Recycling is important to me because I like to have a clean environment,” said one student. “I like to keep my school clean,” said another. Many of them echoed this sentiment: “I love to recycle because I don’t want paper going to the landfills because you can recycle and reuse it.” To help encourage other students and teachers to adopt this perspective, they created informative posters displayed around campus and presented at a school-wide leadership rally.
As they look ahead to 6th grade, the students are excited to continue this recycling program. One student mentioned he is transferring schools, but intends to bring this knowledge with him to his new school.
The contents of this jar represent items commonly mistaken as food by marine life such as albatross. These items include plastic utensils, a lighter, and bottle caps.
During I Love A Clean San Diego’s free presentation, we built upon their recycling foundation and discussed next steps – further ways to reduce overall lunch waste. When I left, Mr. Mills was already scheming on how to teach math through a classroom worm bin.
To conclude our interview, I asked the students one thing they want the people of San Diego to know. They had some sound and simple words to live by:
“Don’t put things that you shouldn’t recycle in the recycling bin.”
“Don’t pollute because we won’t have good air.”
“If you see some garbage, pick it up, even if it’s not yours.”
“Pick up after your cats and dogs.”
Based on the variety of these responses, we can see how one small step towards waste diversion can lead to a lifetime of environmentally-minded choices.
Comment below to tell us about what your school is doing to help keep your community clean and green!
Interested in having our educators visit your classroom? We are currently scheduling for the 2015-2016 school year. To schedule, please email our education department at education@cleansd.org.
Today’s blog comes from ILACSD Education Manager, Erika! With more than half of the ILACSD team either getting married or involved in a wedding this summer, it was a no-brainer to put together some eco-friendly party planning tips! Read on to learn more about how you can plan a zero waste bridal shower for the blushing bride in your life!
Wedding season is quickly approaching. As people gear up for cocktails and bouquets, remember to ditch the disposables and choose eco-friendly alternatives. Here’s how I planned a zero waste bridal shower:
Last month, I threw my sister a bridal shower. We both live sustainably, so we tried to create a party which reflected our lifestyles. We focused on 4 aspects that most showers and for that matter, parties in general, include: invitations, decorations, food and favors.
Invitations: We decided on using evites rather than hard copies. There are many other similar online invitation options, including another staff favorite, Paperless Post. Included were green tips:
Sending evites is great for the environment and it’s also a huge time-saver!
If your heart is set on sending out hard copy invitations, check out some of these eco-friendly alternatives!
Decorations: We focused on decorating with items we already had, and only buying things that we would use again. We mainly used flowers and succulents in vases that we already had. For more cohesion, we bought burlap, cut them into strips to use as bows and accents. We also decorated with tons of framed pictures. With some of the pictures, I included text showing some of the grooms favorite things about the bride-to-be.
Use items you already have to reduce waste and save on expenses!
Food: We fixed a vegetarian brunch, which included, homemade granola, fruit from the local farmers market, and substituting mushrooms for chicken in an Asian fusion salad. Platters, plates, utensils, and napkins were all reusable.
Animal products account for California’s largest water use. Try some vegetarian recipes to help conserve water!
Eco tip: Animal products account for California’s largest water use. Try using meat as a side or going without!
Gifts: Guests went all out with reusable gift ideas! One gift was wrapped in a handmade blanket, one was in a basket, and others were wrapped in dish towels!
No gift wrap = less waste and less cleanup!
Favors: We elected for making our own trail mix. Trail mix was bought in bulk using reusable jars and bulk bags. The mix was distributed into mason jars amounting to zero waste!
There are tons of zero waste favor ideas! Find more on our Pinterest here!
Do you have other eco-friendly party planning tips? Share them in the comments below or on our social media networks: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
Be on the look out this June for our blog about eco-friendly wedding tips brought to you by our brides-to-be Natalie, Sarah and Emily!
