Earth Day 2010 is almost here and we wanted to know how our readers will be celebrating?

The Our Everyday Earth team will be going green this Earth Day by switching off all of our electricity consuming items at home for an hour and then eating an all organic meal made from locally grown produce.

We’ve seen an increase in local events to celebrate Earth Day and 2010 promises to be the best yet!

So leave us a comment telling us how you plan to celebrate the greenest day of the year, we’d love to hear from you… Have a happy Earth Day 2010!!!

Last week my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the “Organic in the City” fashion show at the Discovery Gardens here in Dallas, Texas.

The event took place on Wednesday the 10th of March and we went along with Mom, Sharen, to see the wonderful line up of organic clothing from a range of excellent designers.

The Organic In The City Fashion Show - Dallas, Texas

After sampling some delicious appetizers courtesy of the Blue Mesa catering group we moved into a fabulous runway room and experienced a cutting edge sustainable and organic couture fashion show. This was the Texas Discovery Gardens’ second annual Organic in the City Fashion Show and Auction and it shows signs of growing into a huge event.

Organic Clothing Galore!

We enjoyed an evening of fashion and the event was opened by WFAA’s Gloria Campos, it was a treat to say hello to her in person at the pre-show appetizer mingle too! The shows iconic symbol is an elegant lady with butterfly wings and the show included the icon herself striking a pose almost identical to the logo, let’s just say the whole production had been very well rehearsed!

The Iconic Butterfly Model

The hour long show featured several organic designers which included the talented Ross Bennett with a new collection that made green fashion elegant and fun, and Lindsay Weatherread with a look at her exciting new collection described as “origami for the body.”

Ross Bennett - Featured Organic Designer

At the end of the show there was a really neat live auction where everyone was invited to bid on the clothes we had just seen on the runway. The proceeds benefited the Texas Discovery Gardens’ new hands-on educational initiative. Throughout 2010, the Texas Discover Gardens’ educational initiative will teach sustainability and organic principles in part by assisting area organizations to start their own butterfly gardens, and also by continuing to develop their 7.5 acres of gardens into educational butterfly gardens and native habitat examples.

Butterflies are beneficial insects and vital pollinators that indicate a healthy, holistic ecosystem and the show featured designs by the El Centro College’s Fashion Design students, their beautiful silk screen printed designs sold very quickly and for high dollar amounts, it was really exciting auction and the students were nearby to experience the thrill.

The Butterfly Designs Were Auctioned for Charity

Guest speaker Susanne Taylor (of Susanne Taylor & Associates) talked about the latest in organic clothing and how important it is to incorporate sustainable thinking in all aspects of our lives and we are looking forward to next years Organic In the City fashion show already!

You can read more about the wonderful event at the links below;

http://www.texasdiscoverygardens.org/fashion_show.html

Ross Bennett Facebook Page – Lots of Design Images

Lindsay Weatherread Facebook Page

The Our Everyday Earth news feed is alive and running! You can subscribe to it today and get all of our latest green news and eco-living hints and tips.

http://feeds.oureverydayearth.com/OurEverydayEarth-EcoNewsFeed

So what are you waiting for? Get hooked into our feed and always be one click away from our latest articles;

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

I was recently invited to take a tour of a local Texas recycling center which is operated by the AbitibiBowater’s Recycling Division. Casey Gray is a “Business Recycling Consultant” and he gave me an amazing tour of the AbitibiBowater recycling center in Arlington, Texas. The division that Casey operates the EcoRewards Recycling program and they educate and encourage local Texas businesses to begin recycling as much of their waste as possible.

The AbitibiBowater "Arlington Recycling Operation" Building

I arrived at around 12PM on a sunny Friday afternoon to the AbitibiBowater “Arlington Recycling Operation” building and was immediately impressed with the high level of activity surrounding the recycling center. Trucks were constantly loading and unloading at the centers numerous loading bays.

I had always wanted to see how both domestic and commercial recyclables are processed and my tour of the Arlington facility gave me a fascinating insight into how the recycling process works;

1/ COLLECTING THE RECYCLABLES:

The first stage for any recycled materials is collection. Their are several types of vehicles which perform the recycling collections;

Various Recycling Collection Vehicles

There are three main types of collection vehicles, the Front End Loading (FEL), the Rear End Loading (REL) and the Roll Off type vehicle (RO). You might recognize one or all three types of collection vehicle, try to spot them the next time you take a road trip!

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What could be greener than a traditional pumpkin carving contest? Pumpkins are all natural, completely bio-degradable and they unite families at this time of year in an earth friendly activity.
These are the Our Everyday Earth favorite pumpkin carvings for 2009.

Help us pick the best of the bunch by taking our Top 10 Halloween Pumpkin Carving poll… First, let’s check out the entries…

Spooky Pumpkin Carving #1

Our first pick is a spooky pumpkin with a very “Day of the Dead” feel to it, we loved the intricate carving and details in this one!

Have you ever wanted to know how long it would take to walk somewhere, or better yet, wanted a detailed walking map to your destination? We always use Google Maps to plan out our journeys but now there are Google walking maps available! How is this green you ask? Well surely the greenest way to get somewhere is to simply walk, so we wanted to show you our guide to Google walking maps;

Step 1: Fill in your destination and use the “Get Directions” option to add your start address, for example, my wife and I recently went to Fredericksburg (which is a great little town) and here are our directions by car;

Google Walking Maps - Step 1

Step 2: Pick the “Walking” option from the drop down list and click “Get Directions” again;

Selecting the Google Walking Maps Directions

There are a few things to note, the first thing is that this is still in development and there is a note to use caution as the route may be missing some sidewalks or pedestrian paths. The second thing to note is that it would have taken us about 3 days and 1 hour to get to Fredericksburg if we had walked, but we would have saved all our gas money and been the greenest visitors around!

A brand new recycling center has just opened in McKinney, Texas and it promises to revolutionize recycling in the local area. The IESI McKinney recycling facility is called a Material Recovery Facility and is situated in McKinney near the Collin Airport. The Mckinney recycling facility will be the first privately funded single-stream LEED certified Material Recycling Facility in North America.

New IESI MRF Recycling Center in McKinney

The McKinney recycling center building is fully LEED certified which means the building itself was built to the strictest eco friendly standards;
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of green commercial structures.
The new recycling center also houses a second-floor community room and observation deck overlooking the recycling operations area.

The New IESI MRF Recycling Center, McKinney TX

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