Christmas Morning Mimosas- "The Aftermath"

I understand that I am the "green investment" guy around this blog however I decided to go a different route with my post today. Especially with the financial markets in a holiday coma.

So I just completed another holiday week in which my brother flew in from Boston and my sister drove over from Orlando. We proceeded to pah-ty wicked hard, as my brother's fellow Bostonians would say, for the better part of a week. If I had to guess 4 bottles of champagne, 10 bottles of wine, and several hundred bottles of beer were consumed by ourselves and friends during that time. I mean who am I to change the family tradition of waking up Christmas morning to presents, stockings, and delicious Mimosas for breakfast!

All of this got me thinking- what the heck happens to all of that glass? So I jumped on the fancy interweb this morning and began googling glass recycling and the like. Wouldn't you know it, up popped this wonderful article written by Kate Galbraith for the New York Times.

The Fate of Recycled Christmas Wine Bottles

Now if somebody could come up with a way to begin wrapping our Christmas presents in recycled glass we would really be onto something!

Simple Green

As most intelligent people like to read, how does an intelligent, but green-thinking person rationalize the cutting down of 20 million trees per year for American book production? The Amazon Kindle is a great product, but I think it is still a few years away from being perfect. The public library is great, but they only get one or two copies of every new book and the waiting lists can be brutal. Book Swim is Netflix for books. Read it, return it in their 100% recycled plastic bag, and someone else can read it without cutting down another tree. Simple but brilliant.

While Florida is not usually considered a hot-bed for green development, Miami's Tri-Rail Trains have announced that they will be operating on a 99% biodiesel blend. Evidently South Florida is one of the few places that can run on such a pure blend of fuel due to the temperate climate. Public transportation is one of the easiest ways for someone to live green.

The brains behind RecycleBank prove that you don't have to be an expert or have a PHD to impact the environment in a positive way. They have developed a plan that rewards you for recycling. For every pound you recycle, you earn points that can be redeemed for discounts at green-friendly businesses. This article explains the process and how it has been rolled out in 13 states already, or visit RecycleBank's website. This is a win-win-win in that more people will recycle, the businesses that donate discounts get more business and good publicity, and the cities pay less to dump garbage.

These are all simple ideas that translate to huge environmental rewards. I think that simple is a big part of the future of Green.