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members e-news for November

1.  Cell phones and toners, and ink, oh my!
2.  Free pipe wrap
3.  Newsletter deadline Dec 1
4.  The Annual Appeal letter
5.  Well Aware
6.  EnerGuide for Houses lurches to its feet
7.  See the Website

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1. Cell phones and toners, and ink, oh my!

We're launching a new recycling program! And this one will be year-round, not just at special events. Cell phones (any kind, with or without batteries, charger, manuals), ink cartridges and toner cartridges from printers, faxes, and the like. We found two recycling companies in southern Ontario that will take these items and pay for shipping, too. So we're in business.

We're doing a launch event (careful, I almost said Lunch event!) at the Farmer's Market on November 22nd. Can you help out? We need a few people to be there, greet people, and toss phones and cartridges in the appropriate boxes. It's one of the easiest (and warmest) Clean North volunteer opportunities you'll come across - you even get a chair!

If you can offer two hours, between 9 am and 5 pm on Saturday the 22nd, please email kathie@cleannorth.org. Thank you!

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2. Free pipe wrap

We have a supply of blue foam hot water pipe insulation, left over from the old Green Home Visit program. Want some? It isn't saving any energy stuffed in boxes in our basement!

I'm about to put out a news item saying we'll give 5-10 pieces away free to a good home, along with instructions on how to use it. But I wanted Clean North members to have first dibs. If you have access to your water pipes, and haven't yet insulated them, you will get a nice bonus on your hot water bills when you do.

To insulate: Do about 15 feet or as far as you can reach from the hot water tank. Cut corners diagonally to meet at any elbow bends. Tape corners with duct tape. If you have a heated basement, insulate the cold water pipes as well, so that you can stop running the water to get it really cold! (But you don't do that, do you, you keep a pitcher in the fridge, right?)

Call the office at 945-1573 and stop in to get your free pipe wrap. Supplies limited!

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3. Newsletter deadline Dec 1

Got something to say? Ideas to share? Read something really interesting lately? Found a pithy quote? Email ed@cleannorth.org. Thank you for doing this.

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4. The Annual Appeal letter

Your warning. We'll be sending out The Letter, in a couple of weeks. If you've recently made a nice donation to Clean North, thank you very much, and please feel free to ignore the letter - we appreciate your help and we know that you helped, it's just that in the folding, stuffing, labelling, etc. we didn't get yours pulled out. And we also thought you might like to read the letter!

Each year we send this letter out to all our members, plus a few hundred other local people who we think might be interested in supporting Clean North's work. Each year, quite a few of those do respond, and we then add them to the Clean North membership list if they want to be added. So, if you can think of anyone you know who seems supportive of Clean North's efforts, let us know and we'll put them on the list. Email kathie@cleannorth.org and tell us who they are. We won't tell them you sent us!

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5. Well Aware

We did a well workshop. It was grand. Lots of municipal folks, real estate agents, Health Unit people, etc. came and met and talked about the kind of questions they get from the public, about well water safety. We're all working on the same page now.

We're also interested in further work - to get the word out to the public about how to safeguard their water supplies and their families' health. So we've set up an email list for people interested in planning outreach activities. It's wellaware@lists.cleannorth.org, and there's sixteen people on it so far. If you'd like to be a part of it, you can sign yourself up to the list - go to http://lists.cleannorth.org and follow the directions there.

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6. EnerGuide for Houses lurches to its feet

The Undead EGH!

Sault Ste. Marie Naturally Green, the old Green Community organization locally, used to offer the EnerGuide for Houses service. You may have read about it in our newsletter, you may have even had this done to your house. But SSMNG has been defunct for almost two years now, and the EGH has not been offered here since then.

Enter the Federal Government and its new home energy retrofit incentive program, which gives you a rebate on part of the costs of energy-efficiency renovations to your home. The catch: you need an EGH on the house first in order to track the actual efficiency improvements of the reno work. We've now been getting calls (funny how things change when money is thrown around!).

So I've gotten in touch with the Green Communities Association, and we're working on getting someone from this area trained as an EGH Advisor to do assessments. Probably by the end of January. Stay tuned.

If you've already had an EGH and can still find the paperwork, you could go ahead and do the retrofit work, and plan on getting the followup EGH when our new advisor is in place.

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7. See the Website

for information on smoke-free dining establishments, where to buy Green goods, where to take stuff you no longer want and wish to reuse or recycle, etc. It's called the Green Directory, and you can find it in the sidebar of www.cleannorth.org.

We need roving reporters, too. If you come across a great product that saves energy or water, or helps in some other way to live lightly on this fine planet, let us know! If you notice something out of date in our directory, or find a new clean air establishment, please write to us at info@cleannorth.org. We can't be everywhere!

thank you.


Keep warm, and keep a smile on your face.
Kathie






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