Recycle Christmas Trees In Gwinnett County

UPDATED FOR Gwinnett County CHRISTMAS 2011!

Wondering where to recycle your Christmas Tree in Gwinnett County?  Look no further.  Here are the Bring One For The Chipper, Keep Georgia Beautiful Christmas Tree recycling locations for Gwinnett County.

Christmas Tree Recycling Locations In Gwinnett County

 

Bring One for the Chipper is Georgia’s annual Christmas tree recycling program. Each year, Keep Georgia Beautiful works with private sponsors to organize the recycling event. In the past, these statewide sponsors have included The Home Depot, The Davey Tree Expert Company and WXIA-TV. Green In Gwinnett Area along with numerous local sponsors and volunteers also make contributions and provide in-kind services across the state. The Chipper program involves hundreds…

Read More Here

Gwinnett Business Growth and Sustainability BuGS Series

BuGS Series

Event Date:

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 – 11:30am – 2:00pm

Location:

Gwinnett Chamber

Cost (members):

$20.00

Cost (non-members):

$35.00

Business Growth and Sustainability (BuGS) 2010
Presented by:

Energy Efficiency in your Business
Energy efficiency is typically one of the first places business look for savings.

Reducing your energy consumption saves money and reduces your carbon footprint, but what is the cost and how do you pay for it?  Is it worth the investment?

Teresa Newman – Energy and Environmental Solutions – Siemens

Wayne Robertson, PE, Leed AP – President – Energy Ace

Gail Edwards – Program Director – Gwinnett Technical College

Moderator:

Ben Taube – Executive Director – Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance

Date: February 9, 2010

Time: 11:30 – 2:00

Location: Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce

6500 Sugarloaf Parkway
Duluth, Georgia  30097

(For Directions Click HERE)

Register Here

Green In Gwinnett Area: Working to keep Gwinnett Green and Sustainable!

Reuse! Give Those Old Blankets, Rugs, etc to Gwinnett County Animal Shelter

Today’s Green Tip of The Day:
Instead of sending old rugs to the landfill, check with local animal shelters to see if they can use them.  Old towels, blankets and sheets are also appreciated.

You can find information here for the Gwinnett County Animal Shelter.

Gwinnett County Animal Shelter
If you’d like to adopt a new family member or if your pet is lost, the Animal Shelter is a great place to begin your search. The Gwinnett Police Department operates the Animal Shelter to enforce animal control laws and to shelter animals that have strayed, gotten lost, or been turned over for adoption. With pet overpopulation on the rise, we’re proud to report a decrease in incoming animals and an increase in animals placed to individuals and rescue groups through our shelter. Location
The Animal Welfare and Enforcement Center is located at 884 Winder Highway in Lawrenceville.

Office Hours:
Sunday and Monday	Closed
Tuesday and Thursday	10:00am – 8:00pm
Wednesday and Friday	10:00am – 4:00pm
Saturday	10:00am – 4:00pm
Kennel Hours:
Sunday and Monday	Closed
Tuesday and Thursday	10:00am – 8:00pm
Wednesday and Friday	10:00am – 4:00pm
Saturday	10:00am – 4:00pm
Adoption/Reclaim Hours:
Sunday and Monday	Closed
Tuesday and Thursday	10:00am – 8:00pm
Wednesday and Friday	10:00am – 3:30pm
Saturday	10:00am – 3:30pm

* Closed for lunch weekdays from 12:30pm to 1:00pm

Additional Contacts

General Administrative Contact E-mail
Acuadmin@gwinnettcounty.com

Jason Cannon, Supervisor
Jason.Cannon@gwinnettcounty.com

Charles Johnson, Supervisor
Charles.Johnson@gwinnettcounty.com

Thomas Stephens, Supervisor
Thomas.Stephens@gwinnettcounty.com

Monica Peete, Office Supervisor
Monica.Peete@gwinnettcounty.com
Thank you and remember to be thinking Green in your daily activities. 

Sincerely
James Chronicle

Green In Gwinnett Area

 

Green In Gwinnett Tips

Drink filtered water instead of bottled water. Filling and reusing a stainless steel container created for long term use with water is more beneficial to the environment and your pockets than purchasing bottled water. With all of the talk about chemicals used in bottling plastics it may also prove to be even more beneficial to your health.

Recycle! In Gwinnett county (Snellville, Suwanee, Duluth, Centerville, Lawrenceville, Norcross etc) all of the garbage disposal companies (including whoever eventually ends up with the final contract) pick up the little blue bins that take away plastics, aluminum cans and glass. Call your waste disposal provider today. The more you recycle the less you throw away. This cuts down on how often you purchase garbage bags, that saves you money. WalkGreen…and Save!

Join Green In Gwinnett Area on Facebook and LinkedIn! GIGA! Spread the word!

Gwinnett County Farmer’s Markets

Green and Sustainable

(We had a blogged this previously, however it is good info!)

Farmer’s Markets

How can you contribute to Green and include your families? One way to be a little more green is to buy local food. It takes a lot less fuel to bring peaches from rural Georgia to Suwanee than it does to bring one from Chile.   Suwanee also has the new community garden>>>It can be hard to find local produce at your neighborhood grocery store, but luckily Gwinnett County and the surrounding area have a few summertime farmer’s markets! You might just like some yummy organic food.

• Lawrenceville Farmer’s Market

Saturday Mornings, June 6 – September 26
http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/M22694

• Suwanee Farmer’s Market

Saturday Mornings, May 2 – October 17 (Except September 19)

http://www.suwanee.com/whatsnew.events.php

• Whistlestop Farmer’s Market of Norcross

Tuesday evenings, June 2 – October 27
http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/M27578

Visit Green In Gwinnett Area’s website at:www.greeningwinnett.org

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/greeningwinnett

Thank You,

James Chronicle

BrandsMart USA Grand Opening of LEED Retail Store this Friday Aug 21st – Buford, Georgia

, an environmentally friendly store is having their Grand Opening in Gwinnett County this Friday, August 21^st. I had the pleasure of touring the facility with Larry Levine who is the Vice President of Corporate Operations for BrandsMart. This store is the first Commercial LEED building in North Georgia. Beginning with the construction of the store and continuing through it’s daily operations the main focus has been to reduce negative impact on the environment and promote conservation.

During the construction phase, recycled materials were used as much as possible. The

floor tile, the sheet rock, even the concrete was poured using a minimal amount of raw materials. The store’s roof consists of white neoprene which reflects heat to reduce the amount of time the air conditioning runs. Each AC unit has it’s own compressor that dramatically reduces power needs and the condensation water from the units is recycled. On hot days this can result is as much as 150 gallons of water.

Lighting in the store is optimized by the implementation of large skylights, enabling the fluorescent lighting to be reduced. These skylights open, close and direct light for optimal efficiency. Sensors installed within store lighting automatically turn off the power as the sunlight increases. LED lighting is also used throughout the store. These produce far less heat (almost none), produce superior lighting, and use less electricity to operate. They also use these neat tubes to direct light into the store from the roof called “Sola Tubes”. You could use these same tubes in your home.

Outside the store the parking lot is white instead of black reducing the heat usually generated and allowing better control of the area’s climate. Additionally, less lighting is required at night because of the reflective surface. The plants surrounding the store are drought resistant and labeled so that customers can easily identify them. Once the plants have been established (estimated six months) irrigation will no longer be necessary. Rainwater will be channeled from the slight slope of the parking lot into a retention pond behind the store for future utilization. There is also a preserved wetland behind the store.

You will find trash containers along with recycle containers for employees and customer’s to recycle their sodas, etc!

In the near future, BrandsMart plans to have an educational program directed to children at the fourth grade level with the goal of educating them on sustainability. Great forward thinking!

The construction of this store and it’s operations are a credit to BrandsMart’s and Gwinnett County’s “green” point of view.

What is LEED?

LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Green In Gwinnett Area is a Gwinnett nonprofit located in Suwanee Georgia.

The new BrandsMart Store in Buford, GA is located at:

2918 Buford Dr

Buford, GA 30519-6538

(770) 932-1088

Our Green In Gwinnett Area (GIGA) organization’s mission is to help make Gwinnett County a healthier, more environmentally friendly and socially responsible place to live by becoming a valuable resource for the residents and businesses in our community. This GIGA site is a place to share our passion with others by collecting educational information, and providing a repository for eco-friendly resources and products. Together we can make Gwinnett Greener

–James Chronicle

What is Sustainability? Green In Gwinnett Area

Bringing The Green Back To Gwinnett

Sustainability, in a broad sense is the ability to maintain a specific process or state. Today however, it is most commonly used in reference to biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.

Sustainability has become a complex term that can be applied to almost every facet of life on Earth, particularly the many different levels of biological organization, such as; prairies, forests, and wetlands, and is expressed in human organization concepts, such as; eco-municipalities, sustainable cities, and human activities and disciplines, such as; sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture and renewable energy. Many sustainable practices are being identified as “green” initiatives.  Terming this practice as “green” as we do with GIGA, Green In Gwinnett Area, stems from the forests and environments we are surrounded by.

For the human race to live sustainably or “green”, the Earth’s resources must be used at a rate at which they can be replenished. However, there is now clear scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that an unprecedented collective effort is needed to return human use of natural resources to within sustainable limits.

Since the 1980s, the idea of human sustainability has become increasingly associated with the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres. In 1989, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) articulated what has now become a widely accepted definition of sustainability: “[to meet] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.  Simply put, we must put the needs of the future as a top priority when using resources.  You wouldn’t want your child or parents or anyone else in your family to suffer.  Our actions now directly impact our families in the future.

We currently have facilities in Gwinnett County such as the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center (Buford), Suwanee City Hall (Suwanee), and Brandsmart which is a commercial building in Buford, Georgia that are striving towards sustainability.  These facilities are all LEED facilities.  We hope to see more of these practices in other areas in Gwinnett County in the immediate future and your voice counts.  What counts more than your voice however, are your actions.

Do Those Laser Toners and Ink Cartridges Get Recycled? Not In Most Cases!

The first chapter into exploring my industry and the massive impact that it has on our environment.
Gwinnett! The following is a true account of this unethical field.
Green In Gwinnett Area GIGA encourages turning in your used laser toners and/or ink cartridges to be recycled. The are many programs available.

Print Green USA, Inc. located in Suwanee, GA has a program available to consumers.

Please email: recycle@printgreenga.com for details on how to recycle your laser toners or ink cartridges.

Please comment and I will explore your questions or your industry as well.

Lexmark and THE PREBATE:

Each quarter, Lexmark releases yet another financial statement reinforcing its “supplies-driven” profitability. It is making more dollars from the sale of cartridges than the sale of printers.

And how environmentally friendly are its programs?

Lexmark’s Prebate program (now known as its environmentally friendly “return” program) gives a discount at the time of sale if the customer agrees to return the cartridge to Lexmark, or at least agrees to not give it to a remanufacturer. So, a customer has already been rewarded for buying this “environmentally friendly” product, and any incentive to recycle it is long forgotten. When the cartridge is spent, the customer may find it inconvenient to return it to Lexmark. Still wanting to do the right thing, the customer attempts to sell or give it to a remanufacturer. The cartridge’s Prebate restrictions forbid its being remanufactured, so the preferable reuse option is foreclosed. Lexmark has testified in its lawsuit with Static Control Components that it gets back 50 percent of its Prebate cartridges, and that those cartridges are then remanufactured or recycled by Lexmark.

This begs the question: Are Lexmark’s recycling partners involved in legitimate recycling?

And what about the other 50 percent of the cartridges sold by Lexmark under the Prebate program?

They are condemned to landfills, as the Prebate restrictions mandate that they cannot be remanufactured by a third party. If a remanufacturer risks legal action by remanufacturing the Prebate cartridge, it runs into the chip problem. The chip acts as the enforcement device for the Prebate restrictions. It will determine if the cartridge has been remanufactured and will shut down the printer. Aftermarket chip solutions have been developed by several aftermarket vendors, one of whom has been sued by Lexmark for their ingenuity. Think Green Gwinnett! Start small, recycle, turn off the lights, recycle your laser toners…

To add even more insurance that the cartridge will not be remanufactured, Lexmark frequently changes the firmware in the printers through “upgrades” and during routine service maintenance. The firmware acts like a virus and renders many viable aftermarket solutions worthless.

Therefore, a Lexmark customer wanting to remanufacture the (return program) cartridge is frustrated at every turn. This is a classic bate and switch scheme.

So I beg all of you in Suwanee, Lawrenceville, Duluth, Norcross, Buford, Lilburn, Snellville, or any other area of Gwinnett County, please do the right thing and recycle your used laser toners and ink cartridges.

Stay tuned for another chapter in this tail…

Green In Gwinnett Area GIGA (Keeping Gwinnett Green and Sustainable)

and sponsor Print Green USA, Inc.

PrintGreenGA.COM

Gwinnett’s Green Generation

At a time when environmental issues are at the forefront it is critical that teachers integrate environmental education into their lessons. Children need to be given the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to positively impact the environment. There are many sources of information now available.

We are fortunate in Gwinnett County to have an effective and innovative program designed to enhance the available resources. Green In Gwinnett Area, better known as GIGA, founded by Gwinnett county resident James Chronicle, is designed, in part, to promote environmental consciousness. Area residents are encouraged to participate and support this endeavor. Information can be found by emailing giga@greeningwinnett.org. In addition, the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center offers programs and interactive exhibits for people of all ages, from pre-schoolers to senior citizens. It is a collaborative effort of the county’s board of Commissioners, public school system, The University of Georgia, and the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Foundation.

There are a multitude of websites available to promote environmental awareness. These websites can be accessed through search engines and many of them offer information geared to elementary age children. As a Suwanee resident and a Barrow County third grade teacher, I have used a website found on the National Education Association list called Eco-Bunnies. This site was designed to help students understand “carbon footprints” and how to reduce environmental impact. For more information, visit www.eco-bunnies.com/ Use EarthLab’s live calculator with your class and empower them to discover the amount of energy they use and ways to conserve. Suggestions such as energy saving light bulbs, developing conservation habits, and ways to recycle are outlined. Students can find their score and save it and return to see the positive impact they have affected through small changes in behavior.

There is a plethora of information available on the Internet to enable teachers to inform and educate their students, not to mention community based nonprofit organizations such as Green In Gwinnett Area GIGA. The future of the planet hangs in the balance. Teachers have a responsibility to ensure that they are promoting environmental awareness on a regular basis.

A Resolution to WalkGreen…

Today is a great day to commit to learning how to WalkGreen. My personal goal is to teach how to WalkGreen via the internet, in my local Gwinnett community, the metropolitan Atlanta area, state of Georgia and Southeastern part of the United States as God provides the means. I want to share easy ways each of us can make small lifestyle changes to help protect, preserve and live in harmony with the earth as God intended!

Some people believe Green living requires the loss of style, fashion and money. The truth is when you decide to WalkGreen you’ll save money and make a better place to live for yourself, others and generations to come. So my prayer today is any and everyone reading this today will make a commitment to changing at least one thing at a time. If we all change a little it can help a lot. I don’t know if you’ve made your resolution list yet but I encourage you to add learning to WalkGreen a priority in 2009. It can’t hurt in this economy we can all afford to learn a few things that will save us money. Why not do something to help the earth and Gwinnett in the process?

Add this resolution to your 2009 list …Walk Green In Gwinnett and save!

Here are two tips the easy green tip from December and the new tip for January.

December: Drink filtered water instead of bottled water. Filling and reusing a stainless steel container created for long term use with water is more beneficial to the environment and your pockets than purchasing bottled water. With all of the talk about chemicals used in bottling plastics it may also prove to be even more beneficial to your health.

January: Recyle! In Gwinnett county (Snellville, Suwanee, Duluth, Centerville, Lawrenceville, Norcross etc) all of the garbage disposal companies (including whoever eventually ends up with the final contract) pick up the little blue bins that take away plastics, aluminum cans and glass. Call your waste disposal provider today. The more you recycle the less you throw away. This cuts down on how often you purchase garbage bags, that saves you money. WalkGreen…and Save!

Join Green In Gwinnett Area on Facebook and LinkedIn!  GIGA!  Spread the word!