I am neither involved with nor attending this event, but I did received some info about it and it looks cool.
If you’re over by Bridgeville or into biking, this might be something to put on the calender:
Worse case scenario: you crash said $2,000 test bike and have to eat your feelings with some delicious food truck tacos!
Happy trails, y’all. 🙂
I must say – I’m a little disappointed with the lack of media coverage of Earth Day/Earth Week this year. I have barely heard anything on Twitter and if the news sources ain’t tweeting it – they ain’t writing it. This is the ONLY thing I saw regarding it:
Changin’ Time and delaCueva Soap Company teamed up this week and attended Earth Market 2012, which was sponsored by Mayor Luke’s Office of Sustainability. Mayor Luke failed to make an appearance though, which was disappointing as well. I remember him giving a great speech years ago when ZipCar was kicking off in Pittsburgh (I even signed up!) The Zip Car girls were repping it anyway, despite Luke’s absence:
Anyway, in Market Square (which is beautiful – pictures really can’t communicate the vibe or urban beauty of the place), we sold our natural, locally handmade soaps and cremes and talking people up about cloth diapering.
Even though it had been cancelled 3/5 days it had been planned due to “rain,” I felt that it was a success and look forward to the Market Square farmer’s market this summer. Only Wednesday was nice weather, so on Friday I was too bundled up to get many photos…but here’s a quick little slideshow:
Lil' Red hanging out
There was a guy talking about converting vehicles to run off of vegetable oil and gTech’s program of reclaiming lands to fuel sustainable development – very cool stuff.
This woman was weaving bags out of plastic shopping bags on a loom. She even let me try it, which was my 1st experience weaving! I don’t think I’d be a very good weaver…but her bags are beautiful.
They were giving away trees to plant, for Arbor Day, but mine went directly into the compost pile because I HATE pine trees. Sorry Western PA, but I think we have enough to last us.
Anything that involved a person in a giant costume – Red was there.
If you’re interested in learning more about CFL light bulbs and why they are a good option for your family – here is a good resource.
On Friday – there were more vendors/exhibitors/nonprofits, which you’d think would be a good thing. But the weather was crappy and there was a worker’s union going on that reminded me of a Vietnam protest, so it kind of sucked.
This made me happy though, its the PRC Litterbug who was having a dance party in the middle of Mkt Square:
Oh, and just as a WTF Friday kind of moment – why was the Pennsylvania Resource Council handing out free bottles of Dasani bottled water? I really don’t care that they are made with a higher percentage of plant materials and less plastic. They still go into landfills because PEOPLE DON’T RECYCLE CONSISTENTLY. I can’t even tell you how many bottles I saw in garbage cans, not recycling bins (located directly next to the garbage can). HELLO – hand out reusable BPA-free bottles and teach people to REUSE items instead of OVER-CONSUMING. You would think that a progressive organization like the PRC (which I attend their workshops and usually support) would have rethought that strategy a little bit.
Whatever, I took the free reusable shopping bag and gave them a smug smile while lecturing the poor girl manning the table.
It was an exhausting day for some, obviously…but fun and it was nice talking to pro-cloth or questioning-cloth peeps.
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Thank you Giant Eagle, my favorite place to grocery shop, for providing me with my first glimpse at the electric car charging station. Just the other day she♥ and I had been discussing the benefits/drawbacks of electricity-powered cars. Some electric cars tend not to do well on long-distance trips, so we wondered if charging stations would begin to appear along highways.
With a little research I found that the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid vehicle, can be driven cross-country and performs well. It has a 1.7L engine, so it only requires a 9.3 gallon gas tank. The savings are incomparable – it costs only 2¢ a mile to fuel using gasoline, because it relies mainly on battery power. To charge the Volt: only 80¢ a mile. I can almost overlook the $40,000 price tag because there is a $7500 tax rebate, a government-offered incentive hoped to stimulate investment in electric powered vehicles.
I found a helpful map online with zoom capabilities which lists the electric fueling stations in Pennsylvania.
SOLE for the Soul 