The Essentia Blog

The heavy snow that we’re getting right now can mean problems for the efficiency of your furnace.  Many furnaces shut off in the winter when their air intake pipes are blocked by heavy snow.

Before panicking and calling a technician for what is sure to be an expensive call, here are the steps to take yourself.

Locate Your Air Intake Pipe

Look for a black or white pipe coming out of your furnace and trace where it goes to the outside wall.  Then go outside and look for the pipe.  Knock the snow off of the top and build a small shelter out of wood or sheet metal to keep snow from accumulating over the top.  Be sure to look down the pipe to see if ice or snow are clogging it - if they are, heat tape will clear up the problem quickly.  This is available from your local hardware store and it is advisable to install this on all outside pipes just to be safe in the winter.

Restart Your Furnace

Once the pipe is clear, most furnaces will restart in a few minutes.  You may have a model that requires you to manually relight the pilot.  If this is the case, instructions for doing this are usually printed right on the furnace.  If you are unclear on this, contacting a service technician to relight your furnace is a lot less expensive than paying for them to clear snow out of your pipe as well.

Change Your Filter

Changing a dirty furnace filter can save you 5% on your energy use from your furnace.  For more see this helpful article from Green$avers.

Even more helpful is this video which explains how to take care of your furnace vents from The Backyard Man.

New moms are generally concerned about what they are feeding their baby.  One way you can be sure about what goes into baby’s mouth is to buy organic baby food.  But what makes organic baby food organic?

First you start with the source - the vegetables.  These should be organically grown, if that isn’t obvious enough.  Read the label on the baby food carefully - some don’t actually use organic vegetables, but may use organic sugars or other products.  If you are in the US, look for the USDA label which certifies that the food is made from organic vegetables.

Secondly, look for refined sugars.  Any added sugar should be from a source like cane sugar, not refined sugar.  Look also for restrictions on genetically engineered ingredients.

Happy Feeding!

Canada
Sweet Pea Baby Food

Healthy Sprouts

US
Earth’s Best

As we begin a New Year, many of us are wondering what small things we can do to change our lives in order to live just a little more in tune with Nature.  One area that we can change is where we eat when we go out.  When we spend $50 to $100 on a meal for two people, we are treating ourselves to a night out that means no dishes, no cooking and usually excellent food.  The next time you are going out on a date or just catching up with a friend, look for a restaurant that uses organic ingredients for what is sure to be a completely new and exciting experience.

While many high-end restaurants use organic ingredients as a matter of taste, we’re guessing that the great majority of people (including us) are looking for alternatives to chain restaurants as our budgets don’t allow for the higher-end spots.  Obviously chains are going to be looking for the lowest priced option when doing their food purchasing, not the organic or best for you option.  While you may find yourself going out of your way to find these new spots, their discovery will be exciting and you’ll also find that the food tastes miles better than that million-calorie Blooming Onion.

Most cities have restaurant listings that include “organic” restaurants.  If you do a search for your city name, organic, and restaurant without quotes (i.e.:  Toronto organic restaurants) you are sure to get some relevant results that will direct you to the location for your next meal out.  Here are a few directories for you to start with:

DineHere.ca
Covers Vancouver, Whistler and Victoria

Dine.to
Nice list of organic restaurants in Toronto

Healthy Living NYC
Great list of Big Apple organic restaurants

Canadians set up the first solar-powered community in North America in the small town of Okotoks, Alberta. The Drake Landing Solar Community consists of 52 homes all powered by solar energy.

800 solar panels distributed through the community generate 1.5 megawatts of power in the summer and store energy for use in the harsh Alberta winters. The typical household in the community will only generate 1-2 tons of carbon per year as compared with the typical Canadian generation of 6-7 tons per year. More on the project over at ENN.

When you think New Years, you think champagne.  At least those of us who like the drinking do.  Did you know that you can buy organic champagne to pop at midnight?  While it may be too late to get it online, you still may be able to find one of these brands in your local booze store.

AOC Champagne Carte D’Or

Made by Serge Faust, this dry champagne features a mousse-like citrus texture.  This one seems to be featured on the most sites and is moderately priced.

AOC Champagne Carte Rouge

Dry House Champagne from the Fleury estate.  Bronze Medal, IWC 2007

Online Sources

UK: http://www.organic-champagne.co.uk
US: http://www.diamondorganics.com/

While silicone and plastic utensils have been popular for years for use with non-stick cooking surfaces, bamboo is a much more renewable and attractive material for kitchen utensils than these non-renewable materials. Cutting boards can also be made from this material rather than from non-renewable wood.

Moso bamboo is the best bamboo to look for, as the panda does not consume this bamboo.

Here are a couple of spots to buy your bamboo kitchenware:

• Grassroots Environmental
• Totally Bamboo

After the holidays we are inevitably left with a pile of garbage that we need to throw out.  Here are a few handy tips to help you sort through the mess:

Burn, Baby, Burn…
If you have paper and access to a fireplace or a backyard firepit, reduce the strain on the municipal waste dump at this time of year by burning cardboard packaging and wrapping paper.  Be sure to remove all plastic ribbons and foil before committing your holiday wrappings to their final resting place.

Recycle It
Most recycling programs take paper and cardboard.  Check with your town on their regulations for accepting paper and again, most won’t take that pesky foil stuff.  Even if you never recycle paper the rest of the year, its never too late to start or at the very least just do it this one time when you have a lot of stuff.

BioBag It
At $6.75 for 25 bags, these fully compostable and biodegradable bags are a bit more than regular garbage bags.   However, the zero impact to the environment is significant enough to convert many garbage throwers.  They even make disposable doggie-do bags.  You can buy them in the US here.

Some other compostable garbage bag manufacturers:

EcoBio
Al-Pack

Last December Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released with pages made from post-consumer recycled paper, saving 200,000 trees in the process.  Where has the initiative for eco-friendly books gone since then?

While there hasn’t been much in the media about eco-friendly books, eco-friendly magazines shot to the top of everyone’s list in Canada at least when Canadian Geographic released an edition printed on “wheat sheet”, made with 20% wheat straw.  This was a first in the publishing industry that may not have boosted the sales of the magazine, but definitely drew notice from everyone in the publishing industry.  In addition, major booksellers have promised more prominent placement to magazines which go green and use a higher content of recycled paper.

On the eco-book front, it is initiatives from box stores that will make all of the difference.  By 2012, Indigo requires all of their book and magazine vendors to be using at least 20% post-consumer recycled content to produce their magazines and books.  If similar initiatives are rolled out from similarly sized bookstores, that may be a whole lot of trees that they end up saving.

If you want to buy eco-friendly books for a loved one or for yourself, here are a few sources:

Chelsea Green
Publishes on Environmental Topics and practices sustainable publishing.

The Green Press Initiative - Signatories
All companies listed on the above linked page have signed on to the Green Press Initiative.  Explore their site to learn more.

While you wouldn’t think that there could be anything more organic than a bouquet of flowers, you would be wrong.  Like any other harvested plant, flowers are generally grown with an abundance of chemicals and pesticides that are best left out of the equation.

In order to ensure that you are getting a truly organic bouquet in the US, look for the “Veriflora” certification.  This ensures sustainable crop production and ecosystem protection for the area surrounding the farm.  Fair labor practices and product quality are also included in this rigorous standard.

Where to Buy:

• Any US local flower shop that supports the Veriflora standard - ask for it if they don’t.
• Organic Bouquet - USA
• EcoFlora - Canada

According to Business Week, computers and e-mail have increased rather than decreased the amount of paper used in offices.  Remember how we thought the office would go completely paperless?  It still can if you follow some of these handy tips:

1.  Please Don’t Print
If you add “Please don’t print this e-mail, save a tree” or something similar to your outgoing e-mails, your colleagues will probably be less likely to print out e-mails that they may not need to from you.  Since they know you, it doesn’t sound preachy.

2.  Cut and Paste
If you get orders in off of e-mail, don’t print them out for the order entry department.  Instead, show them how to cut and paste.  You’ll not only increase productivity by saving keystrokes, you’ll save paper.  Many office workers don’t know the simple window commands that allow them to cut and paste between applications.

These are:
- Ctrl-A - Select All in e-mail or document
- Ctrl-C - Copy selected items in document (you can also select with the cursor if you don’t want everything)
- Ctrl-V - Paste copied items into another program or window

Those three commands alone may save your office reams of paper while making your staff feel just a little more computer savvy.

3.  Train Management
Some members of management prefer to have an e-mail printed out rather than forwarded to them.  If your boss is one of these, try to reason with them to see if you can convince them to accept forwards for environmental reasons.

Explain that you don’t feel comfortable printing off e-mails when they can simply be forwarded and offer to help them organize their inbox if they are experiencing problems organizing their e-mail flow - this is the most likely reason for their request.  They may just need some quick lessons on how to create folders or flag their e-mails.

4.  Campaign for Recycled Paper
Talk to your purchasing manager about looking for more eco-friendly alternatives to the paper that you are currently using.  They may be surprised to learn that eco-friendly paper costs the same or less than “regular” office paper.