Green Living Week 1: Water

Wonderful first meeting, what an inspiring range of interests and talents!

First, a very important announcement: starting next week, October 30th, we'll be holding our Monday meetings at a more spacious location (with parking!) on 2809 Pico, map here.

A recap of some topics that came up at our first workshop:

Many people expressed an interest in Green Building – here are a few excellent local resources: The Green Building Resource Center, the Santa Monica Green Building Program, and NRDC's LEED certified green office building - through which you can take a virtual “walkthrough” here.

There's also a "Green Design" event next Wednesday, Nov. 1st with the Sustainable Business Council - great networking/education opportunity. More info or to RSVP here:

Val mentioned the G-living network, a hip, style-fashion-entertainment channel on eco-lifestyle issues. Great example of “green” branching far beyond granola....

Delilah shared her incredible new environmental store The Road Less Traveled, providing southern California with eco-friendly lifestyle products, as well as non-profit The Grain Project, promoting sustainable communities by establishing farmers’ markets, community gardens, and public art projects.

There was also mention of the documentary Blue Vinyl, a “toxic comedy look at Vinyl, the world’s second largest selling plastic.” Amazing film, highly recommended if you haven’t seen it. We'll discuss plastic at length later in the workshop.

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE......

As we dove into our WATER section, a few themes surfaced:
Semi-permeable pavement and groundwater:, a way to design cement that allows some water to percolate back into our aquifers;

Insulating pipes with foam to conserve energy;

And Rain Barrels. As we mentioned, these are available for free to Santa Monica residents, provided you have a drain that empties onto cement. Contact Sustainable Works to get one, OR the DIY (do it yourself) approach: make your own rain barrel.

Your worksbooks are filled with wonderful water-related resources – get your feet wet, try a few of the recommended tips, and well talk it over next Monday. Many thanks to you all for your interest and committment!