The Vancouver games are over, but it’s not just the medal-winners who are making history - it’s the medals themselves.  That’s because they are the first ever to be made from recycled e-waste!

The beautiful wavy gold, silver and bronze medallions for this year’s Winter Olympics and Paralympics were made with a conscience to reduce their carbon footprint.  Tech Resources Limited, out of Vancouver, British Coumbia, took used metal extracted from old cathode ray TV tubes, circuit boards and computers that would have otherwise wound up in the landfill and through a process called “smelting” combined it with precious metals of gold, silver and bronze.  While the amount of e-waste was very small in comparison to the real thing - only about 1 to 2% - it’s still a small leap in the green direction.

The medals are also the heaviest in history, weighing in at a little more than a pound a piece!  And the undulating form represents the moving ocean and the snowy mountains, while the design on the front is taken from an artist’s artwork of an Orca pod for the Olympics and a raven todem pole for the Paralympics.  The medals are just part of Vancouver’s initiative to have greener games this year by also doing things like recapturing waste heat, among other sustainable practices during and after the olympics.  I guess that makes the environment a true competitor for winning first place this year in the Winter Games!

By now you may have heard of the new Disney promotion this year - Give a day - Get a Disney Day.  Disney Parks is celebrating the spirit of volunteerism right here in Southern Nevada at the Red Rock Visitors Center.  More than 75 volunteers will head to Red Rock Saturday to help the Friends of Red Rock Canyon green up the new visitors center by planting native plants like barrel cactus, yuccas and joshuas.  The work is part of the sprucing up for the big grand opening of the new area in April.  They have plenty of volunteers for that event, but there are so many more where you can earn a ticket to one of Disney’s theme parks by donating charitable hours of your time!

Disney hopes to inspire at least one million people to volunteer in their communities during 2010 by signing up through a participating organization like United Way’s Volunteer Center of Southern Nevada.  You must register your hours to earn your ticket.  There are so many opportunites here locally working with seniors, animals, food drives, and other environmental events - to name a few.  Check it out.  Giving is good for the soul and thanks to Disney this year - it’s good for the fun meter, too!

Just because we live in a desert, doesn’t mean you can’t have the greenest school in America!  A National contest could reward you and your school for your great eco-efforts - or even the vision for a terrific green program - at your school.  The grand prize is a cool hybrid school bus worth $150,000!

America’s Greenest School contest is put on by IC Bus - the country’s largest school bus manufacturer - claiming to make the first truly green hybrid school bus.  While the average gasoline-powered school bus uses over 1,700 gallons of fuel annually; the hybrid school bus uses around 600 gallons.  Using a lithium battery, IC says their hybrid bus can improve fuel economy by up to 30% and reduce emissions by up to 40%.

To win, just submit an entry explaining what you’d do if you were in charge of making your school a greener, more eco-friendly place.  Your entry can be in the form of a photo collection, music, a video, an essay, or photos of a diorama, collage or piece of artwork. But no matter what form it takes, it must tell the world how you’d make your school experience the greenest in the country.  Check out last year’s winner.  I know one of our schools can beat that!

The top 10 finalists will be chosen, then all of America will be invited to vote online for the ultimate champion. Students of any age can enter (although a parent or teacher will need to sponsor students under 13 years of age). Group or class entries are also encouraged.  March 8 is the entry deadline. See full rules for all the details.

The prize money includes a LEED certfied audit and green makeover for your school valued at $20,000!  There’s even a $3000 scholarship for the winning student or class and $500 in classroom supplies for your teacher!  Check out the rules and get your best green entry together right away!  Wouldn’t it be cool to see a school in the desert take America’s title for going green?  Get busy.

While green lawns aren’t necessarily a natural fit with desert living, many of us have them and want them to be green and lush at most any cost.  Oftentimes that means polluting the air, ground and water to maintain them.  But a new lawn service says the environment shouldn’t have to pay the price for us to have green grass and lush landscapes.

EcoGreen Lawn & Tree Co. is putting the green back into Las Vegas - one yard at a time.  That’s what it says on their eco-friendly mobile trailer, with two unassuming solar panels sitting on top!  Parked outside in the sunshine all day, the panels pull enough amps of energy to keep battery-powered lawn tools charged and running from sun up to sundown.  Then excess power is stored in batteries so it never runs out. 

Nick and Tim Militello started the business with the desire to use safe enviromental methods in their gardening.  They say it’s only natural for gardners to care for the environment where they make their living.  Natural nutrient-rich compost, organic fertilizers and weed killers keep chemicals out of the water stream.  Battery-powered lawn mowers, edgers and blowers work quietly to keep polluting gas fumes from filling the neighborhood air.  And while the solar panels weren’t cheap - the Militellos say they will pay for themselves within the first year of business.  There aren’t many start-up companies who can brag about that.  Why aren’t there more yard services using these methods?  It seems only natural to me.

It looks like a puffed up Alka Seltzer tablet BEFORE it becomes a moistened paper towelette.  It’s called the Ec’o Towel (not a typo - “Ec’o” is the right spelling of this product) and I think you’ll be amazed at how a few drops of water can produce a handy little wipe in a matter of seconds. (See demo.)  Pour a few drops of water on this hydrolic-processed thick nickel-sized pellet - and voila! - it grows into this moistened 10″x8″ handy wipe, ready for use to clean up whatever you’ve got - wherever you are!  I loved it.

The Eco’o Towel was discovered by a woman named Gertrude, who thought it was a fantastic product that could help clean up our footprint on the planet by cutting back on using paper towels, napkins, wipes, etc.  The little white wipe is 99% lint-free and it’s totally reusable.  You can wash it and use it again… and again.  When you do throw it away, it’s bio-degradable so it breaks down in the landfill. 

The towel is darn convenient, too.  You can carry it in your purse, your pocket, the briefcase, a lunch kit, the golf bag or the diaper bag.  I think the price is affordable for the convenience; $4.95 for a 10-pak and $8.95 for 24.  Check out Gertrude’s website for ordering and some other nifty products.  She also carries bio-degradable doggie poop bags and kitty litter pan liners by Bio-Bag.  Neat stuff to keep our planet a little cleaner.

Are you looking for some fun, new art to hang on the wall?  A lot of local personalities, organizations and even well-known celebrities have created one-of-a-kind decorated masks that can be yours - all to help raise money for a local school.  The Innovations International Charter School of Nevada is a bilingual K-12 Clark County school with a creative mind for learning. 

Donny & Marie Osmond, Patricia Arquette from CBS’ The Medium, Mayor Oscar Goodman, Disney’s Lion King, Terry Fator, Channel 8’s George Knapp, and even “The Donald” Trump (his mask is made of dollar bills!) are all helping to increase the mind power of the kids over at Innovations.  The school’s fundraiser is called “Unmasking the Mind Art Auction & Gala” and it’s this Saturday night at The House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.  Tickets are $60 to the event. 

Before the event, you have a chance to contribute by bidding on these beautiful, unique and even funky masks created with their own message in mind.  My son, Ethan, and I created our mask with the Living Green theme (up top) and naturally - I hope you’ll bid on it!  We spent a lot of time on it and it was great fun!  Bidding starts at $50 for all masks and the on-line auction is going on now until Wednesday, Oct. 21 at midnight!  So sign on and get in a bid.  I hear George Knapp’s mask has a hidden camera in it, so be careful where you hang it in the house!  Just kidding.

It’s Green Consumer Day and it may be a good time to reflect on our buying habits.  Many of us consider ourselves to be eco-conscious, but are we true eco-consumers?  Do you consider the resources used to make a product before you buy it,  and even if you knew - would it change your buying habits? 

A recent video called, “The Story of Stuff” shares a theory on how consumerism is stuffing our eco-awareness away in the closet, while we go do more shopping.  The video was produced by a group called, ”The Story of Stuff Project” and definitely has strong political views of how our buying of stuff has spun out of control.  Whether you agree with the point of view or not - just watching this video did make me think about how voracious our appetites for stuff has become and how readily available more and more stuff is all the time.   

And could we really change the cycle of the way stuff is produced, consumed and disposed of simply by demanding earth-friendly products from manufacturers and retailers and becoming more vigilant in reusing and recycling our own stuff?   I may not agree with everything in the video - but I sure wanted to clean out my garage after watching it!

Las Vegas is the halfway stop of a 16-city tour for the Living Zero Home.  All American Homes, GE, and Planet Green are showing off the eco-home featuring Energy Star products, with technical help from the U.S. Dept. of Energy. 

MGM Mirage - which has its own program for employees called, “Conservation Begins at Home” - is hosting the Living Zero Home to help educate the Las Vegas community on energy savings.  The Home provides hands-on demonstations of energy-efficient lights, insulation, windows, appliances and more in a real-life home setting. 

You can get info on tax credits, construction incentives and applicance rebates available for homeowners who make energy-saving changes in their home.  Check out the link to NV Energy with all of the energy-saving rebates available to Southern Nevadans right now.  There are some good savings to be had.

You can also sign up to win a 42″ LCD HDTV that will be given away at the end of the tour.  (Sheesh, I hope you don’t have to be present to win or you may have to fly to Saginaw or Kissimee to pick it up!  Just kidding.) 

The home will be open Thursday, Sept. 24 through Saturday, Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.  Look for it sitting on the strip, in front of the Luxor, on the northeast corner of the property.  Just don’t say, “Avon calling” when you ring the doorbell; that’s so overused.

The eco-chat group, “Green Drinks” meets tonight at the Arts Factory downtown.  The subject of discussion tonight is the film, “The Story of Stuff.”  It’s an interesting look at how we’ve come to be a consumer-driven culture of mass-production, over-consumption and horrible waste habits.  It just may change the way you look at all of your stuff!

The group meets at 6:30 at Studio West in the Arts Factory, located at 107 E. Charleston, Suite 250.  Some treats are provided for a small price, but there is no cost to attend the chew-n-chat.  You can RSVP on their Facebook page.  Now where did I put that weblink… I know it’s here in my stuff somewhere… oh - got it!

Have you ever heard of a “smencil?”  Me neither.  You can’t eat it, but wait ’til you smell one!  Cotton candy, root beer, cinnamon, and very berry, to name few flavors.  You can find them at a really cool earth-friendly website called, “Stubby Pencil Studio.” 

Kate Rosenthal started the site about 3 years ago, when her twin daughters were two years old.  She wanted to find safe, eco-alternatives for art supplies for her girls.  She started with adorable Color ‘n Kids note cards - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and cholorine free!  And things took off from there.  Before she knew it - she found items like Beeswax crayons, Banana paper notebooks and monkey pencils.  What a wonderful menagerie of eviro-conscious creative stuff for kids!

There are things like O’Bon pencils, made from 100% recycled newspapers with rainbow and wildlife patterns.  Who knew you could roll old newspaper into pencils?  (Jeans into carpet was an eye-opener for me.)  But this is fantastic!  Then you take a great idea like that and make it even better by adding yummy smells like chocolate, watermelon or peppermint - and you have one gourmet-licious writing utensil.  They’re affordable, too; a set of five costs $5.95.  The peppermint Smart Smencils actually enhance your kids’ learning power by stimulating their concentration.  Seriously - research says peppermint is a great brain booster and kids who smell it - get better test scores!  That school tool gets an A+!

A must for little kids - is crayons, of course!  Don’t you have about a thousand of them all over the house and under the backseat of the car?  Well, Stubby Pencil Studio carries crayons so cool that I bet the kids will keep them in a safe place to use over and over again.  Soy crayons by Prang, don’t flake like regular petroleum wax color sticks and are made with pure soybean oil.  Eight crayons for just $1.00 - that’s very affordable.  And crayons made out of beeswax and vegetable oils with natural pigments for color?  What a honey of an idea.

Check out all the earth-friendly ideas for your budding artists - and YOU - at Stubby Pencil Studio.  (I didn’t even get to the Banana, Coffee and Tobacco fiber papers and notebooks.)  It’s a whole new world of green creative fun!  P.S. Kate says she can ship within 2-3 business days.  Yipee.  I can almost taste my grape smencil now!