Last week, students representing Repower Indiana, attempted to drop off nearly 100 resumes from across the state to Senator Bayh’s office in South Bend, urging the Senator to support clean energy jobs. Unfortunately his office, in the middle of the day, was closed; the students will be mailing them instead.

Young people have the most to lose from the climate crisis, but have the most to gain from a clean energy economy. In an effort to call attention to the job creation potential of a 21st century clean energy economy, students are asking Senators to help reverse the trend of youth unemployment by supporting climate and clean energy policies that can help empower their generation to build a sustainable economy through clean, efficient, renewable energy sources.

As more and more Americans go green, environmentally sustainable innovations are translating into big bucks for entrepreneurs.

Sure, going green feels great, but these five eco trailblazers are living proof that green business can also mean money in the bank, not to mention a lighter footprint for all.

Green moving with Spencer Brown

Five years ago, product designer Spencer Brown was stunned after spending more than $800 on cardboard boxes and packing material to move his home office. After the move was finished, he was stuck with nothing but a pile of trash.

After being turned away from a recycling center because there was too much packing tape on his boxes, Brown was forced to drive to the landfill and toss his moving waste onto one of the many 40-foot piles of cardboard.

Through this shocking experience came Rent-a-Green Box, a zero-waste pack and move solution that is taking the nation by storm.

The formula seems right: free recycling + accessible bins = higher recycling rate. Well, it’s not always that easy.

While manufacturers and retailers are upping the number of free recycling programs for everything from old CRT televisions to chunky cell phones, studies show that consumers just aren’t getting on board.

Case in point: The U.S. EPA launched its Plug-In to eCycling campaign in 2003, encouraging major manufacturers to provide recycling options for electronics. In 2008, Plug-In partners collected and recycled 11 million cell phones, but considering that there are 100 million cell phones ready for recycling in the U.S., that number is actually pretty low.

Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) customers can trim their home energy costs in one of the following ways, no purchase required.  

Make Cents
IPL's Cool Cents program can help you save up to $20 annually on your electric bill. Enroll, and IPL will attach a device to your air conditioner that cycles it on and off during times of peak electricity usage (usually during the weekdays). While you're unlikely to notice a change in temperature at home, you will notice a $5 credit to your IPL bill, June through September.

One of the most common questions we receive at Earth911 is: “Is Product X recyclable?” If only this could be answered with a “yes” or “no.”

It’s a question asked by consumers, members of the media, manufacturers/retailers and even recyclers on a quest to divert as much waste as possible from landfills.

But the truth is – no matter what the product – there is no easy answer to this question. The reason is that the answer changes depending on what information you are looking for. So let’s figure out a better way to ask the question in order to get the best answer.

Defining “recyclable”

Recycling involves processing a used material back into a raw ingredient that can be used to make something new. This is not to be confused with reuse, where a product is used for the same or a different purpose without any reprocessing required.

Reviewing your summer energy bill can be as brutal as taking a punch from Rocky Balboa. But you don’t have to go into the ring defenseless: there are many large and small adjustments that can lessen the damage and save you hundreds in long-term savings.

Let’s start big. You can reduce your home’s heating and cooling costs by as much as 30 percent through proper insulation and air sealing techniques, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Inadequate insulation and leaks allow temperature-controlled air to escape and outdoor air to come in and fill its place. The first step is getting a home energy audit to identify troublesome areas. This can be done by you or a professional.

Land Bank Property to be Made Available for Neighborhoods to Grow Food

INDIANAPOLIS – Consistent with his priority to make Indianapolis one of the most sustainable cities in the Midwest, Mayor Greg Ballard kicked off the 2nd Annual Urban Farming Forum tonight with the announcement that the City will now make some vacant property managed by the Indianapolis Land Bank available for urban gardens.  This new urban garden program is a joint effort between the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, the Department of Metropolitan Development, and the Indianapolis Land Bank. 

“My hope is that by making these vacant properties available for the purposes of growing food, we will see an increase in the number of urban gardens in Indianapolis,” said Mayor Ballard.

Held in the Garfield Park Arts Center, the public forum attended by more than 100 people discussed urban gardening and farming in Indianapolis. The event was organized by the City of Indianapolis’ Office of Sustainability and Brownfields program. 

While some solutions to America's energy quandary are downright puzzling (such as, oh, finding a way to stop all that oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico), others are pretty easy to figure out. Like, stop driving your car across the strip mall parking lot from one store to the other (duh). Stop idling (double duh)! And for Pete's sake, figure out a better way to get to work than simply driving alone, whether that's carpooling, vanpooling, riding the bus, biking, or walking. Granted, we realize that walking to work or finding a bus that stops near your office isn't always an option. Finding someone to carpool with, however, no longer has to feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

For many of us, home recycling is a pretty easy process. Our city provides us with a recycling bin, and we have Earth911 to tell us what to put in it.

Plus, more programs now allow us to throw everything in one place, so you don’t even need to sort. This convenience can also make recycling outside of the home a challenge.

However, it’s important to remember the same reasons you recycle at home still apply at places like your job.

In fact, the U.S. EPA estimates that 40 percent of all waste is generated in the workplace, so your business could be doing a lot by recycling.

But where do you start when there’s no bin at your curb? This handy guide will break down the process for you, and have you recycling at the office in no time.

1. Know what to throw (in the bin)

This is a two-part challenge because you need to know what waste is generated at your job, as well as what is accepted for recycling in your area.

The holidays ended months ago. You lost those last 5 holiday pounds weeks ago. And yet you're still in a holiday-induced catalog fog, no thanks to your favorite retailers. Unwanted catalogs, mailers, and other promotional materials that arrive daily in your mailbox are not only annoying, they're downright wasteful. Though most catalogs are recyclable (and some are even made from recycled content), the fact that they even exist in the Digital Age is pretty unbelievable. After all, hasn't the Internet eliminated the need for purchasing items over the phone?