LIBRARY MATTERS

Contributed article
Published: November 6, 2008

On November 15, take an extra couple minutes out of your schedule to celebrate America Recycles Day. This event, sponsored by the National Recycling Coalition, encourages Americans to educate themselves on the importance and impact of recycling.
And don’t think this has to be your conventional recycle-paper-and-aluminum cans routine - think outside the box to include used computers, shoes and other items that can be revived to create a more sustainable future. Resources from the Greene County Library, such as Planet earth: 25 environmental projects you can build yourself,  will help children to learn how to incorporate recycling into everyday life without hassle.  Recycle every day!  is a children’s picture book - it is never too early to teach about recycling.   
Check out the books below and Happy Recycling!
• Garbage and recycling (Essays discuss topics related to refuse disposal and recycling,)
• The solution is you!: an activist’s guide (reinforces why halting global warming is so important to our future)
• Design e² [videorecording]  (Examines the economies of being environmentally conscious in green building design)
• Cradle to cradle: remaking the way we make things (Challenges the concept that industry must inevitably damage the natural environment as it argues that products should be designed so that after their useful life they provide nourishment for something else—as biological nutrients that safely reenter the environment or as technical nutrients that circulate within closed-loop industrial circles.)
• Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability (Presents an analysis of modern capitalism and its impact on the global environmental crises, and discusses how the transformation of current economic and political systems can lead to environmental sustainability.)
For those of you who own a business and are concerned about environmental challenges check out this book which is written for executives at all levels and businesses of all kinds:  Green to gold: how smart companies use environmental strategy to innovate, create value, and build competitive advantage.
Use the online catalog to find the book you want and put it on hold: http://www.jmrl.org/catalog. For help finding any of these books,  contact the Greene County Library at 985-5227.