Numerous individuals and organizations in Pacific Palisades are concerned with being more friendly to the environment.  We network with them, share ideas, and design projects.
Our current activities focus on ocean friendly/drought tolerant gardening, keeping our ocean and neighborhoods clean, using reusable bottles, mugs, and bags and recycling. Visit www.greenthepalisades.com for more information.


Drought Tolerant Gardening

At a recent drought tolerant gardening evening, Nancy Cipes, Stephanie Blanc, and DWP representative Rick Silva gave suggestions for planting vegetables and drought tolerant plants and reducing water usage. Remember to water less during winter and keep to the Monday, Thursday schedule. Consider a rain barrel from rainbud to collect your rainwater and then use it with a soaker hose.

See the following glog for information from Nancy Cipes.   http://palicares.glogster.com/ 

Resources for drought tolerant gardening include: bewaterwise.com, ladwp.com, oceanfriendlygardens.org., and theodorepayne.org.

Green Gardens Group LA, G3LA, gives classes on ocean friendly gardening to homeowners and landscape professionals.

Keep our Beaches Clean

How to keep our beaches clean: 1) pick up trash in town as well as at the beach. Cigarettes and styrofoam pieces are the most often seen trash during beach cleanups. Please don't use them! 2) Volunteer with Heal the Bay to clean up the waterways and beaches; 3) support the Surfrider Foundation; 4) use reusable bags instead of plastic bags; 5) use reusable water bottles instead of plastic bottles.

Reusable Bags
- Regal Cleaners has sold 1800 reusable cleaning bags that customers use instead of plastic bags! --All local grocery stores offer reusable bags. Ralph's gives $.05 credit per bag. Gelson's enters each bag user in a weekly contest for $25 gift certificate and has a reminder at each checkstand.
-Pharmaca, Elyse Walker, and CVS have logoed reusable bags.  Black Ink sells fashionable reusable bags.
- On December 20, 2008 over twenty volunteers distributed 1300 reusable bags to local businesses and hoppers. The bags were donated by LA City, LA County, onebagatatime, Palisades Cares, and Oasis Palisades.

Recycling

The Pacific Palisades Recycling Guide

All Palisadians have received a copy of the Pacific Palisades Recycling Guide, compiled by Palisades Cares. It was printed on 100% recycled paper by POST Printing. Distribution was made possible by a grant from the Pacific Palisades Junior Women's Club. If you don't live in the Palisades, but would like this handy reference, email info@palisadescares.org and we will send you one as long as supplies last.

Recycle your E-waste (electronic waste)

Take to SAFE (Solvents/Automotive/Flammables/Electronics) Center at UCLA at 550 Charles Young Drive, Th-Sat 8 am-2 pm.

California Recycles, a Chamber member, will pick up from your office.  You can also drop off items at their facility in West Los Angeles. Contact: info@californiarecycles.com. They accept the following:

Televisions                    monitors                         computers

Laptops                        cell phones                      VCR players

DVD player’s                stereos                            scanners

Fax                              keyboards                        mice

Telephones                  microwaves                      printers
Copiers                        power supplies                 cables and cords    radios     

Goodwill at Sunset and Palisades Drive will also accept e-waste.

Recycle your Hazardous Waste

Take the following items to the UCLA Safe Center on Saturdays: paint, household cleaners, polish, motor oil, batteries, fluorescent lights and cfls. Go to lacity.org/san for more details.

Batteries can be taken to the Palisades Branch Library, Whole Foods at Wilshire and 22nd in Santa Monica, B&B Hardware, and Jiffy Lube.

CFLs can also be taken to IKEA.

Recycle Unwanted or Expired Pharmaceuticals

Take prescription and non-prescription drugs to Pharmaca and Knoll's Pharmacy. Take off or ink out your personal information. 

Recycle your Clothing

Planet Aid, planetaid.org. Deposit unwanted clothing in good condition in their yellow boxes. They collect and recycle used clothing and shoes in 19 states in the USA. Items donated to Planet Aid are resold and proceeds are used to support education, community development and HIV/AIDS programs in Africa and Asia. They make presentations at local schools. You can also take clothing to Goodwill or to agencies that help the homeless.

Reuse

Reusable lunch kits, water bottles, and coffee mugs are available at several locations in the Palisades: Pharmaca, CVS, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Starbucks. Palisades Cares sells Klean Kanteens. Use reusable water containers such as SIGG and Klean Kanteen instead of plastic wate bottles.

Reusable bags are available at local grocery stores, Black Ink, Pharmaca and from Palisades Cares. 
 

Recycling in the Palisades

  

School recycling: all Palisades schools recycle. Visit "School Greening" for contact info.

 Green Events
-All Chamber events will provide recycling.
- The LA Dept of Public Works, Sanitation Division, provided recycling and trash service for the 4th of July parade.

 
Spotlight on a Green Business
Riviera Country Club receives first "Being Green" award from the Business Greening Committee of the Pacific Palisades Chamber of Commerce in June, 2009. The Riviera Country Club's eco-initiatives help the environment and save money.

1.  Recycling – glass, cardboard, aluminum, plastic, grease, frying oil,  engine oil, differential fluid, cart batteries, e-waste, tennis balls, organic matter from kitchen. Recycling locations included at tennis grill, cart barn, employee break room, loading dock, dining room and the halfway house. Riviera participates in the L.A. Dept of Sanitation food-waste recycling program. Golf Course maintenance separates the recyclables from the garbage cans on the golf course.  Tennis Maintenance separates the recyclables from the cans on the tennis courts. 2.  Low flow shower heads on half of the showers in the tennis locker rooms. 3.  Paper recycling cans in offices. 4.  Low voltage light bulbs and fluorescent bulbs. 5.  Created a monthly eco task force comprised of staff members, line employees and managers.

 7.  Gave every employee a water bottle to reduce the number of cups tossed away by employees every day. 8.  Water and soda to-go cups are made from corn and are biodegradeable. 9. Biodegradeable Styrofoam cups are used for hot beverages to go.  

10.  Installing motion sensitive lighting in remote storerooms and employee bathrooms in order to reduce electric bill

 

 

 

 

The Palisadian-Post recycles with Chrysalis.  Other Palisades' businesses contract with existing waste haulers or have employees who take home their recyclables. Village Books recycles with Consolidated. First Federal Bank employees take home the recyclables.  Spectrum has a substantial recycling program. Gelson's has containers for recycling plastic bottles and aluminum cans outside the north entrance of the store. The Post Offices on La Cruz and on Sunset have recycling containers in the lobby. Palisades Tennis Center has a recycling container. Businesses can get free recycling containers for bottles and cans from the California Department of Conservation at www.bottlesandcans.com.

Resources
-Visit www.earthtalktoday.tv, Peter Kreitler's website, for daily EarthTalk News Feeds on environmental news.
-Articles from "Save our Earth" in the Palisadian Post can be found at www.palisadespost.com under the name of Marie Steckmest.
-Useful websites: idealbite.com; nrdc.org; sustainableworks.org; thegreenguide.com; greenopia.com; ladwp.com; stopglobalwarming.org; earth911.org; stopglobalwarming.com; sierraclub.org; ciwmb.org; coalitionforcleanair.org, lacity.org/san., takeaction@newdream.org, sustainablesantamonica.org, lagreengirl.com.
- The Green" on the Sundance Channel, "Planet Earth" on Discovery Channel, and Living with Ed, featuring Ed Begley.
-Books : The  Green by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, Green This! greening your cleaning by Deirdre Imus, Worldchanging:A Users Guide for the 21^st Century, edited by Alex Steffen; Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert; An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore; Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth by the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine; The Solution is You! An Activists Guide, by Laurie David. The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming by Laurie David and Cambria Gordon, and Greenopia, the urban dweller's guide to living green.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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