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Have you noticed the buzzy new ad campaign for that celebrity-endorsed line of hot new rain barrels? No? No. You haven't. Because while rain barrels let you conserve your municipal water supply and reduce your water bill by irrigating your yard and garden with rainwater, there's no global business conglomerate footing the bill for a multi-million dollar rain barrel ad campaign.
Rain barrels will never be shoved down your throat. Rain barrels and other low-tech, sensible green-living ideas rely on word of mouth and self-educating consumers to become popular.
So where can you go to check out green ideas and educate yourself on the latest in sustainable living? Where can you go to get the deets on real ways to make your lifestyle more Earth-friendly? You can go to the new
Do It Green! Resource Center in the
Midtown Global Market--a place for people dedicated to sustainable living to exchange information, ideas, and products.
The Do It Green! Resource center was once tucked into the offices of Twin Cities Green Guide, but the organization eventually became known as Do It Green! Minnesota, and the Resource Center reopened in the Midtown Global Market in mid-April. The market is a perfect home for the new center--logistically, as it gets more foot traffic, and spiritually, as its do-it-yourself ethos fits in perfectly with all the independent vendors who have carved out a living for themselves in the bazaar-like quarters of the MGM.
The new location allows the Resource Center is wide open to the public. And it offers several displays with real-world information you can deploy to green every step of your day, from your breakfast to your commute to your home remodeling project.
You may have read about recycled building materials, like paneling made from sunflower seeds and wheat husks, but here, you can see them up close. Counter tops made out of bamboo? Recycled plastic? Resin-bound paper? They're all sampled on the Eco-Friendly Building Materials display.
Maybe you've always wanted to cut meat out of your life, or to cut out foods that burned jet fuel on their way to your table. Here you can find a Vegetarian Starter Guide, and a pocket shopping guide to foods with low carbon footprints that can go with you to the market or restaurant. If you're worried about the health of our global fisheries, there's a guide to sustainable seafood.
The Resource Center has its own Great Wall--a long stretch of cubbyholes filled with pamphlets, business cards, and information brochures from every transit authority, social justice activist, zero-waste caterer, and backyard beekeeper's society in the greater Twin Cities area. It's another triumph of the low-tech approach--information on a hundred small business is so much easier to sort through when its all spread out before you, rather than hidden behind a hundred links on an eco-friendly website. There's also a handy if idiosyncratic resource library of books, binders, and videos on various environmentally-aware topics.
There's not enough space for a classroom, but Do It Green! Minnesota is launching its 2010 series of
Urban Homesteading Workshops, to be held off-site, for people looking to recapture skills like gardening, preserving foods, sewing, and keeping chickens. If you want to sign up, or recycle your old cell phone, or check out what a home composting machine looks like, you know where to go to connect--the place with the rain barrel, just across from the Produce Exchange and next to the Panaderia El Mexicano.
As an added bonus, the Resource Center is located near
EarthVitality, a store specializing in products and gifts that are organic, sustainable, locally and fair-trade produced.