Going Green at Goldentree Wands!

          As Wiccans, Mother Earth is very important to us.  She provides us with a place to rest our feet, beautiful scenery to look upon, and a world to explore.  Unfortunately, she's hurting, so we at Goldentree Wands are doing our part to improve Gaia, in hopes that one day she might be whole again.  Our purpose in creating this particular webpage is to illustrate just how easy it is to "go green."  We didn't think we could even create a list of green ideas, but once we started thinking about it, we realized that we were doing more to help the environment than we realized.

          The first step we took toward improving our planet was to watch An Inconvenient Truth, by Vice-President Al Gore.  He shows the effects that have already occurred on our great earth due to the pollutants we've all been putting out there.  No specific person is to blame, we all are, but we can also do something to try to reverse the damage we've caused.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, we highly recommend it, it will open your eyes to the devastating truth of what can happen to our Earth if we don't start doing something right now.  Click here to watch the movie trailer.  We also had the privilege of seeing Al Gore give his Global Warming speech in Boise, Idaho.  10,000 people filled our stadium and 10,000 people learned what they can do to help.  Below is our list of things we've done to make our business greener, we look forward to growing this list and hopefully inspiring you to GO GREEN as well.

• We've stopped drinking bottled water and only drink water from the tap, which we pour into glasses.  Use a water filter if you're not comfortable drinking from the tap.

• We use recycled paper for all of our Healing Cauldron requests.

• Since we're an internet company, only, we use less paper than the average business.  When we can, we print on both sides instead of just one.

• The light bulbs in our office, bedroom, and kitchen have all been replaced with energy saving light bulbs.  They were only 99¢, can you believe that!?

• We use recycled bubble wrap from large corporations.  Glen's mom Aspen, brings us the bubble wrap from the company she works for after they're done unpacking all of their boxes.

• We also use pages from various product catalogues to fill our shipping boxes.

• We only use our car once a week, and compile all of our shopping into a 4 hour period.  We map out our route to save the most on gas consumption.

• When we do travel far, we check our tire pressure to make sure they're inflated properly.  This improves gas mileage by more than 3%.

• We both use energy saving computer monitors.

• Every night, after we're done working, we turn off both computers to save on electricity and the carbon dioxide that these machines emit.

• We only use our heater and air conditioner when it gets unbearable.  Other than that, we either leave all the windows open, or wear extra sweaters.  This not only keeps the carbon dioxide levels down, but it also saves on your gas and electric bills.

• We only water our grass once a week in the summer.  This keeps our water consumption down to a bare minimum and while our grass might not be as green as our neighbors, we know that we're doing our part to save the environment.

• Instead of driving to the park or a friend's house, we ride our bikes and never forget our helmets.

• We reuse plastic bags from the grocery store as garbage bags.

• We recycle our printer cartridges.  For every recycled cartridge we even get $3 back!

• We use an energy and water saving washer and dryer.

• We make coffee with a reusable coffee filter.  It seems to taste better too.

What can you do to improve the environment?  Join us as we work to heal Gaia and make her a better place for future generations.  You never know when you'll be back.