GOBBI

Last weekend on Saturday, June 12th, I attended the Second Annual Green Fest of Port Jefferson Village, held at the Village Center and Harbor Park Promenade. The festival’s primary purpose is to foster the Port Jefferson Go Green Campaign Initiatives through educating, informing, entertaining, and enlightening people on how to make choices for a “Greener” world. It also promotes sustainable ways of living such as beach restoration and stewardship, replacing native plants, pesticide reduction, reusing and recycling, gardening, composting and a no-idling policy for school buses. To help enforce the importance of recycling, the Village of Port Jefferson has applied for grants to purchase recycling bins that will be located throughout the downtown area as well as composters which will be made available to village residents.

The festival promoted Environmentally responsible green energy use of solar and wind power and featured numerous sponsors, speakers, vendors and booths of eco-friendly arts, crafts, services, and products along with live music and Children’s Activities and Events.

All in all, it was a great event and if you are in the Port Jefferson area, come and check it out. For more information go to the Green Fest website at www.pjgreenfest.com.

If you are as disgusted as we are with the spewing toxic crude oil in the Gulf Coast, and if you are asking yourself ‘how can I help,’ ‘what can one person do,’ ‘how can I make a difference,’ here’s what you can do to help the situation. Obviously we need energy to run industry and the modern world. Oil and coal powered the 20th century, but we need more environmentally friendly and efficient solutions to power the 21st century. We have the technology to do this by harnessing solar, wind and tidal power, but why are we not putting these abundant free resources to better use? We need to innovate instead of importing foreign oil, thus reducing our reliance on petroleum based products.

The easiest thing that every consumer can do is vote with your dollar. With it being spring-cleaning season, you can make the choice at the register to purchase and use non-petroleum based cleaning products from dish soap and laundry detergent to all-purpose cleaners. There are even natural plant-base car care products on the market that work fantastic while being friendly to people, pets and our environment.

Did you know that if every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 100 oz petroleum-based conventional brand of liquid laundry detergent with a 100 oz plant-derived liquid laundry detergent, 466,000 barrels of oil could be saved – enough to heat and cool 26,800 U.S. homes for a year! I don’t know about you, but I prefer to support our American farmers over foreign oil companies any day.

Next time you head out for some cleaning supplies, check out these natural non-toxic biodegradable household cleaning products: Seventh Generation, Sun & Earth, Ecover, Biokleen, Method and Green Works. Also, if you are into detailing your car or motorcycle by hand, try Zymol, which is a high-end plant-based car care product line that works amazing and smells great too.

After waiting ten long years, Whole Foods Market: Natural and Organic Grocery has finally made its way to Long Island’s Suffolk County! I repeatedly called the Northeast regional office and spoke with the real estate manager in charge, requesting they come to the area and suggested available retail locations that I would pass in my local travels. And it’s finally here! I commend them for listening to their customers. After shopping at Whole Foods in Manhattan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey and becoming accustomed to their nutritious and tasty selections, natural products and knowledgeable team members, I was so disappointed to find that there wasn’t one in Suffolk County, but now the wait is over. If you like non-genetically modified, organic, all-natural foods and haven’t been to a Whole Foods Market yet, go check it out. The Lake Grove Commons store is opening on March 17th, and is located at 120 New Moriches Road in Lake Grove, NY 11755.