On the 23rd (Tuesday) and the 24th (Wednesday) in the mornings, the tides will drop as low as minus 3 feet, which is a fun and rare occurrence.
This is a great time to stay at Oregon House near Yachats or your favorite beach location. Don’t forget VitalBodies Community Blog is offering a $25 off coupon.

Click to download coupon

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Recently VitalBodies was asked where to take E-waste like old broken TVs in the Florence area.

The answer is simple – The Dump. Luckily the dump In Florence is not really a dump but a transfer site and recycling center.

They are now taking many types of E-waste free of charge!

Old TVs have fire retardants and heavy metals inside and are radioactive at the very least.

Many people remember when they did not take E-waste so the transfer site is not the first place they might think of.

Have other recycling tips and suggestions?

Become a writer for VitalBodies or submit a comment.

They contain small amounts of Mercury so we all should be, but where do we take them?

True Value Hardware, Ikea, and Home Depot take them and other Hardware stores might be accepting them also.

Do you know anywhere else that is accepting bulbs for recycling? Leave a comment and tell the world…

Florence Hardware Stores:

Copeland Lumber 541 997-8474
3231 Hwy 101 Florence, Oregon 97439

Pro Lumber: 541 997-3438
310 Hwy 101 Florence, Oregon 97439

True Value: 541 997-8024
1750 Hwy 126 Florence, OR 97439

If you need appliances for your home go green go eco:

• EnergyStar Products: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.
• EnergyStar: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home.index
• Energy Tax Incentives: http://www.energytaxincentives.org/
• Energy Efficient Home and Vehicle Tax Credits: http://ase.org/content/article/detail/2654
• LaneElectric Rebates: http://www.laneelectric.com/rebates.htm
• Central Lincoln Electric: http://www.cencoast.com/Energy%20Efficiency.html
• Home Depot Eco Options: http://www6.homedepot.com/ecooptions/index.html?

Smoke Detectors: Choose OPTICAL non-ionizing smoke detectors rather than the IONIZING (as in ionizing radiation) that contain radioactive Americium which is more potent than Plutonium. The ionizing smoke detectors are so toxic that Florence will not even take them on Hazardous Waste Day. Most places will not either. The EPA suggest that you send them to the manufacturer and make them deal with them.

According the Wikipedia:

Americium can be produced in kilogram amounts and has some uses, mostly involving ²⁴¹Am since it is easiest to produce relatively pure samples of this isotope. Americium is the only synthetic element to have found its way into the household, where one common type of smoke detector contains a tiny amount (about 0.2 microgram) of ²⁴¹Am as a source of ionizing radiation.^[2] This amount emits about 1 microcurie of nuclear radiation when new, with the amount declining slowly as the americium decays into neptunium, a different transuranic element, with a much longer half-life (about 2.14 million years). With its half-life of 432 years, the americium-241 in a smoke detector includes about 5% neptunium after 22 years, and about 10% after 43 years. After the 432-year americium-241 half-life, a smoke detector’s original americium would, by definition, be more than half neptunium.

Just for fun I created a community blog plate graphic for the community blog and for a graphic for the ABOUT page.

The plate features sunset sun or moon over the waves with stars.

I used Open Source Inkscape and created a SVG file and exported to PNG.

More and more lakes are having issues and problems with so called “Blue Green Algae”.

According to the Wikipedia it is actually a bacteria rather than an Algae:

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, blue-green bacteria or Cyanophyta, is a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through photosynthesis. The name “cyanobacteria” comes from the color of the bacteria (Greek: κυανός (kyanós) = blue). They are a significant component of the marine nitrogen cycle and an important primary producer in many areas of the ocean, but are also found in habitats other than the marine environment; in particular cyanobacteria are known to occur in both freshwater,^[2] hypersaline inland lakes^[3] and in arid areas where they are a major component of biological soil crusts.

Many lakes are struggling with toxic blooms that can endanger people, wild life, water supplies, resources and property values.

What can be done in an “Earth Day Every Day” way?

Solar power and solar enable the lake!

Solarbee offers a solar powered solution to Blue-Green Algae (cyanobacteria) that provides Long Distance Circulation and aerates the lake.

How is this said this help?

• Prevent & control harmful blue-green algae blooms.
• Reduce taste and odor problems in drinking water.
• Reduce public health issues due to cyanotoxins.
• Improve aesthetics, water clarity and biodiversity.
• Improve dissolved oxygen (DO) and pH levels.
• Prevent accumulation of Mn, Fe, H2S and methyl mercury from bottom waters.
• Reduce invasive aquatic weed growth.
• Improve fish habitats and prevent fish kills.
• Economical for lakes and reservoirs of any size, whole or partial lake treatment.
• Near-laminar flow impacts up to 35 surface acres (14 hectares) per unit.
• Can be deployed to treat the epilimnion and/or hypolimnion.
• Day and night operation using solar energy, requires minimal maintenance and no infrastructure changes.

Visit http://www.solarbee.com/freshwater.html

This solution could possibly work for small towns like Dunes City, Ada, Siltcoos Station and Westlake for fresh water lakes like the Siltcoos near Florence Oregon that only occasionally have algae blooms and for many others that also do not want to dump toxic copper or the like into the lake since those methods do not work anyway and are expensive.