“You want to give a gift to the earth too, right?” asks Lindsay Maldonado, coordinator of Family and Children Programs at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. The museum, located at 2430 North Cannon Drive in Lincoln Park, will host a “green gifting activity room” every Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 3pm through December 20. “It’s just a part of our mission here at the museum to be environmentally conscious,” says Maldonado. “What we try to emphasize is creative reuse. When you think of crafts, you think of glitter and consumable goods that are probably just going to get thrown out later.” This year’s activities include making recyclable CD snowmen, envelopes to mail your thank-you letters in and gift boxes made out of old magazines and calendars. The activity room is free with admission($6-$9). “This is a time when we’re buying all of these things, and it’s important to know where everything comes from,” Maldonado says.

Approximately 500 people are gathered in and around the lot of Murphy’s Bleachers on a clear Sunday morning. At 9am, the 250 pairs of bikers take off on a three-hour scavenger hunt around Chicago. This Urban Assault Ride, started by Josh Kravetz in Austin, Texas in 2003, is one of ten that takes place throughout the country.

The five checkpoint sites for the race were listed on the UAR Web site months ago, Kravetz says. At each checkpoint, the partners have to work together to complete an obstacle course. Once completed, the team receives a colored bead from a staff member. The bead is then placed on a necklace chain, given out before the race, for safekeeping. There are also two mystery checkpoints that bikers can ride to for bonus.

“It’s a really cool way to get people out in the city on bikes,” he says. “We took it to big cities where bikes play a big role.” Read the rest of this entry »

The state of Illinois has officially resolved to designate September 15 as Carbon Day, a day on which the state will urge people to take steps towards reducing their carbon footprint.  On this same day, the first annual Carbon Day festival will be held at Grove Five in Lincoln Park at Clark and Armitage. This year’s theme is carbon-neutral transportation and infrastructure. The festival will feature interactive demonstrations on different ways to be carbon-neutral, including tree planting, composting and solar energy. “It’s not hard to be more eco-conscious,” says the event’s  coordinator, Brae Hatteway. “We are geared towards giving individuals what they need to take a more proactive role in having a sustainable lifestyle.” Chicago’s own The Giving Tree Band will headline the festival, which corresponds with the release of their new, completely carbon-neutral album, “Great Possessions.” The festival will also feature Cobalt & the Hired Guns.

Photo: Ray Pride

On an overcast, humid, Chicago late-summer Saturday afternoon along Armitage Avenue, it’s closing in on a hundred degrees. I arrive a few hours after the cupcakes and champagne and ribbon-cutting with 35th Ward alderman Rey Colon, but the door to the new storefront location of the Busy Beaver Button Co. is in motion. Pale middle-aged men in camo shorts wander the corner, shirtless and smoking. On the other side of the street, a shoe shop offers “Lady’s Shoes.” On the corner, half a sign on an empty storefront advertises a “queria.” The fresh wooden front of Busy Beaver isn’t treated or varnished yet, smelling nicely of lumberyard. Read the rest of this entry »

Wigs, hats and antennae; wings, fake mustaches and long socks; pirates, cheerleaders and ringmasters—it’s all part of the spectacle Saturday at the Tour de Fat in Palmer Square.

The event, part of an eleven-city tour, highlights biking, beer, creativity and sustainability. New Belgium Brewing Company, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, started the annual tour ten years ago to increase awareness and participation in bike transportation. The day seems all about being as creative and green as possible—on a bike. Read the rest of this entry »

Mayor Daley will participate Saturday in the Farm Dedication and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of Uncommon Ground’s organic rooftop farm. The 2,500-square-foot farm, located above the Edgewater restaurant, is the first certified organic rooftop farm in the U.S. Uncommon Ground owners Helen and Michael Cameron use the farm to produce food for their Wrigleyville and Edgewater locations. “As a child we grew a vast array of fruits and vegetables. As a result, I’ve always enjoyed growing things,” Helen Cameron says. “The minute I saw this enormous, sunny space…I was like, ‘Oh my God, we could grow food up here.’” The farm was certified organic last October by the Midwest Organic Services Association. “To me, it’s perfectly natural to grow your own food in a small space,” Helen says. “We have a climate that works here in Chicago, and you can be very successful growing a great deal of food in the city.”

On a mildly warm, sunny day on Chicago’s South Side, a group of six avid runners and their mascot dog, Sadie-a chocolate lab and spaniel mix-gather together at the corner of 59th and Cottage Grove. The group’s organizer, Paige Troelstrup, pulls out trash bags and latex gloves, giving one of each to everyone.

The Chicago Trash Runners, as the group is called, was organized by Troelstrup when Jeremy Litchfield of Atayne, an environmentally conscious athletic-apparel company based in Virginia, suggested she start a trash running group in Chicago. This gathering at Washington Park is the second meet-up for the group; the first was last month at Belmont Harbor. Read the rest of this entry »

A woman places a tin foil “bike helmet” on her Schnauzer and gently secures him into the doggie carrier on the back of her bike. As she does this, a crowd of bicyclists quickly gathers in Columbus Park at 500 South Central. By 1pm, roughly sixty people are waiting patiently to take a seventeen-mile bike ride zigzagging past the architectural gems in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood.

“We’ll give stragglers a little more time,” says the tour’s organizer, Lee Diamond, while he gathers everyone’s attention. As he goes over some bike-safety basics, he is interrupted by a loud, balloon-like pop. A tire on the bike next to him quickly deflates. Suddenly, fellow bikers spring into action producing inner tubes and an air pump. Another tour organizer Cynthia Bell and a couple of others rush over to change the tire. “I’ve got a wrench!” someone yells. Read the rest of this entry »

Kentucky Derby Day, and a pair of southern belles in floppy derby hats stagger tipsily on high heels from the Metra station at Ashland and Cortland. Just west, forty bicyclists, nattily attired in vintage woolen formal wear and mounted on English steeds, combine alternative transportation, fashion and alcohol in a far more dignified manner.

It’s Winston’s Tweed Ride, a tour of former speakeasies that celebrates booze, bicycles and Brits, hosted by the group British Bicycles of Chicago. The jaunt was inspired by January’s Tweed Run in London, where dozens of fixed-gear and single-speed enthusiasts donned dashing duds for a leisurely pedal from Saville Row, famous for its traditional “bespoke” custom clothing.

“This is a civilized ride hearkening back to the wonderful times of 1930s bike-touring,” says Chicago organizer Garth Katner, splendidly dressed in britches, sports jacket, bowtie and fedora. Read the rest of this entry »

Oak Park’s Jane Zawadowski wants to start a green cemetery. The pursuit of a green cemetery in Illinois began in May of last year, when Zawadowski and her family decided to make a will and trust. She pulled out an article she had saved for years on funerals at home, and after reading it, she came to the conclusion that a home visitation and all other natural things for her after death were completely consistent with her personality.

“The consumer will have their need for a ‘green’ lifestyle fulfilled, even after their official ‘life’ as we know it has ended,” Zawadowski says. “It is the continuity of an ecologically based life, and completes the circle of life. People who are ‘land-based’ feel a deep need for connection with the earth and view their bodies upon death as the ultimate gift back to the earth.”

More people are moving toward the new trend of eco-friendly or “natural” burials in recent years. According to a 2007 AARP survey, twenty-one percent reported that they would be “very interested” or “interested” in a burial that is more environmentally friendly than the traditional burial that involves embalming. But Mark Harris, environmentalist, journalist and author of “Grave Matters: A Journey through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial,” says the interest has doubled in the past year. He cites a Kates-Boylston survey that found forty-three percent of Americans were now interested in green burial.

These burials are the opposite of traditional burials, where the corpse is embalmed with formaldehyde and then placed in a steel or wooden casket for viewing. After the funeral, the casket is lowered into a concrete vault and buried. Green burials involve no embalming, no plastic-coated caskets or cement vaults and no chemical lawn treatments. Once underground and covered by tons of dirt, there is no opportunity for the casket to become a mini-landfill of non-biodegradable waste.

Eco-friendly burials are less costly than traditional burials. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost of a traditional funeral is $7,500, plus cemetery costs. Natural burials can cost up to $4,000. Zawadowski is currently educating possible partners about her desire, about what green cemeteries are, and engaging in conversations with many allies and interested parties.

“To be clear, this effort is a combination of a business venture but also a spiritual quest,” Zawadowski says. “I am driven by the need to create transformation, enable change, make art and educate and connect community.”

The cemetery will be more than a sacred place, but a place for all types of gatherings and ceremonial events. “Gatherings such as weddings, family reunions, camping and picnicking are examples of other uses of the land.” Zawadowski says. “There will be an environmentally friendly gathering space adjoining a kitchen space.”

Most of all, the emotional investment of where a final resting place should be is an important factor. “People who visit their loved ones seek spaces that comfort them, and this cemetery will be life-affirming and nourishing of the body and soul of visitors,” Zawadowski says. “Traditions may be begun or continued with this cemetery that will be fulfilling for entire families and multiple generations.” (Kenshata Harris)

If you’re interested in contacting Jane Zawadowski, you can reach her at zawelski@sbcglobal.net.