Chris’ Blog

Today is Blog action day.  I can’t remember if I signed up or not, but as I did last year, I figured I’d shoot out a quick post about this year’s topic - Poverty.  There are lots of ways that we can help overcome poverty in the world today.

One of the first thoughts I had was a site that I’ve visited a few times, but have yet to try.  It is Kiva.org.  Kiva allows you to make a “Loan” to an entrepreneur in a 3rd world country.  You pick a specific person to loan to, and the loan amount and they pay you back when they succeed.  If you invested even $25 (the smallest amount allowed) every quarter, or even every month, my thought is that if/when you get paid back, you can then reinvest that money back to someone else who could use it and that same money would build over time as you invest in more people and you could help a whole bunch of people - and you can see their businesses grow!

Another way to help out poverty in your own area is to do something that we just did recently here at work.  A food drive.  Its not a new idea but if you can get a group of people to donate a few dollars worth of food you can make a big difference.  I know that here in Utah they are needing way more food than they recently anticipated due to the hard economic times.  If you are time pressed, the Utah food bank even has a virtual shopping experience where you can donate food or money without even going to the store.

In the Doctrine and Covenants section 104 verses 17 and 84 read:

17 For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.

84 Inasmuch as you obtain a chance to loan money by hundreds, or thousands, even until you shall loan enough to deliver yourself from bondage, it is your privilege.

Take a few minutes today and see what you can do to help poverty.  Even just a few dollars can go a long way.

Well, today is blog action day. A whole bunch of blogs all around the world are all writing about the environment today. For the past couple of months I’ve been thinking about what I would write today. One thing that I realized is that in the county in New York where I grew up, we had a recycling program. The county gave everyone a red bin to put out to the curb on a designated day, and they would come by and collect the recyclable materials that you had put out. This was such a great and easy way to help the environment by not throwing out newspaper, milk jugs, cardboard, tin cans, and tons of other things. Why doesn’t my town have a recycling program where I am now? I made it a mission to find out information about recycling here in Provo, and what I could do to help reduce my trash.

It turns out that there is a recycling program here. There is even a designated day that they will come by and pick things up. The bin however costs $5 per month added to the utility bill. Well I’m currently a poor college student, and although $5 a month isn’t bad for the bin, it does add up. To top it off, we don’t really have a great place to put the bin in our apartment. So what are my other options. Well the city has posted a list of places that you can drop off assorted “wastes” to recycle them. The table can be found here. There is also a FAQ, and other information about the program that is available on the page.
I don’t have a lot of those things that I need to get rid of. Besides the fact that I don’t want to wander around town dropping off each item at a different place. The solution is found on that page however. It reads:

Provo now has another option for those who would like to recycle but prefer not to have the curbside recycling container at your house. You can now take plastics #1 & #2, cardboard, newspapers, junk mail, phone books, aluminum and tin cans, etc. to the drop-off bin located at the compost station,

1625 South Industrial Parkway.

Compost station hours are: Spring/Summer/Fall, Monday - Friday 8 am - 6 pm, and Saturdays 8 am - 5 pm Winter: Monday - Thursday 8 am - 6 pm

The important part of this is that it says in fine print under that paragraph:

There is no charge to drop items off at this bin. The bin is separated into sections for plastics, paper/cardboard, and metals. Please do not bring non-recyclable garbage to the drop-off bin.

So there we have it. A free option to recycle here in Provo. It looks like I just needed to look into it and now I have found out how to do recycling. Now all I have to do is figure out how to sort the recycling from the regular trash and take it to the drop off location…

October 15th will be blog action day. The idea is to have all of the thousands of bloggers in the world, to blog about the same issue, all on the same day. This year’s topic is the environment, and I am going to participate by writing a post on October 15th. I am joining a great group of bloggers who will also be doing so, and that list can be found here. (edit: Participants link no longer available…)

If you have a blog, and you would like to participate, visit the website at http://blogactionday.org for more information.