Maybe you want to plant gardens on rooftops all over town or a single, bountiful vegetable garden at your neighborhood elementary school. Or you might want to start a community composting program. Why should everyone maintain a compost bin for such a small amount of kitchen scraps?
We may live on a big planet, but small steps like these go a long way toward making the Earth healthier and its inhabitants happier.
To encourage thinking outside the recycling bin, SunChips has created the Green Effect and joined forces with National Geographic to help it spread. Their hope is to nurture a movement of real people executing small, innovative ideas that make a big difference.
A competition kicks off April 22. Five winners will receive $20,000 each to put their green plan into action. Online voters will pick one winner, and a panel of distinguished judges will select the other four.
You can enter as an individual or as a group, such as a scout troop, green club, or parent organization. Just submit your idea at http://greeneffect.nationalgeographic.com by June 8. On July 7, ten finalists will be announced, and each will receive a Flip video camera. Each person or group may enter just one idea, so make it your strongest.
Your options are unlimited: conserve water, reuse trash, harness renewable energy, or grow healthy food and get it into the mouths of children, the elderly, and people who are hungry.
The best ideas embody the SunChips philosophy that small steps add up to meaningful progress and positive change. Of course, a green idea has to benefit the environment and the local community and be realistic enough to get off the ground with $20,000.
The Green Effect mirrors SunChips’ green story. At the company’s plant in Modesto, California, a four-acre solar concentration field produces enough steam each year to power the entire SunChips line. And the bag the chips come in? One third of the bag is made of renewable, plant-based materials.
