Easy Environmental Activism

We started this blog to motivate us to get out and make a difference in whatever way we can and so that we could be held accountable for our environmental actions.
As we are only 11 days into 2009 , we do not have a long list of environmental action accomplishments to talk about this year, but we hope to achieve many more during the year.
Here are some of the things we have done so far. We hope that you read this list and realize that you can do many of the same actions with little effort. Here is our list:
We have begun writing this blog and telling you about some of the causes we believe in and actions we are taking, so that we hold ourselves accountable for our actions.
We take our GoGreenMug.com travel mugs every time we visit a coffee shop. We never use a paper cup, plastic lid or cardboard cup holder offered at any coffee shop.
We have signed the Surfrider Foundation's "Rise Above Plastics Pledge". You can sign this too at http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/rap_pledge
We have signed the Facebook causes petition "Our Coasts are at Risk" which will be sent to President Obama to ask him and the congress to protect our coasts from offshore drilling. If you have a Facebook account you can sign this petition at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/23?m=2b9e3807&recruiter_id=35111682
We have committed to doing at least one beach cleanup every month in 2009. Beach cleanups are easy to find and get involved with as they are organized by numerous environmental organizations. If you want to get out there and join in a beach cleanup then check out: http://www.beachcleanup.org/ or http://www.blueoceansociety.org/cleanup.htm or http://www.healthebay.org/volunteer/htbcleanup/default.asp or of course Surfrider Foundation whose different chapters do beach cleanups at beaches all over the world.


This week Dennis and Dudley visited the coffee shop/bakery 85 degrees C in the Diamond Jubilee center in Irvine. We were informed that they had some really different and exciting teas to try. This was an excellent tip and we tried some of their specialities, which we highly recommend as well as their baked goods.
Although the teas were great, we were very disappointed to find another coffee shop that did not offer a discount for bringing in our own mugs. We would not use the excuse of no discount to leave our mugs at home and get our drinks in a paper cup. We still enjoy the satisfaction of knowing we did not add to the waste.
There seem to be a number of coffee shops that do not incentivize their customers to reduce waste. We hope that we can influence their decision by telling you about them and creating a list from all around the US and Canada. Please tell us about any coffee shops you visit and what, if any discount they offered. Write comments on this blog or send us an email at support@gogreenmug.com and attach a photo for us to post. If we can create a large enough list and following, we think we will be able to encourage more coffee shops to offer better discounts for anyone helping to reduce the waste!
Follow us on this blog as we try to make a difference by getting involved with environmental causes and promoting the use of mugs in place of paper or polystyrene cups through our website GoGreenMug. Go to http://www.gogreenmug.com/ and use the new year coupon code: ny1501ggm to get 15% off your personalized re-usable travel mug through January 2009. We now also sell gift certificates, so you can gift your friends and family a mug and help them reduce waste.