arkansas
ReThinking green
Green from the start
“My wife and I decided to replace our old van with a new car,” Quail explained. “We went really green and bought an all-electric car. It’s the best thing I’ve ever bought because people asked a lot of quesons every- where I went and I could talk about thinking green.
“I started to volunteer for every eco event I could find. People started to expect me to be green, so I started to be greener. Then a local school asked me to bring my car to an Earth Day event. That’s when ecogeeco.com (pronounced eco-geek-oh) was born.
“I set the site up so people can follow the adventures of ‘Eco Hero.’ I began to drive my solar electric car to other area schools to talk about Sustainability as Eco- geeco the Eco Hero.”
52 Saturdays
Eco Hero’s biggest adventure (and a great idea) is something he calls “52 Saturdays.”
“Aer a tree planng event shortly before Earth Day 2009, I decided to challenge myself,” Quail said. “I de- cided to volunteer for or aend a green event every weekend for a year.”
He is now 29 for 37, and will be at the NWA Green Expo May 1.
He counts this commitment not only as a chance to support the green movement, but also as a way to grow greener himself. “I get the chance to change the way people think about what they do, but also to hear what friends and other people tell me they are doing to be green,” he said.
“Most recently I have been asked to do a twenty minute radio show on Get Your Geek On Radio (an In- ternet staon) that airs weekly. Everything I do is volun- tary, so no money comes to me. Someday that will come, but I would rather save the planet now and worry about the money later. My family is behind me one hundred percent. They love to go to the events, try all sorts of new things and learn everything they can.”
Hero’s heros
Two businesses, in addion to Walmart, that have im- pressed Quail with their own green efforts are the local
Eureka Pizza Company and the naonal company, Ter-
racycle. “When Eureka Pizza embraced the SUSTAIN- ABLE FORESTRY INITIATIVE standards and changed their pizza boxes, I was happy for them and the planet. Most pizza boxes don't get recycled, so if they make it to the landfill the new boxes will biodegrade safely,” Quail said.
“Places like Eureka Pizza going green makes people think about it more because they are a local small busi- ness. If they can do it, why can’t everyone else?
“Terracycle.net pays schools for trash, taking it out of the waste stream to make a brand new product. I use a lot of their products in my school visits to show that all you need to do is re-think what they do to save the planet).
“Being green when I was a kid meant you where a hip- pie. Now Green is for everyone. It’s just not a fad any more; it’s a movement that spreads across whole coun- tries.
“Remember,” concluded the Eco Hero, “ReThinking green is what it’s all about.”
“It’s a great feeling when you think about how every- thing is really changing for the greener. Everyone
can take small steps to help. If you start out small and see how easy it is, you just keep going – and the next thing you know, you’re helping the planet.”
– JASON QUAIL,
ECOGEECO,
THE ECO HERO
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