06.11.08
Posted in home & garden, recycling, habitat at 1:50 pm by greengirl
I was just floating around Gmail and came across this awesome tile site via their weblinks. They’ve got eco-friendly tile, including cork, pebble mosaics and recycled glass. The cork is recycled from the stopper industry’s byproduct (think: the end of wine corks). Modwalls.com also supports some great causes.
Cork is a particularly good substance to use in construction. According to the Rainforest Alliance, “cork oak forests are one of the most sustainable natural systems, and supports one of the highest levels of biodiversity among European forests.” Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. It’s harvested every 10 years or so, and harvesting it doesn’t hurt the tree.
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05.28.08
Posted in home & garden, weddings, shopping at 7:19 am by greengirl
I recently finished the food chapter of the book I’m writing on Eco-weddings. It includes information on why it matters to eat lower on the food chain, eat organic and eat locally grown products. I thought I’d post the section on eating locally here:
Your food travels an average of 1,300 to 1,500 miles (depending on the literature) before it reaches your local supermarket. Just think of how much fuel is used to drive a truck that far. Buying locally ensures that more of your dollar goes to the farmer. Local farmers will keep about $0.90 of each dollar you spend. Food that is shipped across the country has money going to marketing, distribution and the parent corporation, leaving the original farmer with $0.21 of that dollar you spent. Local produce needs to be sprayed with far fewer chemicals to keep it looking fresh for the 24 hours it travels to your kitchen. When food is shipped long distances, growers have to focus on growing varieties that will maintain their color over distance, which usually involves losing taste and gaining preservatives. Local farmers can work with heirloom varieties and select for taste instead of shelf life.
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05.27.08
Posted in home & garden, pollution, global warming at 7:16 am by greengirl
I subscribe to a great newsletter from Ideal Bite, and they send me little green tidbits every day. One of the most interesting that they sent, back at the beginning of the mowing season, is one about renting a goat to mow your lawn. Since I have wicked allergies to cut grass, I thought this sounded like the coolest idea. Only eleven states currently participate in the Goat Rental Directory, and I’m not entirely sure that all the links are accurate. But, if you know someone with a goat (hey! I do!), then borrow the goat for a while - the goat will get to eat, and you’ll have a nice lawn and neighbors that think you’re a little weird.
As far as ecological benefits, goats will eat thistles and even poison ivy, so you won’t have to suit up to mow the lawn or spray those horrible pesticides. And, you may be surprised to learn that running your gas-powered lawnmower for one hour produces as much air pollution as driving a car 100 miles, and the air pollution from the 20 million small engines sold yearly contribute one tenth of the mobile-source hydrocarbon emissions. The EPA states that grass-cutting folks spill more than 17 million gallons of fuel yearly, more than that spilled by the Exxon Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska. There’s even a handy calculator to find out how much pollution your lawnmower produces.
So, if you don’t know anyone with a goat and have no goat rental nearby, consider an electric, or even better, a reel mower. They’re cheaper than a gas-powered mower and much gentler on the environment in many ways.
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02.21.08
Posted in home & garden, recycling, organic, shopping at 9:38 am by greengirl
Admit it. When you think of someone who is ecologically friendly, who buys organic whenever they can, you think of someone who owns a lot of futons and beanbag chairs, don’t you? Well, I am pleasantly surprised to find that there are some really fantastic furniture alternatives.
Quite a while back, I was watching a program where the redecorated someone’s house with eco-friendly furniture, and they highlighted Bean Products. Sure, they’ve got bean bag chairs - filled with 100% recycled polystyrene beads inside cotton or hemp washable covers. But, they’ve also got some of the coolest chairs and couches I’ve seen. The frames are made from American-grown hardwoods certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and assembled with non-toxic natural-based glues. They also contain natural latex foam rubber, organic cotton batting and sheeting, and hemp covers. Stylish and eco-friendly…now if someone would just buy a couple chairs for me…
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01.24.08
Posted in home & garden, recycling, shopping at 9:33 am by greengirl
I heard about this skateboard and snowboard maker that uses environmentally-friendly products: Arbor. I know nearly nothing about snowboards, but their skateboards look really, really cool. They’ve got some retro designs and some East Asian-inspired designs. They use bamboo for some of their boards, and a combination of sustainably harvested maple and koa (the wood used by Hawaiians for the first surfboards) for others. And they must be good, because one of their boards was designed by Kelly Slater. In addition to using sustainably sourced wood for their skateboards, they work green too by donating a portion of their profits to conservation organizations, printing on recycled paper with soy-based ink, purchasing wind power credits and working in an office built largely with recycled materials. It’s nice to see an alternative to the old school skater mentality that the world was going to end so who cared anyway. And to see it done with such cool boards.
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01.03.08
Posted in home & garden, health, pollution at 10:00 pm by greengirl
If you know anything at all about environmental issues, you likely know that disposable diapers sit in landfills for an obscene period of time (500 years!). And I applaud those hearty-stomached parents who decide to use (and wash) cloth diapers. I have no plans to become a parent, but if I did, I would be frantically looking for some alternative to cloth and disposable diapers. Well, on the EcoZone Project tv show a while back, I found the answer: gDiapers.
According to their website and the Water Environment Research Foundation, these little miracles are flushable. They come with two parts - a washable cotton outer pant (in some really hip colors - Got Chocolate Brown is my favorite) and plastic-free, chlorine-free flushable inserts. If the idea of flushing freaks you out, you can throw them away (and even compost the wet ones!!). In compost, they break down in less than 150 days. I’m sure they take a little bit of getting used to, since the velcro closures are at the back and stirring with a swishstick is involved. Really, though, any diaper system - even the disposables - takes some getting used to and has some gross bits. Diapers are weird contraptions, but at least this particular variety doesn’t add to the enormous sum of the 38,000 dirty disposable diapers tossed every MINUTE in the U.S.
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12.29.07
Posted in home & garden, organic, shopping at 6:04 pm by greengirl
We’ve recently moved to a new place, city and state. In our previous tiny town, there were no CSAs to support, but I’m hoping there will be some in our new place. What is a CSA? CSA - Community Supported Agriculture - is a program that allows individuals to support their local farms. Usually it involves buying a share (or more) in a local farm. With the purchase of a share, you get some of the farm’s produce. The CSAs I’ve seen usually involve getting a box each week of whatever is ripe, usually lasting for a growing season. I’ve also heard of flower CSAs, dairy and cheese CSAs and meat CSAs.
Usually CSAs request that you pay for the season in advance, so now is a good time to be looking into signing up, since farms can usually only support a certain number of members. The USDA has a list of CSA databases, searchable by zip code. I had the best luck with the Eat Well Guide, since it went beyond CSAs (which are sadly absent in Louisiana) and listed other healthy food sources.
When I belonged to a CSA several years ago, I found it was a painless way of increasing my vegetable consumption. You get these little morsels in a box and have to figure out some way to cook them. I never would have seen or eaten garlic scapes, had it not been for my CSA box.
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08.31.07
Posted in energy, home & garden, education, recycling at 12:28 pm by greengirl
While listening to NPR this morning, I heard a story on Pitzer College near Claremont, California. Pitzer is just putting the finishing touches on Gold LEED certified residence halls. They’ve got student-maintained organic gardens, low-flow showerheads, water-conserving toilets, solar panels, recycled building materials and more. And, they anticipate that this project will save the college money in the long-term. If a residence hall can do it, what an easy job a house would be. Sounds much better than the high-rise cement block housing I had in college.
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07.21.07
Posted in home & garden, organic, weekend census, shopping at 4:08 pm by greengirl
This weekend, a list of places to get environmentally friendly (organic cotton) bedding. Happy napping.
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07.19.07
Posted in energy, home & garden, water at 8:29 pm by greengirl
I got my watering orientation today - I’m volunteering to water the plants at a local community center. And, in reading this True Green book that I mentioned yesterday, I found some interesting garden facts.
The book recommends planting native plants that are accustomed to the rainfall amount in your area. Growing native plants can save 50% of the water used to maintain outdoor plants (a sprinkler uses 264 gallons of water an hour). And when you’re planting those native plants, make sure to shade your air conditioner so it doesn’t have to work as hard. And for the water that those native plants do require, consider using a simple rain barrel. Collecting the rainwater that runs off the roof of a 2,000 sq ft home can yield as much as 36,000 gallons of rainwater per year. Make sure to put a cover around where the drain spout feeds into the barrel to prevent mosquitoes from using it as a nursery.
And the bit of advice that is most applicable to my volunteer watering: when to water. Watering during cooler times of the day not only prevents a wicked sunburn, it gives the water a chance to soak into the dirt and roots rather that quickly evaporating from the sun. In hot seasons, water in the evening. In cool seasons, water in the morning to prevent the fungal growth that could develop on wet leaves overnight.
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