It used to be that a fabulous folder of green favorites was the only way to green your web-surfing and 'net-shopping experience. That was before it was hip to be green, though, and eco-this and sustainable that sites began flooding our inboxes and feeds. Now there's so much green stuff—and so much greenwashed nonsense cluttering up the flow—that it's difficult to catch a breath beneath the flood.

What you need, my friend, is a good aggregator or portal. Aggregators are go-to sites that pull together the latest news, tips, websites and resources for you. All you do is browse to your heart's content, cradled in knowing that every click has been edited by a savvy team of green-minded pros. Similarly, portals gather up the best green resources at other sites and send you off directly to the specifics—no more hunting and pecking for the green stuff.

Here are a couple of green aggregators we especially like:

• White Apricot Eco-friendly fashion that doesn't scream "green." White Apricot's selections are neither hempy-schlumpy nor greenwashed nonsense. Looking for fair trade, vegan, sustainable—and hot? This is your ticket.
• Smartlygreen.com is an online shopping portal for consumers who wish to take their first steps in helping to combat climate change without spending any more money or wishing to change their lifestyle. Smartlygreen sends you wherever the green deals are, from Gap to Uncommon Goods. No more poking through your favorites, hoping to score something sustainable—it's all rounded up here for you.

(Photo credit:White Apricot)

You work hard to live a sustainable lifestyle. Why wouldn't you choose an eco-friendly final resting place, too? Green cemeteries become habitats for birds and animals, protecting a flourishing natural habitat filled with native grasses, flowers and shrubs. It's an environmentally responsible, ethical way to mark a passing with respect for self and earth alike.

For a natural process, death in America can be a toxic affair. There are toxins everywhere: heavy metals and plastics leaching from caskets, chemicals seeping from embalming fluids, non-biodegradable caskets and shrouds, energy-gobbling cremation burners with unfiltered systems generating toxic waste from mercury-based dental fillings and other wastes.

Natural burial in a biodegradable casket or shroud (or even a favorite blanket) allows our bodies to return to the earth naturally and respectfully. What's more, natural methods dodge the high cost of modern burial accoutrements and practices, relieving grieving relatives of complex procedures and burdensome costs.

Natural burial lets you become part of a chain of re-acquiring, restoring and preserving natural areas—a lasting legacy, indeed.

• Find a natural burial preserve
• GreenBurials.org 
• EternalReefs.com
• Green-Cremations.com
  

(Photo credit:MarilynJane, flickr)

Food you buy at Trader Joe's is the good stuff, right? Eco-friendly and healthy? Unfortunately, that's not been the case for their fish—but that's changing, as Trader Joe's announces plans to offer only sustainable seafood by the end of 2012. Greenpeace's mock web site attacking Trader Joe's appalling lack of sustainability went viral, pushing the grocer to take action. Trader Joe's had previously ranked an abysmal 17th on a list of seafood sustainability at major supermarkets, scoring below chains such as Wal-Mart, Target and Costco.

According to Greenpeace, Trader Joe's has pledged the following policy changes:

• Offer only sustainable seafood in their stores by December 31, 2012.
• Work with third-party, science-based organizations to establish definitions and parameters for addressing customer concerns about overfishing, destructive catch or production methods, and the importance of marine reserves.
• Remove “red-listed” seafood from their shelves. Trader Joe’s stopped selling chilean sea bass in 2005, orange roughy in July 2009 and red snapper in March 2010.
• Provide accurate information on all seafood labels, including species’ Latin names, origin and catch or production method.
• Use their buying power to leverage change in the seafood industry.

How can you tell which fish you should be eating?

• Read our 5 ways to ID safe fish
• Study up: Sustainable sushi 101
• Consult Good's Which fish to eat?

(Photo credit:Greenpeace.org)

"You know so much about green living. Why don't you write a book?" I admit, I do hear that a lot from friends and family ... And it's very flattering, don't get me wrong ... But really, have you been to a bookstore lately? The number of green books out there is simply appalling in terms of wasted resources—oh, the paper, the shipping, the time and energy poured into these volumes that repeat the same tired saws about going green. What we need aren't more books about why we should go green. What we need are more books about the tools available to help us accomplish the doing of it.

Enter "LEED Materials: A Resource Guide to Green Building." Let's get this straight: this is not a good read. It's not supposed to be. Rather than focuses on the philosophy of building green or the reasons why it's a good thing, "LEED Materials" simply offers up page after page after page of eco-friendly building options. "Most people understand why going green is a good thing," writes author Ari Meisel, "but in the end, it's the decisions that people make, the products and materials that are applied, that make a difference."

Green building is far from being an exact science, Meisel explains, and knowing the right materials can make or break a situation. "The LEED rating system essentially works on a credit system," he explains. "You meet certain criteria developed by the U.S. Green Building Council in water-use reduction, materials reuse, energy optimization, indoor air quality and site selection and get a certain number of points for each LEED credit." Sounds easy enough—but only if you know how to put your fingers on the right materials. LEED Materials helps builders and owners do just that, listing green materials and their manufacturers along with information on what they are, where you can use them, why they are green and any special considerations involved.

(Photo credit:candygrrrl, SXC)

Think Globally, Act Locally—great words to live by if you're looking for love. It's like they always said: Meeting someone who's socially and environmentally conscious is still best accomplished the old-fashioned way, by getting involved in activities and going to places those people are likely to be. Still, singles who live away from a vibrant local green community may need a little help. That's where green dating services come in.

• Earth Wise Singles claim to represent "green-living and environmentally responsible adults, friends of Mother Earth, organic gardeners, farmers, and ranchers and lovers of nature and the outdoors who are concerned about human rights and world peace and interested in alternative and holistic medicine." It's free to try for one week.
• EcoDater is designed for those who live a natural, holistic lifestyle.
• Don't be put off by the slightly hokey photos on the front page of Green Passions (including a shot of a man hugging a tree, which struck us as vaguely kinky, given the context). Hey, it's free, so hold onto your humor and jump in.
• There's a whole range of progressive types over at Green Singles, which has been around for 25 years now (wow!).
• Planet Earth Singles seems focused on earth and green issues.

Should things appear to be heating up, we've got plenty of ideas for keeping the romance alive and green.

• Inspire passion from the inside out with foods that arouse. Still more ideas here.
• Should things go all the way, stay chemical-free in bed.
• If you try something (or someone) new and it just doesn't work out, recycle your adult playthings.

(Photo credit:mart1n, SXC)

The cat litter issue is a messy quagmire with some greener alternatives but no real completely green solution. A case of low impact, instead of no impact. There are three major issues related to the question of what litter to use. The health of your cat, the health of your family, and the health of the environment. Clumping scoop-able clay and non-clumping clay litters seem to be the biggest offenders on all three counts.

There is also danger associated with flushing cat feces down the toilet. Cat feces can contaminate the water table, ocean and the food we consume with Toxoplasma gondii. Researchers in a case-control study involving more than 500 participants report that "T. gondii is a widely prevalent parasite that is potentially responsible for significant morbidity and mortality in the congenitally infected child and those with immunosuppression and for high morbidity in all persons in the form of ocular disease.”

After weighing all of these concerns, happily, there are some very good solutions for us and our feline family.

Repurposed newspaper litter is one solution. My family always had cats. I remember as a kid tearing long strips of newspaper--not the funnies!--about 1/2 inch wide and filling the cleaned cat pan about 3/4 full. Our cats always used the cat pan without complaint. Reusing newspapers seemed cost effective and expeditious. The one downside to using fresh newspaper is that the inks in newspaper can cause irritation and a kind of contact dermatitis in some cats and people.

Recycled newspaper litters like Yesterday's News and Good Mews are a better solution, though not as cost effective as the Sunday paper. Newspaper is recycled by using a process of re-pulping, ink removal and screening. During the re-pulping process, long fibers are processed back into paper. The short fibers are considered waste but when they are compressed to remove water, formed into pellets, and dried they make a very good conventional cat litter alternative.

Reclaimed sawdust cat litters like Feline Pine and Beauticat are good choices because they are made from a waste item. Sawdust litters are relatively lightweight and fairly dust free, they also have a great smell. These are also quite scoop-able.

Proper cat feces disposal protocols vary by state and municipality. Remember, eco friendly poop bags work for cats too!

Grain cat litters like World's Best Cat litter and Swheat Scoop, which are made from corn and wheat by-products, are very popular as well.

If our cats are strictly indoor kitties--as the Humane Society recommends-- we can try reducing their carbon footprint by using the CatGenie, self flushing litter box, featured on Treehugger. "Toxoplasmosis is almost a non-issue with strictly indoor cats" according to the product's inventors.

The key is to find a litter that we, our kitties, and our planet can live with.

Try one, try 'em all, please feel free to share your favorites with us!

(Photo credit:mslume on flickr)

The evolution of dish and clothing washers into lean, mean, less-soap-guzzling machines, makes it more important than ever that we begin to use less and less soap.

The New York Times recently stated that most people are in denial about how much soap they use or should I say, overuse.

Our heavy handed soap usage is apparently making our clothing dingy looking, wearing it out sooner and not getting our dishes as clean. Also, at the same time, possibly damaging our machines. This goes for dish as well as clothing washers.

Here are some hints about how to use less:

1. The first step--and this is a hard one for me--is to actually read those handy dandy appliance manuals to find out what is recommended.
2. Using green versions of the high efficiency, low sudsing detergents for our dishes and clothing is best.
3. Marking the outside of cap with a black magic marker is helpful, many of the lines provided on detergent caps are sometimes really hard to see.
4. Find out if we have hard or soft water and adjust our soap consumption to suit our water.
5. With newer, more efficient machines less-is-more because they may tend to bog and work poorly with too much soap.
6. Always look for the Energy Star rating when buying a new appliance.
7. Remembering to recycle our detergent bottles and boxes is so important.
8. Try upcycling a plastic laundry bottle into a watering can!

(Photo credit:somegeekintn on flickr)

Know what bugs me? Those sanctimonious "green" pretenders who carry reusable bags around in their car trunks (but never remember to bring them into the store), buy bamboo sheets (oops—not green) and drop bucketloads of cash on eco-unfriendly stuff in the name of supporting a good cause. Talk about greenwashed ... Those poor souls have positively painted themselves into a corner.

Still, I suppose you have to start somewhere—and starting with the easy stuff is exactly what most people, in fact, actually do. Megan Quinn Bachman, a master's degree student in earth and environmental education, surveyed more than 2,000 early adopters of green lifestyle changes on two green listservs. Rather predictably, she found most of their efforts concentrated on easier undertakings such as cutting back on purchases, buying more local goods and services, conserving energy at home and gardening. More than two-thirds of survey respondants had managed to make those changes.

More life-altering changes remain much less popular. For example, only one-sixth of those surveyed had started new, greener careers, and anything involving driving habits or dietary changes proved to be a hard sell.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the survey was seeing how feedback about the lifestyles they've made affects the attitude of green-leaning people. From the report:

• People are driven to act in the face of global threats largely by a sense of right and wrong—their conscience—with some encouragement and inspiration from books, movies, media programs and articles.
• Emphasizing the positive consequences of particular lifestyle changes and focusing on health and wellness benefits and a simpler, more satisfying life may be more effective ways to encourage change than promoting financial savings.
• The lack of support from one’s community and family and lack of assistance with overcoming unhelpful personal habits and attitudes are more significant roadblocks to effective response than not having enough information on what actions to take.
• Most people do not feel they need to measure the impact of their lifestyle changes, but some think such feedback would motivate and assist them with doing more. Setting goals, even without measurement, is extremely helpful.

(Photo credit:The Oil Drum: Campfire)

Candles can burn up your efforts at sustainability in no time flat. Chunks of leftover paraffin, lead and other heavy metals in the wick, ugly streaks of particulate matter guttering into your home's air ... Many candles prove to be not so eco-friendly at all.

One small company in Dallas, Texas, has figured out how to get it right. Their slogan: reduce, reuse, recycle ... ReCandle. ReCandle creates luxurious, eco-friendly scented candles from more than 50 percent post-consumer recycled wax. They collect and harvest discarded candles, saving materials headed for the landfill. Each hand-poured candle uses soy or palm wax, a lead-free, zinc core wick, and unique repurposed glass containers.

Even shipping has a light footprint at ReCandle. ReCandles ship in brown paper, with packing materials obtained second-hand (whenever possible) from a local moving company that passes along their used boxes, bubble wrap and peanuts.

Of course, for candles with a warm, golden glow and a warm, golden scent, you could always make your own beeswax candles. It's easier than you think, especially if you use one of many readily available crafts kits. If you prefer to track down ready-made goods, we've tracked down the best sources of natural soy and beeswax candles.

(Photo credit:ReCandle.com)

From The Dept. of We Told You So: So-called "bamboo" fabric is actually man-made rayon, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is clamping down on greenwashing retailers trying to sell it as an eco-friendly alternative. The FTC has warned 78 retailers (including big guys Target, Wal-Mart, Amazon.com and Bed Bath and Beyond) to stop labeling and advertising rayon fabric as "bamboo."

"The truth is, most 'bamboo' textile products, if not all, really are rayon, which typically is made using environmentally toxic chemicals in a process that emits hazardous pollutants into the air," explains an FTC business alert. "While different plants, including bamboo, can be used as a source material to create rayon, there’s no trace of the original plant in the finished rayon product.“ Concludes David C. Vladeck, director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, “Rayon is rayon, even if bamboo has been used somewhere along the line in the manufacturing process.”

If "bamboo" fabric isn't really "bamboo" at all, where did the so-called "bamboo-ness" come from? Chemically manufactured bamboo fiber is actually a regenerated cellulose fiber, similar to rayon or modal. Its manufacture relies on hydrolysis alkalization with multi-phase bleaching, which is potentially hazardous both to human health and the environment and definitely neither sustainable nor environmentally supportable. Many bamboo fabric companies attempt to offset this appalling situation by obtaining an ISO 14001 certification, showing the factory has put in place some environmental guidelines to green its practices.

But even if there were actual bamboo content in "bamboo" rayon (and make no mistake—there's not), let us pop one final bubble. Bamboo's popularly heralded natural antibacterial, anti-fungal and deodorizing properties? A myth. Even writers at the LA Times Blogs have been sucked into these pretty claims. In fact, bamboo's anti-bacterial claim was recently repudiated by research conducted by Colorado State University chemists. As it turns out, anti-bacterial qualities are not unique to bamboo fabric at all. It was just more of the ol' bamboozle, all along.

(Photo credit:andres_ol, SXC)