"Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us." Henrik Tikkanen

There are so many harmful pollutants in our environment that we have little, immediate, control over. Waste from manufacturing and harmful runoff from agricultural processes. Industrial and motor vehicle emissions such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides that cause acid rain, I could go on and on.

Here are some simple, easy ways to minimize our exposure to harmful chemicals in our day-to-day lives:

1. Try to avoid all products that have "chloro" as part of their name such as wood preservatives, herbicides, insecticides, chlorine bleach and triclosan. Triclosan--a chlorophenol--is often found in antibacterial cleansers and toothpastes. Studies have linked triclosan to cancer. Avoid PVC cling wraps as well, look for wraps that are identified as non-chlorinated plastic.
2. Avoid Styrofoam--Polystyrene--like the plague, Bring your own BPA free container, to get takeout food and drinks. Plenty of people are already doing this on a regular basis, no one will think you're weird.
3. Never ever burn trash, treated wood, or any kind of plastics. Avoid burning things in general. Reduce, reuse and recycle, responsibly.
4. Using simple biodegradable cleaners like lemon, vinegar and baking soda is a great way to avoid a host of toxic chemicals in our home. There is not much, in the way of grease or grime, that these three can't handle.
   
5. Filter our home drinking water. Although the United States has one of the safest, most bountiful supplies of potable drinking water, there is no guarantee that the water coming out of our tap is completely safe.

More and more we need to think about the repercussions of our everyday actions. Building awareness is the first step. Taking action by being responsible consumers and stewards of our planet is the next, most important, step.

Action without knowledge is irresponsible, knowledge without action is useless.

Make each new day, greener than the last.

(Photo credit:Picture Perfect Pose)

A website called, How Can I Recycle This, asks the question: "How do I recycle 1000 mugs?" Super Eco has some suggestions.

Well, here goes:

1. Drill a hole in the bottom of each mug and fill it with potting soil. Plant a seed, water it well and then donate to a local school for students to nurture as a class project.
2. Buy packets of Tea or Hot Chocolate and pop one in each cup. Donate to a local Woman's shelter.
3. Donate them to Animal Shelters where they may be used to scoop up chow at feeding time.
4. Donate them to a local Art school where they can be upcycled into art.
5. Hand them out on a street corner with eco-quotes or quotes on compassion inside as a kind of Art Happening.
6. Take them to the next local event or community clean up day and give them out as thank-you-for-attending favors. 
7. Donate them to a local Visiting Nurse or charity fundraiser to be sold.
8. Use them to store leftovers in the fridge, buy neat little reusable shower-caps for the top. Make pudding in them!
9. Fill them with good will and distribute at random to co-workers. Who can't use another mug?
10. Sink them up-side-down part way into the ground around a flower bed to make a festive border.

If you have any more suggestions feel free to jot them down in our comment section!

(Photo credit:Per Ola Wiberg ~ Powi on flickr)

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler" Albert Einstein

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”   Leonardo da Vinci

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.”   Henry David Thoreau

KISS is an acronym for the principle "keep it short and simple". This is a principle that I constantly remind myself of when I become overwhelmed by tasks and challenges. It is an elegant way around frustration and dismay.

Using the KISS principle when planning a green strategy for our lives can be a real and literal life and planet saver.

Here are some green and handy tips for keeping it real and green and simple:

1. Opening our eyes and looking at our lives is a great first step. For example, I often have to remind myself that I have an attic, garage and shed full of stuff that I could make good use of before I buy something. Have you ever gone out and purchased something and then realized that you already had one or two or three? That's what I'm talking about.
2. Walking the walk, literally, walking the walk. The only way to consume less fossil fuel is to go fewer places by car. We have become so impulse oriented as a society--"Me wants it and me wants it now!"-- that we think nothing of hopping in the car to run endless and often redundant errands. Planning ahead and combining chores or walking is a simple solution. Travel by "shanks mare"! Making air travel an exception, not the rule, is a huge, huge help. Carpool--it's cool--and travel by public transport whenever possible.
3. Wanting less is a wonderful habit to cultivate, that's it, self explanatory, want less.
4. Giving more, creating a positive flow of good deeds--tithing our time and giving away what we do not need--is essential if we want to green our existence. Get that good-green-karma flowing!
5. Picking a green passion--or two--and making it our own. Becoming a recycling fanatic, an avid upcycler, a freegan, a locavore, a windowsill gardener, whatever floats our boat. Putting a green slant on our dysfunctional, obsessive natures can help us to become green do-gooder's despite ourselves.
6. Having hope for a better world--no I'm not being a "Pollyanna"--jaded despair is out, helpful hope is definitely way in.

Have a beautiful green day and please remember the KISS principle!

We have all seen 'em,--and I daresay, at one time or another, used and abused 'em--those ubiquitous trash bags usually labeled "Thank You" that are often spied waving wildly at us from the treetops or floating downstream in some local creek or river.

I think it might be more effective if they were at least sporting phrases like: "Hey, Get me Down From Here!" "Please Pick Me Up And Recycle Me!" or "The World Is Not Our Garbage Can, Please Don't Litter" in bold red letters, instead of "Thank You" for littering, abusing and not recycling plastic. But I digress.

Most places on the planet have laws about littering which don't seem to be effective in stemming the tide of plastic shopping bag pollution. The two giant floating garbage patches in the Pacific ocean, are clear evidence of a world drowning in litter. This grim reality makes outright bag bans an obvious necessity.

Plastic Shopping bag bans have gained some amazing traction around the world in places like Ireland, India, China, South Africa, United States and Canada but we still have a long way to go. While the Plastics industry strongly opposes them and retailers fear that they will turn shoppers off, bans are gaining worldwide approval.

Biodegradable bags are an option but "bring your own" reusable cloth or post consumer recycled bags or baskets are, by far, a better sustainable solution. All that is required, beyond our initial investment, is remembering to bring them with us when shopping. Difficult you say, not so much, we remember to dress before going shopping don't we?

(Photo credit:jonathan.youngblood on flickr)

"Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage."  Mason Cooley

"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."  JRR Tolkien

"Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations."  Jean Paul Richter

It seems that we humans are caught in the crushing curl of our own giant wave of trash. A long, sad and glorious tradition of using and dumping that spans the entirety of our time on earth.

We have evolved in so many ways yet our methods of dealing with our detritus have not changed that much. Dumping, burning, waste minimization and recycling follow us everywhere we go on Earth, like the swirl of brown dust that follows the beloved Pigpen in Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoon. Lovable and messy, that's us!

Here are some ways we can all help to green our less-than-stellar human trash-timeline:

1. If we won't or can't clean it up, do not bring unnecessary stuff onto a beach, park, campsite or any other dedicated open space. Always follow the "pack it in...pack it out" principle. Leave nothing, take only pictures. Birds, fish and wildlife everywhere will want to hug us! This also sets a really great example for our small humans, who will inherit the Earth.
2. Leave each place we go cleaner than we find it. I have always admired people on the street who pick up and properly dispose of other people's trash everywhere they go. These are true everyday heroes. It is a great green exercise to bend, pick and toss, any trash we come across, into the proper receptacle.
3. Become aware; keep our friends close, keep our trash closer. By keeping a close watch on how much trash we throw away we can begin to get an idea of the magnitude of our own personal trash cloud. Remember: out of sight, out of mind.
4. Can we please quit building giant floating trash islands in the middle of the ocean. Swear a solemn oath to never, ever again avail ourselves of the dreaded plastic shopping bag. Let's start and or sign a petition to get them banned in our state, province or country. Just imagine, if we can, a landscape without dirty plastic bags blowing in the trees, what a concept.
5. Keep it in our car and not on the roadway! Roadway trash--typically cigarette butts--is a huge problem for the environment. Newsflash: cigarette butts are extremely toxic and chock full of water, soil and animal poisoning chemicals. Yikes, did we know this before we smoked 'em?
6. If our tendencies run towards laziness, consult the Lame Environmentalist for some great ways to trick ourselves into being green.
7. Let's all go to our windows, open them and shout "Let's love the earth and leave it better than we found it!"
8. No more excuses, we all know the drill by now: reduce what we consume, reuse it until it disappears into thin air, and recycle the rest.
9. The time is right for us all to get over our big-bad-old-selves and just do it!

Have a really great green day one and all!

(Photo credit:thelastminute on flickr)

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)

If a small plot is your plight, fear not for, it's pocket gardening to the rescue!

Taking a lesson from good old mother nature, who can send up a shoot of something green through the cracks in almost any parking lot, some clever folks have come up ingenious green ideas for small gardens.

This new spin on window box gardening has people growing their own green vegetable bounty in the most unlikely places and containers. Pick a pocket, plant a packet and watch your garden grow.

Here are a few really great ideas for pocket and container gardens:

1. Handmade in the USA from recycled plastic bottles Woolly Pocket soft-sided garden containers are suitable for indoor or outdoor usage. Their breathable sides release excess moisture to aerate the soil and their waterproof lining helps keep walls and floors dry.
2. Upcycling an old colander or salad spinner for indoor lettuce and herb growing is a great idea.
3. Create your own attractive DIY hanging pocket garden by upcycling any number of beautifully designed and sturdy coffee or juice bags. Macrame some jute or twine to hang them on.
4. Stylish recycled tire planters are attractive, relatively lightweight and much easier to move around than heavy flower pots. The large handles are really convenient.
5. Eco-friendly and really quite attractive biodegradable rice hull pots and planters are great for green windowsill gardening.
6. Repurpose an old wheelbarrow by drilling drainage holes in the bottom and filling it with soil. This makes a great portable outdoor garden that can be repositioned easily to optimize sunny or shady spots around the garden.
7. Old teapots hung by their handles so that the spout is pointing downwards make great outdoor hanging planters. They usually have a strainer built into the spout to trap tea leaves but if their is no strainer a small piece of screen works just as well. Fill with enough soil so that it does not spill out and plant a hanging thyme, rosemary or other creeping herb and drape it out through the top of the pot.
8. A festive and colorful tin can garden can be made by upcycling large restaurant sized cans. Drill a few holes in the bottom and add some small stones or gravel to provide suitable drainage. Be sure to set these on a tray of some sort as tin cans tend to rust.
9. Always use a good quality organic planting medium to ensure good growth. Well begun is half done.

Don't be shy, if you plant it it will grow! Happy planning, happy planting and please feel free to share your favorite small space garden ideas with us.

(Photo credit:ms.lume on flickr)

What's the point of going to see a blockbuster movie like Avatar in 3-D if you end up despoiling the entire environmental message by tossing your fancy plastic 3-D glasses into the trash can when the movie's over? Not to worry. USA Today checked up on the mountain of glasses (42.1 million pairs of glasses worn for 3-D Avatar, some 935,834 a day) and found that all four of the companies that manufacture them have recycling programs in place.

According to the publication's research, most companies solve the trash issue by washing and reusing plastic 3-D glasses. IMAX uses a special machine to clean theirs. Other companies provide theater owners with instructions on how to clean the glasses after use. The easiest and most common method seems to be a quick cycle in a commercial dishwasher. Another company simply sells the glasses, in hopes that movie-goers will keep them and re-use them for future movies. We're dubious that most glasses won't end up trashed or lost in the bowels of a dusty junk drawer ... But we can appreciate the intent.

The least eco-friendly option appears to be that of Real-D, which provides collection containers so that theaters can ship used glasses back to an LA-area facility for cleaning and re-shipping. Adding a bigger carbon footprint doesn't sound like the best solution to the recycling/waste problem. And then there's the problem of theaters that still use old-fashioned cardboard 3-D glasses for some movies—an apparently unwashable, un-recyclable option.

(Photo credit:JuliaArts, flickr)

Has common sense gone out with the trash? Tales of merchandisers dumping entire truckloads of unsold inventory into the trash seem to be filling the news like ... well, like unsold merchandise clogging up the landfills. From clothing to books, merchandisers are choosing "brand integrity" over sensibility as they offload literally tons of unsold goods into trash bins. Adding insult to injury, the retailers direct employees to rip, slash and otherwise deface the items to render them useless. What gives?

Dumpsters behind bookstores routinely fill up with unsold books that nobody wants to pay to have shipped back to the publisher. In the wake of 200 Waldenbooks bookstore closings nationwide, corporate parent Borders told employees to dispose of excess inventory in the most cost-effective method: the trash. Clothing retailer H&M and even Wal-Mart have been fingered for dumping unsold clothing, much of it carefully damaged (gloves with the fingers cut off, holes punched into shirts and coats, shoes slashed) to prevent them from being salvaged.

Meanwhile, a legion of charitable organizations—libraries, senior citizens centers, homeless shelters and more—stand literally begging for a chance to give the goods a better home.

Corporate offices have been slow to respond to public outrage over the shocking levels of waste. H&M recently apologized for dumping unsold clothes that could have gone to homeless people or charities, although no system for doing anything else seems to be in place. (The company is also struggling with new allegations that the organic cotton from India in its T-shirts may have been contaminated with GM cotton.) Borders has vowed to donate its excess inventory to charity. Meanwhile, customers of both companies are raising havoc on Facebook and organizing web sites to help redistribute the goods. Reuse and donation efforts may not be reaching all local stores, so keep an eye on dumpsters in your area if you suspect that help may be needed to get discarded inventory into the hands of interested charities.

(Photo credit:SpecialKRB, flickr)