Green Buying & Selling

Reduce your impact on the planet by choosing to shop greener.

1. Buy used if possible.

2. Remember your trash can be someone else's treasure - sell unwanted items on ebay or craigslist or donate them to the local thrift shop.

3. When making purchases ask yourself whether you really need to upgrade something that works just fine.

4. Rent seldom used items instead of purchasing them.

5. Shop locally and support small businesses.

Yummy Organic Tea

I just discovered a delicious new organic tea - Tazo's Organic Apple Red. It is an African red tea with a touch of apple, cinnamon, and caramel. It is caffeine free, so it is perfect for the cold nights we've been experiencing lately.

Tazo tea boxes are made from 55% post consumer recycled materials and are recyclable. For more information on Tazo's organic teas check out www.Tazo.com.

10 Healthy Green Home Ideas

1. Choose only organic body care products for your bath.

2. Clean green - make your own cleaners from items in your pantry.

3. Choose soy candles instead of petroleum based ones.

4. Take your shoes off at the front door, to limit the toxins tracked throughout your house.

5. Choose organic bed linens for a better night's rest.

6. Improve the air quality in your home with houseplants.

7. Shop your local farmers market for fresh fruits & veggies.

8. Replace paper napkins with cloth napkins.

9. Unplug appliances and electronics when not in use to avoid phantom energy use.

10. Paint your walls with no-VOC paints to avoid your exposure to toxic chemicals.

10 Eye Opening Facts

1. If every American gave up one paper napkin a day we'd save a billion pounds of paper from going to landfills each year.

2. If you turn the water off while brushing your teeth, you’d save about 5 gallons each day, or 1825 gallons each year.

3. At beach cleanups, cigarette butts are the most common form of trash found, usually one in every five items collected is a cigarette butt.

4. If everyone in the US went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save 100 billion gallons of water, 70 million gallons of gas and 3 million acres of land. We would also eliminate greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2.

5. The US discards 60 million water bottles a day, most are not recycled.

6. One of the largest collections of garbage is in the Pacific Ocean - the Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California and scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas.

7. Human development and expansion is causing species to become extinct at 1,000 times the natural rate.

8. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75 percent of the electric power consumed in the average home comes from appliances like VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances when they are turned off but plugged into the wall.

9. Babies are born with more than 200 man-made industrial chemicals in their blood.

10. Currently our planet uses well over 500,000,000,000 (that's 500 billion) plastic bags annually, or almost 1 million per minute.

What to buy organic ...

The Environmental Working Group has composed 2 lists to help you decide which produce is worth the extra money to purchase organic - The Dirty Dozen - the 12 foods with the most pesticide residue & The Clean Fifteen - the 15 foods with the lowest levels of pesticide residue. If you can't afford to buy everything organic, be sure at least to purchase organics for the foods that appear on the Dirty Dozen List.

The Dirty Dozen:

1. peaches
2. apples
3. bell peppers
4. celery
5. nectarines
6. strawberries
7. cherries
8. kale
9. lettuce
10. imported grapes
11. carrots
12. pears

The Clean Fifteen:

1. onions
2. avocados
3. corn
4. pineapples
5. mangoes
6. asparagus
7. sweet peas
8. kiwi
9. cabbages
10. eggplants
11. papayas
12. watermelons
13. broccoli
14. tomatoes
15. sweet potatoes

Free Rice - Take 2

I first wrote about Free Rice 2 years ago, at that time the site had donated 14,165,837,150 grains of rice to the United Nations. Since then the site has grown dramatically and has now donated over 73 billion grains! The site has expanded its offerings beyond just vocabulary words to include famous paintings, foreign languages, grammar, math, world geography, and chemical symbols. For each correct answer the site donates 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program to help end world hunger. It's a win-win situation - you challenge yourself to improve your knowledge and food goes to those in need!

10 Healthy Living Tips

1. Look up your beauty products on www.CosmeticsDatabase.com. Always read the ingredients in the products you use and be sure to avoid triclosan, fragrance, and oxybenzone.

2. Choose organic & fresh local foods.

3. Limit how much canned food you eat, as many can linings contain bisphenol A (BPA)-which is linked to cancer.

4. Avoid using plastics whenever possible and choose the ones you use carefully to avoid BPA. Never microwave plastic containers.

5. Wash your hands frequently to reduce illness. Avoid using anti-bacterial soaps which are bad for the environment and contain pesticides.

6. Cook with cast iron or stainless steel cookware to avoid the toxic fumes that can be released from non-stick cookware when it is overheated.

7. Establish a "no shoes in the house" policy to reduce pollutants from outside being tracked throughout your house.

8. Use green cleaners made from items from your pantry - baking soda, vinegar, and lemons can be combined into some amazing cleaners.

9. Use reusable stainless steel water bottles instead of buying bottled water.

10. To help with seasonal allergies and stuffy noses caused by winter colds, try using a neti pot instead of over the counter decongestants.

Sea Shepherd

My husband and I have supported Sea Shepherd and their missions to protect animals for years. Sea Shepherd has experienced some recent fame due to the "Whale Wars" series on Animal Planet, however they are by no means new to the animal conservation world. The Sea Shepherds lead by their fearless captain Paul Watson confront Japanese whaling ships as they illegally hunt for whales in the frigid waters of Antarctica.

According to the Sea Shepherd website, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization established in 1977 whose mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world's oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species. "Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas."

The Japanese whaling ships continue their annual hunts by claiming to be conducting research with the Institute of Cetacean Research. The ICR claims to be conducting scientific research on whales however they sell the meat of the whales they hunt. Whether you agree with the Sea Shepherds methods - stink bombs, prop-fouling ropes, and interfering with the whale hunts - they have brought major media attention to the devastating and illegal whale hunts.

This week the confrontations between the whalers and the Sea Shepherds escalated when a whaling ship collided with the Shepherd's boat the Ady Gil shearing of the bow. The Ady Gil was valued at 2 million dollars and is a complete loss.

Join others such as the Dalai Lama, Bob Barker, author Farley Mowat, Brigitte Bardot, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Grateful Dead, and Third Eye Blind in supporting Sea Shepherd at www.seashepherd.org

Yes to Carrots

I have found a yummy new lip butter I just love - Yes To Carrots' C Me Smile. It is all natural with extracts from certified organic fruits and vegetables, it contains no petroleum or phthalates, is paraben-free and is not tested on animals!

C Me Smile contains organic carrot, orange, pumpkin and melon extracts which provide
antioxidant protection; coconut oil, olive fruit oil, jojoba seed and sunflower oils to nourish & protect your lips; vitamin E and shea butter.

Why is organic lip butter a smart choice? According to Glamour Magazine's June 2002"Beauty Quickie Tip," "women inadvertently eat 4 lbs of lipstick" in a lifetime. Every time you lick your lips, eat or drink while wearing lip product you ingest a small amount of the product so be sure to choose organic products.

C Me Smile is available in five yummy flavors - Berry, Carrot, Citrus, Melon and Mint. Check out www.yestocarrots.com for more delicious info.

Happy Green Year 2010!

Happy 2010! Here's my family's green goals for this year:

1. Plant an organic garden this spring.

2. Prepare more items from scratch to eat healthier and reduce packaging waste.

3. Switch our plastic reusable food storage containers to glass.

4. Go on an eco-tourism vacation.

5. Learn to make my own soap and beauty products.

6. Support local merchants, crafters, and artists with my purchases.

7. Move to a home that allows use to reduce our driving.

8. Limit purchases to quality, earth-friendly items that will last.

9. Get creative with using recycled items in my crafting.

10. Continue to educate others about the importance of going green and the simple changes they can make to live a little greener.