Posted on June 26th, 2009
Summer is a great time to hit the court and play a few rounds of tennis. What you might not know is that there are hundreds of millions of tennis balls manufactured world wide every year - approximately 20,000 tons of landfill waste. Don't freak out! Your favorite summer sport doesn't have to be wasteful.
Rebounces found a way to put the bounce back into dead balls and sells them back as practice balls. How cool is that? Play tennis and enjoy yourself -- just save your dead balls and send them to Rebounces to get them back in the game. Now that's what we call love.
Posted on June 25th, 2009
Because you're sexy, you may have removed yourself from junkmail lists, started borrowing instead of buying books, printing double sided at work and generally reducing the amount of paper you use. Take it one step further by using your debit or credit card instead of cash as much as possible. Cash money is produced using lots of paper, ink and energy. If you have another option, use it! Using electronic banking and passing on cash often helps you track your spending more easily too. In this economy, reducing the amount of money you spend is important, but reducing the amount of paper you use can be too.
Posted on June 18th, 2009
These days, it's more than just sexy to be green -- it's trendy too. While we think it's great environmentalism has gone mainstream, it also means it's a little harder to wade through the not-so-green stuff to get to the real deal. There's a term for companies that falsely label their products or corporate policies as environmentally responsible: greenwashing. How do you know what's actually green or not? Research! If the newest non-toxic cleanser on the store shelf is made by the same company that makes bleach, for example, you might be tipped off to look into the company a little further before you spend your money on it. ...
Posted on June 11th, 2009
One of the coolest organizations we've heard of lately is
Fallen Fruit, a grassroots Los Angeles-based group dedicated to mapping out the public places in that city where fruit trees grow or overhang. What does that mean? It means they provide
maps on their website of public places (like parks) where unpicked fruit falls from the tree, only to rot on the ground. That is, unless someone picks it. Free lemons, oranges, grapefruits, figs... You name it! The mission of Fallen Fruit is to expand community fruit maps to create an online global public fruit resource. The project asks all of us to petition cities and towns to support community gardens ...
Posted on June 10th, 2009
Did you know that the Winter Wren has the most complex song of any bird in North America? And that all types of clover are edible? Part of being more eco-conscious is passing along your green information to others, keeping the education going and keeping people fascinated with the outdoors. Today, why not try and learn something new outside that you can pass along on your next hike or outdoor adventure.
Posted on June 9th, 2009
“When we all do one act, we act as one and help the planet.” That’s the idea behind One Million Acts of Green, an initiative started by Canadian TV host, George Stroumboulopoulos on his show, the Hour. The goal: have one million Canadians go green by starting small. To date, over 1,600,000 acts of green are registered, so sponsor Cisco is taking the initiative to the U.S. Visit
the site to record your green act, learn new tips, and check out the calendar that adds up the amount of greenhouse gases saved when one small act adds up to more.
Posted on June 7th, 2009
And rightly so, vacations can give their takers a feeling of freedom: drink, eat, play, repeat. But with great freedom comes great responsibility, and it's possible to infantisize your carbon footprint even when you're blotto-ing it up in Cabo. If you're planning daytime activities, consider human-powered potentials. Rent a kayak from your resort's dive shop. Spike a hike. Slog for a jog, or just read your favorite novel by the hotel pool. It's zero emissions chill time.
Thanks to Winston Ross for suggesting this tip!
Posted on June 6th, 2009
If you should find yourself soaring through the friendly skies sometime soon, take a look down at the Earth and keep it in mind when the beverage cart rolls down the aisle. One easy way to minimize your impact is to drink your beverage straight from the can, instead of from a little plastic cup. Since the beverages are already chilled, you won't be nursing a tepid drink, you'll just be passing on plastic. Should you choose to drink from a cup, hang on to it until the end of the flight. Should the flight attendents offer you another chance to wet your whistle, you won't need to take another one. Feeling extra sexy? ...
Posted on April 30th, 2009
Here's an idea: keep a few hand towels/kitchen dish towels in your car to use as napkins, instead of taking paper ones from fast food places. By reducing the amount of disposable napkins you use, you'll be helping the restaurant save money and cut down on orders, which means fewer trees being cut down and less energy and water used to produce and ship all of those napkins to your favorite in-a-rush-eatery. Can we get fries with that?
Thanks to T. Cradick for
suggesting this tip!
Posted on April 29th, 2009
Has someone sent you flowers lately? While flower deliveries are always appreciated, if you've been given a few bundles, you might have 1 too many vases keeping time in your home. Having a few around is nice, especially if they are different sizes and can be used for containers, but when your vases go from storing to storage, know that you don't have to throw them out. We've found that your local florist will happily take the vases off your hands to use in future deliveries - even if that’s not the florist where the flowers originally came from. Try it - you might be surprised at how you can help a local business in ...
