If you’re anything like me, the sheer amount of packaging most products come excessively sealed away in is an endless source of frustration. Even if the packaging is in some way recyclable, not all facilities accept all forms of plastic and consumers often fail to meticulously separate out all of their trash. Thankfully, some companies are looking to make more creative loops and links in the supply chain to minimize waste. Preserve is one of these up and coming innovative industries.

Preserve makes personal hygiene products, such as toothbrushes and razors, and some table and kitchen ware, out of recycled yogurt cups and other grade 5 plastics. In addition to just designing with recycled material, they make it easier to recycle their products when you’re done using them. The Preserve toothbrush is packaged in a slim pouch with a business reply label and prepaid postage. You can mail in your old toothbrush when you’re done using it and the plastic handle will be recycled into other Preserve products (nylon bristles are always new). You can even sign up on their website for a toothbrush subscription and schedule for Preserve to send you a new brush on a regular schedule.

At $2.99 you can only feel good about turning a typically disposable personal product into a cycle of reuse. Not to mention a chance to reinstate the interesting producer-customer back and forth relationship that many companies have given up in favor of expansion and disposability.

A few months back I was shocked to hear that owning a dog has an ecological impact similar to that of owning a car.  New Zealanders Brenda and Robert Vale, authors of Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, claim that a large size dog is responsible for more emissions than an SUV.  A little more personal research revealed that many have disputed the data, taking issues with the figures involved in calculating this conclusion and with the fact that pet food is often made from scrap meat of a lower grade than what humans consume, which might otherwise be wasted

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Sometimes all it takes is for a business to possess the constitution and integrity to change a consumer behavior.  Sometimes this is risky, sometimes it doesn’t pay off, and sometimes it pays off handsomely.  I’m talking, in this instance, about Unpackaged, a store that sells foods without any wasteful packaging.

Think of those thin plastic bags in American grocery stores.  People shove virtually everything into a bag, bring them to the checkout, then put them in more bags.  Long since a target for environmentalists, the incidental packaging of consumables is a large source of landfill waste.

You have no-doubt seen the reusable grocery bags first utilized by healthfood stores decades ago.  Unpackaged took the next step, and required you to bring your own containers.  Whether a reusable bag, jar, tupperware, whatever.  You must come prepared.

Of course, Unpackaged takes their efforts all the way to the finish line by sourcing organic and local foods.

This is the exact choice many global businesses need to make.  I challenge businesses to make the scary decision and move into the future.  A future where there is no more waste than can be sustained by our world.  The impetus for change is in the hands of the consumer.  Challenge the next business leader you see to take a bold, risky and forward-thinking step into the future.

Image credit: Web Ecoist

Look, I want an electric car as much as the next guy.  My commute is inside of 25 miles, like 99% of us, so distance isn’t an issue.  Neither is recharging, I live in a very progressive state with a row of electric-car charging stations at my favorite grocery store.  I just can’t swallow the price tag of a new car.  Here is one solution I found that may just be how I spend my next few weekends.

Ingredients:

1 Geo Metro

1 Electric forklift

1 Electric motor

a dash of spare parts

a smidge of random batteries

Bake for a few weekends of hard work, and voila!  The result is a medium speed, medium range, cheap-as-heck electric commuter car.  This one was built by 2 DIY’ers in Toronto to get them from point A to point B for little cash, no pollution, no noise.

It’s called: The Forkenswift!

Read more at their website.

By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
(reposted with permission)

Some people live off the grid, eat local food, and have an energy footprint so minuscule that even the canniest hunter couldn’t track them down. But the rest of us buy from supermarkets, get our energy from at least in part from traditional sources like coal, and occasionally forget to turn off the lights when we leave the house. For those of us who are still living with one foot in the old energy world, here are a few helpful hints about what you should buy and what the consequences of shifting to “clean energy” sources like natural gas and nuclear energy are.

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The green movement is becoming less and less of a movement and more and more of a way of life.  We all want a green home, and there are lots of ways to get there.  We have sorted through the silly, the pointless and the too expensive to get down to the real ways to get a green home.

Taking any number of these steps will help you transform your home into a thriving, environmentally friendly habitat.

1. Buy Local
2. Buy Organic
3. Buy free range/cage-free
4. Avoid packaging
5. Do your research on products
6. Insulate or additionally insulate your home
7. Drive less
8. Make your own cleaning products
9. Wash clothes in cold water
10. Get a dishwasher
11. Convert to CFL bulbs from incandescent
12. Avoid greenwashing
13. Recycle
14. Eat less meat
15. Eat no meat
16. Reuse instead of buying new
17. Use Craigslist
18. Sell that extra car
19. Ride your bike
20. Take a staycation
21. Turn your computer off
22. Cancel your newspaper delivery and read it online
23. Offset your carbon footprint
24. Rake your leaves, don’t blow them
25. Get a reel mower (and ditch the gas one)
26. Start composting
27. Repurpose old things
28. Shop at garage sales, not stores
29. Turn down the heat
30. Turn down (up) the air conditioner
31. Eliminate phantom energy waste
32. Use power strips and turn them off at night
33. Shut doors to unused rooms
34. Stop printing things you don’t absolutely need
35. Use coupons
36. Make a donation to an environmental program
37. Convert your 2 stroke engines to 4 stroke
38. Mow your lawn less
39. Start a flower garden
40. Grow your own food
41. Paint instead of renovate
42. Use low VOC paint
43. Buy energy star appliances (only when you absolutely need a new appliance)
44. Don’t buy a hybrid (huh??)
45. Telecommute
46. Buy organic dog food
47. Ditch the paper cups for coffee and bring a mug to work
48. Dry your clothes on a rack
49. Dry your clothes on a clothesline
50. Seal up your home to stop heating (and cooling) the outdoors
51. Turn your AC completely off (we need heat to survive, we don’t need cold)
52. Wrap your water heater in one of those silver blanket things
53. Install a timer on your water heater so you only have hot water when you typically need it or…
54. Install a tankless (on demand) water heater
55. Convert to electric hot water and/or heat and…
56. Install solar panels or…
57. Install a wind turbine or…
58. Buy clean energy from your utility provider
59. Get netflix (instead of driving to Blockbuster) or…
60. Even better: download your movies
61. Cancel your junk mail and extra catalogs and magazines (the mail system is incredibly inefficient)
62. Give gift certificates for birthdays and holidays instead of shipping presents
63. Give to an environmental charity instead of buying “things”
64. Only run that dishwasher when full
65. Use electricity during off-peak demand times whenever possible (avoid mornings and evenings)
66. Clear off the top of your fridge (both inside and out)
67. Fill up your freezer (it’s more efficient when full)
68. Clean your fridge’s rear-end (the coils should be clear of dust and pet hair)
69. Take the bus
70. Start or utilize a ride-sharing program
71. Work four 10 hour days instead of five 8 hour days (cuts your commute waste)
72. Stop buying bottled water – bring a water bottle of tap water
73. Buy a filter if you can’t stand the taste
74. Turn off the TV and…
75. get some exercise
76. Turn off those extra lights or…
77. Install some light timers
78. Turn off those holiday lights at night
79. Turn off those fans
80. Turn down up the refrigerator temperature
81. Host your website with a green web host
82. Print with an eco-font
83. Reuse an older cell phone or…
84. Buy a used one or…
85. Stick with the one you’ve got
86. Read by candlelight (instead of electric light)
87. Light a fire (in a fireplace or something)
88. Keep plastics out of the microwave or…
89. Ditch plastics altogether and switch to glass containers
90. Bring leftovers, don’t buy your lunch every day
91. Recycle your metal, even old electrical wire and computers (did you know you could do that??)
92. Don’t burn yard waste (let it rot… seriously)
93. Eat less (a lot of a human’s carbon footprint comes from growing, processing, preparing, cooking and *cough* disposing of food waste)
94. Don’t even think about using paper plates
95. Drink green wine
96. Don’t host a progressive party (it’s wasteful to drive lots of people from place to place)
97. Send an e-vite
98. Serve and buy seasonal food (can YOUR region grow strawberries in January?!?)
99. Join a CSA Farm (community sustained agriculture)
100. Read this blog!
101. Keep your car instead of upgrading
102. Shovel snow instead of plowing or snowblowing
103. Turn the TV OFF (we already said this once but it’s double-important)

Do you have an idea for making a green home?  Post it here as a comment.

This article is CROWD SOURCED! What does that mean?  Our goal is to grow this list, and for each item to have a link to a helpful resource.  For example, if you have a resource for #91, recycling your metal, post it here as a comment and we’ll try to create a link for you.

Sources/Additional Resources:

• The Green Guide
• Planet Green
• Treehugger
• Daily Eco Tips

Image credit: souzablog.com

We all know LED’s are better than regular bulbs due to their longer life, smaller energy consumption, less maintenance requirements and brighter light.  As municipalities start switching over to the more energy efficient technology, we are seeing a lot of benefits.  But road maintenance workers across the country have run into another problem they may not have anticipated.

Because LED’s burn with less heat, keeping them free of ice and snow is a bit trickier.  Drivers are finding their traffic lights completely covered with blowing snow.  State’s like Wisconsin have converted 90% of their traffic lights to LED’s.  Whatever the solution, LED’s are a technology that is pivotal to our environmental progress.  We will find a way to make this work.

Source: New York Times

Happy New Year from Hippie Magazine!

There are some amazing eco-innovations going on right now.  Although some are somewhat greenwashed by their corporate real estate developer backers, they are at least conversation starters amongst you and your environmentally friendly friends.

The new Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) will be a high-speed hub for Amtrak, regional trains, buses, taxis, etc.  The pricetag is $180 million but saves two birds with one stone.  a) It makes public transportation more accessible which drastically cuts greenhouse emissions and b) replaces an older set of transportation resources with an environmentally friendly structure.

Plus, what’s super cool about this building is the steel beams will be coated with a membrane that expands and contracts to control light.  This will help with heating, cooling and lighting costs with one clever adaptation.

Sources:

• http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-23-eco-innovations/

A short time ago we posted 10 Alternatives to Wrapping Paper. Well we’ve found even more alternatives with some businesses that can offer you a waste-free holiday season.

1. Reusable gift bags from Lucky Crow will pass on environmentally friendly wrapping and a reusable gift bag.
2. Botanical Paperworks offers wrapping paper with 100% post consumer content and seeds embedded so you can plant the paper after you’re done.
3. Of The Earth offers wrapping paper with at least 50% post-consumer content.

Now your kids can be reminded to turn the lights off when not in use with this somewhat creepy little ghost. He turns yellow after the lights have been on for 4+ hours and an angry red when on for 8+ hours. It might scare your kids, but even they need a kick in the environmental pants every once in a while. Read more at Gajitz.