Green Options

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One of my fondest childhood memories was playing with a brand new refrigerator box with our neighbors in the front yard.  This large box was a space ship, a school bus, a house, etc.  Parents know that kids love boxes, and sometimes these corrugated containers are more interesting than the toys they contain on birthdays and holidays.  Kidsonroof has combined children’s love of cardboard boxes with dramatic play to create the MobileHome.

The MobileHome is made from recycled cardboard, is biodegradable, five percent of profits are donated to UNICEF, and is made in China.  It has eight secret rooms and is easy to take with you to the park, on vacation, or around the house.  My children immediately integrated their other toys, including their children’s yoga mat,  into dramatic play with our MobileHome.

Eco-Friendly, Biodegradable Tableware from Let’s Go Green

Picnic in green style this summer with eco-friendly biodegradable plates & bowls, and compostable utensils and cups from Let’s Go Green. Made from sugarcane fibers, these bowls and plates are 100% biodegradable, but sturdy enough for your sloppiest Joes. Their 16- and 20-oz. plastic cups are made from corn, and their PSM (plastic starch material), compost-certified utensils will naturally decompose back to organic elements. Let’s Go Green also offers 100% recycled lunch and dinner napkins, recycled without chlorine bleaching.

Save big when you buy their Picnic Sampler, which includes 50 each of knives, forks, spoons, and 9″ plates — all for only $19.99.

Let’s Go Green has dozens of wonderful products for every room in your home. In fact, a great housewarming gift is one of their Green Home Starter Kits….

Hanky Panky is taking its ultra comfortable line eco-chic. Now, their lace trimmed undies (that can convert any thong phobic into a fan) come in all organic supima cotton. Fabulously stylish and shockingly comfy, it’s nice to have one of my favorite lines taking some of their products organic. I’ll hope for the day that all companies take the hint and go ‘all in,’ but for now, I’ll stock up on this organic line (available at Neiman’s) to [...]

As promised, here is Part 2 of my article for Etsy in The Storque’s new Earth Tones section. Click here to read Part 1. I’d love to hear what you think about these ideas. It feels a little like Christmas around here at Green Options, so… Merry Earth Day!

Indie crafters have become notable participants in the history of making things, but have a unique opportunity to pioneer social change as well. Since the Industrial Revolution, consumers have been diverted by the science of sales, and derive pleasure largely through conspicuous consumption. I feel that we modern makers seek to lift them out of the doldrums through individual acts of creativity. Yet, as materialism tips nature’s balance, our noble pursuit of culture questions its own validity. There is increasing unrest amongst crafters who feel their creations only add to the clutter on this Earth, but what if we could actually save the world by making things?

Glastonbury Festival is one of the highlights of the British summer. Or lowlights, some may say, as it invariably seems the clouds burst that particular weekend.

Revellers rush back to their tents to wait for the rain to subside. But recently, it has come to light that cows living on the farm where the festival takes place have been choking on metal tent pegs left behind. Has an answer been found?

Editor’s note: With warmer weather just around the corner in the Northern Hemisphere, many of us will start looking for opportunities to cook out and picnic. This week, Life Goggles takes a look at an earth-friendly disposable plate from India… made from leaves. This post was originally published on Monday, March 3, 2008.

Ganesha is an alternative trading outfit that markets the traditional industries of India, working directly with the producers. We’ve more about them in our Paisley Park Jute Shopper Product Review.

The sent Life Goggles a pack of 20 leaf plates to test. But where do you start testing a plate? Kev did an excellent review of some plates made from potato starch, so I did what any self-respecting blogger would do: I copied him.

But as it turns out, these are quite different products. These disposable plates are made from sal and siali leaves, from the forests of Orissa, East India. And as you’d expect, leaves can’t hold that much weight, so doing a test like Kev’s weight bearing experiment with apples was a no-goer; in fact it struggles with a knife and fork on it. For an easy comparison, think of the leaf plates as a replacement for paper plates at parties or barbecues, but bigger. They’re about 30cm (12″) in diameter.

I do a lot of laundry; I mean a lot of laundry! My mother always jokes that the washing machine never turns off at my house. Furthermore, we have a greywater system on our house, so I am particular about the laundry soap we use. Recently, I was given dropps Liquid Laundry Pacs to try.

I buy in bulk, and laundry detergent is no exception. A humongous jug of liquid laundry detergent sits atop my front-loading washing machine, and inevitably, dribbles of soap spill everywhere when I use it. dropps eliminates this mess! These convenient little packets are just tossed into your washing machine with no measuring or spills. They are lightweight and easy to use. A 20 load package of dropps weighs 10 ounces, whereas the equivalent amount in a liquid laundry detergent weighs 80 ounces. Furthermore, dropps is concentrated in addition to the lightweight packaging, thus “saving water, plastic, trees, and fuel.”

Conventional clay and silica-based kitty litters are not only burdens on landfills, but they come from strip mines (a very non-ecofriendly practice). Switch your cat over to some natural alternatives. These natural based litters are biodegradable, reduce odor and have less dust, which means less irritation for your cat’s lungs (and your lungs too.)

In her article on greening pets, GO’s Kelli Best-Oliver suggests a wheat based litter

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If you steer clear of Styrofoam, crave non-disposable cutlery, and believe that beer in plastic cups is a discredit to your pursuit of fizzy-cool hoppiness, never fear. Become a garbage-free gourmand, and even improve your city with a daily dose of activism.

Why avoid disposables? Try getting an Italian to enjoy his espresso from the ridged lip of a Styrofoam cup and he’ll tell you all about the importance of real cups

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Yes. You should pick it up. Even if no one is around. Bag it. Scoop it. Compost it. Whatever you do, please clean up that dog poop.

Leaving dog-doo on the ground is a big no-no, especially if you live within the vicinity of others. Aside from the courtesy factor, left behind 'gifts' can cause the spread of diseases and bacteria including tapeworm, roundworm, cryptosporidium, and e.coli. These can

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The U.S. is the world's leader in garbage generation with each American averaging about 4.5 pounds of garbage per day. Do the math and that adds up to a heck of a lot of waste. Try to reduce the amount of garbage you throw away each week by simply thinking before you toss it.

Create your garbage inventory. It may sound a little silly, but knowing how much and

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