Green Options » cleaning products

Stocking the Green Office: Sustainable Supplies

Megan Prusynski — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:58:17 +0000

Before you can open your doors for business, you need an office. Stocking your office with needed supplies is a great opportunity to show your green side and make sustainable choices. From furnishings to paper clips, there are eco-friendly options out there for every office need.

Whether you’re working from home or from a downtown high-rise, you can conserve paper, reduce energy use, and produce less waste by keeping the environment in mind for all your office purchases. In this article, I’ll share ideas for stocking your green office and sources of green office products.

How Big is still Green?

Lee Welles — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:16:39 +0000

Like many of you, I’m very aware that what goes on my skin, in my hair and on my floors and countertops, also goes down the drain and into the world! I distinctly remember a moment, while congratulating myself for using a great, organic body care product, that I looked at the label and realized that bottle had traveled about 3000 miles! Then I squinted and saw that Unilever was distributing the product and I was no longer giving my money to the small, eco-friendly company that I thought I was!

This New York Times article has me again pondering the crossroads of eco-friendly products and economies of scale.

While I’m a big fan of the cleaning power of baking soda, vinegar, Borax and lemons …a decent homemade shampoo is still beyond me! It took me a while, but I found a skin care line that I like; not only because the ingrediants are simple and organic, but because the packaging is recycleble.

Healthier living

serenity_ii — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:48:57 +0000

The road to going green is, in my mind, quite mixed with the road to going healthier. Getting rid of our aluminum cookware is divided into the same category of my thoughts as using cloth napkins or recycled-paper towels. So what are we doing to get green & healthy now?

* Today Bill put in another CFL. A flood bulb in our family room went out and I figured we’d replace it with an LED, but now there’s talk of replacing the whole fixture, so I don’t know what will happen.

* We have a crop of probably 5-7 raspberries a day. A locally grown, antioxidant-rich snack for Bill (the seeds bother me and our son doesn’t eat the majority of fruits & veggies unless they’ve been pureed by Gerber). We also got about a serving of popcorn from this year’s crop. The pumpkin plant keeps blooming, but the pumpkins just don’t form.

* For my birthday, I got two stainless steel pans (there is aluminum in the bases, unfortunately, but it’s completely clad in steel), an iron pizza pan, and an iron skillet.

* We’re getting rid of clothes, books, chairs, cookware, etc. It’s a little late for a garage sale and I don’t have the patience for Freecycle at this point, so we will probably donate them. But we might sell some of the stuff online.

* As we use up yucky products, we’re replacing them with green products. We’re already using BioShield toilet cleaner. When we use up our 409, we’ll be using Bi-O-Kleen multipurpose cleaner. By the way, where do we get the borax or whatever to make that homemade multipurpose cleaner that was featured on GO? I haven’t seen that anywhere. The thing is, I don’t want to waste the old products we have left, but I also don’t want to use them if they’re toxic. . .

* We adopted my grandma’s table and chairs when she moved into a smaller room in her retirement home. Just arranged those in our dining room today, in fact. I don’t think we’ve ever had any new dining room furniture.