Although it can be argued that the increased use of shippers and shipping of items by eBay is decidedly NOT green - noone can argue that eBay has kept LOTS of stuff otherwise destined for the landfills from being thrown away.  The new green site informs us that 86 million buyers and sellers on eBay have reused over $100B worth of products since 1998.  

Green team members are providing information on buying green, selling green, living green, and shipping green.  Green shipping tips help to reduce the carbon impact of sending stuff across the planet purchased on eBay!  It helps to buy stuff close to home - and eBay also allows you to search each listing by distance.  

eBay also has a new subsite designed exclusively for sellers of green products called Worldofgood.com  If you qualify and can list here - your listing is featured both on this site and the main eBay site, but you only pay one set of fees.

eBay also allows sellers to donate part of all of their profits to green organizations, as well as many other charitable organizations of their choice. 

eBay’s Green Team site in the future will host discussions and give information about green events in your area.  I look forward to seeing its evolution!

Fostering an economy based on social and economic justice, World of Good, launched by co-founders Priya Haji and Siddharth Sanghvi — just after they graduated from University of California Berkeley Business School — features unique gifts and handcrafts from artisan communities around the world. By selling through an ever-expanding distribution network of retailers nationwide, they are building a whole new economy based on Fair Trade.

Ten percent of their profits get funneled to their sister non-profit organization, The World of Good Development Organization, which helps support artisan communities and works to strengthen international fair wage standards.

“Our aim is to make it easy to help customers make a good choice — not to buy more, but to buy differently,” explains Priya. “They can expect quality, convenience and style — yet the products can be made in a way that actually helps the people who make them. Right now, our products are women’s accessories and housewares. As World of Good grows, our aim is to make the choice for people-positive products easy to find in every category of daily life. We want every human-made product to be a tool of relationship and empowerment for the person who crafted it. Imagine every product not as a material thing but as a bridge of connection and transformation.”

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A Ford Motor Company engineer has built a 3-wheel motorbike capable of getting 125 mpg. 

The fuel economy expert crafted the vehicle at his home shop in Belleville, MI. It’s a street legal, two-passenger, 3-wheel motorbike that is made from aircraft materials. Oh, and it is capable of a top speed of over 100 mph.

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 Five Places You Might Not Expect to Find Stylish Yoga Wear:

As environmentalism enters into the collective conscious, designers and retailers alike are looking to the healing arts for inspiration and guidelines as they embrace a greener lifestyle. Here is a list of the top five places to find affordable, well-designed yoga wear near you:

1.  Banana Republic

Even the brand names are jumping on the bandwagon of sustainability. In honor of earth day, Banana Republic unfolded an eco-fashion line of 50 summer staples in April of 2007. For the duration of Earth Week, the retailer pledged 1% of all its in-store sales to the not-for-profit Trust for Public Lands. This eco-friendly initiative is part of the company’s quest to reduce their environmental impact in the coming years. 

2.  J.Crew

Inspired by the enthusiasm of its customers for the practice of yoga and the parallel ease and simplicity of this ancient art, J.Crew launched a line of yoga wear for its 2008 fall collection. In an article from Women’s Wear Daily, J.Crew CEO Millard Drexler explains, “We kept hearing from our associates about yoga, hearing from our customers about yoga, and hearing from people who do yoga. We always want to be where our customers are, and where they are going. That’s our mission. Today, any retailer’s job is always looking to the road that has to be traveled.”

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So, I’ve become a HUGE fan of:

Freecycle. Seriously, folks. You sign up, get email updates with freebies being given away in your area and you offer up the extras in your closets. I gave away a sewing machine that was in need of TLC and an old wooden play structure. I’ve found clothes for the kids and baby equipment. The only money involved is the cost of driving to pick the items up. Awesome.

Craigslist. While this isn’t a great place to find freebies (though they do have a free section), it is a wonderful resource for new to you furniture, auto needs, tools, and kids items. I’ve sold bags of clothes for $20 a pop and purchased a couch for $150. Yay.

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I need all sorts of ingredients to make my meal happen so I went directly to the 100-mile diet resources page to find out if there are any local oil suppliers (there aren’t), honey suppliers (there are) and was happy to stumble upon a local candle maker along the way.

The resources page of this movement’s site, like all good movement sites, lists dozens of other sites on which you as an entrepreneur could promote your products. It occurred to me that if you are in an eco-food or home products entrepreneur, that the 100-mile movement is something you could tap into.

And its not a small movement either. According to Alexa, a Web traffic tracking service, 500 sites link just to the 100-mile diet site. And in fact, its part of a larger movement of locavores. Now were talking about a movement that has hundreds of websites, blogs and articles devoted to it.  So, the question is: is there a movement out there that you can join as a supplier?

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EBay agreed to a global ban on the sale of all types of ivory products by January 1, 2009, after an investigation by IFAW found more than 4,000 elephant ivory listings on the online auction site.

More on the story here

Image source: exfordy on Flickr

Most wouldn’t flinch at the idea of buying a used car, but the thought of a used computer sends them squirming. The tech industry tries their hardest to keep it that way: they advertise new products in such a way to render the previous models perceptually obsolete; they block even the simplest hardware upgrades; and they sell bottom-of-the-line models that simply break within a couple years.

This shouldn’t scare you away from a used computer purchase, but know that they are imperfect machines; some research, determination, and basic knowledge is required. To make this list, I used both my own experience along with some tips from Peter Montesano of Peter’s PC Repair, one of the most highly regarded repair shops in San Francisco.

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Head over to eBay to bid on a solar-powered Lifeline radio autographed by Tom Hanks. Proceeds from the auctions will benefit the Freeplay Foundation, which provides these radios to African communities that would otherwise be without reliable access to information.

Thanks to Ecorazzi for the heads up!

Buy some rhino poop on eBay…

EBay UK

Browsing around, you can find information in the dozen or so Fair Trade sellers listed on the portal now (many of the UK's pioneering Fair Trade brands are there) as well as information about Fair Trade broken down by region. Each region highlights a Fair Trade artisan cooperative with its story and photographs. A couple of clicks in and your taken to the familiar eBay product listing where you'll be able to easily stay in the Fair Trade realm of eBay UK with quick links to all certified sellers as well as category links.

It's great to see one of the Internet's shopping giants embrace Fair Trade in this manner. It makes business sense that eBay is trying this out in the UK first as Fair Trade is much more established there than it is in the US. However, it would be nice to see this feature appear for US-based Fair Trade retailers. You can contact eBay (you can proceed as a 'Guest' at the Login prompt) telling them how much you'd like to see a similar portal for the US.

The auction is for a lunch date with conservationist and legendary actor Harrison Ford. Here's my deal — I think it is wonderful that celebrities are the models, the gift and the prize… I just hope we aren't auctioning off Brad Pitt's body parts for solar panels. Too far? — perhaps. Unrealistic? — perhaps not.

In other news, Leonardo DiCaprio visited Israel for the first time this past week with Israeli model girlfiend Bar Refaeli. (Is she hotter than ex Giselle — I don't think so) Sure there were walks on the beach, romance and violence with the paparazzi – but Leo had enough time to squeeze in talks with the Israeli government. The star was invited to meet with Israeli Vice Premier and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres within hours of arriving in Tel Aviv.

From the article:

An aide to Peres said: "The meeting was pleasant and interesting. Shimon told Leo about his Peace Valley project - a joint Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian economic development plan - and Leo spoke about '11th Hour' his documentary on the environment."

Just another day in the life of Leonardo DiCaprio.

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J.K. Rowling is not only making hard core green cash, she’s contributing to the green movement. I can hardly wait for the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming out July 21st. I can feel a little bit better about the monstrous 784 pages because of the alliance she’s made with Rainforest Alliance,

Among the details of agreement:

• The paper used will contain "a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber."
• Nearly two-thirds of the 16,700 tons of paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, an international organization with a mission to "promote environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests."
• A "deluxe" edition of the new book, which has a first printing of 100,000, will be printed on paper that contains "100 percent post-consumer waste fiber."

Also, Julia Roberts is stepping into the limelight with plans to upgrade her 20 million dollar Malibu home with state-of-the-art green gadgets and technology. She also plans to add recycled tile to her bathroom floor. I'm all for these improvements. While everyone can do their part, regardless of financial state, it's cool to see what 'no budget' can do to produce a stylish and eco-friendly home.