Green Options

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Six years ago, when my daughter was a baby, there was very little available in organic, affordable clothing for children. Thankfully, that has changed. A new company called Happy Green Bee is offering organic, fair trade, sustainably produced cotton clothing for infants and toddlers. The company was founded by mother, conservationist, and Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby.

Happy Green Bee clothing comes in bright, colorful patterns. Not only is their clothing line cheerful, comfortable, and playful, but it is also ecologically responsible. Founder Roxanne Quimby explains,

We created Happy Green Bee so that a child can be a child, first and foremost. By using organic cotton, a comfortable and practical fabric, and simple bee-striped patterns, children feel as comfortable as they look, while their parents take a small step in making a big difference in the environment their children will live in.

Thanksgiving is only a week away, which means the gift-giving season is in full swing. To make your seasonal shopping easier and more sustainable, I’m bringing you a series of green online stores that offer a wide variety of eco-gifts that would make anyone on your list feel appreciated. The first offering in this series was Max and Zane and now, for my second installment, I bring you Organic Style.

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This cute toy from Under the Nile is one you can feel good about giving a child. The adorable organic hippo is not only made from cotton grown without pesticides, but natural dyes were used in its construction. Furthermore, the organic hippo is a fair trade product! Fair trade and organic, what else could you want in […]

Originally commissioned painting for a friend’s masters’ thesis on Cosmopolitanism, 100 limited edition prints are available for sale. All profits will go to starting a website to promote fair trade stores, green traveling and green events. Prints measure 16×20 and are 12 color print on canvas. This highly detailed painting shows many symbols to represent peace.

Halloween is one week away, and the blogosphere has erupted in green Halloween posts. From The Green Guide to Eco Child’s Play, everyone is writing about having an eco-friendly, ghoulish good time. Green Halloween has also been a hot topic lately on Green Options:

• Daily Tip: Halloween with Less Waste,
• Green Style How-To: Supermarket and No-Sew Halloween Costumes,
• Five Super-Simple Steps to Green Trick-or-Treating,
• Daily

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Having a happy, green Halloween has been a hot topic on the Internet lately. Some people embrace the idea, and some people think it is ridiculous. My Halloween will be mostly green, with a few exceptions: the costumes and driving my kids for trick-or-treating. I try to balance my children’s eco-childhood by allowing them to sometimes choose aspects of commercial culture. Their grandmother buys their costumes from the Disney […]

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. The word is music to my ears, while the thing itself – when it is a bittersweet pearl of cocoa, or a spicy hazelnut praline, or again the warm melting heart of a rich gateau – why, no words can describe it! No wonder the famed Azetec Emperor Montezuma drank 50 cups of chocolate a day. No wonder the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus chose the name "Theobroma cacao" or "food of

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Several contests launched this month in honor of Fair Trade month. From free chocolate to trips, there’s a chance for everyone to win.

Divine, a delicious Fair Trade chocolate company, has a tasty deal for all the top chefs out there. They’re looking for recipes that have "heaps of creativity, Divine appeal, and powerful statements about why contestants are hungry to change the world through Fair Trade." The sweetest

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The world’s most imperative fashion invention of all time (or at least one of the top five) has to be denim jeans. Somehow, since its nearly 200 years of being invented, manufacturers have made it unthinkably difficult to find that "just right" fit. Once you begin adding in the factors of sustainable fabrics and Fair Trade practices, your brand options become even more limited, in turn restricting your chances of finding

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Fair Trade Towns USA is "a campaign organized by local and national Fair Trade advocates whose aim is to encourage and support the Fair Trade Movement
in the U.S. Following the example of the Fair Trade movement in Europe, the campaign strives to support local, grassroots groups by offering tools and resources to become a Fair Trade town or city through successful local campaigns."

This campaign makes it even easier for your town

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Today’s tip is a safety tip cautioning readers to be aware of the "dangers" of hybrid and electric vehicles to pedestrians. Last week, I was almost hit by a Prius in a health food store parking lot. I can imagine the headline: "Environmentalist run over by a hybrid vehicle." Ironic, eh?

My near-encounter with the Prius occurred because the car was running on its electric motor, thus making the car virtually

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