Green Options

You care about the environment and also your family’s health. So it’s time to embrace eco-friendly child care!

Many daycare and child-care centers around the U.S. are embracing eco-friendly ways, and it’s not a day too soon. That’s why we’re building a huge directory of eco-friendly child care centers around the country. We have over 120 listed so far and we’re adding more every day. Check them out! And if you know of one you’d like to add, please send us an email to feedback@lowimpactliving.com.

The State of Oregon’s Environmental Council has taken a pioneering role in certifying child-care centers with their Eco-Healthy Child Care program.  Child care facilities qualify as “Eco-Healthy” by completing a 25-element checklist that highlights 25 steps facilities can take to ensure a safe place for children. Eco-healthy child care centers commit to reducing a child’s exposure to toxins and other environmental health hazards.

There’s no shortage of news stories, blogs and online resources aimed at helping people go green, but sometimes the best way to learn new habits is to watch someone else in action.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the recent eco-stars across the U.S. whom I’ve discovered in my daily wanderings across the Web:

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently put out an extensive list — 112 tidbits long — for how to get extra uses from numerous household items: banana peels, nail polish, marshmallows, milk, Alka Seltzer, alumininum foil, dryer sheets, baking soda, beer…

A few examples:

What started out as a single event in NYC last year, the Go Green Expo has bloomed into a 4-city extravaganza, kicking off at the LA Convention Center this weekend, January 23-25. In addition to over 200 booths of eco-friendly goods and services, the Expo features:

• Interactive seminars and speeches
• Film screenings
• Eco-fashion show
• Demonstrations & hands-on activities

We want to start the New Year off with an eco-bang, and so we’re launching a new Green Home Contest. Low Impact Living and Joie de Vivre Hotels challenge you to make your home as green as you can! We’re going to reward the greenest home of all with a luxurious 3-night stay at the very environmentally-friendly Hotel Carlton in San Francisco. More on the [...]

For me, eating ‘healthy’ used to mean one stick of butter instead of two.  But for the sake of my arteries (and wardrobe!), I decided to ditch fatty foods in favor of an all-natural diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and any other low calorie, high protein substance that typically had a distinct flavor, resembling cardboard.

Needless to say, it wasn’t long before I returned to the comforts of creamy comestibles, luxuriously languishing in lardaceous liquids, where I’ve been happily indulging ever since.  That is, until Behind the Burner nutrition expert and author of The Little Black Apron, Jodi Greebel, came along to open my eyes to a lifestyle of healthy — yet satisfying — morsels that don’t require me to go cold turkey on tempting treats.

So, when I had Jodi captive, I picked her brain about nutrition, dining out, being a vegetarian, and how to eat healthy and delicious. 

One of the biggest challenges most people face is staying organized.  It’s also one of the biggest new year’s resolutions for those who resolve to start their new year off clutter-free.  But, for many, it’s an elusive process that either starts off strong and fizzles out, or seems so daunting a task that they don’t know where to begin.

Enter Krista Colvin, lifestyle expert, Founder of Organize in Style LLC and creator of The Shebang, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Doing It All, who sees your clutter as a canvas for crafting a well organized masterpiece that’s as eco-friendly as it is stylish.  Best of all, she offers practical solutions that are easy to implement — and maintain — and will save you precious hours to boot.  With Krista’s help, the only thing you’ll need to think about is what to do with all that extra time!

What if you could promote peace, foster a multicultural world, support local artists, help underdeveloped countries thrive and save the planet just by eating deliciously rich and organic chocolate candies? 

Well, thanks to Sarah Endline, the creative genius and cacao bean extraordinaire behind sweetriot, you can.  Oh, and did I mention that the chocolate candies are actually good for you, and rich in health benefits?  I know it seems to good to be true, but Behind the Burner gave me the amazing chance to speak with Sarah who shows us how a sweet tooth and a passion for change can make anything possible.

I’ve been thinking.

Since I’m not an ironclad expert on … well, much of anything … what I think I bring to any discussion table is the interest in critical thought. And, as I’ve mentioned in past posts here at sustainablog, even that contribution – or the interest in making it – has wavered in recent months.

Then I had a bit of an epiphany – or maybe just a piece of an epiphany with the rest to flesh out as I continue to regain equilibrium in analyzing these lofty world issues, such as related to the environment, politics, culture wars and what the hell happened to Chase Daniel’s run at the Heisman Trophy.

What I realized was this: I’m not wrong.

Tea is one of those things that unites people.  The experience of sharing a cup with friends, or that momentary feeling of steamy relief with the sip of a chamomile blend when you’re sick or a bedtime ritual that soothingly lulls you into slumber.

It also comes with other healing and beauty benefits that Tracy Stern, founder of Salon Tea, has harnessed in her commitment to making green living fashionable through tea.

As part of our Behind the Burner series, I got the amazing chance to chat with this fabulous lady whose sense of style is instantly captivating from her Vogue-worthy wardrobe to her recyclable tea tins.

Catchy title huh? Okay, maybe we won’t save the world, but our kids might. And when my kids leave their mark on the world you can bet I’ll be standing next to them going, “yeah! That’s my son/daughter.”

Today I got about as ticked off as a woman can be. I was watching the big three auto makers (weren’t there five when I was a kid?) re-approach Washington and ask for a bailout. Why re-approaching? Because they were shunned by the Senate, who thought it fiscally irresponsible to bail them out of a mess they’d created for themselves.

Now they’re asking the President. 

Screech