Green Options

Yes, I know most eco gifts don’t need batteries but some tech gadgets and other goodies do, like digital cameras and who is going to be without a camera on Christmas?

This year you have a green choice when it comes to batteries-other than the often expensive and hard to find recharge-ables (why can’t they just put them with the rest of the darn batteries, but no you have to go searching and end up in the electronics section if they carry them at all). Anyway this year you have the option of buying Fuji’s new EnviroMAX batteries.

Rebekah Green has been globally aware and environmentally conscious since the second grade. Throughout her life she’s done a lot for the “green” movement.

Her latest efforts include a sustainable line of earrings made from recycled gold. She even has several designs devoted to children.

Including these precious little turtles which will be going in my daughter’s holiday stocking…if I don’t snag them for myself first (because I adore turtles).

Practically Green: Your Guide to Ecofriendly Decision-Making by Micaela Preston is exactly what it says, a practical guide to going green.

This is one of the best green books I have read, probably because it isn’t all preachy and because I am a big DIY girl I just love the 30+ DIY projects included in this book.

Today all over the world people are rallying on behalf of Mother Nature. People are holding up signs, waving around banners with the numbers 350! What does 350 mean?

Scientists say that currently we are at 350 parts per million which is the safe limit for humanity. Currently we are at 387 parts per million; of carbon dioxide that has entered into the atmosphere!

Today’s message is about taking action and sending a message. This December the world’s leaders will meet [...]

Halloween is almost here! Have you been thinking of ways to make it more green? One of the biggest drawbacks to this spooky holiday is all the candy that gets passed out. Approximately, 10 pounds of it! That’s a lot of candy for one child.

If you’re lucky your children might come home with an all natural version of sweets without the high fructose corn syrup. More than likely, their pillowcases will be brimming with candy you don’t support!

Last year, my family focused on easy ways to put a  little eco in your Halloween adventures but this year we’re going a little further. We plan to support Fair Trade and participate in Reverse Trick-Or-Treating this year- Learn how you can too!

Clementine Art offers safe and natural art supplies for kids: soy crayons, soy crayon rocks, markers, paint, modeling dough and glue. all made with safe, natural, non-toxic ingredients. Perfect for little budding green artists.

Ever since the confession announcement made by SIGG that their bottles made before August 2008 contained BPA every one’s been a bit leery about green products and their believability.

SIGG was one of the first companies that all the greenies were using instead of BPA filled plastic bottles-then to find out that we’d been duped…

Anyway, if you don’t want to use SIGG products for your kids (or you) anymore, no matter what they say about their new stuff, there are alternatives.

The new Thermos Foogo line for little ones is all BPA free.

It has been proven that at least 60% of what we put on our skin is absorbed directly into the bloodstream. That’s scary, really scary when we learn what can be lurking in beauty products-even in baby products. Nasty things like phthalates, parabens and 1,4-Dioxane which has been banned in personal care products in Canada and the European Union but is still allowed in the US in small amounts even though it has been proven that it can cause allergy, immune and neurological toxicity even carcinogenic activity.

Trillium Organics has created a couple new lines of products that come with full disclosure of all ingredients-right on the product labels. The new products are made especially for pregnant women and new babies-two times when natural is more important than ever. OGmama and OGbaby are truly 100% organic and as natural as can be.

The time has come to make a CHOICE. For the economy, future generations and for the sake of nature!

We must decide who will reign the title of the 2009, Green America People’s Choice Award!

“The People’s Choice Award is a celebration of the leaders of the green economy, and a challenge to corporate America to follow their path.”

In order to get nominated these businesses must pass Green America’s screening process. Green America only chooses businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible.

So, without further ado;

Meet the Top 10 Nominees…
(Listed in alphabetical order.)

Say “bye bye” to toys made of bad plastic and covered in lead paint. Instead reach for the wood- wooden toys that is.

Plan Toys offer superior quality wood toys made with environmentally friendly kiln dried, chemical free, rubberwood. They also use E-Zero glue, water based non-toxic colors, and recycled and recyclable materials. And at Plan Toys they do everything with “green” in mind.

Rosie Hippo shares the “green” passion and sells only ethical, quality, eco-friendly toys for children.

In the wake of the Sigg/bisphenol-A controversy, a top researcher and CEO of Environmental Health Sciences fills us in on the news: endocrine disruptors such as BPA and phthalates are indeed toxic at low-level doses, too. And they’re toxic in entirely different ways than at the traditional high-dose testing indicates.

The way the tests work today is we think that by testing at high doses we’re gonna see everything. So that once we get to a dose that’s intermediate and we don’t see anything, we’re golden.

But the science is telling us that at really low doses as contaminants mimic hormones. They can have effects that are totally unpredictable by what happens at high doses.

Pete Myers spoke to Living on Earth about the consequences of current testing.