What if you could guarantee exactly how much you’d get, based on how long you’ve owned it, at the time of purchase? This is now a reality, via the company Tech Forward. You can buy a product at any store you like, then purchase their Guaranteed Buyback service, which covers a wide range of electronics, from MP3 players to desktop computers.

Who would benefit from this service? Anybody, really, but here are some examples:

• You are going to be in a 2 year certificate program, and know you’ll need a laptop primarily for that, you can now do it, knowing what you’ll have coming back to you when you sell it.
• Or perhaps you are someone who is a fiend for the latest gear or worried about what you’re about to buy becoming outdated (iPod Touch, before the recently announced half price iPhone) Tech Forward’s plan allows you to buy without worry.
• The end buyer, who has a chance to get a quality piece of electronics that they can be assured is of good quality.
• The planet, with a reduced load of toxics from disposed of electronics.

And the kicker? The quoted values are only for products in what they consider “good” condition! As in if it’s what they consider excellent condition, you can get 15% more then you signed up for. What an incentive to take great care of your electronics.

So, given the fickle nature of this industry, what happens to these electronics? TechForward first work to get it sold, which I should think is fairly easy, given that not everybody needs/wants the absolute latest thing, and would be glad to get a well taken care of older device. What if they can’t sell it? Tech Forward will, “recycle, in an environmentally-friendly way, any item that cannot be resold.” I’d prefer if they said how, with who, and where, but that’s something you can ask them about if it matters to you.

But there’s one problem with TechForward. No phones allowed. What to do?

For you, FlipSwap is a great new option that goes beyond what Second Rotation offers. They have partnered with a number of electronics retailers, so that you can go into a shop, have them analyze the phone, and get instant credit, to be used in buying a new one. And FlipSwap isn’t just for single phone returns. They work with cell phone businesses that could perhaps have 1000s of phones in storage. And with both, they don’t charge shipping. From their site, it appears they are quite conscientious with recycling, should it need to happen.

If it’s found that the phone isn’t functional or sellable, FlipSwap, in addition to recycling, will plant a tree. And internally as a company, they “closely monitor our consumption of resources and continually strive to reduce waste.”

Readers: What are other ways you’ve found to responsibly and easily reuse or recycle products? Have you used either of the above services? What’s been your experience?

Additional Resources:

What to Do with Your Old Electronic Devices: Get Paid, Help Those in Need! : Ecopreneurist

How to Green Your Mail : Ecopreneurist

10 Business Practices that Reduce Your Footprint : Ecopreneurist

That’s the message from “Stop Trashing the Climate,” a report prepared by The Institute for Local Self-Reliance, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Eco-Cycle, a non-profit recycler. The study finds that waste prevention and increased recycling and composting could reduce as many greenhouse gas emissions as are produced by 21 percent of the U.S.’s 417 coal-fired power plants.

Why? There are two basic reasons. One, by trashing stuff instead of reusing or repairing it, we create the demand for new resources … and extracting, manufacturing and transporting those resources generates carbon dioxide. And, two, by tossing biodegradable materials into landfills instead of composting them, we’re creating emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is shorter-lived but 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

“Recycling is as important for climate stability as improving vehicle fuel efficiency, retrofitting lighting, planting trees and protecting forests,” said Brenda Platt, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and lead author of the “Stop Trashing the Climate” report.  “By avoiding landfill methane emissions, composting in particular is a vital tactic in the battle to stop Arctic ice melting. Biodegradable materials are a liability when buried and burned but an asset when composted.”

The report asserts that “A zero waste approach based on preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling and composting is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies to protect the climate.” It also notes that, per megawatt-hour, a trash incinerator produces more carbon dioxide emissions that a coal-fired power plant. Incinerators also waste three to five times as much energy as recycling helps to conserve.

“A zero waste approach is not only good news for climate stability, it’s also good news for America’s businesses and economy,” said Eric Lombardi, a report co-author and director of the Boulder, Colorado-based Eco-Cycle.

“Stop Trashing the Climate” urges a local and national 20-year goal of zero waste. We can get there, the authors argue, by not subsidizing landfills and incinerators, putting an end to waste incineration, composting biodegradable materials and expanding the nationwide infrastructure for reuse, recycling and composting.

As part of World Environment Day, community supporters of better recycling and composting lobbied officials in several parts of the country, including Tallahassee; Providence, Rhode Island; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Los Angeles; and Massachusetts.

Gather your materials and ideas. Here’s what’s involved:

• An inkjet printer
• The seed packet outline template (download here in JPG or PDF file formats)
• Embellishment option 1: A graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP (free open-source software)
• Embellishment option 2: Decorate the packet post-printing by hand
• Embellishment option 3: Do both!
• Paper grocery bags
• Iron and scrap fabric
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Glue stick
• Paper creaser or popsicle stick
• 1 can of wildflower seeds
• Optional: rotary cutter with dedicated blade
• Optional: stamps, stickers or other embellishments(as long as they don’t poke holes in the paper)

Create your design

You need only a basic knowledge of manipulating graphics to create a design with the template. Don’t fret over acquiring Photoshop if you don’t own it. I have been singing the praises of open-source options like GIMP and Inkscape for years now. If you are not adept to using this type of software, no worries! You can simply print the PDF file, then write, collage, stamp, or glue to your heart’s content. Here is a brief description of the steps I take using GIMP(for all you rookies): Open the template in your program. It’s 150dpi, and is sized to print at 8.5″x11″. You’ll want to work in layers for manipulating different elements. Create your design within one of the outlines. When you are done, save it in the native format(.psd for Photoshop or .svg in GIMP), so you can adjust later if needed. Now, simply merge down those layers, leaving the background free. Copy/paste the text and images, and align them on to the second packet outline (or do different designs, it’s your party!). Keep in mind that printing on brown paper means that white will not be a factor in your colors. They will be duller than what appears on the screen. That said, I have an inexpensive multi-function HP printer, and even light blue showed up nicely. Important text should be in bold or dark colors though, and keep it about 1/4″ from the fold lines as well. When you print, make sure to check the options for margins. If you can, set the printer to ignore them.

Turn bags into printer paper

All paper grocery bags that I’ve encountered have a single seam along the length of one side. You don’t want to print on seams, so rip or cut it open along that line. You won’t be using the bottom. Cut it out, or tear it apart so that the bag lays flat in a single layer. The point is to have as much surface area as possible to divide into 8.5″x11″ pieces. Using a scrap piece of printer paper as a template, place a ruler around the edges and trace/cut or rotary cut out individual pages. Yes, it’s against all convention to use your sewing cutlery on paper, but buy a dedicated blade for your rotary cutter, and I promise you’ll find it enormously useful for this and other projects. I made 3o Japanese stab bound books for Christmas presents last year, and opted to make this tool multi-use rather than buying a dedicated paper cutter. This also allows you to stack up to 3 layers of bags that you can cut through in one pass. For a standard size bag, you’ll get about 6 sheets of paper(12 packets). Once you have your sheets cut out, they will probably be somewhat wrinkly. So, we’re going to crossover to our sewing supplies again, and using a piece of scrap fabric as a buffer, iron out the sheets on med-high heat one at a time. This will help them to go through the printer smoothly, and make a nicer finished product.

Tips on printing

I think buying packaged specialty papers is to your printer as packaged patterns are to your sewing machine. It creates a predictable finished product, but both of these machines are potential avenues for experimentation. I have had no problem sewing through cardboard. Likewise, I’ve had no problem printing on regular fabric. More on that later, but let’s stick with the program. Load your paper bag paper with the blank side in the correct direction to be printed on in the paper tray. Keep the cleanest edge (one with the least folds or wrinkles) on the feed side. If you are printing your design, set your printer properties to a high-quality setting, and adjust the ink volume to medium-heavy or heavy. I got over 75 cards printed without putting too much of a dent in my notably puny cartidges. Print a sample or two, and adjust as needed. When trying this, I was pleasantly surprised by the sharpness of the images on the seemingly rough surface. I had one or two jams, but they were because I was messing around with the loading tray. No big deal. Again, I have a run-of-the-mill, front loading HP, any inkjet should work similarly. If you try, this and have any particular issues or tips for your model, please leave them in comments.

Cut, paste, and plant!

Cut out the individual packets along the lines. If you want to add additional decoration or hand drawings, now is the time. With the right side down, fold all the flaps in towards the middle, and crease using your popsicle stick or paper creaser(sometimes these are called “bone folders” though they are generally made from plastic nowadays). glue the large side flap over the top of the folded in bottom (the tapered end is the top) and opposite side flap. I find they stick better if you apply the glue to both surfaces being stuck together. Press and smooth out to seal, then let dry completely. Give them at least a few hours to set, then pour a tablespoon or so of seed mixture into the open end, and apply glue to both the flap, and packet surface to thoroughly seal. Smile about all random acts of guerrilla gardening you are setting into motion : )

I want you guys to be able to go nuts with this idea. So I’m releasing it under a Creative Commons license. That means you may “perform”, tweak, and publish this tutorial to your hearts content, even for commercial purposes. The only requirement is that you should acknowledge its use anywhere you might republish or showcase a derivative product online by linking back to craftingagreenworld.com. Here are just a few possibilities for hobbyists and entrepreneurs alike:

• Enlarge the template image and use for packaging larger trinkets and such.

• Are you a gardening enthusiast? Package your own seeds! Keeping them sealed in a cool, dry place should prevent any random sprouting. I’ve had no problem whatsoever with that.

• Do you make and sell items for gardeners? This would be a great addition to a gift set.

• Make them into tags by taping a loop of scrap paper on the back to attach with a string.

• What else could you put in them? Emergency sewing kits? A small beading project? Surprise collectible pin-backs? Trading cards? Product samples?

• Try sticky velcro to seal the top for larger reusable contents.

Go ahead, escape the the force of craft gravity. The sky is no longer the limit. This attribution requirement only applies to the fabrication described in my tutorial. You may attach your own copyright preference to any original imagery or artwork you apply in the process.

Brown Paper Seed Packet Business Cards by Crafting a Green World - Autumn Wiggins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Being creative with your quilt ingredients is part of the history of quilting. Now granted, many of the choices that early quilters made were due to economic constraints. I suspect that if the pioneers had sewing machines and fabric shops readily and affordably available, a lot of them would have taken advantage of those options. However, quilting does have a historical ethic of conservation and re-use. Quilters today manifest this ethic through the obsessive saving of fabric scraps too small for any reasonable project, “just in case.”

So if you’re willing to look past batting, there are other earth-friendly alternatives for your quilt’s insides. Your linen closet, thrift stores, or donations from other people’s sewing supplies may provide just what you need.

When you’re making a heavy quilt, such as a denim quilt or a flannel rag quilt, you may not want to add the weight and warmth of batting to your project. A flannel sheet is a good alternative. You can also use a flannel sheet for the batting of a traditional quilt, but check first to make sure the pattern doesn’t show through the top or backing. For an even lighter weight, you can use a regular sheet. Regular sheets will give the quilt less body than flannel.

If you’re going to tie your quilt, regular or flannel sheets might be a great choice because they remove concerns about batting shifting over time. If you’re quilting, sheets will give you a very flat look for the finished quilt relative to batting, and the quilting stitches will be quite visible. You can also get away with less quilting.

For wall hangings, felt can be a good choice because of its stiffness. I’ve received leftover felt from a couple of people once they moved past making Halloween costumes for their children. I’ve been using it to practice free-motion quilting, but I could even re-use those pieces as the middle layers of small quilts. Like sheets, felt won’t have the same crinkly outcome as batting after washing.

You can even use an old, somewhat worn-out quilt as batting for your quilt. I know it may seem like heresy, but there are older quilts out there that are ugly and have no historical value. Caryl Bryer Fallert’s first quilt used a quilt as batting, and she says in the description that she’s pretty sure the batting in that quilt was worn-out long underwear. If you’re going to use an old quilt, make sure the batting of that quilt is in good condition. A quilt I recently inherited had batting that had turned into lumps and pellets. Not a good choice for your next project.

(You can take this idea one step further and use a lame, boring, mass-produced quilt picked up at a thrift store as the batting for your lovely, interesting, handmade quilt. Take that, Tommy Hilfiger!)

Other possibilities include light fleece blankets, or any other large piece of fabric with a weight that you think would work for your quilt. The two risks you run are uneven shrinkage and bearding (when the batting fibers “leak” through to the outside of the quilt, as can happen with polyester batting), so pre-wash your fabric in hot or warm water before using it and inspect it carefully for signs of fuzziness.

Finally, if you’re going to do fairly dense quilting, you can always piece together leftover batting scraps from previous projects. My good friend Stephannie of Silana Stitchworks gave me the following advice:

I just make sure that I quilt it densely enough that that section won’t shift around. I zig-zag stitch (widest I can manage) with the two pieces butting up right next to each-other - but not overlapping, since that would create bulk. I use a similarly colored thread. It’s amazingly easy to do, and really doesn’t take much time or patience. And it soothes me not to have to buy more batting when in total I have enough. I’ve successfully pieced like 5-6 little pieces together to make something large enough for the whole quilt. Sometimes the pieces all go in one direction, and sometimes it’s more of a puzzle piece sort of thing.

I’ve done this for a wall hanging, but now I think I’ll try it for a larger quilt and see how it goes.

Related Posts About Blankets and Quilting

• Winter Woolies
• Are The Amish Extreme Green Quilters?
• Top 5 Quilting Ideas for “Use What You Have” Month

On Monday, I took a broad look at America’s shoe problem.

Now I’d like to take things down a notch and look at the shoe bid’ness on the local level.

Arensberg’s Shoes has been operating in Lawrence since 1956. The family-owned store sells about 8,000 shoes a year.

I worked as a sales associate at Arensberg’s for 11 months. I have the utmost respect for the store and the management. They are the only shoe store that I have ever been to where the employees genuinely care about the health, comfort and satisfaction of their customers. However, I think the business could make simple changes that would significantly alter their environmental impact.

Reduce

Almost all purchases are placed in yellow plastic bags. In the olden days, the sales associates at Arensberg’s used to tie boxes with string so that the customer could simply carry the boxes out holding the string. A spool still sits on the front desk in case their is a shortage of bags, but it is rarely used.

Towards the end of my shoe selling career, I started asking customers if they would prefer their boxes tied. To my surprise, many opted out of using a plastic bag. They were fascinated by this archaic technique and appreciated the extra effort.

If employees began asking customers if they would prefer a bag or a tie, I think the store would use far fewer bags - helping the environment and their expenses.

Resole

I was baffeled by the amount of people who asked me to throw away perfectly good shoes. They would come in to buy new shoes because their sole had worn down, or worse - because a lace had snapped in two. Lordy Mae!

I think the Arensberg’s, as well as all Lawrence shoe stores, should put a highly visible sign at the front desk that advertises BKB leather (a local shoe repair shop) and be more open to letting people know that they can easily and inexpensively repair most worn down shoes.

Recycle

Each pair of shoes are shipped to Arensberg’s in large cardboard boxes. Each individual shoe box is filled with oodles of packaging and mutltiple wads of paper are stuffed into each shoe to maintain the shape. There’s also usually a cardboard divider between the two shoes and tissue paper wrapped around each shoe. Almost all of this packaging will be taken out of the box and thrown away

This store could greatly lower their impact by recycling the packaging that comes from each opened shoe box.

Revamp

I must give kudos to Arensberg’s for selling Timberland and Simple brand shoes - two companies that are use eco-friendly and recycled materials, and are working to change the sustainability of the shoe industry.

I think they could expand their eco-friendly shoe selection and make a special section of the store dedicated to lower impact shoes. In addition to providing customers with the option of going green, it would also raise awareness about the environmental impact of the shoe industry and what to look for when trying to avoid shoes with a large carbon footprint.

P.S. Here’s a fun tip: The inside of a banana peal is a great non-toxic alternative to shoe polish.

Well have no fear because this week CAGW will tackle that very question and offer up nifty solutions to reusing your Easter eggs!

Fresh out of my sugar rush, I grabbed an errant egg and quickly put it to use. I stuffed the inside with all my loose garment buttons. You know the extra buttons that come on new clothes? I’ve never had a good place to put them all, until now. The plastic egg is the perfect size and makes a satisfying click when putting the halves back together. I labeled the egg with a Sharpie marker and decorated it with drawings of buttons so I know what’s on the inside. It is now nestled inside my sewing box.

For the rest, I was thinking of getting a jump start on my Easter decorations for next year and use one of these great egg knitting patterns and reuse the plastic eggs as stuffing.

Stay tuned throughout the week for other ideas on how to reuse and recycle plastic Easter eggs in your crafts.

Divas and Drooligans makes every effort to maximize the exposure of mommy-made brands because providing moms the opportunity to bring their work to a national market while still being lovingly available to their own children is a wonderful thing!

Thanks to yours truly, Divas and Drooligans is now featuring some organic items and plans to expand this line. The organic cotton hooded towel and wash cloth gift set is made by Generation Baby in Canada. This gift set is thick, soft, and luxurious! There are many reasons to chose organic cotton for your baby.

Commercially grown cotton is grown using pesticides and chemicals that pollute our water and soil. Baby products made from chemical-free organic cotton are less likely to trigger allergies, and they last longer too. Organic cotton becomes softer with every wash, and the fibers do not break down as quickly from the chemical treatment of commercial cotton.

There are a lot of other products available from Divas and Drooligans designed to help you reduce waste. For example, the oilcloth wipeable splat mats are durable and versatile, as they could be used under the high chair or as an art drop-cloth. With nearly half of their products made by work-at-home-moms, you can feel good about supporting Divas and Drooligans.

Good news from China: the China Daily reported yesterday that the Chinese Ministry of Education will allow the reuse of textbooks in primary and middle schools in some rural areas starting this new semester.

The newspaper reports that

…the central government will set up a fund for the purchase of these textbooks, which will be issued to students free of charge. Students will be required to keep the books in good order for their reuse by others.

This initiative is a win-win deal: parents will spend less on textbooks, and the environment will benefit as well - less trees will be cut, less energy will be used, and pollutant produced in paper-making will be reduced.

If this initiative will be implemented in all of China, it can have an enormous impact because of China’s huge population. Check out these figures: it is estimated that $4.2 billion is spent on the purchase of textbooks during the nine-year period of compulsory education nationwide, and that about 450,000 tons of paper is used annually in the printing of these books, which requires the consumption of about 9 million trees!

In any case, this is a good start and we hope that further steps to broaden this initiative will follow. Maximizing the usage of each textbook that is already printed is a goal we should look for not only in China, but worldwide, both in schools and universities. This is the opportunity to remind you about Chegg.com, an online service that rents textbooks to students and also plants a tree for every rented book with Eco-Libris.

And for more news about green happenings in China, swing by EcoWorldly.

Warning: so, as the video and Oprah’s darling du jour and guerrilla closet warrior Peter Walsh so clearly outlines, our pack-rat habits are making us chubby. They can also be a barrier to us going green. Not surprising, did you notice that your lean and toned friends also tend to have pretty darn spotless, sustainability-forward and organized homes, while your plumper friends tend to lavish in “chaotic creative” spaces. Hmmm…

So, if a few extra pounds are not another reason to go green and more to the point, avoid buying more stuff that will end up in our junk closet, take a tip from Eric Rochow at Real World Green and swap items at Freecycle.org. That way, you can part with your 1999 240i Canon printer with a clear conscious and one gym-less (read: “get out of jail free”) day.

But who knows, you may still need to hand a slick branded package at your next client presentation Monday morning and a simple, 1992-era identity, even if it’s printed on 100% post-consumer waste paper, just won’t do.

So, you’ll check out Clearly Green Design out in Ottawa, Canada not only for their uber-impressive client list and portfolio but for their philosophy:

“Not only do we walk it, talk it and live it in everyday life [but] we refuse clients who are simply picking up on the green trend. We do not design packaging nor do we design for products because there is no such thing as a sustainable package or product - it all eventually ends up in a landfill creating still more of the problem. We focus on designing for ethical services and non profit messaging in order to remain firmly entrenched in our solid beliefs.”

- Deb Ozarko

But there is still time before next Monday rolls around. In the meantime, you can get rid of clutter with these seven, fast “Win the War on Clutter” tips from Quick & Simple magazine, save money and ultimately, really act on the all-important “reduce” part of “reduce, reuse, recycle” that has been touted as paramount by environmentalists for decades.

Failing that, just clean that closet by following some of these common sense tips from Walsh, including:

Peter Walsh’s F.A.S.T. Plan for Clutter

Fix a time to de-clutter
Anything not used for 12 months — if it hasn’t been used in a year, get rid of it
Someone else’s stuff — if it doesn’t belong to you, it has to go
Trash — unusable items and garbage definitely should be tossed

Thought for the day:

“Often we think our belongings are worth more than they really are. If you discover that your “valuable” possessions wouldn’t sell for more than a few bucks on eBay, it may make it easier to part with them.”

Makes sense – and looks green(er) – to us.

Photo credit: Off-grid.net

Recycling requires additional energy consuming steps to transform a product into something new that reuse escapes. A new service based out of southern California called usedcardboardboxes.com (the title quite simply speaks for itself) has embraced the concept of reuse and is escaping the steps involved in recycling cardboard to Asia by sending them straight to your front door.

Founder Marty Metro piloted usedcardboardboxes.com as a neighborhood project four years ago. The company rescues quality used, new overrun and misprinted boxes from manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. With the ability to lower the cost, ensure quality, and promote environmental responsibility, Metro is achieving traction in family, wholesale and retail markets. Since the company motivation is so simple and the service doesn’t require any additional work from the recipient, it is a clear way for retail and wholesale markets to boost their environmental profile while saving some trees and consuming less.

The website allows individuals who are planning a move… to purchase kits online based on their needs. The moving kits include tape, markers, and packing materials to minimize trips to the store (yet one can opt to not receive these materials if one does not need them). Beyond household supply, usedcardboardboxes.com fills orders of 3000 boxes+ for companies like Guess Jeans, American Apparel, and FAO Schwartz.

After four years of private/personal financing, usedcardboardboxes.com received is first public investment/funding from Funk Ventures, a Santa Monica based venture capitol firm that funds “highly promising companies that can significantly impact people, society, or the environment in a positive way.” As the company rapidly grows, Metro plans to expand by establishing distribution centers nationwide. Currently they have the ability to serve 42 million households in the west, but with a new financing plan, they expect to provide service to cities including Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

Usedcardboardboxes.com was a top-ten nominee for Co-op America’s 2007 Peoples Choice Awards. They have received quite astounding press reviews and in my opinion it s because of the profoundly simple benefit. There is no trade-off involved here. Why use a new box when you can reuse an old one? The answer is simply- I don’t know; I guess I’d rather save a tree and the energy than kill one.

1. Handbag knit purse from plastic shopping bags.

You've probably seen similar projects to this one: maybe a rug braided from plastic grocery bags. This Instructables project takes a slightly different approach: spinning the bags into a "yarn" that you then knit using an incredibly simple pattern to make a durable bag. I think you could easily make cute stripes with blue and white bags.

2. Yoga mat bag made from old pants

This project from personal fave ReadyMade magazine reuses "grandpa pants" (sorry Max!), but you can use any old pants, including denim, to make a very cute tote for your yoga mat. Can't wait to try this one as soon as I "borrow" my mother-in-law's sewing machine.

3. Tote bag made from old t-shirt

If there's one thing I have a ton of, it's old t-shirts. My storied (ha!) athletic career (and teaching career) left me with more t-shirts than I know what to do with. Most have sentimental value and I hate to throw them out, but I never wear half of them, and I'm not a fan of those t-shirt quilts. This project from Instructables is super-simple and, with a little work, could be the easy way to make all those reusable grocery bags you've been meaning to buy.

Next, layers are key and making sure the extremities are covered (i.e. hands and feet). Buying a new pair of slippers has been tempting me for months, until I saw this Cut Out + Keep step-by-step project for making house slippers out of an old towel (we've all got some of those). Vegan and easily customizable, this project only take a little over an hour and is as easy as pie (oh, another good idea to warm up).

Cut Out + Keep is a nifty online community and collection of DIY project started by Cat Morley, a young journalist/filmmaker/photographer in Scotland. Cat's writing has been featured in both Venus Zine and ReadyMade Magazine's website; she also produces an online magazine called Snippets, which features "the most interesting, wonderful and weirdest from the worlds of fashion, music, technology, art, craft and entertainment." Snippet's latest issue, number 6, is all about fashion, even featuring an interview with Portland-based eco-style creator Leanimal (who will be premiering her new collection at the upcoming Portland Fashion Week).

I will be posting our progress! Please pass along any cool projects using product packaging or other materials usually doomed for the dumpster or recycling bin!

Peace.

Each quarterly issue features 10-15 new patterns tailor to each season, as well as columns, articles, interviews, product recommendations and more. One of the consistent columns, titled "Frankenknits," is written by Kristi Porter, in which she chops up clothing, and transforms them into updated items of wonder (perfect for us reuse-loving crafters). Knitty's Fall 2007 issue recently went live, and the Frankenknits column features two handy dress incarnations: one for women and another for baby.

Dave and Lillian Brummet's Trash Talk is a book that aims to get back to minimizing waste and finding everyday uses for trash. Think of it as "Hints From Heloise" meets Mother Earth News. The introduction reminds readers that reduce, reuse, and recycle should be precluded by refuse — as in, refusing to buy items that generate a lot of waste. The book is divided into four sections: the first has ideas for reusing common household items (some not-so-common — who has a plethora of old oven racks hanging around?), and the second has plans for habits you can implement that follow the four Rs, like composting, or cutting open toiletries bottles to get all the product out. The third section focuses on tips and habits related to paper, and the brief fourth section gives statistics that remind the reader that the little things do add up.

It's clear that the authors walk the walk: many of the tips are reuse ideas that I hadn't heard of, and their extensive gardening background was surprisingly helpful. The home garden seemed to be a playground for reuse. And, again, this seems to be more for the crunchier crowd — it definitely had the vibe of Mother Earth News as opposed to Real Simple. That doesn't mean that it was packed full of radical ideas; most of the tips and habits are pretty practical for those who are in the process of going green. But there were a few that I know would cause the light-greenest of readers to drop the book and never look back.

Many of us are working to green our home lives but it is important to bring that green initiative to the workplace as well. Offices generate tons and tons of waste everyday.

The often forgotten first step in any greening process is to reduce the amount of waste generated. Remember reduce, reuse, recycle? Recycling is the last step. Try this: gather up a few of your co-workers from different areas of your office and spend five minutes talking about paper usage habits. I gurantee that you'll find dozens of ways to reduce paper use in those five glorious earth-saving minutes.

Quick n' easy ideas to get the ball rolling are to save single-sided prints for note paper (you can even make little note pads using the paper cutter and stapler) and stop printing emails, you really don't need to, I promise. In 2003, paper and paperboard accounted for 35 percent of the total materials discarded (PDF) in the United States. This is up from 29 percent in 2000. We're actually discarding more paper than we did before the Web became available  to us civillians. Paper is a great place to start but this process can be applied to just about every office supply you use everyday.

A few minutes spent Googling "myths of recycling" leaves the picture even fuzzier: yes, recycling can be worthwhile ... if local trash tipping fees are high, or if you're recycling the right things, or if your city collects both trash and recyclables at once for sorting at a centralized facility, or, or, or ... All of which leads me to believe that the truly virtuous don't recycle so much as they reduce and reuse. That is, don't buy the plastic-wrapped foam tray of tomatoes when you can choose the loose variety. Don't buy bottled water when you can fill a reusable container with tap or filtered water at home. Don't buy plastic food storage containers when you can reuse empty yogurt or butter tins.