You’ve switched out your light bulbs to make your home more efficient, you’re using “green” cleaning products around your house, you’re buying locally grown organic produce to reduce your environmental impact. But what about your own body? You know what you put into your body is important but what you put on it can be just as important! There are many ingredients used in skin and haircare products that are just downright bad for you and for the environment. The best thing you can do is read the labels of the products you’re using and do a bit of research to see what is in them. The Cosmetics Database from the Environmental Working Group is a great resource to check ingredients or specific product types and their level of safety. Ok.. so once you check out your product and see that most conventional products are not safe for you, your family, or the Earth you will need something new. It can be hard to find great products.. you could go the DIY route and make some of your own, the Vegan Beauty Review has some excellent suggestions, or if you want the two birds with one stone route you can bring your old yucky products to be recycled and get a discount on new, environmentally and body-friendly products from Green with Envy Organic Hair Studio on April 22nd.

I love the concept (and the people) at Green with Envy Organic Hair Studio! Their non-toxic approach is refreshing and a model that more salons need to follow. On top of their day to day wonderful lack of harsh chemical products, LEED certified building, and fabulous staff they are having a cool event for Earth Day so I thought you should know. Whether you need a new look or just a trim, I can’t recommend them highly enough and it looks like Earth Day, April 22nd is the day to check them out! Also, they have a referral program so tell your friends and for each one that drops your name you get 20% off your next service, how cool is that?

Come Celebrate Earth Day in Style!

The entire month of April is dedicated to being eco-conscious, and on Earth Day, April 22nd, Green with Envy will help you do your part!

Bring in your old hair care products (especially those aerosol hairsprays) and we will recycle them and give you 25% off new, eco-friendly, organic products!

Also, join us for a “green” fashion show starting at 10:30pm to promote Green with Envy’s grand opening and our contribution to keeping the world beautiful.

• Read about my experience at Green with Envy Organic Hair Studio
• Visit the Green with Envy Hair website
  

Currently much of America’s e-waste is shipped to China where it is recycled. Problem is that the way it is recycled is poisoning the land and the people of China. Micheal Zhao has followed the path of e-waste from Berkley Californa all the way to China and documented the conditions of the trash towns and people that work in them. He also has some alternative solutions such as donating old computers to school and other organizations in need. Head over to his website eDump and find out what is going on. eDump

Photo by: Majiscup

Corn plastic or PLA (polylactic acid) cups, utensils, and packaging have been popping up everywhere and I have been curious how they stack up against conventional plastic. It seems obvious that plastic made from corn would be more eco-friendly right? I did a little research and compiled a list of PLAs green pros and cons.

Pros:

• Manufactured from corn starch, a renewable resource.
• Biodegradable, breaks down into mostly carbon dioxide and water.
• Compostable, 6-12 months in a home composter (Many people are reporting that they will not compost in a home composter), 1-6 months in a commercial composter. Longer for heat resistant utensils. Once composted it is indistinguishable from the other compost.
• Does not emit toxic fumes if incinerated.
• Does not leech chemicals into food or soil.
• Freezer safe.
• Can handle hot items up to 120F (200F for utensils).
• Looks, feels, handles just like plastic.
• Is inexpensive.

Cons:

• Is not recyclable, must be kept separate from plastic.
• Few commercial composting facilities (113 in U.S.), only 1/4 of which accept residential materials.
• Commercial Composters use Microbes to break down organic material. Large amounts of PLA in a composter would cause problems because it breaks down into lactic acid which is wetter and more acidic. They can break this down but it requires more oxygen for the microbes to consume. Commercial Facilities would have trouble providing enough oxygen for large amounts of PLA to breakdown. Anaerobic digesters would not have the same problem.
• It is estimated that in a landfill PLA will take anywhere from 100 to a 1000 years to biodegrade.
• Typically made from genetically modified corn and usually not organic.
• Diverting corn away from the world’s food supply.

To me the cons don’t seem too bad considering plastic can’t be composted, takes longer to decompose in a landfill (starts decomposing after around 700 years), and can leech chemicals into food and the soil. Overall I think PLA is a pretty good substitute for disposable plastic cups, utensils, and packaging.  What do you think? Any more pros and cons?

edit: Lots of good comments made and a few saying that perhaps these are not as eco-friendly as their manufactures want you think. See comments for details..

For more in depth information check out these links:

• Corn Plastic to the Rescue
• Information on bioplastics

Financial times are tight right now.  Fuel costs continue to climb as well as the cost of food and most everyone we know are tightening their belts.  Often times people think of being environmentally conscious as costing money.  There are a lot of gimmicks out there now that might cost you more but you are smarter than that. Here are three simple things that you can do to save money and it just so happens they are good for the environment, too. Not too bad, eh?

Switch Out Your Bottles

If you are big on the convenience of plastic water bottles you could save big by switching to a reusable bottle. Also, if you are a soda addict you could save even more if you switched to water, or make your own tea or coffee and put it in a reusable container. If you buy one 20oz bottle of soda per day at ~$1.30 you could save yourself $474.50 per year (not to mention 365 bottles and ~91,250 calories!!!) If you average purchasing two 20oz water bottles per day at $1.10 each that will save you $800 per year! It will also save a landfill from having an extra 730 plastic bottles, or save the energy and water it takes to transport and recycle all of that plastic! A reusable bottle that is easy to wash and is made from BPA-free plastic or stainless steel is your best bet, you can pick one up for $20 or less. [Read more about plastic on my personal blog] [BPA Free Plastic Bottle]

Kick the Habit

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. Perhaps now is as good a time as any to stop smoking when financial times are getting more difficult we could all use any extra money. The savings of quitting smoking is quite significant, if you figure an average pack of cigarettes is $4 and one is smoking a pack each day quitting for a year would save you $1,460!! That does not include all of the money you would save on health care costs and if a bunch of people kicked the habit it would lift a huge burden on the state. [State Tobacco-Related Costs and Revenues]

Financial and even personal health cost isn’t everything to some folks so why not consider the environmental benefits of not smoking. A smoker only takes in 4% of the smoke produced by a cigarette, the other 96% is going into the atmosphere and into the lungs of surrounding people and critters. Cigarette butts are the most littered thing in the country. Contrary to some smoker’s belief they are not biodegradable. Those filters are made up of a type of plastic that takes years and years to break down. In the mean time they gather in waterways, can pose a hazard to critters who might mistake them for food. On top of all that it is a huge waste of paper, each cigarette would be made with roughly 1.25×1.5 inch papers.. 20 cigarettes to a pack.. 1 pack a day over a year is 13,687.5 square inches of paper or 1,140 square feet 95.05 square feet of paper (WOW major math mistake there, I apologize). [Prevent Cigarette Litter]

Eat More Vegetables

It takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat, it is no wonder that with skyrocketing grain prices the price of meat is going up more and more.  Meat prices are even higher due to the cost of transportation thanks to ever increasing fuel costs. It only takes a small change to make a big difference – by replacing one meaty meal a week with a meatless one you would save over $300 per year. Want to save even more? Try planting some veggies in a container patio garden, cherry tomatoes, garlic, herbs and kale work really well in pots and would make a great sauté.

If saving money isn’t your main motivator, cutting out meat, even just once a week, can help the environment. “If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.” (Bittman) [NY Times: Rethinking the Meat Guzzler] [PBS: As Food Prices Soar, UN Calls for International Help]

Any woman would be lucky to have this handmade, flame-worked glass beauty hanging in her window. What’s even better than a beautifull-crafted decorative glass ornament? A useful one that boosts your mood while being “green.”

Our own Tracy Perkins had a article posted on ecosalon about these great solar diffusers! Check out the complete posting here.

These solar diffusers are hand made here in Arizona by Elijah Aller and sold by another Arizona business Strawberry Hedgehog.