Category — Green Living

It’s one of America’s favorite traditions- having a BBQ on the 4th of July.   This year, consider making your celebration of the red, white and blue a little bit green too!  Here are a few tips for green grilling:

Disposable Plates and Bowls:  If you can’t get past the thought of washing up the dishes consider an organic variety of disposable plates and bowl such as those made with potato or corn starch.  These biodegrade quickly and are produced without the harmful chemicals associated with foam.

Food:  What’s a BBQ without food?  For greener grilling, consider avoiding anything that is pre-packaged.  Buy fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, meats and fruit.  Pre-packaged usually translates to additives and a lot more trash at the end of the day.

The Grill:  Although gas grilling is thought to be a greener, cleaner burning alternative to charcoal grilling, there are several varieties of eco-friendly, organic charcoal briquettes available. Check out your local organic grocery for suggestions. 

Clean Up:  When the day is over and the last sparkler has sparkled remember to use green cleaning products for cleaning up after your 4th of July BBQ.  There are many varieties of green cleaning products made from organic ingredients such as orange oil, baking soda and vinegar that will do a  great job and make your home smell nice too.

Enjoy your 4th of July BBQ and don’t forget to grill green!

Is there any use in crying over spilled milk? Well, some consumers certainly are doing so since major chains such as Wal-Mart and Costco have adoped a new, greener design for milk jugs. First the benefits: The new milk jug design uses less plastic, requires 50% less storage space, and is stackable, allowing more milk to be shipped in a single truckload. Now the cons: consumers are complaining that the new milk jug design is hard to handle, easy to spill and generally inconvenient. I recently purchased a gallon of milk contained in one of these new jugs at Sam’s Club and didn’t have any problems with it. However, I did notice that my kids were more prone to spills with the new design. Perhaps this is just a case of needing to get used to something new. However, since the new milk jug is saving dairies money on both shipping and labor, its probably going to be around for awhile.

The impact of plastic water bottles on the environment has recently been covered at length in the news and on daytime talk shows including Oprah. According to Earth 911, a website dedicated to green living, Americans purchase 28 billion plastic water bottles each and every year, and only a mere 13 percent of them are recycled. These stainless steel water bottles made by New Wave Enviro are a classy alternative to plastic. They’re available in 3 colors, hold a ½ liter of water each, and include a carabineer for attaching to your belt or backpack. You’ll find them at Nubius Organics. A few more words on the woes of plastic water bottles: In addition to the mounting piles of plastic water bottles in landfills everywhere, the use of plastic water bottles is criticized for the amount of petroleum it takes to produce them—a whopping 17 million barrels of oil per year! And, plastic water bottles have recently been suspected of leeching chemical residue into their contents. Stainless steel water bottles work great in conjunction with your own water filtration pitcher…see tomorrow’s post for a suggestion!

Ask a handful of parents of small children how many times they’ve found a bathroom faucet running full stream with no one in sight, and their answers will probably surprise you. With a 5 year old and a 12 year old, I’m always reminding my kids to conserve water by shutting the faucet off. Here are a few family-friendly ideas for teaching your kids about water conservation. Have a family discussion about the importance of clean water for all of us. Depending on the age of your children, this conversation will range in depth. Be sure to mention the importance of conserving water for both humans and wildlife. Let your kids brainstorm to come up with creative ways to conserve water. Suggest that they turn the water off while brushing their teeth and not fill the bathtub to the very top. Encouraging your kids to come up with their own ideas for saving water will make the process of water conservation much more meaningful to them. Allowing your kids to help in the garden or with your houseplants will also help them to understand the value of conserving water. Seeing firsthand that plants require water to live and that they will wilt without it by helping with the gardening is a good hands-on experience.

Wow, who would’ve known? A pure coincidence! Although “Green Vaccine” is completely unrelated to “Green Our Vaccines” march, I do whole-heartedly support the cause, and all of the people who were out in Washington D.C. last week rallying for it. Among them were Jenny McCarthy, her son Evan and Jim Carrey. Jenny and Jim have been active spokesmen for the cause since Evan was diagnosed with autism. According to the Jim Carrey Online Forum, Jenny calls Jim “the Autism Whisperer” because he is so great with Evan and has been able to cure him of his fear of dogs, water and thunderstorms. Evan’s condition inspired Jenny to write a book, Louder Than Words, about her experience with fighting for her son’s treatment. The vaccine controversy is disturbing to say the least, and I am glad that people are raising awareness about harmful toxins in vaccines and vaccine scheduling for kids. “Too Many Too Soon” statement on the back of the “Green Our Vaccines” t-shirts says it all.

CNN article - by Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey for ‘World Autism Awareness Month’

TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) - official site

Autism rally 4/6/08 - More news about the event

Generation Rescue - Organization dedicated to cleaning up vaccines

These days Adrian Grenier has a new entourage on his soon-to-be-aired show, Alter Eco, on Planet Green channel about to be launched by Discovery. The cameras will follow Grenier and his Green Team (style guru Boise Thomas, model Angela Lindvall and renovations expert Darren Moore), around LA, while they tackle environmental projects and show us how easy it is to be eco-conscious and reduce our carbon footprint . Alter Eco will premier June 9 as a 13-part series. I just might check it out.

Source: TV Squad

Admittedly, I’m out of the loop regarding the Bike to Work Week. Ok, cut me some slack, I live in LA! If I could bike to work, then it would be on a beach cruiser and I would declare a “Bike to work year”, but alas such is not the case, so I’ll stop with the shoulda-coulda-woulda. However, I do wholeheartedly support, encourage and envy all those of you who can bike to and from work.

I was researching green energy and came across this great interactive room by room tour with green home tips by Energy Star. By clicking on a room or a blue star, you can learn about how to conserve energy in every corner of your house. Great educational tool for kids, too. It teaches you to be eco-friendly, starting with your own home.

Hi, I’m Anne Karine and I am starting this blog with an intention to promote green products for sustainable living and raise eco-awareness via green tips and eco-events. Essentially, I am here to inject you with your daily dose of green thinking. With the constant world population rise and increased depletion of Earth’s resources, we must collectively minimize our waste and strive to be ecologically conscious with every choice that we make. To do that, we have to educate ourselves about the best practices. As we enter the new renaissance era, a mass consciousness shift needs to occur in order to salvage our planet. After all, this is OUR home.