Category Archives: websites & blogs

Clearing out

Posted on January 25, 2012 by | 6 Comments

Like so many other people this time of year, Recycla has been on a major cleaning, organizing, and decluttering frenzy in the last few weeks. She lives with three people who tend toward packrat tendencies, so decluttering is an ongoing, never-ending task for her.

So far, she has completely worked over her closet, just recently shoveled out her daughters’ toy room, and is plunging into the kitchen today, to be followed afterward by dealing with the mountain of papers in the family’s shared home office.

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Posted in 3 Rs, websites & blogs

Shop Local: Do It for Yourself & for Your Community

Posted on November 30, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Enviro Girl is a HUGE fan of shopping at locally owned and operated businesses.  From restaurants to florists to film developers to groceries, if it’s owned by Mom and Pop, you’ll find her spending her money there.  In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid shopping at “Big Box” and franchise stores.  She’ll go years without shopping at the local mall and tries her very best to spend her money at the stores on “Main Street.”  Her reasons are environmental, political  and economical — here’s the breakdown of why she shops local: Continue reading →

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Posted in eco holidays, issues, transportation, websites & blogs

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Buy Nothing Day: Celebrate it with us!

Posted on November 21, 2011 by | 6 Comments

Nothing, not even a week in Italy with George Clooney, could induce Enviro Girl to go shopping on Black Friday.  The last predictions she read indicated 77 million people planned to shop that day, mostly with plans to buy stuff for themselves.  Consumption and consumerism has shaded most people’s Christmas season.  There’s no escaping the message from the advertisements:  buying stuff will make us all happier.   The reality is that going on a spending frenzy at the mall has absolutely zilch to do with joy or peace on earth.

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Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, green around the world, issues, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

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The Eco Women Are Kicking Off the Holidays with a VZ Wraps Gift-Wrap Giveaway!

Posted on October 31, 2011 by | 15 Comments

We’re one day away from the winter holiday season and VZWraps has generously teamed up with the Eco Women to wrap up your holiday presents in an environmentally friendly way.

What makes the VZWraps awesome?

VZWraps are an innovative, time-saving, and fashionable way to wrap gifts, and, best of all, there’s no trash left behind after a present is opened.

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Harvesting Garden Seeds

Posted on September 12, 2011 by | 1 Comment

You’ve planted a bountiful garden and enjoyed an abundant harvest.  Now what?  If you’re keen on saving some money next spring, now’s the perfect time to harvest some seeds for winter storage.  Harvesting seeds is easy work, all you need is a dry, sunny day, some envelopes, a sieve and a pen.

1.  Identify seeds ripe for the harvest.  Mature seeds come from mature fruit or flowers–pick good ones, not small or damaged ones.  In flowering plants, you’ll find the flower turns brown and the petals curl back, revealing the seeds.  The seeds are just waiting to drop out into your hands if you brush across their surface.  To harvest seeds from fruits or vegetables, remove seeds from ripe fruit and let them dry on newspaper in a cool, dark spot.  Pumpkins, squash, zucchini, peppers, really ripe cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants require splitting the fruit/vegetables apart and prying or squeezing the seeds onto clean newspaper.  Rinsing with water will not hurt the seeds, but it’s not a necessary step.  Lettuce, spinach, carrots and beets are plants that “go to seed” which means they’ll flower and release mature seeds.  Peas and beans require drying while in the pod before you can remove the seeds for future use.   A good seed has a plump body and tough shell.

2.  Drying out the seeds is the first step.  After you’ve harvested your seeds, lay them on clean newspaper and let them dry for a few days in a cool, well-ventilated, dark spot.  When the seeds are adequately dried, the “chaff” can get blown away or sifted out using a sieve.  If seeds get moldy at any time during the drying or storage process, throw them in the compost pile, they’ll do you no good.  Trust Enviro Girl on this–she had a lot of sunflowers come to no good end a couple winters ago.

3.  You need to store the seeds in paper–any type of envelope will do.  Label the envelopes, then put the seeds in a refrigerator.  Enviro Girl likes to store her seed envelopes in glass jars for extra protection against moisture.

Heirloom or heritage varieties will result in the best seeds to save.  Unfortunately, many hybrid varieties have been genetically altered so they cannot replicate themselves–the seeds are “duds” mainly so that customers have to return again and again to buy new seeds each season.

To test seeds after you’ve dried them, just to check on your success, place a few inside a damp paper towel and place the works inside a plastic baggie for a week.  Most viable seeds will sprout in this situation.

Enviro Girl recommends flowers and sunflowers as the easiest seeds to save. She got started with some Cosmos about 7 years ago and never looked back–now she saves all sorts of prairie seeds in addition to carrots, lettuce, spinach, herbs, tomatoes, pumpkins and sunflowers.

Some really useful links for further reading include:

Harvesting Seeds:  You Grow Girl (great photos alongside basic explanations)

Seed Saving Tips:  Planet Green.com (good general information)

Seed Harvesting (lots of super little tips, charming British site)

University of Illinois Extension  (excellent advice & instructions on the ‘wet method’ of seed saving)

 

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Posted in 3 Rs, gardening, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

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One Dress Protest

Posted on June 2, 2011 by | 4 Comments

A trend that is big in blogging these days is some sort of gimmick that gets people’s attention. One well-known example of this was the Uniform Project, in which a blogger wore the same dress every day for a year, but  then made a point to accessorize it 365 different ways. (Actually, she had seven dresses — one for each day of the week.)

Along those same lines comes a new blog called One Dress Protest. The twist on this one is that the blogger is not only wearing the same dress all year, she has intentionally pared her wardrobe down to the very basics and will not be changing her look from day-to-day with accessories. She is encouraging folks to join her, if even for only one month.

At first, Recycla thought that there was no way she could do this, but then she realized that she actually could. As it happens, she pretty much has already done so. Recycla’s wardrobe is nearly all black — pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, sweaters, and shoes. That’s not to say that she doesn’t have other colors in her wardrobe, but if you were to look in her closet or dresser, you’d mostly see black. Recycla wears so much black that she actually had to challenge herself to wear other colors earlier this year. Sometimes, Recycla gets into clothing ruts and wears the same outfits over and over — black t-shirt and black crops one day, black t-shirt (same style, different shirt) and other black crops the next day. So if necessary, she could easily pare her wardrobe down to just a few essentials.

But… Recycla did this when she traveled with her family in April. For 12 days, she had only four or five outfits, which she washed repeatedly on her trip. And you know what? It got boring. Even though she loved the clothes she was wearing, she lamented her lack of choice when she looked in her suitcase. But, when she got home and was faced with her full closet again, she didn’t really branch out very much, again preferring to stick with her basic wardrobe of mostly black clothes.

So Recycla is pondering the One Dress Protest in some form (perhaps one shirt, one pair of pants) and wondering if she could do it for a month or even just week. She might give it a try later this year and see how it goes.

Tell the Eco Women: Could you do the One Dress Protest?

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Posted in clothes, issues, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

10 Green & Cheap Summer Sports

Posted on May 30, 2011 by | 3 Comments

As the temperatures rise, it’s time to pack away those skis and skates or take a leave of absence from your climate-controlled gym.  Summer, with her longer days and balmy weather, is a great time to keep fit while enjoying the Great Outdoors.  Plenty of opportunities abound to burn calories while leaving a minimal carbon footprint.  None of these sports require a gas-powered motor or make a lot of noise.  All of these sports are eco-friendly since they leave no emissions, no pollution and almost no environmental impact.

1.  Biking. Why, it’s as easy as riding a bike!  Expense:  you can find free and cheap used bikes at thrift stores, rummage sales and Craigslist.  Add a helmet for $20 and you’re good to go!  Accessibility: at your fingertips–many folks take up biking to reduce their dependence on driving–add a basket to your handlebars and you can get your exercise time while running errands.  Recreation trails or roads are near most people’s houses and biking can combine with mass transit as city buses have bike racks to help people navigate urban areas.   Difficulty: so easy–even a toddler can ride a bike with training wheels–biking can be a family affair!  Looking for a trail to ride?  Click here!

2.  Swimming.  Expense: a swim pass and a suit will run $100.  If you live near a lake or beach, you only have to pay for your suit.  Accessibility: can be limited depending on where you live–but if you’re near a public pool, they often have hours specifically for adults to swim laps uninterrupted by splashing children.  Difficulty: moderate.  Swimming offers excellent exercise without any harm to your joints, it’s the ultimate low-impact, high-intensity workout.  If you don’t know how to swim, however, many city pools and your local YMCA offer lessons starting at $30 on up.

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3.  Fishing.  Expense: moderate–rod, reel, license, bait and sometimes a boat.  Raid grandpa’s garage or attic for your fishing gear and your only cost will be that $20 license–offset if you catch yourself dinner!  Accessibility: again, depending on where you live you might not have a pier to fish from, but if you do, there is no finer way to spend a lazy afternoon.  Especially if you have kids.  Difficulty: it’s true, even a lousy day of fishing is better than a great day at work.  If you’re new to fishing, check out Take Me Fishing to get started!

4.  Kayaking/Canoing.  Expense: moderate to pricey.  You can rent a kayak or canoe with all the essentials, buy it used at a deal, or go full-bore and drop a month’s salary on this hobby.  Accessibility: this activity is water-dependent–but many areas have beautiful, unexplored areas only available to kayakers or canoeists.  Difficulty: moderate–but this sport offers excellent upper body exercise!  Check out Kayak Online to get started!

5.  Basketball.  Expense: cheap–a ball costs $20, you can find free courts almost anywhere.  Accessibility: quite good in most areas.  Difficulty: moderate to challenging.  Whether you’re playing one-on-one, a friendly game of Around the World, or going full-throttle NBA-style, you can get your blood pumping and all your major muscle groups working.

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6.  Skating.  Expense: cheap–used skates will run under $40.  Accessibility: outstanding–unless you live on a gravel or dirt road, you can skate.  Difficulty: moderate–and a fantastic cardiovascular exercise.

7.  Tennis.  Expense: cheap–a used racket and a sleeve of balls will cost under $50.  Accessibility: great.  Most high schools and public parks have tennis courts free for the public to use.  Difficulty: moderate to challenging depending on your opponent.  You’re guaranteed to work up a sweat and a thirst playing tennis.

8.  Baseball.  Expense: bat, ball, glove–you’re looking at $50 or less.  Accessibility: fantastic.  Whether playing in your back yard, in a public park or at a local schoolyard, you can find a grassy field for  a pick-up game anywhere.  If you’re looking for more “professional” competition, park & rec departments offer league play for $15 on up.  Difficulty: moderate.  But a game of catch with your little slugger in the back yard is worth learning how to throw and catch a ball.

9.  Soccer.  Expense: cheap–a ball is less than $20.  Add cleats and shin guards and soccer might cost $60.  Accessibility: fantastic.  Like baseball, all you need is a flat, grassy field to play on.  Drive anywhere in America and you’ll find kids and grown ups kicking balls around yards, empty lots and parks.  Difficulty: easy.  It’s kicking a ball–there’s a reason there are soccer leagues for pre-preschoolers!

10.  Walking/Hiking.  Expense: free. Accessibility: superb.  You can walk anywhere, anytime.  Difficulty: easy.  Even easier when you take a walk with a friend.

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Posted in health, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

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Lighten Up for Earth Day

Posted on April 20, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Millions of people will recognize the 41st anniversary of Earth Day this year.  Some will pick up trash beside a riverbed or highway.  Some will plant trees.  Some will eat an organic meal.  Some will remember to use their canvas shopping bags.  A few folks might even swear off disposable plastic water bottles.

These are lovely gestures, but frankly, they’re not enough.  If people really want to make more of an impact protecting the planet for Earth Day (and the rest of the year), they have to start leaving less of an impact.   Our human habits of consumption are destroying the planet more than our grand gestures are helping it.  In the last hundred years people, particularly Americans, have destroyed more habitat and decimated more natural resources in their quest for bigger, better, more comfortable and more luxurious.   Our living space has tripled, our driving habits have grown exponentially, we burn more fuel for electricity and heat.  For every “green space” we’ve planted, we’ve paved many more acres over with roads and strip malls and subdivisions.  Our food is processed with chemicals in factories, wrapped in plastic, packaged in boxes, shipped across hundreds of miles, and carried home in plastic bags.   Our air, soil and water is full of manufactured chemicals that leech poisons into fish, wildlife, birds and ourselves.  Our climate is changing, our shores are shifting,  creatures of all species are dying.

Depressing stuff, really.  It’s easy to make ourselves feel good by planting a tree or saying “No, thanks” to the cashier offering us a free plastic bag for our purchases.  Enviro Girl challenges readers to raise the stakes this Earth Day–for April 22 and for the rest of their lives.  It’s a tough challenge, not for the fainthearted or weak.  She can sum it up in four words:  Use less, buy less. 

Let’s break it down, starting with “Use less.”   Pick any area of your consumption habits–water use, energy use, food or plastic.  (The Earth Day Network Website has a footprint calculator to get you started.)  Determine how much you gobble up in a week’s time and then commit to reducing that amount.  Perhaps you can reduce your water use in your garden by employing rainbarrels or installing new shower heads.  Maybe you can cut some plastic out of your life by opting out of single-use plastics like to-go cartons, straws, shopping bags, Happy Meal toys and individually packaged servings of food.  Maybe you can install better insulation, screw in different lightbulbs or turn down your home thermostat to conserve energy.  These adjustments will help the planet exponentially over the long haul and will ultimately save YOU money, too.

“Buy less” also saves money, but it requires a shift away from a consumer-based mentality that gets foisted on us everywhere we turn.  Enviro Girl suggests this trick:  for a single month buy only consumable items.  Steer away from the new towels, the spring home decor, new clothes, new gadgets.  Purchase only food and toiletries.  Enviro Girl did this and was floored by the money she saved every month.  Years ago she called Target “The $100 Store” because she simply could NOT walk out of there spending less than that amount.  Now she routinely spends less than that amount because she’s curbed her impulse buying by sticking only to the necessary aisles to purchase her family’s toothpaste, toilet paper and deodorant.  It’s become her habit to ignore the home goods and clothing departments and head directly for the dish soap and mosquito repellent.  For gift-giving she tries to buy people experiences or consumable goods like nice chocolates or plants.  When something breaks or wears out (as all things eventually do), she replaces it only if she needs it.   Her household has adopted an “equal mass in, equal mass out” philosophy and it has simplified her family’s life.  They believe the human experience should be more about what we DO and who we ARE, not what we OWN.

“Use less, buy less.”  Enviro Girl challenges you to consider participating in this year’s Earth Day Challenge. To further celebrate this week before Earth Day, the Eco Women are giving away a 4-pack of wool dryer balls (homemade!), a Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Kitchen Basics Set (consumable) and two Envirosax shopping bags (designed to reduce your consumption).  Each comment telling the Eco Women how you plan to celebrate Earth Day this year is an entry to win–we’ll announce the lucky winner next Monday!

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Team Eco Etsy and Sprint

Posted on April 18, 2011 by | 5 Comments

Today the Eco Women have a guest post by Eco Karen to kick off the week before Earth Day, plus a giveaway and an auction!

I am very honored and proud to announce that Team Eco Etsy has partnered with Sprint, one of the highest ranked green telecom companies, to link our team’s site to its select Android devices for easy green handmade shopping experience for its customers right at their finger tips.

On April 15th, Sprint announced its newest ID Pack called, Green ID pack  that “automatically loads apps, widgets and shortcuts tailor-made for users who want to live a more environmentally sustainable life and help others to do the same.” This awesome feature is already available for owners of the LG Optimus S™, Sanyo Zio™, Samsung Transform™, Samsung Epic™ 4G* and Samsung Galaxy Tab™ on their devices with one simple click. Sprint’s newest environmentally preferred phone, the Samsung Replenish™, also will offer the Green ID pack when it becomes available on May 8.

The team has worked tirelessly to create a very successful and engaging blog that more than 14 members contribute regularly. The topics we share are everything green, including eco-tips, tutorials, and eco news. In addition, we cover tips on building and managing our handmade businesses, feature our creative members, and review members’ Etsy shops.

But what Sprint was interested in was not just our content, but also the amazingly creative green handmade crafts that our talented members make and sell on Etsy. It wanted its Android customers to be able to click from their mobile devices to our Etsy shops to buy our eco crafts via our website.  It was more than thrilling to hear that a big corporation like Sprint would be interested in a team of eco-friendly handmade artists. It was definitely an inspiring news.

What is Green ID Pack Exactly?

The Green ID pack has four screens; Green Shop, Green Now, Live Green, and Take Action.

“Green Shop” screen will feature our team’s logo that will directly take the users to our website. From the website, they can click the category tabs on the left, which will bring them to members’ items on Etsy. We will be sharing the screen with some prominent companies like eBay Green, Green Deals.org, Seasonal Harvest, and Light Bulb Finder.

Other screens on Green ID Pack include, Green Now which has TreenHugger, Earth911, and GreenBiz.com; Live Green that has a widget that delivers weekly tips from Green America, link to the Green You app, and shortcuts to TreeHugger; Take Action which has the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Green Education Foundation and more.

As you can imagine, we are extremely proud and excited about this recognition and the opportunity to work with one of the greenest telecom companies that ranked at No. 6 as America’s Greenest Companies by Newsweek in 2010.  Sprint was also ranked highest among the wireless carrier industry on the Carbon Disclosure Project’s “Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index.” In addition, Sprint received the “Sustainability Leadership Award” at the 2010 International Electronics Recycling Conference and Expo for its leadership among wireless carriers in the recycling of mobile handsets.

As small business owners, this recognition is beyond what we dreamed of since we regard Sprint as big corporate America that does not notice handmade crafters’ humble mission of keeping the planet clean and safe for our children.

So my message to you, readers, is that keep your mission to live green. No one act is small. If you continue your cleaner lifestyle, it will pay you back in many ways. Look at our little handmade team. We would have never thought that our little handmade business would be noticed by a big corporation like Sprint and look where we are now.

Team Eco Etsy is a moderated team of over 400 active members that are dedicated to managing our Etsy shops in an eco-friendly manner by keeping our environment safe and sustainable. We participate in team events such as Annual Handmade for Earth Day Auction*, Green Holiday Giveaway, and support each other in team forums. We are planning on our first Meet Up at Etsy Headquarter in June.

*Team Eco Etsy’s Second Annual Handmade for Earth Day Auction is going on now and will end on April 24th. The winners will be announced on April 25th. The auction is to celebrate and raise awareness about Earth Day. The proceeds from the auction is to be donated to a non-profit organization that members vote on annually. This year, the proceeds will be donated to Habitat for Humanity in Japan to support the relief effort, to help rebuild and to aid Japanese earthquake survivors. The auction is open worldwide and you can bid on three separate categories – Welcoming Baby, Eco Happy Kid, and Going on a Picnic – in the comment section of the auction pages until April 24th.

That’s great stuff, Eco Karen! To further celebrate this week before Earth Day, the Eco Women are giving away a 4-pack of wool dryer balls, a Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Kitchen Basics Set and two Envirosax shopping bags.  Each comment telling the Eco Women how you plan to celebrate Earth Day this year is an entry to win–we’ll announce the lucky winner next Monday!

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Posted in contests, electronics, green around the world, Uncategorized, websites & blogs

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Increase Your Organization’s Communication & Decrease Your Paper Trail

Posted on April 11, 2011 by | 6 Comments

As president of her kids’ school’s PTA, Enviro Girl has printed out reams of paper to get the word out about meeting agendas, sock hops, silent auctions and fund-raisers.  She’s used up a small fortune in printer ink (it’s funny to think that designer perfume costs less than a comparative amount of printer ink) and while she’s bought paper made from recycled products, it’s still a lot of paper (and a LOT of trees).

But bringing people out to participate in the PTA without paper hand outs required some patience and ingenuity.  Here’s how the Happyland Elementary PTA has replaced paper:

1.  No longer sending out flyers trying to recruit parents.  Instead, members attend the Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten orientations and talk up their organization to new parents on the spot.  This is targeted recruiting, since most of those parents have young children and aren’t committed to other things…yet.  Instead of wasting your resources on everybody, be smart about your efforts and focus only on those people.

2.  Instead of sending home regular reminders that they need volunteers (which made them look desperate to boot), they send out one form at the start of the school year asking what people would like to volunteer to do.  Returned forms are compiled on a spreadsheet with contact information.  Getting volunteers for, say, a sock hop, is easy–people said back in September they’d be willing to help, so it’s a matter of making phone calls off a spreadsheet that can be organized by activity for efficient targeting of volunteers.  Each committee chairperson gets a copy of the spreadsheet emailed to them, further reducing the paper the organization used.

3.  No more paper agendas or meeting minutes!  Enviro Girl set up a blog for free using WordPress.  On this blog she created different pages:  PTA by-laws, links to the school and district and other relevant sites for parents to explore, and then the blog feature runs updates, like meeting minutes and agendas.  Parents can subscribe to the site to get automatic updates.  The paper version of agendas and minutes are still available if people ask for them, but consider this:  6 years ago Enviro Girl printed and distributed 85 agendas and minutes each month.  Now she prints and distributes 15.

4.  Getting parents to the group’s website didn’t work 100%, so another parent set up a Facebook page for the organization.  That social network tool worked really well–pulling in younger parents through a virtual word of mouth and spreading information about PTA events through a grapevine many people connect to on a daily basis.

5.  Finally, for $15 the Happyland Elementary PTA bought their domain name so help parents easily find them online.  Anything any parent needs to know is literally at their fingertips if they can get on the internet.

Enviro Girl’s oldest son is a Boy Scout.  The parent information is emailed regularly to her inbox, but she sure wishes they’d create a website to keep people informed.  Sometimes she accidentally deletes important information, like camping dates.  She also notices many parents printing out the emails which sort of defeats the purpose of using email.  Finally, the parents get the emails, which doesn’t necessarily insure the boys will stay informed.  The boys are dependent on their parents passing information along since most of them don’t go on their parents’ email accounts.  Enviro Girl is convinced that setting up a site or Facebook page would solve their communication problems; anyone who needed information at any time could grab it and it would be easy to link to official Boy Scout pages and sites.

Websites and Facebook are better than email and less wasteful than paper when it comes to communicating with a group.  People can still enjoy a fair amount of privacy with different setting controls, yet if getting the word out is your group’s priority, you need to start sharing your information online.  Using websites and Facebook reduces waste and paper use and they are free, ultimately saving your organization money in the long run.

Tell the Eco Women, have you ditched paper as a primary mode of communication for large groups and organizations?

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