Green Daily

The nail polish in your collection might be outdated or perhaps you've decided that you no longer want to wear the stuff. Whatever the reason, instead of just throwing it in the trash, keep it around the house for some quick fixes and when the clear bottle is empty, recycle that bad boy.

Here are five ways that nail polish can save your life (or at least be re-purposed)!

1. Keys. Use nail polish to mark the keys on your key ring different colors so you can tell them apart in a jiffy.
2. Frayed ends. Every woman knows that nail polish will stop a run in her pantyhose, but did you know that it will end shoe lace fraying? Just dip the ends into a bottle of polish and allow to dry.
3. Carpentry. Painting nail polish on the threads of a screw before inserting will provide you with a tight finish.
4. Wart remover. I won't vouch for whether this is a good idea for your health, but supposedly painting nail polish over a wart will cause it to go away in a week's time.
5. Fill. Nail polish can be used to fill in small chips or cracks in ceramics, wood floors and plastics. However, for holes in your walls, reach for the toothpaste.

One of our readers recently posted a reply to Plastic Recycling by the Numbers. She'd heard that plastics labeled 3, 6 and 7 were not only toxic but bad for the environment if you recycled them. We've posted a couple of times on plastics and their numbers. Let's go over what we know.

If you throw your #3s and 4s and 5s into your recycling bin, and your city doesn't recycle them, you jeopardize the whole lot of plastics. If a group of plastics has too many types that can't be recycled as #1 and #2 can then there is a chance that plastic will be landfilled or shipped overseas. It's a matter of sorting. You'll also sabotage your own recycling efforts if you don't remove labels, caps and food matter. Your plastic water bottle may be a #1 but the cap is not. Throw it away.

That said, while some of these other plastics can release toxins like phthalates and Bisphenol A, that doesn't mean

Every week we pick a theme to explore in more depth, and this week that theme is eco-friendly pets. To read all our posts related to this theme, click here.

I once bought a bag of cat food that touted its all-natural, all-organic ingredients. It had raisins and bananas and other items I had never seen in a list of ingredients for cat food. My cats refused to eat it. And I thank them for it.

Cats and raisins don't agree. Raisins cause kidney damage in cats, though at the time I didn't know it.

Advertisements told me my boys would love Greenies. You may recall the 2006 news stories of dogs dying from indigestible Greenies. The cat treats are supposedly very different. Nonetheless, my cats refuse to eat them.

So I've done a little digging for natural pet treats. I can't testify that these treats will clean your dog's teeth or that your cat will even want to eat them. I can't promise anything. You could stick with tins of tuna or sardines, but be careful of the mercury.

This is what I found:

So when is it worth it to replace your refrigerator with a more-energy efficient model?

Lots of different opinions out there on this one, and here's another one. Alina Tugend sought the advice of Noah Horowitz, senior scientist at the National Resources Defense Council about when to chuck that older appliance. And here's what Horowitz had to say, "If it's avocado or brown-colored, it's time to retire it." In other words, if it came from the 70s, it's time for it to go, as those use three to four times as much energy as today's models.

According to the EPA, any appliance over 15 years old should be retired. And here's the clincher, when you do decide to retire it, according to Horowitz, do not resell it; recycle it (call your town or city for information). Also, don't move it to the basement as a second refrigerator.

And when the day finally comes that you and that avocado energy hog have to part ways, make sure you buy an Energy Star-certified model with a top-freezer design. And skip the ice maker and water dispenser.

I watch a lot of home improvement shows and nearly every episode includes a bathroom demo and rebuild. Sometimes I watch in horror as beautiful sixty-year-old tiles are pried from walls and rain in clumps onto the tub and bathroom floor. The tiles are then shoveled out to a dumpster. It always strikes me as a big wast of potential. This is what sparked today's "five ways."

1. Pieces of broken tile can be placed in the bottom of flower pots to improve drainage.
2. You can also put then on top of the soil in your planters to create "pot toppings," giving your greenery a "finished look."
3. Glue a piece of cork to the back for a new coaster.
4. It will be difficult to get the grout off in most cases to tile another bathroom. However, the tiles can be pressed into fresh cement to dress up pavers and sidewalks.
5. Chunks of slate tile can make fun mini chalkboards.

Other ideas can be found over at Ellen's post, "Five ways to reuse: Broken dishes."

This marks the final installment of The Suburban Farmer's chicken series, but don't fret! The Suburban Farmer will be back with many more topics to come in the near future.

So for this last piece, I'm going to talk a bit about what other animals can get along with chickens, typically. Now remember, as with any animal, they all have their own personalities and traits. Cats and dogs are said to traditionally not get along, yet many pet owners know this isn't the case.

The most obvious companion choice for chickens is other chickens. Even though they may peck at each other sometimes, they're a social animal who thrives in numbers. Also, there's rabbits. Technically, rabbits are considered poultry, so it only makes sense. Rabbits are sometimes messy eaters, getting their feed all over the ground, and the chickens are more-than-happy to come along and finish up the crumbs!

Yesterday a commenter asked about whether Ziploc bags could be recycled. I know that aren't recycled in my city and I'm going to take a stab and say that one of the reasons why is because they are made from more than one type of plastic which would make separation of the actual bag from the "ziploc" difficult and expensive. These bags also fall under plastic type number 4 which in general, is rarely recycled.

Fortunately there are not only plenty of alternatives to Ziploc and other sandwich bags but there are several ways to reuse them.

1. Sandwich bags can easily be washed to hold foods once again. You can even make your own drying rack. If you are uncomfortable reusing them to contain foods, they are great for containing your marble collection, toenail clippings or dryer lint.
2. By cutting a small hole in the corner of a baggie, you have an instant icing bag. I've done this before with great results.
3. You can clean them and save them up to make a wreath ... if you're into that sort of thing.
4. Cut the baggies into strips and crochet them into ocean critters.
5. Place a recipe card inside them while cooking to protect the paper from any splatters.

My yard is too small to even be measured as a fraction of an acre. My city lot is 30' by 150' and there is only grass in the back. I do have a lawnmower and it's one of those lovely gas powered monsters desperate for a tune up. It takes an hour to mow the law because it stalls all the time and admittedly, we let the grass grow too high.

But this isn't what turned me on to electric mowers, it was that according to the Environmental Protection Agency, a push mower emits as much hourly pollution as 11 cars; E-LEV-EN.

Enter the Neuton battery powered lawn mower. I'm salivating just thinking of it.

Like getting greeting cards, but don't like the waste they generate?

ReProduct has come up with a solution. It's easy:

• Buy a card and sent it to a worthy recipient (you can choose from pre-made cards, or custom-design your own)
  
• Once the lucky recipient receives the card, enjoys the sentiment (and removes the cash, if applicable), they simply drop it in a mailbox (it comes with an prepaid envelope)
• The card is sent to Shaw Industries, where it is combined with tons of others and used to make carpet tiles

...pretty cool, eh? Mom will appreciate your sentiments as well as your attention to the environment. Go grab one quickly - there are special Mother's Day design options for your perusal.


re [feelgood style]

I've owned my home for over five years and I still get mail addressed to several previous occupants as this house was once a rental. It's rather annoying inscribing, "return to sender," on every piece of mail and if the sender didn't pay for first class postage, they will never know about the bad address.

There are ways, however, to stop the mail from even crossing your threshold. We've covered how to stop excessive junk mail addressed to you, but there are special steps that need to be taken to end service for previous occupants.

One of my biggest interests, and one of the biggest topics I bring to the table at GreenDaily is a way to live a more sustainable life through raising your own food free of hormones and chemicals. This includes vegetables and animals, but mainly chickens. This series is an on-going introduction to the wonderful world of raising chickens in a non-rural environment.

Something you may not think of when planning your new suburban chicken farm is what to do with all those eggs! With me, it was a problem I postponed contemplating because I just wanted to raise some chickens, but it can become a serious problem unless you have a plan.

Since all eggs (free-range or cage-raised) have the same amount of cholesterol (around 70% of your daily recommended allowance for each egg!), it's safe to say you won't be eating dozens of eggs every day. But luckily, the demand for free-range organic naturally-raised eggs is growing every day.

The other day I returned from the convenience store, put my newly purchased items away and headed to the back of the house to add two fresh plastic bags to the collection. It was then that it hit me that I had not one, but TWO contraband plastic bags in my hand. I turned my husband, let out an explicative and declared myself a failure early in the challenge.

Last week I invited everyone to join me in using reusable bags exclusively for purchases and saying, "goodbye" to the plastic bag. It's a habit that I have yet to acquire and I'm working hard to do so.

If you bought your CFL from someplace like Ikea's $1 bin, you might be regretting it. In fact, you may hate every moment you have to spend reading or watching tv or scanning Green Daily by the light of that antiseptic light bulb.

I have two solutions for you. One option is to get a new type of bulb. There are several out there that put out better light--not to pick on Ikea. Your second option is to burn through your long-lived pack with a Lunet light cover. I'll start there.

These are basically plastic covers that fit into your ceiling fixture. Four styles are available: frosted, Roman, antique glass and Art Deco. Of course, if the offending bulb happens to be in a lamp, I've got no Lunet light cover to help you. You could perhaps design your own and market it at home expos as Lunet has done.

Or, you could put that bulb into your recessed light fixture, add the cover then purchase different CFLs. Last year Popular Mechanics ran a lab test for the best compact fluorescent. Researchers found that all the CFLs they tested beat the Sylvan Double Life Soft White. That is, the quality, color and brightness of the light as well as the life of the bulbs were better. N:Vision tested the best, and the MaxLite Micro Max wasn't great for reading but it offered color like,"the sun at the beach." How can you go wrong with that?

One of my biggest interests, and one of the biggest topics I bring to the table at GreenDaily is a way to live a more sustainable life through raising your own food free of hormones and chemicals. This includes vegetables and animals, but mainly chickens. This series is an on-going introduction to the wonderful world of raising chickens in a non-rural environment.

The behavior of chickens is a fascinating and peculiar thing. They're unlike dogs or cats or your "normal" household pet, but they also share many of the same behaviors of these animals. Chickens are trainable to a certain extent, and of course their personalities are primarily dictated by their upbringing and surroundings.

I covered the most common behavioral "issue" with hens in yesterday's article about brooding, so in this article I will cover a few more common behaviors you may discover with your chickens.

This post is part of a series about environmental justice, or EJ for short. The easiest way to understand EJ is to ask: Broadly speaking, are the costs of environmental degradation distributed consistently with the benefits? For instance, are the countries who are creating the most CO2 emissions suffering the lowest air standards? For a more in-depth definition, visit the EPA, Justice Net, or the Sierra Club.

This New York Times article about the Gullah/ Geechee people's fight to keep their land in Sapelo Island, Georgia, brings up some of the more difficult aspects of environmental justice. Who doesn't think it would be wonderful to live in a beautiful place? Sometimes in our quest to do that we over look those who already live there, whether they are human or more-than-human.

The members of the Hog Hammock community on Sapelo Island are fighting a battle familiar to anyone who has lived in a coastal area: rising property values based on second home and vacation property prospecting. Sapelo, accessible only by limited ferryboat shuttle, has maintained its salt marsh ecosystem, anthropologically valuable shell middens, and its cultural heritage more than most islands. Nearby Hilton Head, Tybee, and St. Simon's islands have all been nearly razed over in builders' attempts to get the most vacation homes possible on the desirable island real estate.