Green Daily

So what's your Halloween costume this year? Oh, you don't have one? That's okay, we have some eco-friendly and oh-so-clever ideas for you!

Being sustainable doesn't mean you have to wear an unimaginative, boring, hemp bag. Just the opposite, unless you're going as a Wet Blanket Environmentalist.

Get out your creativity, roll up your sleeves, and prepare ready to wow your friends and neighbors with these environmentally smart Halloween costumes.

When you're a kid, Halloween is your chance to get a ton of candy, for free, which you then eat until you get sick. And when you're an adult, it's a reason to buy all the candy you'd normally never let in the house ... which you then eat until you get sick.

Here's the truly scary part: it's not just overeating that makes you sick, it's the stuff in most commercially produced candy bars that will make you turn green, even if you're only reading the label!

I was checking out Fitsugar, and was reminded that most candy contains high fructose corn syrup and food coloring. Bad, but if you're only indulging once or twice a year, not going to kill you. But then there are the hydrogenated oils, which are so bad they even cause miscarriages!

Think back to your school days -- what foods filled your tray? Reheated tator tots, square slices of greasy pizza, and unidentifiable meat all come to mind ... which is probably why I brown bagged it almost every day of high school.

Unfortunately, in many areas, those highly processed foods still make up the bulk of school lunches. However, according to OnEarth Magazine, at least one person is stepping up to make a big difference.

After paying her dues in the celebrity chef circuit, Ann Cooper has turned her attention to the food served in schools. And her efforts have paid off, big time. In the schools she's worked in, she's introduced real chicken, whole grains, and fresh produce to the noontime meal.

Parents can get pretty intense when it comes to picking the most natural, safe, and beneficial products to use on or have around their newborns. And rightly so, although this puts a lot of pressure on people picking baby gifts -- you don't want to be the bad friend who put the vulnerable little angle in any danger!

Just like with products for adults, in the past five years it's gotten easier to find high quality organic baby products that are also stylish.

One great source for organic, all natural baby gifts is peek a green. This site was started by a mom who was hunting for safe and eco-friendly baby gifts. She packaged her finds into collections, like bamboo, newborn essentials and safe $10 gifts. She also has them categorized by activity, price, and age.

There are many ways to respond to the overwhelming concept of climate change -- often I find a nice organic wine to be quite soothing and medicinal when I start to hyperventilate while calculating the new coastlines that will result from melting polar caps.

The Canary Project has a more productive, or at least more creative response. They use "visual media, events, and artwork that builds public understanding of human-induced climate change and energize commitment to solutions." Using the power of images, they educate and motivate the public, with the goal of addressing climate change while we still have some options. One way they do this is through Green Patriot Posters, founded by Ed Morris, who also founded The Canary Project.

Green Patriot Posters makes modern, updated versions of those "We Can Do It!" style posters from World War II. They want to galvanize people to build a sustainable economy, and to adopt sustainable practices in their everyday lives, and they design cool posters to get the message out.

You used to be able to walk down the aisle of a natural foods store, and tell just by looking at the packaging which products didn't have any bad chemicals or dangerous ingredients in them. All natural products were:

• wrapped in ugly brown paper packaging
• sold in bulk out of grimy vats
• tied up with hemp string
• utterly devoid of luxury and prettiness

But then the ugly eco-duckling of natural products was captured by the girls in marketing and given a glamorous make-over. Today there are hundreds of organic, natural, and green products that you want to buy just for the pretty ribbon on the box. Here's the problem: Now that it's cool to be natural, and you're allowed to have pretty packaging, it's almost impossible to tell which products are healthy and safe, and which ones are just really, really well packaged.

(Photo by Fiesta Toys)

Kids love computers, right? Also animals. So what could be more perfect than a video game that teaches them about conservation, and even encourages action by letting them pick projects to support?

Tales 4 Tomorrow (there's music, click with caution!) is a video game collaboration between Conservation International and Kango, a new environmentally-focused toy company.

Educational video games, which are visually overwhelming for anyone over the age of 11, but perfect for stimulus hungry little ones, are paired with stuffed animals made from environmentally-friendly soy and cotton materials. Each stuffed animal has a tag (printed on recycled paper, of course) that explains its background -- where it lives, if it's endangered, and other conservation information.

By playing the video games, kids can earn "habitokens" that go toward building a new habitat for their endangered animal friend. They also learn about cause and effect -- that their actions can have an impact on the environment.

It's a great lesson, and one you know they'll enjoy because kids and video games go together like ice cream and hot days. If you need a reason to go for it, think of it as an Earth Day gift, and an investment in some future conservationists!

For some of us, a shower is kinda like a magical time warp that takes us to a land where the weathers warm and all our troubles just wash away down the drain. Unfortunately, along with your worries goes a ton of water -- a resource that many are predicting will be more precious than gold in the coming years. To help us keep track of how long we escape reality in the shower, inventor Trevor Murphy has developed the Aqualim.

Hey, all of you pregnant or breastfeeding moms out there, you want to get in on this Green Daily giveaway -- a complete MilkBank Storage System Starter Kit!

The MilkBank is a new, better way to store breast milk. With triple-vented, insulated bottles, milk stays warm. And the bottles are easy to clean and guaranteed not to leak. Plus you can feel safe using it with your precious bundle of love because everything in the MilkBank system, even the packaging -- is free of lead, phthalates, PVC, and BPA.

The MilkBank system is sold exclusively at Babies R Us. And you can also win one from us, if you enter befor 5pm EST today!

To enter, go to the original post and leave a comment about the craziest baby shower game you've ever heard of. Remember to use a real email address (we won't spam you!) because that's how we notify winners.

Good luck!