Green Daily

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is clear out my makeup drawer. Magazines and beauty experts always tell you to replace your mascara frequently, and I have far too many odd-tasting, waxy lipsticks that will never see the light of day again.

Here's the thing: most of those makeup cases are made of weird, unrecyclable plastic. So even though there are increasing numbers of great companies, like Physicians Formula, who offer compostable packaging, clearing out the your old makeup can result in a wastebasket full of random plastic compacts, lipstick tubes and eye shadow palettes headed straight to the landfill.

And here's the solution: in this month's Self Magazine I saw an ad for the Return to Origins Recycling Program. They will actually accept your old makeup containers, and take care of recycling them responsibly, or sending them to an energy recovery facility, where they can be incinerated in a furnace with strictly controlled emissions. They'll take any brand, not just their stuff!

I always feel so good when I'm organized enough to make -- and bring -- my lunch. But the ziplock bag at the end, inside the plastic grocery store bag ... that part always feels bad. Because, plastic, like love and diamonds, is forever.

So far I've made the switch to wrapping my sandwich in tinfoil (recyclable) or wax paper (compostable) in a brown paper bag (compostable) but there is a further green step I am checking out: the reusable sandwich wrap.

Before someone comments that I can rinse out ziplock bags and use them again -- seriously, I've tried it, Not Going To Happen. Just, yuck. I'd rather give them up entirely.

There are a few different kinds of resuable sandwich carriers, but they all are basically a piece of fabric with some kind of leak-proofing, that you can wrap around a sandwich and also use as a placemat. When you're done you wipe it clean, or wash and drip dry, then reuse! I like the Wrap-n-Mat because they're easy to clean, affordable (about $8 a pop) and come in lots of cute patterns.

If you're supercrafty, you can even make your own -- I found these cool directions on CraftyStylish. She recommends a fabric that's backed with polyurethane laminated fabric. Just make sure you're not using anything with PVC -- that's the bad plastic because it has chlorine, hence the "C".

Happy lunch time!

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.

Now that you cleaned up your dishwasher, it's time to tackle the fridge. In the past, I'd use some type of spray cleaner or bleach and wipe everything down but this year, I'm going a bit more natural thanks to some tips from Eco Localizer.

You're going to need white vinegar, baking soda, some rags and your vacuum cleaner with hose attachment. First things first, you're going to want to pull everything out of the fridge so you can clean shelves and drawers easily. Make sure you throw stuff that needs to be kept cold into a cooler.

Then, start with the traditional, pull the fridge away from the wall, unplug it and vacuum the coils on the back. This is a good way to gain back some efficiency in your fridge. Once that is done, it's on to the scrubbing.

Using your vinegar you want to spritz down and clean all the surfaces in the fridge. If you come across a particularly gunky bit, use a paste of baking soda and water to get some extra scrubbing power.

Once everything is clean, make sure you wipe it down well to get rid of extra moisture and start adding things back into the fridge. Check expiration dates and make sure to toss out things that have been sitting around for too long.

Step back and enjoy your sparkling clean, nicely organized fridge.

I have an older dishwasher and I am fighting a battle to keep it running in good condition until I can go buy a nice, eco-friendly, energy efficient model. If you are on a quest for sparkling dishes too, some of these tips might be helpful.

First, we considered having a repair man in for a check up on the dishwasher. We were getting lots of little food particles sprayed everywhere. Then, before we called the repair man we put boiling hot water and baking soda down the kitchen drain adjacent to the dishwasher and cleaned out the bottle of the dishwasher really well. There was much improvement.

Other options to consider would be getting and old toothbrush and some white vinegar and scrubbing areas like the door seal and all the little nooks and crannies at the bottom. You can also wipe down the inside with white vinegar to combat staining and gunky build-up.

You can also run a high heat cycle with a cup or bowl of white vinegar in the top rack (no dishes, just the vinegar) to help get rid of any more gunk you couldn't get with the toothbrush.

If you're trying to make your dishwasher last longer until you can afford a sparkling high efficiency model, a good green cleaning might drastically improve your performance. Try it and see!

If you end up with plastic bottles at home or at the office, save some up for these automatic plant watering bottles.

I am always looking for a way to keep the garden watered with limited time spent on my behalf, and, a way to make sure the garden has plenty of water if I go away for the weekend or something. So, I was really excited when I found a way to make plant waterers from leftover plastic bottles on Instructables.

All you need are a few plastic bottles - two per waterer, a drill, some glue and some scissors. It is seriously simple to put together and it seems like it would work pretty well. I am tempted to try this in some areas of my garden and see what happens.

If you have eliminated plastic bottles from your home, nice job! Ask the neighbors for theirs or keep an eye out at the office. You might be able to find enough to make this work.

If you have a can of Campbell's Soup in your pantry, you could get a packet of free tomato seeds. The program, called Help Grow Your Soup is offering a limited number of seed packets in exchange for the code on the bottom of a soup can.

The program lasts until June 21 or whenever supplies run out. You probably won't get your seeds in time to plant them this year, but you can store them until next year without a problem. If you haven't grown tomatoes from seed before, the site has a lot of useful tomato planting tips.

The program will also donate seeds to local FFA chapters for each click on the website and each seed packet ordered. So, get some seeds, help out some kids and Help Grow Your Soup!

[Via Good 'n Planty]

You're probably pretty green at home, but it might seem impossible to make your work environment any greener than it is. After all, unless you're the boss, there's not much you can control, right?

Actually, this very cute video on "General Green Living -- Green at Work" shows you lots of small, easy and even money saving things you can do to up the green quotient at work. And as usual, most of them save you money!

The video starts with a list of the things you need, all of which are easily accessible and cheap. Sound good? Then pull up a seat and pay attention, your work day is about to get green-o-rific.

Don't rinse.

When it comes to maximizing your home's efficiency in the winter, most tipsters will tell you to buy a wood pellet stove, or beef up your insulation. Not me, I say sacrifice any sense of personal style or fashion and put on a jumpsuit made out of sleeping bags. The Selk Bag pretty much eliminates the need for a heater (think of all the energy we could save) and possibly a comforter.

A few months ago, everyone was piling on the Snuggie bandwagon for being possibly the most annoyingly marketed -- yet strangely alluring -- way to keep warm without cranking up the thermostat. Well Snuggie, consider yourself out-snuggled, because there's nothing quite as comfortable as a good sleeping bag. As of yet, there's no annoying infomercial touting the home heating benefits of the Lippi Selk Bag, but I'm kinda hoping that there will be. It's even got reinforced booties. Spring is supposedly right around the corner, but there's still time to enjoy the energy saving benefits of the Selk Bag.

[via SwissMiss]

Yesterday I wrote about a problem my hometown of New Orleans and its extreme lack of recycling options. For a while I dutifully paid $15 a month for curbside pickup of all paper goods, plastics one through seven, glass and metals. This was working fine until I got an email one day saying that they were no longer accepting glass and then a few days later, they banned cardboard.

As cardboard was one of the most common items found in my bin, I decided to cancel the service and bring my plastics to the next town over where the Whole Foods was accepting recyclables twice a week. Whole Foods recently ended their service as did a company 90 miles away that would drive into the city once a month to collect recyclables at a drop off point. In short, there are no local collection centers for me to drop off household goods -- especially plastics.

We did a bit of spring cleaning here recently that resulted in piles of unwanted clothing. In addition to paint splattered sweatpants and t-shirts from the early 1990's, we also had items that had never been worn or old suits that were still in good condition.

I knew better than to throw the items out but as we are a one car family, I wasn't sure when I'd make it over to Goodwill to drop off the clothes. Fortunately I remembered seeing a flier for the Vietnam Veterans of America's donation program. The organization will pick up donated items from your house and leave you will a receipt for tax purposes. They in turn sell the clothes to thrift shops and use the proceeds to fund veteran programs.

It took me three minutes to go online and schedule a pick up. Someone came the very next day and carted off our two huge bags of clothes. This is by far the easiest way that I have found for cleaning out the closets and the tax deduction doesn't hurt either.

Are you looking for that extra punch of pizazz at your next dinner party? Do you have an affinity for wine and a surplus of corks? Well, look now further. Casa Sugar gives a great tip for how you can turn a simple wine cork into a classy place card holder.

This little guys can cost over five dollars a piece from bridal shops but you can make them for free with only a blade (razor, exacto knife, chainsaw ... your choice), card stock, a heavy felt-tip pen and a cork. First cut lengthwise along the bottom of the cork to create a flat edge so it can rest on a table. Next, make a slit along the top of the cork to hold the place card. Finally, cut the card stock into the desired size, write the name of your guest and slide it into the cork. Voila! Instant, inexpensive, eco-friendly place card holder.

After dinner, you can save the corks for your next affair or crumble them up and throw them into your potting soil to improve drainage and hold moisture. Be sure to check out other ways to reuse wine corks here and here.

[via: Lifehacker]

This is my own, non-scientific opinion, but I think brewing your own beer can be eco-friendly. Let's think about the process.

You can collect glass beer bottles at home and from friends, or even pick up a few at the recycling center, sterilize them and reuse them over and over, getting much more than just one use from them before they are recycled.

Beer, like wine, in glass bottles, is heavy and is transported across the country and around the world on a regular basis. If you make it at home, it is transported from the fridge to the couch - not a very big carbon footprint there!

If you really get into it, you can grow some of your own hops and grain to produce your beer, making it even more eco-friendly since the ingredients are being produced very locally.

So, it seems like making beer at home could be a relatively eco-friendly option. Even if you regularly buy beer in cans, you are still saving the transportation miles involved in shopping those cans all over the place.

There a nice beer-making tutorial over at The Simple Dollar that shows how home-brewing can be very cost effective as well. So, start collecting those beer bottles and look for some beer recipes.

Wondering what to do with pet food bags, caulking tubes and used paintbrushes? Terracycle wants you to recycle them. The company will be adding recycling bins to Home Depot and Petco locations to collect all sorts of things you didn't think you could recycle.

Home Depot locations will be talking saw blades, nursery pots, furnace filters and paint brushes. The items will be recycled into clocks, sturdier nursery pots and other items.

Petco stores will have bins to accept pet food bags which will be made into tote bags. The bins should be in place nationwide by the middle of 2010.

It is nice to know that there are companies out there that are trying to figure out what to do with some of our previously unrecyclable items. I just hope that Terracycle will be able to find a market for all those pet food tote bags so they can keep collecting!

[Via The Inspired Economist]