Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

You Might Be an Eco Chick If…..

My wonderfully grey kitty, Penelope, who actually allows me to leave the heat off by keeping my lap warm while I blog, so I think she might have a negative carbon footprint!

……..you get embarassed when you absolutely HAVE to buy a bottled water one night after closing down a bar in the East Village. Severely dehydrated, and sloshed, you have so much guilt about buying water that you tell the bodega owner and the guy you’re hanging out with ALL about how bottled water is evil. Double d’oh!

……..your basement is filled with things that you haven’t figured out how to recycle yet. But you WON’T get rid of them until you do!

……..you’re so eagerly awaiting a trip to the farmer’s market, you’ve already picked out which cute cloth bags you’ll be taking with you. And the market’s two days away.

……..you’ve actually wondered about your cat’s carbon footprint.

This is the fifth post in an ongoing series (of my green neuroses!) Others linked below:

Read You Might Be #4 here

Read You Might Be #3 here

Read You Might Be #2 here

Read the Original You Might Be here

After reading through these I realize I think I have a recycling fetish! Is that bad?

Starre Vartan to Speak at "Plugging Into Green" Panel in Brooklyn

P.S. 107 Kicks off its 5th Annual “Readings on the 4th Floor” Series by Plugging into the Green Movement Leading writers from the frontlines of “green” discuss life and community-changing strategies.

Why in a city with the cleanest water in the country do the mass of New Yorkers cling to their chemical-infused bottled water? Is “reduce, reuse, recycle” a livable reality for most families?

Leading writers on all issues green will gather to sort through the facts from the garbage at the 5th Annual “Readings on the 4th Floor” series which kicks off Wednesday, January 21st in Park Slope, Brooklyn at 7:30 PM.

The theme of the first reading is “Plug Into Green.” The reading and discussion will feature:

Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land & most recently Bottlemania
Helen Coronato, author of Eco-Friendly Families
Starre Vartan, author of The Eco-Chick Guide to Life

The discussion will be moderated by Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger, the internet’s leading green news portal.

Each of the authors approaches different aspects of green. Coronato has produced a hands-on guide for families that want to adopt eco lifestyles.

Royte is an investigative reporter devoted to uncovering the truth behind topics like the marketing of bottled water and the disposal of trash in America.

Starre Vartan is determined to prove that green can be fabulous, fashionable and not too expensive.

The unifying tone of the panelists is one of levity and humor toward a crucially-important topic: Green doesn’t have to be dull or scolding.

Plug into Green will be held on the 4th Floor of PS 107, which is located at 13th Street and 8th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Tickets are $15 online at www.ps107.org or $20 at the door.

All books will be available for sale.

This esteemed topical literary series continues to raise funds for the newly renovated fourth floor library/art/performance space of P.S. 107 and has featured everyone from Pulitzer prize winning authors such as Jumpha Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies, to leading journalists including George Packer of The New Yorker.

The series this year will continue through the spring with evenings devoted to making theater happen in New York and Brooklyn nov

Watch: Water Bottles

Few things boil my blood like the disposable plastic water bottle. This thing stinks–literally! Go on, smell that oil-derived polyethylene.

There are many reasons to despise the disposable plastic water bottle. For one, it is straight up terrible for the environment, it’s over-priced and the water’s not even better than tap water–in many cases it simply is tap water. Ridiculous!

With all my water rage, I’ve come dangerously close to a postal outburst. Luckily, however, the fury hath been quelled. I’ve recently found a healthy and safe place to vent my environmental frustrations: yes, ABC’s Good Morning America Now.

Please enjoy the following clip of my first segment: “Bring Your Own Bottled Water,” with hunky host and soap-opera heart throb Cameron Mathison.

Disclaimer: some have accused us of flirting on camera. I say erroneous. I was simply smitten by Cameron’s enthusiasm for the subject and was even more excited when I duped him in a bottled water taste test challenge. Touché!

In Case You Needed Another Reason to Bring Your Own Bottle

A Bottle of No Thanks, Please

Bottled water is so easy.  It’s water, in a bottle, genius!  I remember when it was chic and served in the finest restaurants.  Then one morning I woke up and my mother told me we were getting a water bottle for the house.  No longer was the tap good enough.  After another five years or so she didn’t want to wait for the Poland Spring man to deliver our weekly allotment of water, so there it was: bottles upon shimmering bottles in our refrigerator.  People come to our office for a meeting or you head off to a job interview and what to they offer?  A bottle of water.  It’s like an angel on your shoulder wishing you the safest and most comforting taste of pure H2O.

Never once did I ask myself, “What’s wrong with bottled water?”  Not until I realized how many bottles collected into my recycling bin.  Trash is a funny thing, one moment it’s in your kitchen and the next it vanishes.  Presumably we trust that our trash goes…Well, I don’t really know where I thought my trash went.

I recently read the book, The World Without Us, which contained an entire chapter dedicated to the evils of plastic.  It turns out that all the plastic we use and love, (hey I have to admit that it’s nice when you can drop a bottle without it shattering all over the floor), ends up in our oceans, and takes about a gajillion years to decompose (maybe I’m exaggerating, but I doubt it).  The impact it has on the fish, mollusks, birds and plant life of the sea is completely shocking and promises to change the ecosystem as we know it.  There really is no known half-life for plastic.  It breaks into little pellets sure, but how does it react with the natural world, and what does it become as it degenerates? 

One of the big offenders is the bottled water industry.  We’ve become as addicted to bottled water in recent years as stockbrokers in the 80s were to cocaine.  In fact every restaurant I enter now offers bottled water both flat and sparkling, and then almost disdainfully, they mention that tap is available too.  They make you feel like an idiot if you order the tap water.  They make you feel cheap, plebian.  I always answer, Los Angeles’ finest. 

Tap water was important when I was a kid, not just to stay hydrated, but because the water supply contained fluoride.  Many bottled waters don’t contain fluoride and this is leading to children with unhealthy teeth.  The reason being…You guessed it, bottled water.  Fluoridated water is free from our taps, and makes your kids’ teeth happy. Most bottled water does not contain fluoride. 

Lewis Black, the comedian, sums this entire bottled water thing up quite hysterically by saying we’ve sullied even our most ample and free resource.  About 70% of the planet is covered in ocean and 2% of the earth’s water is fresh water.  To put that in perspective, there are roughly 326 million trillion gallons of water on planet earth and 2% is fresh.  That’s a lot of fresh water.  And somehow we’ve agreed to pay our hard earned money for this gift of nature.

And, upon agreeing to buy this water we’ve also created a cost that nature must pay…We pitch in 38 billion bottles of water a year, roughly $1 billion worth of plastic.

But, enough with the depressing stuff.  On with the progress!

There are restaurants rebelling against these industries and while blindly voting with your dollar is not advised, supporting the fight is.  In San Francisco, there is a new trend: high end restaurants serving carafes of filtered tap water.  In some cases they even carbonate the water themselves.Glass carafes served into glasses of water equals much less waste. So we applaud these restaurants and suggest that you demand the same from your restaurant in your neighborhood.

So, find out what restaurants in your area do this.  If your favorite one doesn’t, then urge them to.  We can make a change, I think.  We just have to want to.  And if anyone tells you bottled water is better, tell them they’re wrong.  Free, clean, healthy water is a privilege.  In some countries it’s impossible to find.  Save the money you spend on water to buy something that can actually help you save those pure, crystalline springs they harvest all that clean crisp water from.