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

People Won't Change for the Environment (on my campus)

A recent article outlines a pretty simplistic poll conducted in London about people’s willingness to change their behaviour for the good of the planet.

A straw poll of 15 British men and 15 British women between the ages of 25-75 in central London, showed all were willing to make small changes for the environment, such as recycling, but few would commit to more fundamental changes to behavior.

The outcome was pretty surprising. People will “try” to drive less, and others take a shot at proper recycling. But no one is ready for a change in their lifestyle. This inspired me. I was sure I could find better numbers and results here in Toronto, Canada. We are supposed to be eco-friendly up here, right?

More »

Eco Chic Weekly 8/29/09

Eco Chic Weekly compiles the best of the best in green fashion and beauty blogging each week. Please feel free to copy and use this post on your blog with a link back to Fashion, Evolved.

• Learn how to make ethical fashion choices and upcycle your existing wardrobe this week on Green Girls Global.
• Check out the Eco Fashion World interview with Maroussia Rebecq, founder of the Andrea Crews Collective.
• Eco-Chick has rounded up some Eco Fashion News from around the web!
• The Eco Diva goes local with Etsy.com!
• Learn about Bangladesh Garment Factories Going Fair Trade at Ethical Style!
• Check out Curatorial’s Limited Edition Collection featured on Feelgood Style.
• Green Grechen discusses the impacts of milk silk.
• Want to see some of the best organic fashion on sale today? Green Lashes and Fashion has a round up!
• 8 Ways to Get the Closest Eco Shave for Men and Women–on Greenopia!
• Inhabitat is featuring the very drool-worthy Noon Solar Bags.
• Modern Hippie Mag has a question about hair oil in their Ask the Beauty Chick column.
• Are You a Green Beauty? Take the Quiz on Planet Green!
• Upcycled bags are better the second time around…so says The Alternative Consumer!
• Join in the Vintage Jewelry Obsession this Fall at The Green Girls.
• The Thrifty Chicks are Standing Naked in a Thrift Store.
• Treehugger dishes on the 7 Common Cosmetics Ingredients You Need to Avoid!
• Fashion, Evolved interviews Jaszy McAllister creator of ethical, beautiful Jaszy’s Jewelry.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle That….Dildo?

Interview by Guest-blogger Chris Baskind (really bad puns are mine however)

All too often here on Eco Chick, we cover a small way to ‘green’ your life, something like using energy efficient bulbs, perhaps, or taking bags to the store instead of using plastic ones. Invariably, people write in that small stuff like that doesn’t really matter, that we’re all going to hell in a polluted handbasket, and sitting around writing about this stuff, or even doing it, is not going to end up helping at all. To those people I say: Check out this video of the dildos received through ‘Rabbit Amnesty’, which is a sex-toy recycling program run by British sex-toy purveyor LoveHoney:

Once you see them altogether like that you realize, well, when a lot of people have a place to send their dildos for recycling, they will, and a whole ton of junk just got prevented from going to a landfill. Not so pointless anymore huh?

So … How do these things get recycled? How do you handle a retired
rabbit once it arrives?

We will collect the vibrators and pay for them to be recycled at a Designated Collection Facility (DCF). The vibrators will be stripped of components that can be reused – these would most likely be resold. Printed circuit boards, which many vibrators feature, contain hazardous metals such as lead, chromium, cadmium and mercury. It is the DCF’s responsibility to ensure that these are disposed of to the legal environmental standards. Specialist recyclers will normally recover these materials.

If any vibrators are returned in boxes, the cardboard will be sent to a specialist cardboard recycler for processing.

If vibrator owners want to return the product to a DCF themselves, they can
find their nearst one here (UK-only).

But of course we hope they’ll use Rabbit Amnesty!

Is this UK-only?

Unfortunately it wouldn’t be environmentally friendly for us to encourage people to fly their old vibrators over to the UK for recycling, but we hope that other sex toy retailers around the world will follow our lead.

How have the materials used in vibrators and sex toys changed over the past few
years?

There is a general move away from sex toys that contain phthalates. We’ve covered it a lot on LoveHoney, explaining the issues and even showing customers some of our products being tested in the laboratory.

While customers shouldn’t believe some of the more lurid headlines they see, we believe that if better materials for sex toys are available, manufacturers should use them – and they are.

What else is getting “green” in the adult toys industry?

Personal lubricants are getting greener by the day. Sliquid is glycerine- and paraben-free, and ‘Yes’ lubes are even approved by The Soil Association, (Britain’s organic and sustainable farming nonprofit)

(For more on the ins and outs of organic and toxin-free lubes, check this and this. For the environmental effects of condoms, read this. To get the buzz on low-impact vibrators, read this.)

Recycle Your Toxic Electronics!

Did you get a new PDA, mobile phone, laptop, iPod, or other fun gadget for Christmas? If you did, make sure to recycle your old unit. There’s toxic heavy metals and other stuff that can end up in our air and water if it’s just tossed in the garbage. Making it really simple to make sure this stuff doesn’t end up in landfills, or as e-waste in China is Staples’ Eco Easy campaign.

Some not-so-great facts about electronics recycling (or current lack thereof):

+ Only 10 to 15 percent of electronics are currently recycled
+ From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, household waste increases by more than 25 percent.
+ An estimated 133,000 computers are discarded every day in the U.S.
+ There are 750 million cell phones and PDAs in America and that each year 1/3rd are thrown out in favor of new ones.

Staples recycles the following in all of their stores whether you bought the item there or not:

cell phones, chargers, computers and peripherals, CRT and LCD monitors, digital cameras, fax machines, inkjet and toner cartridges, keyboards,
mice, pagers, PDAs, printers, rechargeable batteries, and “all-in-ones”

Kudos to Staples for being the first national retailer to address the problem of e-waste and taking such a bold step to address it! So before you are ready to throw out your old Sony laptops or Samsung phones, keep Staples in mind and help protect the environment!

Apple, Schmapple

I’ve heard rumblings about the paucity of places where you can recycled electronics and computer components, but thus far, I haven’t had to deal with any myself, so honestly, I’ve been a bit ignorant about the totally retarded state of they system. The other day I finally bought a new battery for my iBook (my 35-minute battery life made my laptop virtually useless when I travelled unless I had something to plug it into) and tonight I went online to Apple’s support site to find out where to send my old battery.

Yes, I was stupid enough to believe they had a take-back program of some sort SINCE THEY MADE THE BATTERY IN THE FIRST PLACE. But no. Their advice was: “As with all batteries, proper disposal is essential. Check with your local waste or recycling company to determine the disposal method for your area. Putting any battery directly in the trash harms the environment.” No kidding! I know the batteries are toxic. That’s why I’m trying to send it back to you, so you can recycle it properly. LAME, LAME, LAME!

Seriously! How many of these things end up in the trash if that is all Apple is going to do? I am just extremely disappointed because I know how popular Apple’s products are and their service in other areas has always been excellent. I thought Apple was pretty cool, but I don’t think so anymore. I’m going to call them up and write them an email and just generally give them a hard time about it. Maybe next time I’ll buy a Dell (according to Greenpeace’s electronics ratings system, updated just this month and pictured below, they have the best environmental rep.)