Waste · Eco-Chick

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Travel and Leisure Green Travel Bible

Travel and Leisure Magazine really did it up this month for their ethical travel issue. Unlike some green theme issues, every inch of this one is packed with great resources for all of us who love to jet off into the unknown but have terrible, terrible guilt about the environmental consequences. Any resource that helps me find ways to mitigate my waste and carbon output while travelling makes a difference.

From short tips (like those in the scan above) to longer pieces, the editorial staff at T&L deserves serious kudos for this issue. You can see some of the content online here, but this is one of those magazines (along with Domino’s amazing green home decor issue from last year) that I’m keeping as a resource in my library- it’s that good.

car, carbon, decor, ethical, farm, Home, magazine, magazines, resources, travel, waste

Betty Belts!

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by Starre Vartan · 11/19/07

The Talia belt is made with recycled glass beads, ceramic tiles, and vegan leather

The Selena belt is made from farmed mother-of-pearl and vegan leather

Poking around on the internet for some new eco-friendly accessories recently, I found Betty Belts, which makes the super-gorgeous waist-wrappers above. The designer of Betty Belts, Donna von Hoesslin, is an avid and active surfer, (the company just won a ‘Green Wave’ award) and of course, like all cool chicks, a blogger!

Donna (that’s her above) says:

My goal is to continue down this road using sustainable, reused, recycled, organic and natural materials whenever possible. I am focused on reducing waste to a bare minimum. I consider the impact in every choice I make for my business and my home and always look the most sustainable method, even if it takes a lot more time and effort to find a feasible solution. Efforts like these are the foundational building blocks of hope for a better world. A cleaner, simpler and less wasteful world which we can all work toward step by step.

accessories, business, design, designer, farm, Home, leather, Organic, recycle, recycled, reuse, surfing, sustainable, vegan, waste

Don't Be A Turkey: Get Your Thanksgiving Feast Green

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by Olivia Zaleski · 11/18/07

Originally posted on The Huffington Post on November 14th, 2007

Photo from Channel14.com.

In 1621 the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians stuffed their faces in an autumn harvest feast–the first Thanksgiving. Although Historians aren’t certain of the menu, it’s safe to say the pilgrims weren’t gobbling up pesticide-smothered potatoes and antibiotic-infused turkey.

Fast forward nearly four centuries, and this Thursday the majority of American’s will sit down to a copious table of factory-produced food. With few exceptions, 178 million plus turkeys will come from animal factories, while the vast majority of our fruits, vegetables; even vino will travel hundreds of miles from foreign farm factories. Such processing plants are reported to have few regulations and less regard for environmental best practice.

While raising turkeys in an industrial setting, or growing corn in a pesticide patch might make our food cheaper and available to a large number of consumers, factory farming comes with serious negative consequences for mother earth–clear cutting, dead zones, water wastage, methane-farting cattle, the list goes on. According to a 2006 study by the University of Chicago*, industrialized livestock produces more greenhouse gas emissions than global transportation.

Such studies come at a time when meat consumption, having quadrupled in the last 50 years, reaches an all-time high. The Worldwatch Institute claims global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of for-food fowl has flown (try saying that ten times) from a stable 4.2 billion to blasphemous 15.7 billion.

Unlike the wild birds the Pilgrims ate, factory turkeys need antibiotics to stay alive, let alone healthy. Excuse me for being graphic, but the majority of factory-raised animals are reported to live so closely packed together that they have to defecate on each other. Such close-quarters create a cesspool of nasty, even deadly bacteria. I could go on and on.

Now, I’m not saying you should serve tofurkey this Thanksgiving. Although conventional meat production causes deforestation, polluted waterways and greenhouse gas blabidy-blah, I won’t insist you replace the traditional Turkey with a slab of coagulated soybean cake–that would be gross and grossly hypocritical.

Perhaps hypocritical is an understatement considering I can barely go three weeks, perhaps even three days, without vivid fantasies of red meat bbq. Many lonely nights I have resembled the McDonald’s Hamburgler, tip-toeing to the kitchen to gobble a few helpings of red-meat leftovers–ones I had so earnestly tried to refuse at dinner.

Confessions aside, there are a several environmental consequences to consider before we stuff-our-gobs this Thanksgiving day. And although I am not ready to hit up the tofurkey just yet, I sincerely hope to find a way/ask my mom to replace this years Franken-food feast with local and organic produce. In addition to spiking the apple cider, join me this Thanksgiving by following these three simple green food tips:

For the tips, keep reading……

agriculture, Animals, Australia, autumn, birds, Bush, business, car, cleaning, community, consumption, corn, CSA, deforestation, eating, Eco-Chick, emissions, Energy, farm, farming, farms, Food, fruit, fur, gas, giving, health, India, local, meat, mom, News, north carolina, oil, Organic, paper, Personalized, Plants, plastic, plates, produce, reduce, restaurant, soy, sport, sustainable, transportation, travel, waste, water

See Jane Work (in Green)

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by Starre Vartan · 11/18/07

Flora Recycled Notebooks

Colorful Recycled Tabs

Because I spend so much time at my desk, I feel totally justified buying cool stuff for it. Plus, I like pretty, designey things, not plain.

See Jane Work has lots of fun stuff for the office, but I’m especially excited because they have a whole eco-friendly section, which has recycled paper products that aren’t boring, recycled pencils (suddenly pencils seem like such a great tool, low-impact and erasable!), and fun gadgets like the stapler free stapler. (below)

It doesn’t use staples at all, producing less waste (and don’t you always run out of staples anyway, then realize that you can’t find any more of that particular size, leading you to buy a whole new stapler)? Sooooo wasteful.

book, books, car, design, farm, FDA, gadgets, paper, recycle, recycled, waste

One Person's Crapola is Another's Lifesaver

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by Starre Vartan · 11/01/07

Reusing your stuff is a cheap, planet-friendly move, and now you no longer have to hold a giant yardsale to find a good home for your favorite but ill-fitting ski helmet or that extra garden hose you never seem to use. Swapping or borrowing saves resources because less stuff has to be made (fewer cds or dvds to press for example), less shipping of materials around the world producing greenhouse gases and eventually less crap clogging our landfills or using energy to incinerate. And it’s really just awesome to be able to get something you want (the latest Leo DiCaprio flick) in exchange for something you want to get rid of anyway!

And don’t forget that the holidays are coming up….save your wallet and go lighter on the Earth by swapping stuff you want to get rid of and get gifts for your family at the same time!

Swaptree is a national service, only in the US for now, where you list what you want to get rid of and list what you want (cd’s, books and movies only). The site’s software does the rest, finding matches among people. It’s really sleek and super easy to use even if you’ve never done anything like it before. It does get a little addicting seeing what you can get for what you already have!

Swaptree is a site where you can trade books, music, movies and video games that you don’t want, for the books, CDs, DVDs, video games that you do want, for free.
Unlike auction sites or other used item sites where you can sell or purchase items, on swaptree your items will only cost you the price of shipping. So if you don’t really see the point in selling a book online for $3, just so you can then go out and buy a new book for $15, then swaptree is for you!
The best part is that once you get an item from someone and you finish reading, listening or viewing it, you can just list it on swaptree and get something else for it!

On Neighborrow you can borrow, trade or recycle locally (though they do have a mailing option, the site encourages near-by borrowing).

Borrow: Neighborrow enables you to borrow things that you want to use but do not want to pay for (books, movies, music, tools, household items, baby items, etc). You can also borrow things that you only need once in a while or things that you only need to use a single time. It makes “no cents” to purchase or even to rent certain things, especially if you do not have to. Once you borrow something, we keep track of where it is, where it has been, and when it is due back.
Trade: If you do not want the item back, but do not just want to give it away or throw it out, you can trade it for neighborrow-bucks. This “currency system” means that you do not have to find a counter party that has something you want. You can then use your neigborrow-bucks for anything on the site that someone else doesn’t want.
Recycle: Get rid of items you do not use anymore. We make it easy to find someone who wants it so it won’t go to waste