Find Out What Happens to Our Trash
Discarded plastic items await recycling (Photo: Shutterstock) There is no magic place called “away” where our garbage goes. We learned this early on in grade school. My boyfriend’s 7-year-old cousin, Charlie, is an ardent recycler at his home and perhaps the finest example of what we all should be doing when it…
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…
Deplasticize Your Life!
This movie from the 1950’s shows Disney’s “House of the Future” which is totally kitted out in plastic EVERYthing. Ironic that here I am from 2008 writing about how to get plastic out of my life! I haven’t picked up a plastic bag in weeks now*, and I’m looking for…
Green in Paris
So I think I have used up my allotment of fossil fuels for at least the remainder of this year, or more likely the next decade. Why? My husband surprised me with a birthday trip to Paris last weekend. Americans have a love/hate relationship with the French. So of course…
WORLD OF WASTE: America’s Mass Consumption in Images
WORLD OF WASTE: America’s Mass Consumption in Images Look at this image. Photo by Chris Jordan. Pan out . . . Photo by Chris Jordan. Pan out a little more . . . Chris Jordan. Plastic Bottles, 2007. 60×120″ That right there, is 2,000,000 plastic bottles. The amount of plastic…
Living Modestly Is Not Uncomfortable
I hate that living modestly is starting to be equated with disregarding the comforts that we’ve been given… instead of a noble and earth saving way of life. I have a group of friends who all live together. In a maximum 6 person house (4 “real” bedrooms) there are 13…
Macbook Air: Green Equals Sexy!
Steve Jobs just finished giving they keynote speech at the MacWorld 2008 conference, where he unveiled the super-sexy new Macbook Air (check Gizmodo for more techie coverage). So, besides the fact that this computer looks totally gorgeous, it is also a serious GREEN MACHINE. The ecofriendly stats, from Jobs’ speech:…
Fix It, Don't Toss It!
After arriving at warm home town Barranquilla, Colombia, I was in the process of putting away my winter clothes, when inside my jacket’s pocket I found an unfamiliar object. I reached inside and out came a pair of earrings. “Nice”, I thought. And tried to remember where I had gotten…
Roam If You Want To (But Not if You're a Bear)
This map, scanned from Patagonia’s latest catalog, details a grizzly’s 50-mile journey, which in the world of a bear, isn’t even really that far of a trip- they’ve been known to travel 500 miles or more as part of their natural movements. “For many wild animals, to roam means to…
Happy Green New Year!
I get more excited about New Years Eve than I do about Christmas or my birthday combined, seriously. So I always throw a party, and my parties always singlehandedly undo every environmental effort I put forth the entire year before. Invitations, garbage, lights, tons of food… etc. So this year,…
