I live in the Chicago area and as many of you probably already know, Chicagoans LOVE their food, hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, and especially pizza. Chicago pizza is great. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world and finally we are going to have Chicago style organic pizza! Organic Oven Works is going to be opening in June in downtown Chicago. Supposedly, it will be the first organic pizza joint in the midwest (mmmchicago.com). My tummy and I can’t wait for it to open. I will let you know how it tastes when it opens in June.

Introduction

I have found that a lot of people who attempt to make the switch to using environmentally and socially responsible products very quickly get overwhelmed. They don’t know where to start, what to look for, or what products are good. This series is supposed to serve as a base to start from. I am going to go from room to room in my house and write about the products I use on a regular basis. I will include an evaluation of each of the various products, where you can buy them, and if possible, about how much they cost. I will also include some tips for helping you find products that will fit you own needs.

It is important to remember when shopping for new products that there is going to be a certain amount of trial and error. Don’t get discouraged. If you buy environmentally friendly dish soap and it doesn’t get as sudsy as you would like it to, that does not mean that you are not going to like any environmentally friendly dish soap. What it does mean, is that you don’t like that brand and you may have to try a few before you find one you like.

Also, I recently saw an ad on TV for formula 409. The ad showed the testing of the cleaning product formula 410. They sprayed formula 410 on a wall and it blew a hole through the wall and on the other side of the wall they were testing formula 409. The point being that formula 410 was so strong that it would clean your kitchen but it would also blow a hole in whatever you sprayed it on and formula 409 is a strong as you can get without disintegrating your kitchen.

Basically, my point is, that you aren’t going to find environmentally products that are just short of blowing holes in your kitchen, lungs, face, the ozone ,or whatever and I don’t think that is necessary in order to have a clean home, clothes, face, hair, or body.

I am going to start with products in my bathroom and I want to invite all of you to share some of your favorites room by room. If you have some favorite environmentally and/or socially friendly bathroom products, post a comment and I will add them to the post.

I am not really all that into jewelry, but I found
greenKarat through an advertisement on my site. It makes jewelry (both their own designs and custom) without using the traditional ways of mining for gold and diamonds that are extremely damaging to the ecosystem.

“Our mission is to provide an ecologically and socially responsible jewelry alternative to those who seek change. We want to help you, in some small way, become part of the permanent solution. Together we can make a difference.” -green Karat

I went into the basement of my apartment building yesterday to do a couple of loads of laundry. There is a big trash can next to the laundry machines/sinks and it was full of empty laundry detergent plastic containers. I dug in and gathered up the containers, looked on the bottom, and found that ALL of them were recycleable! I hauled them out to the recycle bin in our parking lot. Please look on all plastic containers before you throw anything out. You are going to find that more often than not that you can recycle it. I put a sign by the trash can to ask people to check the container first to see if it is recycleable before tossing it. If you live in an apartment or do laundry in a community laundry room please do the same. If you find there there are still people that don’t want to recycle, show a little love and recycle it for them.

I received this article from my sister. She found it in the business section of the January 2006 Southwest Airlines Spirit magazine while flying to California. The article, written by Ellise Pierce, is titled Eco-Chic and discusses the new wave of clothing that is both fasionable and environmentally friendly.

Designers are wanting to incorporate ethics into the production of their clothing lines. This means that more designers are wanting to have the production of their garments made by employees whose human rights are being respected in the work place, are paid fair wages in exchange for their work, and given a safe environment in which to complete their work. The communities where the garment production is taking place is also considered through various work structures such as co-ops and the health and well-being of the environment.

This movement is very exciting because it is a move towards making it a standard that clothing is produced in a way that positively affects human rights, local communities, and the environment. This is becoming widespread enough that organic fibers are regularly being incorporated into clothing that is not even advertised as being environmentally friendly. Organic cotton is so much better for your health because farmers do not spray the cotton with pesticides or other chemicals. This is something that we really want to support since pesticides and chemicals can be extremely harmful to your health and to the environment and can seep into your skin when wearing any garment made from non-organic cotton even though you may have washed it. Rebecca Luke of, Sustainable Style Foundation, says that the creation of a rating system for clothing is in the works, with the purpose of creating a standard that rates how well a “particular garment has incorporated sustainability in the areas of human rights, environment, diversity, governance, and community involvement”.

This was a really informative and easy to read article. I summarized much of what it said, but if you “want to get away” and the January issue of their magazine is still in the small pouch located under your tray and directly in front of your knees, I would definately recommend reading it.

Websites the article lists as being “green”:

www.sustainablestyle.org

www.hipandzen.com

www.loomstate.org

www.edun.ie

www.lindaloudermilk.com

www.thegreenloop.com

www.underthecanopy.com

www.undesign.com

www.coolnotcruel.com

www.alternativeoutfitters.com

www.earthspeaks.com

I want to take a moment to advocate for the use of environmentally friendly printing for your business printing needs. Most of the marketing collateral that is produced is done so on non-recyclable paper and using inks that are toxic (not only to the earth but to the printers as well). It’s an easy decision to gloss over or let someone else make the decision. It may initially cost a little bit more than conventional printing, but in the long run it will end up costing more to our earth. Please, at least just ask and see what the cost difference would be, and then make your decision.

You can find out more about Printing Responsibly here.

I was going to make a long list of everything that some way or another you can recycle. I have since decided against that idea because there is a website that will do a much better job at giving you information on everything that you can recycle and answering your questions.

Earth 911

Let me know what you think and if you have any specific questions.

I have been sent, by my beloved family and friends, articles relating to the environment and human rights. Over the next few weeks (and maybe longer) I am going to start sharing those articles with you. Some of them will be a little dated, but all of them will, I hope, be interesting. You will recognize them because they will be in the category appropriately titled “Articles”.

How exciting, the final R!

Recycle First of all, there is no excuse to not recycle when most cities and towns offer curbside pick-up for recycling. For those of you who live somewhere that curbside recycling is not offered you should be able to, fairly easily, find a recyling drop-off center near you.

This one is a hard one to write because there are so many things to cover. I will start with the basics.

1. You can usually recycle paper, plastics, and cans through curb side recycling. This includes soda bottles, vegetable cans, cardboard containers that soda cans come in, plastic grocery bags (which can also be taken back to most grocery stores and recycled there), milk jugs, cereal boxes, jars, baby food jars, shampoo and conditioner bottles, etc.

2. Anything that once contained a food or a drink should be rinsed before putting it in the recycling bin.

3. The number on the bottom of plastic containers tells you how “recycleable” it is.

4. You want to look for the recycle symbol (a triangle made up of three arrows) when buying something in a plastic container. Again, look for a low number.

5. You cannot recycle all paper. For instance, you cannot recycle a lot of Christmas wrapping paper, Christmas cards, or a lot of junk mail that you receive. When paper has that shiny gloss on it, you usually can’t recycle it. The best thing to do is to, as much as you can, avoid buying products that you cannot recycle (like Christmas wrapping paper). As for junk mail you can get your name taken off of national mailing lists.

This is good for now. I will follow this up with another post that delves a little deeper into the recycling world. Woohoo!

The Environmental Protection Agency (usually refered to as the EPA) is in the process of making a decision to restrict public access to the now public information regarding corporate polluters. The original purpose of making this information available to the public was to serve as a form of protection from companies using harmful polutants that can affect one’s health as well as the environment. It is really important that we do what we can to keep this information public. To allow this information to become restricted in any way is to take a huge step back. It is our right to know what companies are doing that might put our health at risk.

Take Action

Read More