Ever wanted to have plants growing on your walls? Lifehacker suggests DIYers can create a plant wall from the above diagram, as the retail indoor wall plant hanger sells for $250. House plants are known for improving indoor air quality. I'd much rather grow plants to clean air than rely on an energy using air purifier. Besides, the plant wall is very cool for your green home decor.
Radiant City is a new documentary about the cookie cutter life that has emerged from suburban sprawl in North America. Farm land is being converted into massive enclaves of identical homes, where people live closely to their neighbors but in complete isolation as a community. The layout of suburbia requires dependence upon cars, as families shuttle children around and drive to big box stores. Suburbs create monocultures that will not be supported as the energy crisis manifests.
I grew up in a suburb, as my parents purchased a new home when I was a toddler. The difference between my suburb and the one featured in Radiant City is that we could walk to our school, church, grocery store, bank, post office, etc. We did know our neighbors and block parties occurred every summer. Now, this sense of community has been lost in my suburb, as the children have grown up and left the neighborhood and schools have closed. This is the fate typical of "communities" in the Late Suburban Age. It is not a sustainable model for communal life.
The Fire and Light Recycled Glass Bowl is made from 91% recycled glass in the USA, specifically Humboldt County, California. This hand-poured, colored glass bowl is beautiful and available in nine colors: celery, cobalt, grape, olive, citrus, lavender, plum, aqua, and copper. Fire and Light began making recycled glass dinnerware in 1995 through a partnership with the Arcata Community Recycling Center. According to the company:
The enlightened practices that gave rise to the company continue to inform everything we do. Fire & Light still strives to find new ways to incorporate recycling into our production process, like using recycled beer kegs from local microbreweries as vats to cool our ladles.Fire & Light colored glassware is a product whose history is a kind of future, where age-old craftsmanship meets innovative manufacturing, utilizing post consumer glass as a resource.
Clorox Greenworks: Greenwashing or Green Cleaning?
After deciding not to add the Clorox name to Burt's Bees, for fear it would cause distrust amongst eco-shoppers, the company has just released a new line of "green" cleaning products. Clorox Greenworks, is the first line of greener cleaning products to be launched by a major manufacturer. According to Beth Springer, vice president for strategy and growth at Clorox, Greenworks bears the Clorox name because:
We spent a lot of time talking with consumers who wanted to keep their homes clean and healthy but wanted more natural alternatives,” Ms. Springer says. “And they confessed in most cases they were disappointed with having to pay more for products that didn’t work. So we concluded that we would initially bring it out with the Clorox brand name endorsing it because it gave people a belief in its efficacy.
The goal is to move green cleaning into the mainstream. Clorox Greenworks products are biodegradable, non-toxic, plant-based, non animal-tested, non-allergenic, have full ingredient transparency, and made with recyclable packaging.
Read more at: Treehugger- specific information about the Greenworks "natural" ingredients Eco Child's Play-how Clorox has benefited from the FDA's decision not to clearly define "natural" Lohas and the Sierra Club-the partnership between the Sierra Club and Clorox
Where do you rest your head for 8-10 hours every day of your life? Your pillow, of course! Considering how much time we spend in close proximity snuggling with our pillow, it only makes sense that it be made of high quality, natural materials. Natura offers many natural sleep solutions, including the Aloe Dream Mate Pillow
The Aloe Dream Mate pillow consists of an aloe and cotton cover, Natura smart wool lining, and a granulated Talalay latex core. The aloe enriched cotton cover provides for better energy balance and nourishes your skin while you sleep. The smart wool lining regulates body temperature and controls humidity by absorbing moisture vapor and diffusing it back into the air. The natural, granulated Talalay latex replicates a "down-like" feel that is cuddly and conforms to your neck and body. All of these natural elements combine to provide you with longer periods of deep, undisturbed sleep.
The hypoallergenic Aloe Dream Mate Pillow is a great alternative to synthetic pillows that may contain PBDEs. PBDEs are flame retardant chemicals that are suspected to mimic estrogen. This chemical has been found in human breast milk, and the US has the highest documented levels of PBDEs in breast milk, blood, and body fat. Avoid PBDEs in your bed, and sleep safely on Natura's Aloe Dream Mate pillow.
Kitchen Composters: Consider the NatureMill Automatic
Considering buying a kitchen composter, but worried about the amount of work it will require? Concerned you don't have the yard space for an outdoor composter? Concerned about the smell? Consider the Porsche of composters -- NatureMill's automatic kitchen composter.
To use it, add your organic waste -- food scraps (including meat and dairy), coffee grinds, and even pet waste (yuck!), close the lid, and voila. NauralMill's composter uses the hot composting method -- mixing, air flow, heat and moisture -- to create compost without icky odors. The compost gets transferred via a trap door to a lower chamber so you can keep adding new waste and making more compost in the top chamber. Remove fresh compost every two weeks.
Worried about the energy such a composter might consume? From the NatureMill website:
A NatureMill automatic composter recycles its weight in waste every 10 days, diverting over two tons of waste from landfills over its life. This reduces emissions of methane, a harmful greenhouse gas produced when organic matter decomposes in oxygen-starved landfills. Compost returns nutrients to the environment, reducing our need for chemical fertilizers. NatureMill uses 5 kwh / month of energy - or about $0.50/month - less than a garbage truck would burn in diesel fuel to haul the same waste. It is made from recycled and recyclable materials.
Here's something everyone needs: an emergency shake-and-go LED Flashlight. Shake it for 60 seconds and you get 30 minutes of bright white light from three LED bulbs.
The Princess LED Flashlight is great for camping, power outages, or to keep in your glove compartment. And, with no batteries and LED lightbulbs that last over 100,000 hours, it's good for the environment as well. Plus, it's waterproof (just in case).
Buy two or more and get 5% off each of them on Amazon.
Having folks over for dinner? Looking for an alternative to disposable plastic plates and cups? We like to keep on hand a set of recycled plastic tableware - plates, cups and cutlery - from Preserve by Recycline.
Preserve Tableware is made from 100% recycled plastic, including recycled yogurt cups. It's reusable and dishwasher-safe. Don't feel like washing it? It's also recyclable (using #5 plastic).
The plates, cups and cutleryare sturdy enough for anything you can dish out. And they come in a range of colors and sizes so you can coordinate or mix and match.
* Cut down on canned foods. To keep food from reacting with the metal of the can, a plastic coating made from bisphenol A is commonly applied to the inside of the can. This coating appears as a solid color on the inside of the can, and can leach into the food stored inside.
* Avoid eating or drinking from polycarbonate plastics – used in such products as hard plastic baby bottles, 5 gallon water cooler bottles, hard plastic water bottles, plastic silverware, and Lexan products. You can check for the type of plastic on the bottom of the bottle – polycarbonate bottles may be labeled with recycling number 7 ("Other" type of plastic) or may contain the letters "PC" below the recycling symbol. Bisphenol A may leach out of these types of bottles into your beverage or food. Alternatives include bottles and other materials made from glass, stainless steel, or polypropylene bottles labeled number 5 on the bottom (translucent, not transparent).
So, you may want to think about replacing your Nalgene bottles and your plastic sippy cups and baby bottles, and looking for alternatives.
Want to bring the forest into your home? Artist and designer Katherine Ahern of Birch and Willow here in Boston makes one-of-a-kind pendants, sconces, and lamps from bittersweet vines, grapevines, reeds, sea grass, and stones.
The lamps are positively gorgeous, and create almost magical shadows and reflections. Pictured here are Ahern's Roost Pendant Lamp (above) and her Cairn Table Lamp.
Kitchen Coffee Handmade Soap by Flower Peddler Bath and Beauty
Got an email last week from Michelle at Flower Peddler Bath and Beauty, purveyors of natural bath and body products. She noted that people often go the natural route out of concern about the environment or to avoid chemicals, but that sometimes "natural" products can be pretty boring. Flower Peddler works to counter that notion with products that look, smell and feel bright, exciting, luxurious -- basically anything but dull.
Flower Peddler actually began as, you guessed it, a flower store, near Richmond, VA. They noticed how customers reacted to the fragrance and color in their bouquets and developed an interest in aromatherapy. That led to interest in handmade soaps.
The site has a number of cool products, including lines for men, kids, and babies, as well as seasonal soaps and a spa line.
Here's their Kitchen Coffee Soap, good for removing kitchen odors and oils from the cook's hands. The soap includes real coffee grounds for a natural abrasive to clean and deodorize, and lots of moisturizers to keep your hands soft.
Literally Make Your Apartment Green
Here's something everyone needs: an emergency shake-and-go 
We've been reading up on the risks is 
The lamps are positively gorgeous, and create almost magical shadows and reflections. Pictured here are Ahern's 
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