Timbeland Tote Bag Made From Earthkeepers Billboards
Last fall, Timberland launched the
Earthkeepers line of boots, made mostly with organic and recycled materials. To promote these rugged, durable eco-friendly boots, Timberland erected billboards in Boston and Providence. At the end of the campaign, the billboards were repurposed into tote bags, perfect for shopping or the beach. Just like the Earthkeepers boots, these bags are durable, yet lightweight. Each bag is unique and available for about $25 in Timberland retail stores.
The American Dental Association estimates that the average American replaces their toothbrush two times a year (RN note: even though dentists recommend every three months). At these replacement rates, used toothbrushes account for approximately 50 million pounds of waste annually.
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.
The toothbrush handle is made of 100% recycled plastics, including at least 25% recycled Stonyfield Farm yogurt cups. The ergonomic, pea pod shaped handle makes it easy to grip. The nylon bristles are soft and gentle on kids' teeth and gums.
Each brush features a fun fact about one of three endangered animals: the Karner Blue Butterfly, the Utah Prairie Dog or the Grizzly Bear. And a portion of the proceeds from each toothbrush sale supports the National Wildlife Federation's efforts to protect endangered species.
As if good dental hygiene isn't a reward in itself.
Emeco uses 80% recycled aluminum to create this chair. It's based on a classic Navy design, and because it uses recycled aluminum, that means less impact on the environment. Specially made stainless steel foot caps prevent scratching floors or snagging carpets, and if you can believe this - it's made in U.S.A.
We've been trying to figure out how to re-use the plastic bags we still get in our life. Sure you can use canvas bags for grocery shopping, but you can't avoid getting some amount of new plastic bags. One use is the lunch bag or even using them for storing fruit or other items on trips. The big problem - they're usually dirty after using them each time, but they can be washed and reused if you have a plastic bag dryer.
Simply wash bags with a bit of soap and warm water (if ziplock, we fill half way with water, seal and swish around) and rinse well. Simply hang bags over one of the dowels on the bag dryer to dry. If done at night, bags are dry in the morning. Washes up to 8 bags and one container at a time. Made entirely of wood, the base may be removed for portability and/or in order to hang the dryer from the metal eyelet located at the top of the center dowel.
Take a Bite out of Wasteful Plastic Bags with Biter Bag
Made out of recycled plastic bottles (the fabric is called "ecospun"), you can carry your organic goodies in style. Just think, next time you are asked, "paper or plastic?" you sassy thing, you get to say "neither! I BYOB."
Plastic Bag Eco-Facts:
Worldwide, over one million plastic bags are used EVERY MINUTE.
In the US, about 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees go to producing plastic and paper bags each year.
About 4 billion plastic bags end up as litter each year.
So your kid has a Mimi the Sardine Lunchbug lunchbag. What about something for you?
Allow me to recommend a Basura Bag tote bag. Made from recycled juice packs by a women's cooperative in the Phillipines, each bag is unique. According to the write-up on ReusableBags.com, the women's coop purchases the containers "through a network of local school children."
Indestructible and non-biodegradable by nature, foil juice packs clog landfills, fields and streets throughout the Philippines. Using clever designs that combine the material's strength & brilliant colors, the co-op helps keep the environment clean via this very cool method of recycling.
"Have you blogged about BioBags yet?" Jane asked the other day from her kitchen. She came out with the box. "They're fantastic. You NEED to write about them."
BioBags are 100% bio-degradable, 100% compostable garbage bags. Made from cornstarch, they help to eliminate regular plastic bags from landfills, rivers, and forests. When disposed, BioBags will biodegrade as naturally as food scraps, leaving no harmful residue.
BioBags trash bags are GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) free and polyethlyene-free, with no polyethylene used in their production process. They're certified for use in organic agriculture, yet are shelf stable just like paper towels. And, importantly for those of us considering using them in our trashcans, they won't begin the composting process until the proper conditions are met - moisture, warmth and micro-organisms.
Plus, Jane loves them. Which is good enough for us.
We were at a dinner party at Julie and Patrick's house on Friday. Another couple at the party regaled us with their plans for a green wedding this fall in Colorado. Among the items on their must-have list? Recycled paper invitations, a LEED-certified location, and EZ Bags for everyone.
Wait a minute, you say. What are EZ Bags? I'm glad you asked.
If you're thinking about composting, you should also consider a kitchen compost pail so you can keep kitchen scraps for your compost pile. Here, the key is finding one that will fit on your countertop or underneath, store your scraps, and not smell up your kitchen.
I like this stainless steel compost pail from Nor Pro. It's small and sturdy, and traps odors with a small charcoal filter disk that fits in the lid. Moreover, it's easy to clean and won't chip as you transport it out to your compost pile or clean it in the sink.
I don't think I'd fill it the way they have in this picture, though. When you squish the top down, you're headed for some yuck.
Like Ready Made? Are you less artsy, more crafty? Got a serious Skunkworks operation in your basement? Is your role model more MacGyver than Martha Stewart? Then you may want to check out Make.
Here's what Amazon reviewer wiredweird had to say about it:
This quarterly magazine really hits the spot, if you're in its crosshairs. It's a clean miss for others.
It's pretty easy to tell whether you're in the target audience. Do you have a closet full of decommisioned PCs, cell phones, and other 21st-century rubble that you just know you could do "something" with? Do you have a Dremel tool, fine-tipped soldering iron, and more than one kind of epoxy in the house? Do the phrases "It works" and "It's beautiful" mean roughly the same thing to you? Does the idea of a home CNC milling machine stir you to jealousy or a quick look at your checkbook? Two or more yes answers probably qualify you as the intended reader.
This is about hacking your PC mouse or the cage for your pet mouse, about resurrecting last year's laptop as an electronic photo frame, and about how simple a robot control can be (you'd be surprised). It's like Popular Mechanics, but for the people who consider software, resistors, and pieces from antique clocks to be interchangeable. Although a few of the ideas in each issue have low-tech appeal, most are aimed at skill sets from "geeky highschooler" to "electronics professional".
Make is published by O'Reilly, famous for its nerd-worthy "animal books" for software developers. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, you're probably not a software developer.
Heating our homes these days has become very expensive and those of us who burn wood have probably noticed the price of firewood going up right along with price of oil and gas. Not only that, as more people turn to wood as a home grown renewable source of heat the air pollution levels in our villages and urban areas has increased as a result. In response, we are introducing a firewood product that makes very little smoke and green house gases, little ash and you almost never need to clean the chimney.
This new firewood contains 30% more heat per pound than regular cord wood too and takes up a lot less space. One pallet is equal to about 2 cords of standard cord wood and fits nicely into the corner of you garage or driveway. Even if you don't burn wood full time, you can find uses for this wood product. When purchased in individual packaging it can be used for nearly smokeless barbecues, camp outs, tailgate parties and the like while providing all the benefits of firewood. It's clean, efficient and renewable.
The sawdust logs, from True Fuel are made using heat compression from 100% recycled hard wood fiber from sawmill residue, so no new trees are cut down to make them. Feel good about saving the forest while you're feeling warm and cozy.
Available by the pallet or the pound at Dirt Works.
We spent the weekend between Christmas and New Year's doing the winter version of spring cleaning -- out with the old, in with the new. Well, actually, it was more "out with the old (to Goodwill, of course), and in with a little extra space in the house."
One of the challenges I always face when I hit my closet is what to do with all the t-shirts I manage to accumulate. I've got several old favorites which for whatever reason -- too baggy, wrong neckline, no-longer-fashionable sleeves -- end up sitting on the shelf instead of getting worn. I haven't worn them all year, but I can't bring myself to get rid of them.
Which is why I was delighted to come across a copy of Megan Nicolay's Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-Shirt. Nicolay is a crafty do-it-yourselfer who offers, yep, 108 different things you can do with your old t-shirts -- from basic no-sewing-required ideas to crazy high-degree-of-difficulty projects like the "teeny bikini." Patchwork blankets, iPod cozies, handbags -- the sky's the limit as long as you've got scissors, a needle and thread, and the gumption to put yourself in Nicolay's crafty little hands and give it a go.
Timbeland Tote Bag Made From Earthkeepers Billboards
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We spent the weekend between Christmas and New Year's doing the winter version of spring cleaning -- out with the old, in with the new. Well, actually, it was more "out with the old (to Goodwill, of course), and in with a little extra space in the house." 
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