Oakland Tribune
Published October 13, 2008
It's getting easier and easier to score eco-info. In the last year, I've found that nearly every magazine I paw through shares an Earth-friendly bit or two.
In the September issue of O, I read a tip from Lori Bongiorno ("Green, Greener, Greenest" author) on going organic.
"People can decrease the amount of pesticides they ingest by 90 percent by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables."
The Environmental Working Group lists the dirty dozen as peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach and potatoes. (For the complete list, go to
www.foodnews.org).
Along the lines of organic, try moving to nontoxic cosmetics. Natural Health, one of my fave green magazines, recently named its top beauty products. Included on the list were Physicians Formula Organic Wear blush, Neutrogena Healthy Volume Mascara, L'Oreal Paris Bare Naturale Gentle Mineral Concealer and Burt's Bees Super Shiny Lip Gloss.
For a list of more than 25,000 products rated by toxicity and ingredient safety, visit
www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.
It's not even Halloween yet, but the catalogs are coming in a big way.
According to
www.dailygreen.com., producing 19 billion catalogs mailed to Americans in last year required enough energy to
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power 1.2 million homes for a year and discharged enough waste water to fill 81,000 Olympic-size pools.
If you haven't already, register at
www.catalogchoice.org. and check off the ones you don't want.
While you're trimming down unwanted catalogs, cut down junk mail at www. dmaconsumers.org/cgi/off. mailinglist. (It costs a buck.) By the way, 100,000,000 trees are made into junk mail every year. That's not a typo — that's just a big fat waste.
Recently, readers Randy and Kathleen Burton sent me info on a Web site and said: "Thought you might like to see this; it puts a whole new spin on your article."
They were so right, because
www.terracycle.net. goes beyond just offering good Earth-friendly products. Not only are the products made from waste and recycled materials, but the packaging it comes in and the boxes they're shipped in are all Earth-friendly.
For example, plastic computer and fax machine casings take on a new purpose when they're recycled into the company's Urban Art flowerpots. Nearly indestructible, the 8-inch containers come in a variety of colors for $10 each. Check out these nifty pots and more online.
Terrific tidbit
"The Green Book," my best eco-resource, has this simple idea:
Be sure to recycle your phone book, but even better: "Call to stop phone book delivery and then use an online telephone directory instead. Telephone books make up almost 10 percent of waste at dump sites."
