Let’s shop green without being obvious about it, OK? You can, you know. There are many ways to tweak the holiday list this year to skew it toward recycled, socially conscious, energy-conserving goods. Of course, we don’t like to advocate lots of consuming. We definitely don’t buy that theory that it’s our patriotic duty to purchase our way out of the recession.

On the other hand, we are going to exchange gifts this holiday season. With that in mind, here are a few humble suggestions for keeping it green (and affordable), subtly.

A TOASTER OVEN

Black and Decker CTO6301 Convection Toaster Oven

Mom, dad, a kid on her way to college. Lots of people can appreciate the utility and electricity savings of a Toaster Oven. Did you know that the average 1500 watts used by a toaster/convection oven is less than half, or even more, than that used by a full-size oven? How many times have you heated the entire oven just to warm rolls for dinner? Or to bake a couple ramekins of dessert? Or broil a tuna melt? Or brown a small brushetta?

Turn that big oven off, and use a tool that’s sized-right for the job. That’s the very sound idea behind this “smart” appliance. There are dozens to choose from. The Black & Decker one shown here can be had at Amazon and other stores for around $60. It gets good reviews for durability, space and function.

THE WOVEL

THe wovel uses see-saw action to shove snow.

This goofy looking simple machine just might keep some snow blowers off the road. It’s unique enough to keep the relatives marveling about the weird gift Aunt Sally got Uncle Mel, but it’s got it’s serious side: It powers through snow without using fossil fuels.  More importantly to most users, it makes the job of shoveling the white stuff, pound per pound, easier. Easier on the back, mainly, because the motion of pushing and then “throwing” the snow engages leg and arm muscles.

We don’t actually have one, and we wonder if it’s quite as easy as it looks, but the see-saw action does appear to take a load off the back, a victory over bending, raising and twisting to shovel snow the old-fashioned way. The Wovel has made several YouTube appearances since being named on Time’s Best Inventions List in 2006. Check out this video by a convinced user.

It is expensive for a shovel ($119.95 retail), but it solves a problem, without adding another pollution-spewing machine to the household arsenal.

RECYCLED TIRE WALLET

Recycled Tire Wallet made by artisans in El Salvador

Number three on our list is black, but so very green. This completely recycled, vegan friendly wallet is made from discarded tires. But it looks so much like the standard leather version we thought it would qualify as a green gift that doesn’t stand out as different. Each 9 x 3.5 inch wallet has a slot for money and six slots for credit cards, just like you’d expect. A Fair Trade artisan group in El Salvador makes these wallets, helping provide jobs and living wages in their community. You can buy it ($30)  through the GreenHeartShop in Chicago, at their online store.

Green Heart helps promote artisan craft goods, clothing and food from around the world and in the U.S.

As we were prowling for practical green gifts to feature in our coming 2009 Green Gifts Lists, this simple T-shirt caught our eye. It’s green, unisex and made with organic cotton. And you’ve got that iconic Panda there on the side. What more could a greenie want?

Organic cotton T from World Wildlife Fund

It’s your gift — to re-gift at Christmas or Hanukkah — with a donation of $50 to World Wildlife Fund.

A gift to the WWF is a no-brainer for conservationists concerned about polar bears, tigers, pandas, penguins, moose and countless other creatures threatened by global warming and loss of habitat.

For the person on your list who’s wild about saving a certain favorite animal, check out WWF’s pewter earrings that depict wolves, rhinos, whales, turtles, tigers, frogs, dolphins and more. These are also a gift option when you make a $50 donation.

Handmade pewter earrings from WWF

To read more about WWF’s work, check out their list of 19 priority areas where the organization is working to restore or preserve lands that hold some of the world’s most exotic and threatened animals. (Many of these areas, the Amazon, Yangzee Region, the Congo Basin and the North American Great Plains also serve as areas where carbon is naturally sequestered, helping in the fight against global warming.)

World Wildlife Fund offers other thank you gifts, for young and old, including tote and aluminum water bottles. And, as always, you can “adopt” an animal — in fact, you can choose from 100 animals to adopt. Each adoption entitles the giver to a certificate of adoption and depending on the donation, a stuffed animal and other goodies. Great stocking stuffers.

Snow Leopard (Photo: World Wildlife Fund)

Chimpanzee (Photo: World Wildlife Fund)

From Green Right Now Reports:

As the days get longer and hotter, we’re heading for the summer solstice here north of the equator, marking the official start of summer on June 21. SOLSTICE Sunglass Boutiques will be celebrating with a benefit for The Climate Project, by donating 10 percent of all their sunglasses sales at U.S. SOLTICE Sunglass Boutiques on the solstice (Sunday).

The company also will be giving 100 percent of the net proceeds of a Soltice beach tote ($20) sold throughout June to The Climate Project.

There are SOLTICE Boutiques in more than 50 locations in major cities nationwide, offering large selections of designer sunwear with more than 1,000 pairs to choose from, including brands such as Alexander McQueen, Armani Exchange, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, 55 DSL, Diesel, Dior, Emporio Armani, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Hugo Boss, Jimmy Choo, Juicy Couture, Kate Spade, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Marc Jacobs, Smith, Valentino and Yves Saint Laurent. The collection also includes a vintage Carrera sunglass line (see photo).

The Climate Project is an international non-profit organization founded by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore with the goal of increasing public awareness of the global climate crisis. The group supports more than 2,600 volunteers worldwide who have been trained by Gore to present a version of the slide show featured in the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth.

SOLSTICE Sunglass Boutique is a luxury sunglass chain operated by Solstice Marketing Concepts (SMC), LLC,  the New York City based subsidiary of Italian designer eyewear manufacturer Safilo Group.

This Father’s Day go green and sustainable with gifts that support eco-friendly clothing, are made with recycled products or help de-toxify dad’s bath and body routine.

• Whether dad is a rugged outdoorsman or just likes to trek around the ‘hood and occasionally go off-road, he might appreciate these Finn Vegan Hiking Shoes by Patagonia. Made without any animal by-products, they’re topped by a breathable mesh and have a footbed composed of 70 percent recycled foam containing carbon and cork bits to wick moisture and control odor. (Making for a lighter footprint!). The insole board is made from recycled polyethylene and the patented “Vibram Ecostep” outsole is composed of up to 30 percent recycled scrap rubber. Patagonia has been producing green clothing and gear for many years, so these shoes are backed by eco-experience that newer green shoemakers are still acquiring. About $100 at Zappos, which carries many more vegan shoes.

• Exercise is good, but so is relaxation. Any pop would like to hang out on this Envirorope Double Hammock, made from recycled soda bottles. It’s available at Greenfeet, which promises that the Envirope is “softer than virgin polyester and shares the same durability”. It’s mildew- and UV-resistant and measures a generous 5 feet x 7 feet, with an overall length of 13 1/2 feet. So no surprise that it is listed as capable of holding up to 450 pounds for familial group naps (you’ll have to figure out how your family adds up). The Envirorope Double Hammock is made in the USA and the spreader bars are white oak from second growth Virginia trees. $134.95 at Greenfeet, which also sells other hammocks, including a single hammock made of hemp.

• What is it about electronics and guys? They seem perpetually delighted with the latest blinking gadget. This year try giving dad a way to power his gadgets, his iPhone or iPod or handheld game devices, with a Solio Classic Hybrid Solar Charger. The Solio is compact and green, collecting power from the sun to recharge small electronics. A fully charged Solio is listed as able to recharge the average phone once and perhaps twice, or power 15 hours of MP3 music. (The rough calculation is 15 minutes of talk time or 40 minutes of music for one-hour of sun charging time.) You charge at about the same rate of speed as if the gadget were plugged into the wall, except there’s no “charge” because solar energy is free! Great for outdoor excursions, or just use a clear, sunny windowsill to collect the rays. The Solio comes with adaptor tips to fit iPhones, Samsung, Sony-Ericson, Nokia and LG phones and devices. Available many places, including at Green Home for $95.00 

• Get dad started on natural body products with this new Burt’s Bees Men’s Natural Grooming Kit, containing a small body wash, soap bar, sponge, lip balm and aftershave. Good Guide gives Burts Bees products an 8.2 rating, on a scale of 10, for health and social responsibility criteria and notes that the company is a member of Safe Cosmetics and on PETA’s “no animal testing” list. As for the actual ingredients, the Burt’s website lists the ingredients of each product. The body wash, for instance, relies on coconut, citrus and sunflower oils and contains no parabens, phthalates or synthetic fragrances.  $19.99 at Target. Get bigger portions by buying the 12 oz. bottle of  Natural Skin Care for Men Body Wash or the Natural Skin Care Shaving Cream, 6 oz.  These retail for $8 each and are available at many stores.

• Improving the wardrobe — always a good bet and often, necessary. Combine practicality and fun by treating padre to an upscale Loomstate Organic Cotton T-shirt with arty graphics. Loomstate, a collaboration between designers Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay Hahn created in 2004 to create demand for responsibly made, organic cotton clothing, does it better than just about anyone. Check out this breezy “Peace Signs” SS Crew Tee, with whirring wind turbines. It’s $54 at the Loomstate website and there are plenty other designs to choose from.  Loomstate T-shirts, hoodies and shorts are also available at Barneys New York and other retailers.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

As I unloaded my groceries onto the conveyor belt, I realized I was buying more than could fit in my reusable bags.

“Can you try to fit everything in these?” I asked, handing over my assortment of canvas totes.

“I can try,” the cashier answered. “But it’s no big deal, I can just use plastic bags for whatever we can’t fit into  the ones you brought.”

“Oh no,” I said. “No plastic bags. Please.”

She stared back at me. She had already stretched out a plastic bag and was ready to load.

“I have this thing,” I told her. “I just really hate plastic bags.”

I wasn’t lying. I really do hate plastic bags, and I was on the last day of my one-week challenge to only use reusable bags for every purchase I made.  I wasn’t going to let the two gallons of milk, a watermelon and a Gatorade six-pack that wouldn’t fit in my totes stop me.

“Just put the stuff that doesn’t fit right into the cart,” I told her.

I made it to the car and my groceries made it to my home without the help of a plastic bag. I learned after going a week without them, shopping bags were simply unnecessary.

I got used to the idea of refusing plastic bags at the grocery store during the year I studied in London. Some stores would charge you if you needed a plastic bag while others would give you credit if you brought your own. And it made sense to bring a sturdier bag since you’d most likely be walking your groceries back home.

Carrying a reusable bag in London was trendy and cool. The U.K. is the birthplace of the ubiquitous “I’m Not A Plastic Bag” tote created by activist organization We Are What We Do, which encourages people to use small, daily actions to change the world.

Reusablebags.com reports an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to more than one million per minute. And the bags that get dumped pollute soil and water sources and are the cause of death for thousands of animals each year. Plastic bags do not biodegrade. They photodegrade, which means they break down into smaller and smaller pieces that contaminate the environment.

And paper bags aren’t much better. Research shows that more greenhouse gases are emitted during the manufacturing and transporting of paper bags than plastic bags. So the best solution is to use a reusable bag.

So the What We Do organization asked British bag guru Anya Hindmarch to create an affordable and environmentally friendly bag people could use instead of plastic or paper bags. And when 20,000 of them were released at 450 supermarkets across England in 2007, women got in line at 2 a.m. and all were sold by 9 a.m. Women in the States had a similar reaction. Within three hours of it being offered for the first time across the U.S., it had sold out of every Anya Hindmarch boutique across the nation.

From electronics powered by the sun to plates made from corn, towels woven from bamboo and suits spun from recycled plastic bottles, green products are crowding into stores. Never before has the green consumer enjoyed such a dazzling, dizzying…and completely confusing array of treats.

How does one choose? Should you get the locally grown zucchini or the organically farmed summer quash? The bamboo towel from Asia or the organic cotton bath sheet from Texas? Organic face cream or natural? Disposable or reusable? Plastic or stainless? Is it green, sustainable, FSC and Fair Trade?

For an increasing number of consumers, these are important questions. But the answers are spread across a universe of websites, books and human resources. That’s where GoodGuide and TheFind come in. GoodGuide is an online index that rates green food, toys, personal care and household products. TheFind is a shopping search engine that allows you to search and segregate green consumer goods. Both websites want to help you find the stuff that’s legitimately green, with the attributes that you value, and also ferret out products making false claims of sustainability.

Both websites also aim big: GoodGuide has already investigated tens of thousands of green products and wants to become the largest, most reliable online tool that consumers employ to vet the green credentials of a product, be it baby food or dog food, hairspray or bug spray, an action figure or a soil activator.

The free service tells prospective buyers about the product’s contents, its environmental pedigree and whether its manufacturer is working to lower greenhouse gas emissions, embracing low-impact methods, cultivating non-toxic alternatives, treating workers fairly and offering transparency into company workings.

The GoodGuide, which launched last September, already boasts a library of 70,000 products and is getting daily queries from the public for more, says Jodie Van Horn, director of partnerships for GoodGuide. (Now that consumers can assess their food, they’re asking for the guide to step up its inventory of pet foods.)

Now about TheFind. Its goal is simple: to show shoppers “everything” that’s available for sale, online and locally.

“With Google you can see (and) you can find any article from any website anywhere, we’re just trying to do that with shopping,” says TheFind’s CEO Siva Kumar. “It can be done.”

A distinguishing feature of TheFind, which can link shoppers to 500,000 stores, is that it gives searchers an option to sift out the “green” products and/or find local stores. The local shopping option, in some instances, may offer the lowest carbon-footprint purchase. All told, TheFind can locate some 320 million products, and more than a million of them are part of its green data collection.

Are you sensing that the GoodGuide and TheFind might be compatible? So did the proprietors, which is how TheFind and GoodGuide came to partner by interlinking to each other’s data. This just-announced partnership should put green consumers on the fast track to finding the best-of-class, verifiably green products – in the price and location they want.

When getting ready for Mother’s Day, don’t forget about Mother Earth. We have gathered ten ideas that your mother will love and won’t hurt the earth.

A Gift That Blooms

1. Flowers are always right for Mom’s Day. If you are leaning in that direction, consider buying local blooms from a local florist. Picking out flowers that are grown locally cuts down on the amount of gas used to bring you that flower, and you will be supporting your neighborhood economy. If cut flowers aren’t easily found, look for a perennial or shrub in a pot.

Find local flower markets and farms by typing in your zip code on LocalHarvest.org. We found White Dove Farm Flowers, in Santa Paula, Calif., north of Los Angeles, which produced this gorgeous Iris.

White Dove is just one of many possible local sellers. You’ll find several flower farms, sometimes as part of larger produce and herb farms, in any large market.

A Gift With A Conscience

2. Make your mom proud and invest in another woman’s future. Microplace.com enables you to make an investment in a loan of a hard-working borrower in an impoverished nation. With only a $20 donation, your mom can receive a hand-woven, free-trade scarf from Bihar, India and you will help a hard-working entrepreneur to lift herself out of poverty.

A Tasty Treat

3. A basket full of fresh organic fruits and vegetables can more than carry the day. Stop by your local farmers market and hand pick some fruit or veggies. To be earth friendly, reuse a basket or pretty tote you have in the house and fill it with your hand-picked goodies, her favorites.

Add some baked treats from Blackbird Bakery for some gluten-free sweets to make mom smile. Blackbird, founded by Karen Morgan, and popular with Courtney Cox Arquette, Island Def Jam and Laura Dern,  uses 100 percent organic fruit, eggs and dairy in its products.

Or add a sweet touch from Taza chocolate – it’s organic and stone ground and available in gift boxes.

If you’ve been looking for a fragrance that’s true to nature’s aromas and also free of toxic phthalates and preservatives and dyes, get ready for an April treat.

Demeter Fragrance Library of New York is debuting a line of eau de parfums at Sephora this month called Vintage Naturals that aims to deliver quality natural fragrances at an affordable price.

If you’ve ever wondered why wonderful natural fragrances are so hard to find, or afford, listen to Demeter’s CEO Mark Crames.

Crames says that capturing and bottling Mother Nature’s olfactory achievements has long been a challenge for beauty product companies because the requisite raw material — rose petals, lavender buds, mimosa blooms – is pricey, plain and simple. So the perfume formulations that use natural oils have, for the most part, ended up on niche shelves at Neiman’s, Bergdorf’s, and other luxury stores, retailing for hundreds of dollars a dollop.

The prices are limiting. The natural palette is also limited. But the difference between a natural scent and the synthetic that mimics it “will just blow you away,” Crames says. (Having sampled Rosebush and Mimosa, we have to agree. While words cannot adequately describe smells, we would venture to say that these are crisp, full-bodied scents with impressive longevity.)

With the Vintage Naturals line, Demeter is trying to break the price barriers that have kept “naturals’ on a shelf out of reach of the mainstream market, where Crames believes there’s a demand for natural products. The company, whose existing line of colognes has been sold at Whole Foods Markets, is producing the new line at a narrower margin and has chosen ingredients carefully to keep the price at an accessible point ($68 for 1.7 oz.).

Aside from price, natural scents have encountered other market barriers. Big manufacturers have shied away because naturally derived aromas vary with the harvest and are difficult to replicate exactly from year to year. Paris Hilton’s and Calvin Klein’s signature scents must, after all, remain the same year in and year out to meet consumer expectations.

But in considering this “problem” Demeter, which already makes dozens of mostly natural colognes, asked a question that hadn’t been much asked before: Couldn’t a natural scent’s changeability be part of its charm?

The answer to that question became Demeter’s inspiration and five Vintage Naturals parfums were created with the idea that they, like fine wines, would vary a bit from year to year. The new scents, each organized around a single floral note, are proudly branded with their “vintage”: Patchouli 2009, Mimosa 2009, Rosebush 2009, Geranium 2009 and Lavender 2009 and sold in limited edition issues of 25,000 pieces each.

These fragrances will change over time. Over hours. Throughout the day. And year to year.

“That’s part of the wonderful experience that a natural gives you, it goes through all those permutations,” Crames said.

The new line will be available in Sephora stores starting on April 16, with more stores getting the fragrances in the fall. It is also available online at Demeter’s website.

Demeter, founded in 1996 (and yes named after the Greek Goddess), has a history of turning conventional wisdom upside down. At its factory in Sunbury, Pennsylvania it produces more than 250 fragrances, most of them single note colognes that march to their own drummers, fulfilling the founders’ ambitions to make colognes that “are about you, as opposed to most designer purchases that are about aspirations,” says Crames, who owns the company with his wife, Debra Janke, and other partners. “So choosing a Demeter scent is about the memories that a scent evokes for you, and that’s about personal choice.”

The Demeter library takes “personal choice” seriously offering up a quirky list of scents like Jolly Rancher Smooth Watermelon; Tootsie Roll; White Russian, and Egg Nog, both from the Happy Hour collection; Apple Pie (of course); Freesia; Earthworm (for gardeners?) and even Laundromat – definitely not a Paris Hilton hangout, but someone’s fond memory, somewhere.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Making footwear out of used auto tires may not be a completely new idea, but the many tire and/or inner tube sandals you may have come across aren’t nearly as versatile as (and they look substantially less comfortable than) the line of ecoSNEAKS by the nice folks over at Simple Shoes.

Made partly from car and bike tires, partly from fast-renewing materials like bamboo and hemp, and held together by water based glues, the sneakers are green in about a dozen different ways (naturally, they’re even sold in a box made of 100% post-consumer paperboard with soy-ink printing) and stylish to boot: Some recall old-school skateboarding gear, others go girlie-cute, and one or two models remain neutral enough for grown-ups to wear in public.

Having coveted these kicks for some time, I finally gave them a try and am finding them more solid than my last pair of plain-vanilla tennies, although they’re obviously not as supportive or performance-oriented as athletic shoes. (I wouldn’t want to see what effect the black-rubber soles would have on a polished gym floor, either!)

They’re made in China, which might be a hurdle on the way to Simple’s goal of a “100% sustainable” product — but was probably also a compromise the Santa Barbara-area company found necessary in keeping the price in the $55-$65 range. Some of the kookier styles are much cheaper. China or no, the stitching is tight, the soles well padded, and the karma feels like a million bucks.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

From KVUE-Austin

Millions of women put on makeup every day, but you don’t think it could be hazardous to your health. Visit www.susanjeske.com for more information.

> Watch Now

Related stories:

• Color me natural: The search for good organic cosmetics
• For teens, this smells like trouble
• Do ‘natural’ and ‘hair color’ ever go together?

From your Naturopathica balancing mist to your Origins nourishing face lotion, from that fabulous Florestas rose night cream to your favorite Healing Garden anti-wrinkle cream, your bathroom countertop is a showcase of natural, organic skin and body products.

So why are you hiding your makeup? Perhaps because it is very un-green.

Don’t blame yourself. It’s not easy to find high-quality, organic eye shadows, lipsticks, foundation, concealers, mascara and the rest. But now research and demand are bringing more natural cosmetics to the market.

There are plenty of publications, websites and natural beauty blogs telling you all about makeup that’s good for your face and the Earth. They are joined by non-profits and other groups that strive to keep you up to date on what to avoid in your makeup kit.

Organic makeup is a lucrative market: One beauty market analyst told the Chicago Tribune that green makeup sales rose from $43 million in 2004 to $173 million in 2007. Organic Monitor reported the global market for organic and natural products in 2007 was $7 billion, and is forecast to pass the $10 billion mark by 2010.

Just as with other products for the body, the Food and Drug Administration does not hold any sway over products that use the words “organic” or “natural” on their labels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture does, however, hold cosmetics, beauty and health products to the same standard as it does food. An eye shadow or lipstick cannot say it is 100 percent organic unless it truly is (it can call itself “organic” with 95 percent organic ingredients, and “made from organic ingredients” if it is 70 percent organic.) A black or green USDA circle on the product can attest to its purity.

The NSF Public Health and Safety Company, a non-profit that has been developing safety standards for products worldwide for more than 60 years, developed a more stringent certification standard for “organic” personal care products last year. There are other certifications available for products that want to label themselves organic, from the California Organic Products Act to Ecocert from France (which bans mineral oil, silicon, parabens and animal testing).

Make Your Makeup Certifiably Green

A complete list of all standards and their accompanying logos can be found at I Buy It Green.

So what should you be concerned about in your lipsticks and concealer? The Environmental Working Group has compiled a cosmetic safety database of more than 41,000 products that allows you to search by item to learn its safety ranking, ingredients, potential health hazards and whether it has any certification labels.

Another non-profit group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, has a website with detailed information about cosmetics, their ingredients and potential health and environmental threats. Those suspect ingredients include nitrosamines, heavy metals (lead has been found in lipsticks), parabens (found in lipsticks), phthalates (often found in nail polish), hydroquinone and 1,4-dioxine – most of which have been linked to cancer, hormone changes and skin problems.

The Organic Consumers Association lists dozens of manufacturers they consider “organic” or “natural.”

So, you are thinking about popping the question on Valentine’s Day but you have no idea how to pick out the perfect ring. You know your special some one cares about the earth, so show them you care about them by getting a ring that did not damage the environment.

GreenKarat offers a wide variety of engagement rings and other jewelry that are Earth friendly.

The myKarat program allows customers to turn their unused gold into new jewelry or simply receive a store credit for recycling it. Only recycled or created diamonds are used. Many of the recycled diamonds come from estate sales.

The company started producing jewelry in 2003 and uses recycled metals in jewelry that is handmade by skilled artisans in the United States. Each piece also comes with an ecological report card on its origins.

“Our goal is to liberate that dormant gold, use it in our jewelry, and thereby decrease demand for additional destructive mining,” said Matt White of greenKarat. Industrial methods of removing the precious metals and gems from the earth damage the land and alter the ecosystem. Gold is a malleable and versatile metal and is easily recyclable. The mining industry produces 2,500 tons of gold a year, even though there is enough gold already for the jewelry industry for the next 50 years.

Buying a ring that uses post-consumer gold or metals, you are not contributing to the destruction of the land it came from. GreenKarat also believes in Fair Trade and opposes diamond mining.

The jewelry is only available online, so allow for delivery time.

When it comes time to get on one knee and slip that ring on her finger, you will know that you are being ecologically responsible, which is very romantic.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media