By Barbara Kessler
Wal-Mart Stores is joining the Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN), World Wildlife Fund’s initiative to save the world’s most valuable and threatened forests. The giant retailer also announced this week that it is moving toward making some of the jewelry it sells meet standards for sustainability and social responsibility.

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By Barbara Kessler
Looking for a safer sunscreen? It’s not easy to find.The Environmental Working Group looked at almost 1,000 brand-name sunscreen products and found that the majority contain chemicals that either potentially pose health hazards or inadequately protect skin from damaging sun rays. Here’s their list of the top safe sunscreens:

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By John DeFore
In the future, employing solar energy won’t necessarily mean mounting big black panels on your roof or buying from a utility with a solar farm. It might just mean pulling the curtains shut for a while.

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By Michele Chan Santos
Check the label before you spray insect repellent on your kids this summer, and you may find that many insect repellents marketed for families and children contain DEET. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics has approved the use of DEET on children, the Academy recommends only applying these products [...]

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By John DeFore
Solid-wood furniture is pricey and obviously involves harvesting trees, but the alternatives aren’t necessarily much more appealing: Particle board, while transforming waste materials into something useful, is usually glued together with resin containing the carcinogen formaldehyde. A newer innovation, the “zBoard,” hopes to supplant particle board and MDF in a wholly eco-friendly [...]

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By John DeFore

Becoming a new parent presents untold challenges, not least to those hoping to find the greenest path through unfamiliar territory. Cloth or disposable diapers? Store-bought baby food or homemade?

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By Harriet Blake

The future is green, judging by products endorsed by some 2008 college grads.

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By Harriet Blake
You can always tell a garment that has come back from the dry cleaners. There’s that faint smell that seems to linger on the item, and in the closet, until that shirt or jacket gets worn again. The smell comes from the solvent used in the dry cleaning process, and chances [...]

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By Harriet Blake
When it comes to dry cleaning, there is a greener way: At Green Apple Cleaners, founded in 2002, liquid carbon dioxide is the cleaning method of choice. The liquid is biodegradable and recyclable, and avoids the use of the more controversial toxic chemical Perchloroethylene.

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By John DeFore

New at Sears in time for Father’s Day: A green dress suit made of recycled soda bottles.
That’s right. Though the heartland’s venerable apparel merchant doesn’t tout environmentalism as one of its virtues in its online catalog listing, this suit incorporates material from Bagir, whose EcoGir line is made from post-consumer PET [...]

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By John DeFore
In recent months, more and more of the exciting announcements in the green technology field — from cheaper solar cell production to hypothetical clothing that could generate electricity from its wearers’ movements — have involved nanotubes.
The microscopic rolls of carbon that allow for such engineering feats, though, may pose environmental risks [...]

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By Debi Martin
Eco-fashion has come a long way since the celebration of the first Earth Day in 1970. It’s no longer just yoga pants and T-shirts spun from organic cotton. You can even get the “green” equivalent of that wardrobe essential: The little black dress. The Habitude organic hemp/silk double V tie-back dress ($209, pictured), [...]

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