Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
By Catherine Girardeau
So you need to replace your mattress, and you want to do the green right thing, for your health and for the environment. You may be trying to reduce your overall carbon footprint, or perhaps to choose a product that’s better for your health. Ideally, you can do both.
Unfortunately, there is a plethora [...]
Tags: Dress, Decor & Beauty · SHOP GREEN
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.
Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
By Nima Kapadia
Wal-Mart, once criticized for pushing local merchants out of the picture as it installed itself in every burg and hamlet in America, has now launched an effort that could build up some local businesses, namely those run by local farmers. The world’s largest retailer has announced plans to purchase $400 million worth [...]
[Read more →]Tags: Briefs · Food · SHOP GREEN
By Barbara Kessler
Green pest control might sound like an oxymoron to some green devotees who believe in the “live and let live” mantra, or organic gardeners who appreciate that good pests and bad pests balance each other in nature.
Still, there’s the pest you can live with and the one you can’t. Some pests, like weeds, [...]
Tags: Clean & Maintain · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
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:
Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Catherine Colbert
Photo: Veruska 1960 | Dreamstime.com
Backyard barbecues and Shakespeare in the Park picnics are the perfect opportunities to whet one’s whistle. But before you pack your cooler or portable wine or tea party, consider ways you can enjoy your favorite beverages – during the holidays and yearlong – while also caring for the [...]
Tags: Food · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
By Catherine Colbert
You sent out your Evite and now you’re working hard to make sure your house is ready for the crowd. Before you put pen to paper to create the menu for your next get-together, pour yourself a tall one, sip some Syrah, or have a spot of tea and relax. Beverage manufacturers [...]
Tags: Food · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
By Harriet Blake
Independence Day brings back memories of picnics and fireworks. Lots of paper and plastic, coal or gas grilling, and a brilliant light show. Is it possible to celebrate the Fourth and remain green? Let’s take it step by step.
Photo: Elke Dennis/Dreamstime.com
Having a daytime party that makes use of natural outside light is great. [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Food · Recycle & Reuse · SHOP GREEN
By Barbara Kessler
Ever wonder what your neighbors are doing on the green front – what with one fellow dragging four nicely sorted recycling bins to the curb every other week, and another seemingly sitting out the green movement?
So did the Nature Conservancy and the people running the Harris Poll. They collaborated on a poll that [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
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?
[Read more →]Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By John DeFore
Eager to ditch your incandescent light bulbs, but worried about the mercury content of compact fluorescents?
Tags: Briefs · Cut Consumption · Energy & Water · SHOP GREEN
By John DeFore
If you can’t give up your car in your green-living efforts, can you at least wash it without harming the planet?
Some of us (this writer, for instance), let inertia answer that question: Don’t wash it at all, and pray that a growing layer of dirt will form a rust-resistant protective covering [...]
Tags: Briefs · Cars · Greener Businesses · SHOP GREEN
In the race for top carbon emissions polluter, the United States is still Number One, but China is sprinting forward and could soon edge into the lead. The current Olympics host nation accounted for a “staggering 57 percent of the growth of emissions” worldwide this century, and will likely surpass the U.S. as the single biggest belcher of fossil fuel emissions sometime this year, according to the Worldwatch Institute.
The standings right now: The U.S. currently contributes 19.5 percent of global fossil fuel emissions compared with China’s 18.3 percent. [Read more →]
British Petroleum (BP) has announced plans to bring cellulosic ethanol to market in the U.S., through a 
partnership with bio-fuel developer Verenium, a company that makes biofuels from rice straw, sugarcane stalks, switchgrass and wood chips. The partnership could help speed the availability of lower cost, more environmentally friendly biofuels, according to an announcement by both companies this week. [Read more →]
By Tom Kessler
Almost 90 percent of the car shoppers who visit Kelley Blue Book’s Web site say they are concerned about the future of our environment, company research shows. Among survey respondents, 80 percent agreed that individuals should make lifestyle changes to help reduce CO2 emissions. And 75 percent of KBB shoppers reported that they have made changes to further the betterment of the environment. The most frequent lifestyle changes cited were:
