(Part of my Green This House program.)

My dear friend Juanita kvetched to me about the cost of natural skin-care products—the kind that’s free of known and suspected carcinogenic, reproductive, and developmental toxins. “I’m not willing to sell my kidney just yet,” she muttered. Well I hear you and raise you a liver, girlfriend, because lordy, peace of mind doesn’t come without some serious kaching. But, being the smart alecky kid that I am, I told her she could save a tidy sum simply by raiding her kitchen cabinet and refrigerator, which works brilliantly for inexpensive and au naturale cleaning liquids, as well. Free yourself from the shackles of the capitalist consumerist machine, I whooped, only partly in jest.

When I found out that a tiny 8 oz. bottle of facial cleaner (with a very low hazard score of 0.3) ran for $15.48, I blanched. Instead, I made my bar of soap pull double duty in the shower for a while. (If it was good enough for our forebears, it’s good enough for me.) Then I came across a recipe for an exfoliating sugar scrub that was simply one-quarter cup brown sugar, one tablespoon of honey, and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. I’m not one to gush over skin care, but I did feel inordinately radiant and fresh after I gave it a shot one day.

Apple cider vinegar mixed with some water also works amazingly well as a skin toner. (You just have to get over the smell and tell your spouse to zip it.) It also conditions your tresses beautifully while ridding you of shampoo buildup.

Besides saving you money, homemade skin- and hair-care formulas also dispense with petroleum-based plastic packaging, which does add up, even for the most diligent of tree-huggers. (You might want to invest in a spray bottle or two in the beginning, however. Don’t reuse any containers that were filled with toxic chemicals before. In other words, chuck that used Windex bottle with the recyclables.) You also know exactly what you’re spreading across your skin without having to worry about synthetic additives or shelf-life-prolonging preservatives. And look, Ma, no extra food miles!

Peruse the cornucopia of skin-care recipes here and here. Or just Google “skin care recipes” or similar. Help save the planet, your health, and your pocketbook, while looking BEE-YOO-TI-FUL throughout.

Photo by Ten Thousand Villages

My love affair with recycled paper objets d’art continues with these outstanding newspaper coasters made by a women’s cooperative in the Philippines (and available at the fair-trade friendly Ten Thousand Villages for $16). Take a look, also, at this remarkable recycled paper frame and the recycled paper hot mat. I wonder how the artisans managed to fold these without smudging the newsprint?

(Part of my Green This House program.)

A couple of years ago, back when sustainability was a catchphrase rather than a household motto, and my lifelong emotional malaise was spiraling ever more downward than usual, we invested in an electric-powered automated litter box to make our lives a little bit easier. Now, of course, it’s become the 800-pound gorilla dogging my ongoing efforts to green our lives, especially considering the litter box uses disposable plastic containers. (Mon dieu!) Despite conventional wisdom that you do WHATEVER THE 800-POUND GORILLA DAMN WELL WANTS, we’ve gone over all our options, including dumping it (waste of money and resources), giving it away (no difference, just palming off our guilt), or simply disconnecting it and using it as a regular, old school poop shack (”That’s just stupid,” said the hub, who lacked the will and I the energy).

Finally, we met ourselves halfway with what I thought to be a decent compromise: Disconnect it for most of the day, flip the switch once after work to clear the byproducts of Chekhov’s daily contemplations, then turn the litter box off again. We also decided to reuse the plastic receptacle instead of tossing it and its hapless successors in the trash every week. The automated litter box wasn’t going to vanish into nonexistence as much as I wished it would, and this way, the hub reasoned, we’d be reducing its ecological footprint—which wasn’t going to be the case if we had given it away—while still reaping its benefits.

At around the same time, a post by Clay and Wattles up north inspired me to do some research on flushable cat litter, since, like most people’s cat overlords’, Chekhov’s pathogen-laced caca ended up in the landfill, where, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, it is “mummified for generations in plastic bags.” From the same story:

“American dogs and cats produce 10 million tons of waste a year, and no one knows where it’s going,” said Will Brinton, a scientist in Mount Vernon, Maine, and one of the world’s leading authorities on waste reduction and composting. “That’s really beginning to be looked at as a nightmare.”

Further investigation led to the discovery that clay litter is strip-mined, an environmentally devastating excavation process. (Merde!) Not only is the clay sediment permeated with carcinogenic silica dust that can coat Chekhov’s little lungs, the sodium bentonite that enables the litter to clump can poison him through chronic ingestion. That’s not the worst of it, according to Care2.com:

Sodium bentonite acts like an expandable cement, which is why these litters should not be flushed: they swell to fifteen to eighteen times their dry size and can be used as grouting, sealing, and plugging materials.

Cats often lick themselves after using the litter box, ingesting pieces of the litter. If litter gets inside them, it expands just as it does in the plumbing.

An article on the sheer nastiness of clumping clay litter had me clutching my kitty to my chest and bawling apologies for endangering him through my ignorance.

Very soon after, we started mixing the naturally clumpable and flushable corn-based World’s Best Cat Litter to Chekhov’s regular litter for a less traumatic transition for our change-adverse cat. World’s Best has no clay, silica, odor-absorbing crystals, or any synthetic additives, and, because it’s produced from corn kernels, Chekhov can ingest it during grooming without any problems. One cat-lover has some reservations about whether the corn is actually organic, however, but she agrees that it is a far safer alternative to conventional litter. (She reviews a multitude of alternative litters here.)

So far, we’ve been very pleased with this litter and Chekhov has taken to it without much fuss. Quite unexpectedly, my asthmatic sister, who is staying with us for the duration of her summer internship, no longer suffers the persistent wheezing she used to during prior visits. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen her whip out her inhaler even once. I guess the proof, as they say, is in the pooping.

“Omnivore” by Jonathan Weiner

The hub and I made it out to the Jonathan Weiner exhibit, “The Attacker’s Move,” at the Jonathan Levine Gallery, and I was completely blown away. “Omnivore” is by far my favorite because, title notwithstanding, it evokes for me that tawdry Grecian myth of Leda and the swan (in reality horny god-in-chief Zeus in disguise ), but in a table-turning reclaim-the-night kind of way.

A book signing event will be held on June 10th, from 3pm-6pm featuring Weiner’s new book, Tranquil Aftermath. Dude’s only two years older than I am, man.

Necklace made with 100 percent repurposed materials (well, except the glue), including cord I rescued from curbside pickup.

Bruce Forster/Getty Images

From USAToday.com: “Did you know that chocolate bars have petroleum-based paraffin in them?”

Look around you. What do you see? A computer screen, the print on this page, a pen, your shirt. Chances are there’s petroleum in all of it. Petroleum-based substances are in everything from lipstick to laundry detergents, clothes to computers to chocolate bars—even fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. Petroleum for non-fuel use made up just over 5 percent of total oil consumption in the United States last year, according to the Department of Energy.

Five percent may not seem like a lot, but it’s still 1 million barrels a day, more or less. That’s enough to demand the attention of a new generation of industry and academic scientists who are working to find natural, non-toxic alternatives to petroleum for consumer products. They have dubbed their field “green chemistry.”

[via Hugg]

Nobody would fault you for assuming that organic cotton fabric came bundled in comparatively dull, cream-colored bolts. A couple of design revolutionaries are challenging existing perceptions, however, with yummy prints that are as easy on the eyes as they are on the environment.

Designed in San Francisco and produced in South Carolina, the organic cotton sateen and twill prints by Harmony Art are printed with water-based inks. “The Industrial Revolution started with the textiles mills, and for the next 50 years if you said the word ‘industry’ it meant cotton,” Harmony Susalla, the company’s founder and creative director, told Sustainable Industries Journal. “If cotton can lead the Industrial Revolution, I have this vision that it can also lead the next revolution.” With Harmony Arts, Susalla wants “to bring together [the] pleasing elements [of] organic fiber and fair trade.” (The crafty Canadian behind City Girl Designs makes some of her bags with Harmony Arts fabric.)

Mod Green Pod was founded by sisters-in-law Nancy and Lisa Mims. With offices in Austin and Boston, the duo aims to “create products that won’t harm the planet, its manufacturers, or users, all without sacrificing style.” The company also produces vinyl-free wallpaper in the same scintillating neo-baroque designs.

Image by Escapemaker.com

It’s a good thing we’re not in the market for beachfront property. Global warming is the oncoming train to the New Jersey shore’s railroad-track-bound damsel in distress, says a new report from Princeton University.

From APP.com, “NJ groups take on global warming.”

Some environmentalists predict much of Atlantic City, Long Beach Island and the Cape May peninsula could be under water or prone to chronic flooding by Memorial Day 2100 at the current rate of sea-level rise.

New Jersey is one of seven Northeastern states to participate in a regional agreement capping carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. …

A Princeton University study released last year concluded that New Jersey’s coast is highly susceptible to “inundation” as the result of a 2-foot to 4-foot rise in sea level.

The study suggested that the sea-level rise will have a “wide range of impacts on socioeconomic and natural systems,” including increased damage to property and infrastructure, a net loss of beaches and wetlands, declines in coastal bird and wildlife populations, and the contamination of groundwater supplies.

And from NorthJersey.com, “Projections see global warming erasing state park, Port Newark.”

The world’s rising seas could one day swallow Liberty State Park and Port Newark.

The shores of Gold Coast property from Bayonne to Edgewater could be overrun by the Hudson River.

The meadows and marshes along the Hackensack River could become mud flats and lakes, with floodwaters lapping at the sports stadiums as well as the Xanadu complex now under construction in the Meadowlands.

The New Jersey Public Interest Research Group used recent sea-level projections to develop this ominous prediction of what global warming will do to the state’s coastal and wetlands areas by 2100.

In a map released Thursday, the Meadowlands were listed as one of five “coastal treasures” that could be permanently submerged or chronically flooded unless policymakers act now to curb the global warming trend.

The areas most at risk of being overrun by tidal waters are pulse points of the state’s tourism economy— Atlantic City, Cape May, Long Beach Island and the Delaware Bay Shore.

“Global warming is real. It’s happening,” said Doug O’Malley, the group’s field director. “If left unchecked, it will have a very real impact on New Jersey’s coastal communities.”

What you can do, besides getting out your swim gear: Ask Governor Corzine to reduce New Jersey’s global warming pollution by 20 percent below current levels by 2020 and pledge to make a 70 percent reduction by 2050. Sign the letter by filling in an e-mail form here.

Photo by Gerd George/Getty Images

From LOHAS: “Many cleaners, air fresheners may pose health risks when used indoors.”

When used indoors under certain conditions, many common household cleaners and air fresheners emit toxic pollutants at levels that may lead to health risks, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Exposure levels to some of the pollutants—and to the secondary pollutants formed when some of the products mix with ozone—may exceed regulatory guidelines when a large surface is cleaned in a small room or when the products are used regularly, resulting in chronic exposure, according to the study

The study is the first to measure emissions and concentrations of primary and secondary toxic compounds produced by these products under typical indoor use conditions, and it examines the potential hazards of small-scale yet widespread utilization of an array of products designed for household use.

My scientific opinion: D’oh.

(Read about the problems with conventional cotton here.)

Organic cotton is grown from seeds that have been untreated with pesticides or insecticides. And, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, organic cotton cannot be genetically modified, which means that herbicide-tolerant cotton or megacorp-patented cotton plants that exude their own pesticides are a big no no.

One downside: Because farming without toxic chemicals is by nature more labor intensive and lower in yield, and the organic certification process both demanding and costly, the price of organic cotton fiber and textiles comes at a premium, at least before increasing demand for organic cotton reaches critical mass. At the risk of sounding completely hokey, however, the higher price of organic cotton cannot compare to the much higher environmental and social cost of conventional cotton farming, which is responsible for wanton habitat destruction, contamination of surface and ground water, wildlife loss, and at least 355,000 human deaths from accidental poisoning per year.

A directory of organic cotton textile and fiber companies (which will be continually updated) continues after the fold.

Click here for more »

From CommonDreams.org: “We’re walking, talking waste dumps.”

Eight months ago, 10 Washingtonians volunteered blood, urine and hair samples to the Washington Toxics Coalition to be tested for eight classes of chemicals.

The results are in, and they are not pretty.

It wouldn’t be kind to say that these 10 are walking toxic waste dumps, but their levels of phthalates (found in such diverse products as shower curtains and fragrances), PBDEs (found in flame retardants, mattresses and furniture), mercury, pesticides, lead and other chemicals were high enough to make both scientists and subjects sit up and take notice.

Check out the study’s Web site here for details about the results it found and what we can do about them. Don’t fret if, at any time, you feel lost in an alphabet soup—you can always look up any unfamiliar terms in Green Home’s faboo Toxipedia.

Photo by the University of Iowa Environmental Coalition

Iowans have another reason to eat local. From Newswise: “If Iowans followed a diet of five servings of selected Iowa-grown fruit and vegetables each day for three months of the year, it could mean an additional $302 million in sales and more than 4,000 jobs added to the Iowa economy.”

Answering the question, “Does five-a-day pay?” could mean a lot more to Iowans than eating five servings of fruit and vegetables every day. It could mean an additional $302 million in sales and more than 4,000 jobs added to the Iowa economy if just 25 percent of the extra fruit and vegetables are Iowa grown.

A new report from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University considers the economic impact if Iowans followed a diet of five servings of selected Iowa-grown fruit and vegetables each day for three months of the year. The report considered additional production of apples, carrots, spinach, squash and tomatoes, half marketed directly by Iowa producers and half sold through existing retail stores.

“This is an important question to consider because it ties healthy eating to the additional economic development that could occur if Iowa farmers provided some of the food for this change in diet,” said Rich Pirog, who leads the Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative.

“Eating five servings of fruit and vegetables is recommended because of the potential health benefits, but if more of that produce is grown in Iowa, the state would reap considerable economic benefits, too,” Pirog added.

Fun Fact:
Iowa has 9,268 acres of vegetable crops, compared with 22.55 million acres of corn and soybeans.
Source: 2002 U.S. Census of Agriculture

Confused about whether to choose to buy local or organic? Well the best-case scenario, of course, is spending your hard-earned clams on produce that is local and organic, but if the lines are clearly drawn and you’re caught in between, say, locally grown but non-organic oranges and organic clementines from Morocco, we usually favor the local option. Not only would the oranges be cheaper and fresher, having traveled only a fraction of the distance their Moroccan brethren have, they’d also have expended a great deal less fossil fuel, which also means they polluted less while getting to your produce aisle. You’re also supporting your small, local farmers who are probably already using sustainable agricultural practices, but just haven’t had the time or money to get certified. “If it’s a small farm, and the farmer lives there, he’s not going to apply thick pesticides; he wants to be a caretaker for his land,” Kevin O’Dare, an organic farmer, says.

Samuel Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew, says, however, that it doesn’t really matter, ultimately, which you choose, because you’re still moving the food market to line up with your values, and businesses respond to that. As a wise person once said, every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want to live in.

I suck at playing 3rd World Farmer.

[via Ecostreet]

More social-awareness “games” here. (”Think of it as SimChomsky”—The Guardian)

Update: I forgot Darfur is Dying, recommended by One/Change.

Ok, remind me I’m in no state to formulate thoughts even remotely approaching coherence in the early morning, pre-caffeine and pre-medication. Still, I had to say something because this post (and the subsequent comment) had me clutching my head like a stunned monkey. Even if the only wisdom I could channel via my keyboard was: “Vinyl bad. Tree pretty.”

Fire owie.

“Trinket” by Jonathan Weiner

Wow.

Jonathan Weiner’s exhibit, “The Attacker’s Move,” is on view at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery until June 10.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 1011
212-243-3822
www.jonathanlevinegallery.com
Tuesday through Saturday 11-6pm

(Part of my Green This House program.)

As I mentioned in a much earlier post, I went with Aubrey Organics’ Primrose & Lavender Scalp-Soothing Shampoo instead of my conditioner’s matching shampoo because the latter garnered a much higher hazard score on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep site. (Aubrey’s shampoo scored a low 0.4 compared to Avalon’s 1.0.) Neither of them challenged my immune system as much as my original shampoo, Aussie Moist Shampoo for Dry/Damaged Hair, did, however. The thuggish purple kangaroo was slapped with a staggering 2.4 hazard rating.

Aubrey Organics’ alternative doesn’t come cheap—at $9.99 for 11 oz., it costs almost four times as much as Aussie’s shampoo. It is, however, all natural and biodegradable, and won’t end up killing you, which, really, is all I ask of my hair-care products. (That and no fraternization with the man products across the tub, because that’s just a slippery slope to cats and dogs living together, and what kind of society would we be living in, IF you can call that living?) One minor quibble: the shampoo doesn’t lather up as much as other frothy concoctions do, which took some getting used to.

You do experience the scalp-soothing tickle the fresh, aromatic shampoo promises, however, if nowhere near the epic OMIGODTHEBURNTHEBURN proportions of certain antidandruff shampoos. It also cleans without stripping your hair of all its oils, leaving a healthy sheen that persists on days you don’t wash your hair, except you won’t look like you just dipped your head into an oil vat. (Unless you’re like me and have been using apple cider vinegar as a rinse, in which case you’ll just smell like you made a wrong turn at a salad bar.)

I wish Aubrey Organics jazzed up their brand identity and packaging a great deal more—but that’s just my shallow art-brain talking.

Photo by Tom Schierlitz/Getty Images

Ecogoddess-librarian Umbra Fisk explains why buying organic is more expensive.

Just one of the reasons:

In the United States, a very small percentage of income goes toward purchasing food: less than 10 percent in 2004, compared with 23 percent in 1929 (and 24 percent in modern Mexico). You probably know that the federal and state governments heavily participate in and financially support U.S. agricultural production. I’ve been told this is a legacy of the Depression, sort of an “as God is our witness, we’ll never go hungry again” attitude. Prices for our food are low and consistent because of strong government involvement in the form of subsidies, grants, paying not to produce, buying surplus, supporting technological development, and tax incentives. Look back at my scintillating discussion of oil subsidies, which describes the various ways government can ease the path of any industry. We pay twice for our food: once to the IRS and once at the supermarket. In short, the cheapness of food is a delusion.

Previously, we discussed just some of the ways you can eat your organic veggies heartily and affordably. Except celery. Because I think celery blows chunks.

Update: Check it, prices of organics are falling.

Black Gold, a documentary about the international coffee trade, will make its New York City debut at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (June 9-12).

Check out the trailer on the movie’s Web site here. (Thanks, Scott!)

Speaking of movies, SuperAwesomeAlGore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, will be opening tomorrow in NYC at the Lincoln Square AMC and Sunshine theaters. (Join Green Home NYC and Solar One for discussion and drinks afterward; RSVP required.)

Image by Sugar Paper

Some eye candy from Sugar Paper for some cheer on a dour Monday of “frost-chilled snaps.”

Image by Sugar Paper

Oh wait, here’s another, because you’re a special and unique snowflake.

(Scene: After a train ride with a man ranting loudly to his friend about a GREAT many things while, God Almighty, I just wanted to read my book in peace.)

Husband: So this guy was talking about how the rise in gas prices is a form of genocide because prices of everything else will go up, and the poor minorities wouldn’t be able to pay their rent … or food. And he was saying that of course the government isn’t surprised about the bird flu—they’re the ones who started it.
Me: I don’t know if I buy into those kinds of conspiracy theories …
Husband: This from the woman who doesn’t believe Katie Holmes really had a baby.

(Part of my Green This House program.)

This Treehugger post made me rethink the plastic in my pocket, and how I could get my expenses to align even more closely with my ideologies. (My Amex gets regularly put through its paces because I’m quite lax at remembering to withdraw enough physical greenbacks. Since I’ve decided to live more frugally, however, my desire to splurge those accumulated points on the latest knitting hardcover or gift certificates to the Gap has all but petered out. Frankly, it’s been absolutely liberating.)

From Co-Op America’s Nov/Dec 2005 article on responsible credit cards:

Perhaps the greenest affinity card available is the Working Assets Visa card, which donates ten cents with every purchase to your choice of one of 50 nonprofits. It offers a 9.9 percent APR, with no annual fee. Working Assets also aims to serve as a progressive political force, dedicated to giving its customers the opportunity to speak out on critical public issues through its action Web site, www.actforchange.com, and long-distance telephone program. Recent actions included a call to Apple Computer to take back its used products (it recently agreed to take back old iPods). Each month, Working Assets customers generate over 80,000 calls and letters to politicians on social and environmental issues, says the company.

One caveat: Working Assets Visa is issued by MBNA, which has made large contributions to the Republican party and has been accused by consumers of predatory practices. The card used to be issued by Fleet One, but MBNA purchased the Working Assets program from Fleet.

Michael Kieschnick, Working Assets president, believes that the good his company does offsets any negatives from its association with MBNA: “Even though we did not select MBNA and have explicitly opposed their primary legislative agenda, we do believe that our program contributes significantly to progressive social change. Our credit card itself, since inception, has generated about $6 million in donations to progressive causes,” he says.

I submitted my application online and expect to hear from them within the month. Now, how to break the news gently to American Express without giving anyone nosebleeds?

Photo by See Jane Work

WhipUp.net has a great tutorial on how to embellish a boring ol’ tape measure, something I’ve been meaning to do with a couple of freebies I have lying around. These scrumptious wool-felt boxes by Hable Construction have kickstarted my creative juices and launched them into high gear.

More inspiration from Down Under over here and here. Craftapalooza’s handstitched pincushions are also SO very delectable. (She graciously provided a tutorial, too!) A few of my in-laws sew and quilt, so these might just be what Kris Kringle ordered for my anti-consumerist Christmas. Any excuse, really, to go thrifting for fabric and felted sweaters.

You’ll find another tutorial for a cake pincushion here, and one for a heartachingly twee one fashioned with a bottlecap here.

Illustration by Shannon Wheeler for EatLocal.net

Smart cookie Liz ruminates on why buying local is important to her.

Just one of her choice quotes, so do hop over and read her whole post:

I highly value food and use the opportunity to vote with my dollars every chance I get. By voting against growth hormones, pesticides, genetic engineering, feedlots with their manure lagoons, and excessive use of petroleum cements the knowledge that I have the ultimate control about what kind of foods make it past my lips. It’s a much more powerful method of voting than pulling a lever on Election Day. Businesses feel the results of those votes every single day when they look at their bottom line. How else do you think organic food became the fastest growing sector in the grocery store?

On Sunday we left the organic supermarket without any tomatoes because our only options were rather sickly looking fruit from Mexico or Holland. HOLLAND! It boggles the mind, really, considering that tomatoes are some of the easiest produce to grow. I can’t wait for my CSA to kick into gear. (We already got a “sneak peek” by way of some gorgeous spinach and cilantro the farmer surprised us with.)

Photo by the University of Maryland

From Newswise: “It took nearly seven years, but a University of Maryland time-use expert finally managed to get his answer to better fuel mileage into this country—the ‘Smart Car.’”

“I’m probably one of the first in Maryland or the DC area to own one,” says John Robinson, a sociologist and a national expert on time usage. “It’s essentially a car cut in half, but it can get up to 50 miles per gallon, seats two very comfortably and is cleverly designed. It’s a little bigger than a motorcycle, but a lot safer. I saw one in Paris in 1999 and have been trying to get one ever since.”

Ironically, U.S. regulations made it difficult to import the German/French car. “I spent hundreds of hours and made thousands of phone calls satisfying all the red tape,” he says. “It had to be retrofitted to meet various U.S. standards, including some environmental ones, even though it’s one of the cleanest cars on the road.”

Several earlier attempts to import the car failed. But Robinson says the bureaucratic kinks have been worked out, and it was shipped through a California company that retrofitted it and sent it on to a New Hampshire dealership. He drove it home to Maryland in a blinding rain storm just before Mother’s Day.

Watch out kid, carcinogenic dioxins from that vinyl bag are already working into your fatty tissues. Photo by Chickpea.

Knowing what I now know about the insidious putridity of polyvinyl chloride (alias vinyl, alias PVC)—that dozens of vinyl fabricators have succumbed to the exceedingly rare angiosarcoma of the liver over the decades, or that if your house catches on fire, you’ll die from the toxic hydrogen chloride fumes released by your vinyl siding in minutes, before the flames even have a chance to reach you—I hork up a hairball every time I see a crafting sister- or brother-in-arms make otherwise wonderful creations with PVC.

Surely these are good, decent folk who are simply ignorant of the momentous health and environmental disaster caused by PVC manufacturing. And that the vinyl industry has consistently lied to the public about the potential hazards related to its products.

We need some kind of Public Service Announcement for artists and crafters, or an organization dedicated to raising awareness in this particular close-knit, wildly creative population, especially in light of the fact that the crafting revolution has stepped up in momentum of late. C.R.A.V.E.: Crafters Revolt Against Vinyl Employment? A.D.V.E.N.T: Artists Denounce Vinyl—Evil, Noxious Textile?

You get the picture. Help me out here. What can we do?

Related addendum: I have a few yards of oilcloth (which is really fabric permeated with vinyl) that I purchased before I was tuned in to these issues. (I had aspirations of sewing knitting-needle cases and granny-chic totes.) Should I have them carted away as hazardous waste by municipal authorities or should I soldier on with my sewing machine and distribute the toxic load by making and giving away wallets and checkbook covers? As I mentioned in my first PVC-related post, you can’t recycle it, burn it, or even stick it in a conventional landfill. Ay dios mio.

This is how Chekhov feels about vinyl:

A HILARIOUS student riff of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but with an eco bent.

(Plus, I learned something about conventional strawberry farming I never knew.)

I think Chekhov could be the next Carson Kreely, don’t you?

[via Ecostreet]

Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The New York Times is running a special section on the business of green today. “Panning E-Waste for Gold” describes a behavioral shift in electronics manufacturers who are becoming more fiscally responsible for the end-of-life recovery and recycling of their products. “They are also creating products with fewer toxic materials, and in some cases with biomass-based materials, so that the equipment can be more easily reused, recycled or decomposed in landfills,” the story continues, noting that it’s mostly because of fears of regulatory fines and ruffling shareholders’ feathers, along with the increased customer demand for greener goods.

Some of the facts presented are rather disquieting, however:

Last year alone, more than 63 million computers in the United States were traded in for replacements or thrown out. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than two million tons of electronic waste ends up in landfills each year. TV’s and computers are not harmful, but when burned or dumped, toxins in the products—like lead, mercury and cadmium—endanger health as well as air and water quality.

While a combination of United States laws and regulations ban dumping electronic waste in domestic landfills, many recyclers and brokers export e-waste to mostly unregulated markets overseas. About 80 percent of computers and other electronics collected for recycling are dumped in landfills in developing countries, according to watchdog organizations and industry groups.

Electronics manufacturers are getting little prodding from the United States government; it is the only industrialized nation that did not ratify the Basel Convention, which prohibits richer nations from exporting hazardous waste to poorer countries.

Barbara Kyle, coordinator of the Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition’s computer take-back campaign, said that until the United States signs on to the Basel treaty, e-waste will continue polluting communities overseas.

“All these efforts to do more recycling, if not accompanied by closing the door to exporting e-waste to the third world, will mean we’re just adding to the problem of other countries that are in no position to deal with our waste,” Ms. Kyle said.

Meanwhile, the SVTC has compiled a list of responsible e-cyclers here.

Still, the squeaky wheel does get the grease (or the yowling, biting, bed-trampolining cat its morning kibble), even if it’s not apparent at first:

At Apple Computer, a shareholders’ group drafted a resolution before the company’s April 27 annual meeting demanding that the company extend its free iPod recycling program to all Apple products. The board, and ultimately the majority of shareholders, voted no. But a few days before the meeting, the company said in a press release that, starting in June, it would take back old computers, at no cost, when customers buy a new Apple computer online or at an Apple retailer.

Let’s chalk that up as another win for the home team.

It takes more energy to leave your PC running than it does to simply turn it off and then reboot later. (Anything you’ve heard to the contrary is just a myth.) You’ll also be doing your computer a favor by reducing mechanical wear and the possibility of overheating, and by generally prolonging its life. Monitors and displays, on average, draw twice as much power as your CPU does when left on (yes, even with that flashy screensaver you stitched together from your vacation pics), so configure your power-management options so your PC and monitor get some mandatory shut-eye after a certain period of inactivity. Still, hitting the off button is your best bet—a couple of taps is all it takes to do your part to save the world.

Photo by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources

(Part of my Green This House program.)

Because the hub and I have blinders on when it comes to grocery shopping (and not straying from our list … we have it down to a science), we only just noticed the self-serve peanut butter grinder in our organic supermarket’s refillable-food section. Though electrically powered¹, the machine oozes smooth organic peanut butter, freshly ground from shelled peanuts in the attached stainless steel hopper. And at $3.99 a pound, it comes up to about a dollar cheaper than most commercial organic peanut butter. Plus, no preservatives or additives we don’t know about—just peanut butter in its pure, unadulterated state like Vishnu and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir intended.

And wouldn’t you know, if you tote along the same reusable plastic container for future dollops of that nutty butter, you’ll also be saving the energy used to manufacture the packaging store-stocked peanut butter comes in. (That includes the glass jar, the lid that screws on, the paper label, and even the fuel that factors into shipping all those raw resources to a manufacturing plant and then to the distribution centers.)

I also recommend fighting the urge to do the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance while you’re still in the store. Because the cashiers might call in local law enforcement for backup. Don’t ask me how I know this. I just KNOW.

¹I’m always happy to hand-grind our coffee beans because I just can’t get over how turning a crank transforms whole beans into a delicate brown powder. It’s like magic! (Also, I use the time to read trashy celeb gossip on E! Online because I love me some bitchy Ted Casablanca. Can Scarlett Johanson multitask like I do? I don’t think so.)

Photo by Action Renewables

From the AP: “Millions of people around the world face death and devastation due to floods, famine, drought and violence caused by global warming, according to a report by a charity group.”

A report to be released Monday by Christian Aid said 162 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to global warming by the end of the century.

It urged the British government to lead the world’s richer countries in taking urgent action to curb global warm