This plea came verbally—my friend Liz wanted to know where she could find non-padded mailers that she could use for her new reusable-tote business. Her only requirement: the mailers have to be recycled and recyclable.

In case this is useful to any other environmentally forward entrepreneurs—psst, check out our list of small-biz resources for women—here are some of the options Liz has to protect both her bags and her planet:

1. Gator-Pak Rigid Mailer
100 percent recycled paper fibers, with 95 percent post-consumer content; available at Frontier Paper Co. and PakOutlet

2. Jiffy Rigi Bag
75 percent recycled paper fibers, with 62 percent post-consumer content; available at Office Depot

3. Quality Park Catalog Envelope
100 percent recycled paper fibers, 30 percent post-consumer content, chlorine-free; available at the green-paper store Dolphin Blue

Signed, stamped, and sealed,
Chekhov

Have a burning question about health and the environment? Leave a comment or e-mail chehov-at-worstedwitch-dot-com.

Photo by Little Cotton Rabbits

Photo by Little Cotton Rabbits

Update: I’ve asked; the pattern is not for sale, alas.

Related articles:
1. Hello Cupcake!
2. New from Betz White

Whenever you withdraw money from an ATM, or refill your subway pass at a machine, consider refusing the printed receipt if that option is available to you. You’re likely to just wedge the receipt into your already overstuffed wallet, anyway, never to look at it again. Save yourself some clutter—and the planet some precious global-warming-fighting trees—simply by saying no.

Photo by timmygunz, under a Creative Commons license

Some gratifying news for frequent (and even infrequent) flyers: The world’s airline industry, which opened its three-day annual meeting in Vancouver this past Sunday, has the relationship between increased air traffic and global warming “front and center on its radar screen,” according to the AFP. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) represents some 250 airlines, or 94 percent of scheduled international air traffic.

The aviation industry is paying the price of ignoring warnings that environmental issues—especially in Europe—were becoming a political concern on par with safety and security, according to Leo Van Wijk Wijk, chief executive of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. “We’ve lost the PR battle and we’re not going to win the emissions battle by chattering with more PR about the past. They (the public) want to see action,” he told his colleagues on Tuesday, as reported by Reuters.

Air transport, says Giovanni Bisignani, IATA Director General and CEO, must aim to become “an industry that does not pollute—zero emissions.” The challenges the IATA sees are:

• Global Air-Traffic Management, which needs to eliminate its 12 percent inefficiency through next-generation air-traffic systems, thus saving millions of tonnes of CO₂.

• Technology, meaning that the aerospace industry must build a zero-emissions aircraft in the next 50 years. “The first target is to replace 10 percent of fuel with low-carbon alternatives in the next 10 years,” says Bisignani. “And the second is to begin developing a carbon-free fuel from renewable energy sources. It’s time for governments and the oil industry to make some serious investments.”

• A Global Approach to tackling climate change, including a fair and effective voluntary global emissions-trading scheme.

• Green Businesses, for airlines to implement green strategies across the business with the assistance of IATA’s upcoming Project Green.

Meanwhile, member airlines have a Dec. 31, 2007 deadline to cast off all paper tickets, replacing them with e-tickets, instead. To smooth that transition, 70 percent of airports should be outfitted with multi-carrier electronic kiosks, and 80 percent of airlines should have adopted a standard bar code.

Related article:
1. Flying the Eco-Friendly Skies

One issue the IATA doesn’t seem to have addressed is the prodigious amount of waste air travel generates, especially in terms of meal-related plastic disposables—even in those small “bistro packs” domestic flights provide. It may require just a bit more preplanning, but consider bringing your own plastic flatware for reuse when you fly, so you can hand back the prepackaged utensil set to the flight attendant. (I’m not sure if metal ones would get past security in these paranoid times.)

You can also tote along your own SIGG or other reusable bottle to fill up with water on the plane (so you don’t have to rely on those little plastic cups to stay hydrated), as well as bring your own commuter mug for hot beverages such as tea and coffee. They’re small details, but you’ll cut down a whole lot of waste simply by continuing some of your BYO habits in the air.

It’s reader-mail time! Here’s one from Jasmine:

Dear Chekhov,

I have noticed as the year goes on that more and more of my double-paned windows are getting condensation on the inside as the constant expanding and contracting of the glass due to sun exposure causes the vacuum seal to deteriorate. Is there anything I can do short of replacing the windows? I would love to be able to repair them and avoid sending all of the windows to the landfill. If they cannot be repaired is there a way to recycle windows?

Click here for more »

Graphic by Co-op America

I just renewed my membership to Co-op America, and, as a bonus, received a free gift membership to give away. As a member, you get a free copy of the National Green Pages, a one-year subscription to the Co-op America Quarterly, a free copy of the Financial Planning Handbook, and bimonthly issues of its newsletter Real Money. (I’ve personally opted out of receiving any snail mail because you can get most of the content online, but your mileage may vary.)

Comment below if you’d like to receive the free membership—I’ll pick a name at random on Monday.

If you’re wondering what in tarnation Co-op America is, here’s the 411, in its own words:

Co-op America is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1982.

Our mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

We work for a world where all people have enough, where all communities are healthy and safe, and where the bounty of the Earth is preserved for all the generations to come.

For more information about Co-op America’s myriad programs and initiatives, including WoodWise and Responsible Shopper, you only have to visit its Web site.

Update: Amber gets the free membership!

If you have a rechargeable appliance such as a cordless handheld vacuum or a digital camera, you’ll probably notice it’ll start losing its juice right around its third anniversary. That’s because nickel cadmium (NiCd) batteries, which are likely what you have, have a limited lifespan and lose their ability to hold a charge over time.

Instead of tossing out your small appliance, which is certainly tempting to do when new models are so inexpensive these days, consider contacting the manufacturer to purchase a replacement battery pack, instead. You’ll help save some valuable resources and carbon emissions, and your formerly busted appliance will be purring like new in no time. Remember to recycle your old battery in a responsible manner, however, because the heavy metals they contain are environmental pollutants that can come back to nip you in the karmic tushie. Check if your manufacturer has a battery takeback program, or look up your zip code at Earth911.org to find a recycler in your neighborhood.

Photo by Aantonin Kratochvil/OnEarth

California’s San Pedro Bay hosts a sprawling metropolis of polluting cargo ships, trucks, and locomotives filled with bulk cargo and cheap Asian consumer goods. Massive refineries stretch for nearly a half a mile toward the water.

The twin ports spew more pollution than the top 300 industrial sources and refineries in the Los Angeles Basin combined, most of it from ships and boats—themselves many times more polluting than all the power plants in Southern California put together. They form a “diesel death zone” that sets off allergies and asthma attacks in children, while sending the risk of developing cancer from air pollution skyrocketing. Welcome to the New Economy.

From the latest issue of OnEarth:

The off-shoring of manufacturing has moved some of the smokestacks away, but it has stoked countless new ones in the breakneck industrialization and urbanization of the developing world. And all that stuff made abroad has to be brought back to us, on demand, satisfying our ever-greater desire for speed and low cost. We click off our wishes on Web sites, setting in motion diesel engines by the tens of thousands: trucks, loaders, cranes, and locomotives, armadas of little smokestacks toiling to deliver us the goods. Ninety percent of international trade still moves by ship, as it has since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

What makes diesel exhaust different from ordinary exhaust is the soot particles typical disesel engines emit. Fine particulates that make up 94 percent of diesel emissions can penetrate lung tissue and cause genetic and cellular damage. You also get volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene and formaldehyde, along with smog-causing nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides. Add to that arsenic, cadmium, dioxin, mercury, and nearly 40 other cancer-causing substances, and you can see why diesel exhaust is responsible for 71 percent of the cancer risk from air pollution in the state of California. (The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach contribute more than 25 percent of the diesel exhaust in the region; emissions have gone up at least 20 percent since 2001.)

The article quotes Noel Park, a long-time San Pedro resident and a community activist who has finally decided to leave town after years of trying to convince officials that public health was a greater concern than “economic growth”:

“I swore to God I was going to live my life out in that house,” he said. “I’ve lived here 38 years.” Most of all, he was saddened by the implications of his own departure: “Anyone who takes the trouble to understand the issues leaves. And who’s left behind? The people who can’t leave. Well, God have mercy on them. If that’s not environmental injustice, I don’t know what is.”

Read the entire article here.

Before you check into your favorite online store and start clicking frenetically on your mouse button like a famished woodpecker, click over to a virtual swap meet such as Freecycle or Craig’s List, instead. Chances are, you’ll find what you need at only a fraction of what you’d have paid for something brand new, without sending your carbon emissions whizzing into the stratosphere. We recently snagged a like-new Ikea craft table (with a solid-wood top and steel legs) for $20 because the previous owner didn’t have room in his new apartment. Because the guy lived only 2 blocks from a PATH station, I made my humans haul it back home via mass tranist and their own God-given pedal power.

Dear Chekhov,

An admirer of your incomparable wisdom,
Anne

Click here for more »

(Part of my Green This House program.)

This is a common lure that printer manufacturers use on unsuspecting consumers—sell the hardware below market value (even if it means losing money), then rake in a continuous stream of profits through consumables such as toner and ink. In fact, the Wall Street Journal says that Hewlett-Packard makes more than two-thirds of its profits selling printer cartridges. (An average of 1.3 billion ink cartridges are sold each year, generating $30.1 billion in revenue in 2005.) Considering a color ink cartridge for my el cheapo $50 HP Deskjet costs over $20 and a black one $18, is it any wonder that cartridge-refill services are gaining in popularity, despite the obvious ire of companies such as HP and Lexmark?

My dad and I don’t have a lot in common—I’m still working on getting him to give up his SUV—but one trait solidifies our genetic bond: we’re both extremely cheap. He’s such a tightwad, in fact, that he became a stealth greenie entirely by accident, injecting off-brand ink back into his empty cartridges and saving them (and their potential replacements) from landfill purgatory, at 50 percent of the cost. Plus, it isn’t just the cartridges themselves that are an environmental polluter—printer firms have been incorporating small computer chips into their cartridges so that cartridges by other manufacturers can’t be used in a particular brand of printer. The chips also make refilling impossible because they can’t be reset, in a way almost reminiscent of “suicide seeds,” which in turn are such a repugnant idea that a special VIP section in hell has been reserved for the person who first suggested them. (The EU has banned the use of these smart chips.)

Being the klutz that I am, I suspected that DIYing this would render me a walking ink stain, so my little stingy (and hippie) heart leaped when I found out that Walgreens refills your empties. I had my black-ink cartridge pumped back full of ink for a little over $9—half of what HP was going to charge me. Walgreens offers a 100-percent satisfaction guarantee. And if you bring in the little cartridge baggie for reuse the next time you go in, you get 10 free digital photos. (The baggie was further slipped into a cardboard mailer, but I returned it to the guy at the counter for him to reuse.)

Although stories about mixed results abound, after a couple of test prints, I couldn’t tell the difference in quality, but then again, I’m not a stickler.

Other refill-station options include CartridgeWorld and OfficeMax, and if you prefer a more hands-on approach, a Google search will stand you in good stead.

Unless you really have to impress someone with your printouts (I can only think of outgoing docs and the like), use the draft mode on your printer preferences and save yourself some ink and/or toner by making your cartridges last twice or even three times as long. Double-sided printing will also cut down on paper waste, while providing a nice chunk of change over time that you can put to better use. Like catnip.

Dell is really slashing a path towards sustainability, or at least making strides in reducing technology’s gargantuan carbon footprint. The PC maker, which already announced free recycling of any Dell-branded products last June, has just announced a joint, global carbon-neutral initiative to offset the carbon dioxide produced when its customers rev up their computers. Starting in February, the program, called “Plant a Tree for Me,” will allow Dell purchasers to make a donation that will be used by two partner non-profits, The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org, to plant trees in sustainably managed forests. For $2 per laptop and $6 per desktop, you’ll get to offset (or neutralize) the climate impact of your PC for a period of three years. After that, you’re on your own.

Why plant trees? From the press release:

Native trees and forests help fight climate change as part of their natural processes. As they grow, trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen. In addition to trapping the dangerous gases that cause climate change, these new forests help to protect water quality, restore wildlife habitat and enhance public recreation areas.

Considering we pay $20 per month to offset our household’s emissions, the donation amounts seem a bit on the low side (in my non-expert, math-challenged view), but Dell provides the following explanation for its figures:

Donation amounts are based on expected average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the production of electricity needed to power the systems over three years—for a notebook .42 tons and for a desktop 1.26 tons. The cost of the carbon offset is $4.75 per ton. It costs approximately $6.31 per tree planted. On average a tree will sequester 1.33 tons of CO2 over 70 years through the program. Thus, the offset donation required to neutralize the carbon impact for notebooks is $2 and $6 for desktops.

All you’ll have to do to take advantage of the new program is simply add the donation to your online shopping cart while you are configuring your system. BOO-YAH, YOU’VE BEEN OFFSET!

This doesn’t give you a Get Out of Jail Free card for those marathon World of Warcraft sessions, however, or for downloading movies on the down-low all day and night. You shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but it’s always better to reduce first, then offset whatever you can’t.

Further resources:
1. “Do carbon offsets live up to their promise?” Christian Science Monitor

An estimated 220 tons of electronic waste is dumped in landfills and incinerators every year in the U.S. alone. Improper e-waste disposal means that toxic components, such as lead, mercury, and flame retardants, can leach inside landfills and contaminate our ground water, land, and air. Already comprising 2 to 5 percent of the American municipal solid waste stream, the amount of harmful and birth-defect-causing toxins we expose ourselves to continue to rise rapidly. So, if you can’t donate your unwanted tech to a school or charity, strongly consider recycling them, instead. You can punch in your zip code at Earth911.org or My Green Electronics to find out where you recycle just about anything, from dead car batteries to a junky fax machine. We even found a place to recycle our recalcitrant cordless phone, for free, which made our little cheapskate hearts leap for joy.

Funded by the New York City Department of Sanitation, the New York City Compost Project provides compost outreach and education to New York City residents and business, featuring composting workshops, landscaper training, and even a master composter certificate course so you can lord over your dirt by squelching it under the jackboot of authority.

During a number of special events called compost givebacks, you’re free to shovel and cart off as much compost as you and your hungry plants desire (while supplies last, of course). Even better, NYC residents can buy home compost bins, made from recycled plastic, for a heavily discounted price of $20.

Because we compost our scraps at our local community garden, we’ve found that we rarely have to take out our trash anymore, since there’s hardly anything in it that rots or smells. It’s the CIIIIIRCLE of LIIIIIIIFFFE with the bonus of less moola spent on garbage bags.

No room or community garden? You can always swing your vegetable trimmings by the Union Square Farmers’ Market composting-collection booth, as well.

Related articles:
1. What to Do With Doggy Doo?
2. Compost This

This Christmas, instead of getting a nasty El Fake-o tree most likely made from PVC (and in China), or a questionably harvested, pesticide-ridden cut tree that could haul in glad tidings of chlorpyriforus (a suspected neurotoxin) and other chemicals into your living room, consider a living Christmas tree. Organic potted trees are available at organic nurseries and selected tree farms. When Ol’ St. Nick has finished making his rounds and the glitter has fallen off the tinsel, you can either replant the tree in your backyard or keep it in your garage or by your house (depending on your climate) for next year’s festivities.

If you live in San Francisco or Portland, Oregon, you can even rent a living Christmas Tree (starting at $55 for a 7-foot Douglas fir) that will be delivered to you, then picked up after New Year’s to be replanted in areas such as parks and school districts. Personally, our tiny apartment is going tree-free (except for some paper standup trees we got free a few years ago). I don’t think our holidays will be any less merry or bright because of that. Just wait till my bipeds stick a pair of fuzzy antlers on me again. Bah Humbug.

Dear Chekhov,

My human loves to scrapbook. She loves to make cards. Let’s face it, she loves to consume paper, and other odds and ends with which she makes beautiful crafts. She has looked into digital scrapbooking; it’s neat and she said she’s gonna try it, but I still like biting her paper! Her problem? She’s having a hard time located recycled paper that can be used in scrapbooks or card making that are local. Is my only choice to order her paper off the Internet from across the pond?Thank you,
Ash the cat, and Cookie too!

Click here for more »

Photo by baabaaZuzu

If you can’t tell a bobbin from a feed dog, but still want to get in on some of that recycled-wool goodness, take a gander at these polar-fleece-lined mittens made from 100 percent recycled wool and trimmed with vintage buttons. They remind me of a nursery rhyme my mom used to read us, about three juvenile felines who took pause from their crying jag to retrieve their lost mittens only AFTER they were threatened with the prospect of going without pie. So don’t lose your mittens, kiddies, because there is nothing—and I do mean NOTHING—more depressing than being stripped of your pie-noshing rights, especially when you’re freezing your hands off. ($46, baabaaZuzu) [via Great Green Goods]

Maybe I shouldn’t be one to talk, since my food pops out straight from a can, but while it’s more convenient to nuke a microwave-ready instameal, try cutting back on overprocessed and packaged foods. According to Mr. Green of the Sierra Club, food packaging accounts for 30 million tons of waste annually, much of which is made up of small individual (and nonrecyclable) packages. It’s often cheaper, and definitely greener, to simply buy products, say oatmeal, in a single container, rather than in many single-serve packets. Try cooking more often from scratch, as well, while playing around with ingredients and condiments to adjust to your own taste, sans preservatives and artificial food coloring. Your wallet, body, and piece of mind will thank you. I mean, they’re not going to write you a note or anything like that, but you get my general drift.

Dear Chekhov,

Thanks,
Chelee

Click here for more »

Here’s a letter we recieved from reader Melanie:

Dear Chekhov,

I have been having issues with beauty packaging lately. I ran out of the hair goop I like to use and I am looking for a refillable replacement or something that doesn’t come in a plastic container. Ideally I would like to be able to make some myself because I think that would be better for the environment and better for my budget. Any suggestions?

Click here for more »

Photo by Kelly Ryerson/Getty Images

From the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): “A group of leading scientists find that unless steps are taken to slow global warming, several states in the Northeast could have climates similar to those of the modern-day South.”

Two emissions scenarios were postulated by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA), a collaboration between UCS and a team of independent scientists from universities across the Northeast and the nation. The first: if we continue to rely on energy sources that produce high levels of heat-trapping gas (e.g., coal and oil); the second: if we shift to clean and renewable energy to power our economy.

While the two emissions scenarios lead to similar consequences in early decades, the report finds the scenarios lead to starkly different outcomes as children born today reach middle-age. The projections analyze the impacts in 30 year increments: 2010-2039, 2040-2069, and 2070-2099.

Average annual temperatures. Under the higher emissions path, temperatures are projected to increase 6.5-12.5°F by the end of the century. An increase of 3.5-6.5°F is projected on the lower path.

Extreme heat days in cities. By the end of the century, many Northeast cities can expect 30 or more days over 90°F under the lower emissions scenario, and 60 or more days per year under the higher emissions scenario. Currently, Northeast cities experience one or two days per summer over 100°F. This number could increase to three to nine days under lower emissions and 14 to 28 days per year under higher emissions.

Less snow. Across the Northeast, the number of days with snow on the ground will be reduced by 50 percent in the higher emissions scenario, but only by 25 percent under the lower scenario. More winter precipitation will fall as rain. Both projections will likely have implications for winter recreation and tourism in the region.

Droughts. Droughts in the region are projected to be much more frequent on the higher emissions path.

Extreme precipitation events. Under both emissions scenarios, more frequent and more intense heavy rainfall events are expected.

“The Northeast’s economy and lifestyle is built around the seasonal cycles—pleasant summers, winter recreational opportunities, and iconic fall foliage,” said report co-lead Katharine Hayhoe, Research Associate Professor in the Dept. of Geosciences at Texas Tech University. “Fortunately, the worst consequences of global warming can be avoided by reducing our emissions starting today.”

(Emphasis is mine.)

Update: The West isn’t immune to this, of course.

Related articles:
1. Lick Global Warming
2. The Canary Project
3. Kids Starting to Feel the Heat
4. It’s Getting Hot In Here: Act Now

Online resources:
1. Undo It
2. StopGlobalWarming.org
3. An Inconvenient Truth

You may not know it, but households across the globe are infested with vampires. Energy vampires, that is. Taking the form of everyday household appliances (psst, your TV is one of them), their nasty pointed teeth are plunged deep into your wall socket, sucking up power all day and all night, even when they’ve been turned off. Other sleeper agents of the electric undead that consume 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household while in standby mode: your toaster, coffeemaker, hair dryer, PC, printer, cable box, and cellphone charger. “As a country we pay $1 billion a year to power our TVs and VCRs while they’re turned off,” Maria T. Vargas, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program told the New York Times.

You don’t have to live in a constant state of fear, however, forever looking behind your back for that one appliance you forgot to pull the plug of. The easiest solution is to plug adjacent equipment into power strips with surge protectors. Just before you crawl under the safety of your covers—or before you head out to work—simply flip the switch. Happy vampire slaying!

Dear Chekhov,

Take care!
Robyn

Click here for more »

Photo by Carin Krasner/Getty Images

The number of ingredients in a crinkly bag of commercial potato chips is staggering. Take Lay’s Original Baked Chips, for instance: It contains dehydrated potatoes, modified food starch, sugar, corn oil, salt, soy lecithin, leavening (monosodium phosphate and sodium bicarbonate), and dextrose. (Don’t ask me why they had to use two forms of sugar.)

So last night, the hub and I made our own oven-baked (not fried!) potato chips using a recipe I found online. Just grab a bag of organic taters from your local farmer, slice each potato into thin chips, then bake them on a pan with some salt and butter for 15 to 20 minutes at 500°F, or until golden brown. Some of our chips came out a little burned because of our uneven slicing—the Food Network won’t be coming a-calling anytime soon—but most of them tasted just like they came straight out of a bag from the snacks aisle—no preservatives, no packaging, no excessive greasiness, and seriously delicious. Did we mention CHEAP, too? The hub started bellyaching when I began (loudly) craving potato chips at 10pm, but once we were through with a stack of some homemade golden goodness, he immediately asked if we could make some more tonight. (Remember kids, junk food, whether organic or not, is still junk food, so go easy on it. Your mom just called me to tell you that. You should listen to her more often.)

If you’ve been following our eco tips thus far, you’ve probably honed reducing your contributions to the waste stream to an art form. So we can’t imagine you’d have very much trash at the end of the day, after you’ve separated your recyclables and the organic material you’ll be tossing on top of the ol’ compost heap. Still, most of us are doomed with the detritus of everyday living, and so, if you work in a cubicle with your own regulation trash can, consider tossing your litter in the communal trash can in the office break room, instead. You’ll save your cleaning attendant the trouble of changing out another plastic liner—plus, those petroleum-derived, nonbiodegradable bags can really add up.

Photo by Inaldo Perez/AP Photo

From AP: “Bra straps bootstrap fair-trade business.”

The tiny beads look delicate: shades of pale pink, blue and green hand strung and sewn together to form dainty straps for lingerie.

But they’re stronger than they appear, much like the women who spend hours hand making them in South America for Strappity-do-da. The fledgling business is a labor of love started by a woman desperate to help her husband’s family get out of poverty in Colombia, a developing nation with a bloody, violent history marked by drug running and guerrillas. …

Styles’ mission is more personal: She aims to educate and empower the struggling women in her husband’s homeland.

“The whole reason that we’re doing this is to build the women up, starting in this one little community and to grow that out,” she said. …

Styles had been haunted by Colombia’s poverty for years. In Cali, a city of 1.6 million, her sister-in-law’s home overlooked a river filled with sewage, garbage and rats.

But in the straps, Styles suddenly saw the chance to change things, at least for a few women.

Since then, Web and trade show orders have steadily grown. Styles’ husband, Octavio Gaviria, and an employee help pack $29.99 pairs into tiny white boxes to fill Internet orders, and the straps sell in some high-end boutiques. So far, they’ve sold about 2,000 pairs.

Each box has a tiny card that explains Styles’ effort, also explained on her Web site. She wraps the tale of her mission to help the family in every sales pitch, including online: “Their spirit lit a fire under me to find a way to help.”

Now, Styles and partner Christine Kett are trying to get the attention of a large retailer such as Victoria’s Secret. …

Kett and Styles say that while money can be measured, the self-confidence the work creates cannot. The empowerment, they hope, will spread.

“Having that one woman do this it creates the base. It’s for their families, it’s not just for her, and it just keeps going,” Kett said. “It keeps going and keeps growing as more orders come in. We’re helping more and more families. One at a time.”

The 3 Rs of sustainability—reduce, reuse, and recycle—are ordered by their importance, i.e., it’s better to reduce your personal consumption than it is to reuse something, and it’s better to reuse a product than recycle it. So before you blow your next paycheck on a spree at The Container Store, look around your home (and recycling bin) for storage receptacles, such as plastic takeout containers and apple-sauce jars, that will do the same trick as the most expensive tupperware. Personally speaking, we’ve been buying dry food products, like flaxseed and rolled oats, from the bulk-foods section of our organic supermarket, and then storing them in large, air-tight yogurt containers and jars. You’ll be rescuing some extraneous packaging from the waste stream and saving some green in the process! (Just remember to label your containers to prevent furrowed brows down the road.)

Photo by Luc Hautecoeur/Getty Images

This is hysterical. And sad. But mostly hysterical. From the Times: “GM grass takes a walk on the wild side.” (My knee-jerk reaction was, “GM again? First they put toy Hummers into Happy Meals and now they’re releasing mutant grass? IS NOTHING SACRED?”)

A genetically modified grass designed to improve golf courses and lawns has caused alarm in the US after escaping into the wild.

Creeping bentgrass, Agrostis stolonifera, has spread up to three miles outside a test site in Oregon with nine different plants being identified.

It had been modified to make it impervious to the herbicide glysophate and was designed to appeal to golf course managers who would be able to spray large areas to kill off weeds without damaging the grass.

Homeowners were considered another lucrative market because it could help them to create perfect lawns in front of their houses.

The US Department of Agriculture has ordered a full environmental audit of its impact and spread to determine the threat to wildlife. Unlike GM crops such as maize and soybeans, which are annuals and unable to reproduce, the perennial grass was able to produce seeds during outdoor tests.

Some of the plants found outside the test site, reports New Scientist, had grown from seeds produced by the GM parent. Others were hybrids derived from a non-GM plant being pollinated by one of the modified specimens.

Incidentally, cross-pollination between GM crops and neighboring organic crops is a pressing issue for many organic farmers because it could invalidate U.K. Soil Association or USDA organic certification.

Pesticides may be able to exterminate creepy crawlies and other gross-out household pests, but guess what, they’re slowly killing you, too. The man-made chemicals we favor are like the nose-picking houseguest we just can’t seem to get rid of—for instance, an average of 200 industrial compounds, pollutants and other chemicals were recently discovered in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. (These included seven dangerous pesticides, some of which were banned in the U.S. over 30 years ago.) We’re serving our kids potent chemical cocktails even before they are born—not quite the head-start they may have been hoping to get.

The toxic chemicals mimic hormone activity, impeding reproductive and mental development in fetuses and children, as well as resulting in nausea, dizziness, vomiting, convulsions, and asthma. As steady doses of pesticides accumulate in our bodies, they can lead to infertility, nerve and neurological damage, blood and lymphatic system cancers, cancers of the lip, stomach, lung, brain, and prostate, plus melanoma and other skin cancers. In fact, cancer is the second leading cause of death among children. (Accidents rank first.) Pesticides have also been implicated in Parkinson’s disease.

The choice is obvious: ditch the poisons. Natural, safe, and non-toxic methods of corralling pests abound online, many of them using items you already have in your kitchen cabinet. We recently won a war with marauding ants by spraying our counters and floors with vinegar. And if I happen to give our surfaces a curious lick, all I’ll get is a bad taste in my mouth.

Photo by Alan Thornton/Getty Images

Ay caramba, another problem with big-box organics and another reason to know thy farmer: conventionally unfair labor.

From Grist: “Workers on organic farms are treated as poorly as their conventional counterparts.”

“There’s a common conventional wisdom by a lot of consumers, especially at the higher-end stores, that just because it’s organic the workers are treated better,” said UFW spokesperson Mark Grossman. “And that’s simply not true.”

That disconnect between reality and public perception is of increasing concern to farmworker advocates, food activists, and some farmers, who worry that as the organic sector replicates the abusive conditions of conventional agriculture, it is sacrificing the founding values of the sustainable-food movement. The desire to return organic to its roots is driving a slew of initiatives to develop labor standards for organic farms. If successful, the new standards would establish the organic sector as the kind of fully sustainable industry—both socially responsible and environmentally sound—that could be a model for the entire economy. …

Although comprehensive studies of conditions on organic farms are hard to find, complaints like Ortiz’s are not uncommon. For example, Willamette River Organics, one of Oregon’s largest organic operations, has been hit with several lawsuits charging violations of minimum-wage laws. A Human Rights Watch report on the exploitation of adolescent workers said the atmosphere at Arizona’s organic Pavich Farms was “hostile, suspicious,” with laborers apparently not permitted to speak to inspectors. Threemile Canyon, a large organic dairy and potato farm in Oregon, faces accusations of sexual discrimination in its hiring practices.

Tirso Moreno, farmworker organizer, answers questionsWorkers get no consolation in the form of higher wages or better benefits, either. According to a report published last year by researchers at UC-Davis, a majority of 188 California organic farms surveyed do not pay a living wage or provide medical or retirement plans. In fact, most organic workers earn the same as those in conventional fields—less (adjusted for inflation) than they were making in the 1970s, when the famous [United Farmworkers of America] boycotts occurred. “The exploitative conditions that farmworkers face in the U.S. are abysmal—it’s a human-rights crisis,” said Richard Mandelbaum, policy analyst at the Farmworker Support Committee. “In terms of wages and labor rights, there’s really no difference between organic and conventional.

We already know that recycling makes the world go round. But in order to keep parade moving, we need to buy recycled, as well. These days, we’re not restricted to just paper, either—and even then you have choices such as stationery pulped from recycled denim or coffee chaff. From recycled glass to recycled rubber, practically anything that can be recycled, has been. Recycling often takes much less energy and resources than it does to mine virgin materials—although, strictly speaking, most materials are “downcycled” because some of their properties are degraded when they’re reworked, such as when paper is downcycled to low-grade cardboard. And eventually they’ll hit a point where they’re of no practical use whatsoever and have to travel to that big recycling plant up in the sky. So recycling doesn’t grant you a Get Out of Jail Free card when it comes to minimizing your own personal consumption, but it’s nice to have eco-friendlier options when we’re looking for them.

Photo by Andreanna Seymore/Getty Images

Not sweating ’bout climate change, yet? Well your kids will be, and they and their children may not remark too kindly upon your apathetic thumb-twiddling decades from now. From the San Antonio Express News: “Down-to-earth teens concerned about global warming.”

High school student Stacey Flores concedes that until recently she wasn’t all that clued-in on the specifics of global warming.

She’d heard “bits and pieces” about rising world temperatures but didn’t really put it all together.

Then she was assigned a project in chemistry class about the increasing fury of hurricanes and how that might be tied to greenhouse gas emissions. Her eyes were opened, she says.

“A lot of kids my age don’t watch the news,” she says. “When it comes to global warming, we’re like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ But the thing is our generation is going to have to deal with this. When our parents are gone, when our grandparents are gone, people are going to be asking us: ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’” …

Recently, a study by the Bush administration conceded that the Earth’s lower atmosphere was growing warmer and humans are to blame, although controversy still exists on that last count. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, “with accelerated warming during the past two decades.”

The rise in temperature may already be having dramatic effects. Satellite images, for example, show a retreat of ice in the Arctic.

All this has some teens worried. After all, they’re the ones who are going to inherit a world potentially plagued by droughts, storms, floods and forest fires.

If you feel it necessary to use aluminum foil, be sure to give those shiny crinklies a good scrub with some soap and water so you can reuse them in the future. Or recycle them with your soda cans. Not only is the production of virgin aluminum highly resource intensive, the mining of bauxite to make the aluminum is also extremely taxing on the environment. The upside is that aluminum is 100 percent recyclable and can be reworked indefinitely without any degradation in quality. Recycling aluminum also takes as little as 5 percent of the energy you’d need to manufacture virgin aluminum, so buy recycled aluminum foil when you need to, and when you’re through, just keep on recycling that aluminum over and over and over again.

According to eco-maven Umbra, the amount of aluminum Americans toss out in three months is enough to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.

More soda-tab belts from Novica.com, which is affiliated with National Geographic. The crocheted soda-tab bags, by the same Brazilian artisan, are pretty wild, too. Part granny-chic accessory, part self-defense stratagem.

And are we tired of recycled magazine beads yet? HELLS NO!

This may sound really obvious, but it took us a while to realize we should ditch the paper towels for cloth rags—even if our 100 percent recycled paper towels were made by Seventh Generation. (If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 120 sheet virgin fiber paper towels with 100 percent recycled ones, says the green company, we could save 1 million trees, 2.6 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 367 million gallons of water.) Recycled, unbleached paper towels, although less bad for the environment, will still end up as waste to be eventually managed. We now save our paper towels for the really groddy messes, such as, ahem, those made by yours truly. For everything else, it’s the Witch’s cut-up old shirt, which she just rinses in the sink with really hot water and occasionally tosses in with the rest of the laundry for freshening up. And now we have some extra dough for bonus organic kitty treats.

Dear Chekhov,

My roommates and I are poor artists and have a lot of pressed wood around the house because it’s cheap and we like to build things. I recently discovered that pressed wood is treated with toxins like formaldehyde, so our plan is to phase out its use. But what do we do with our current supply? Is it so toxic that we should get rid of it immediately, or can we continue to use it? Would it contaminate the soil if we used it for a garden box? What is the best way to dispose of the stuff—can we recycle it, or should it be treated like toxic waste? Can you suggest some cheap, safer alternatives to pressed wood?

Artistically yours,
Aleta

Dear Aleta,

A severe eye, nose, and throat irritant, formaldehyde is a leading indoor air pollutant classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a probable human carcinogen. Kidlets and nuggets in vitro are, of course, more susceptible to its heinous hold.

Formaldehyde is offgassed as a pungent, colorless vapor by urea-formaldehyde glues used in plywood, particle board, and medium-density fiberboard (MDF). (You can also find formaldehyde lurking in drapes, carpets, and some foam insulation.) Although pressed-wood manufacturers have reduced emissions by 80 percent or more over the past 20 years, concentrations of the gas can still cause nausea, difficulties breathing, chest pains, headaches, and may trigger attacks in people with asthma. While volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde can be emitted throughout the lifetime of the product, the less-bad news is the amount being offgassed peters out with time as the product dries out.

Particle board is very difficult to recycle, but don’t despair, you can actually purchase eco-friendly formaldehyde sealants, such as AFM Safecoat’s Safe Seal, to block off any formaldehyde vapors. Varnishes such as polyurethane and nitrocellulose are also effective when you brush on a double coating. The EPA- and U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded Healthy Indoor Air for America’s Homes project recommends applying generous coatings to all exposed edges and surfaces, including the undersides of countertops, cabinet interiors, and any drawers. A well-ventilated home will also help disperse any lingering toxic vapors.

If you’re looking for alternatives for the future, PrimeBoard is an MDF made using agricultural waste from wheat straw bound together with formaldehyde-free resins. Reportedly emission-free, PrimeBoard also exceeds industry standards for particle board. You may also want to check out Columbia Forest Products, which uses a patented soy-based adhesive for its veneer-core hardwood plywood.

Medite II is another formaldehyde-free wood-based MDF. (The company also manufactures a decorative hardwood plywood called PureBond that is LEED-compliant and contains no added formaldehyde.)

You can also look for pressed wood bonded with an adhesive called phenol formaldehyde (used in softwood plywood and oriented-strand board), which has a much lower formaldehyde emission rate, according to several sources. (Recite “PF, not UF” like a mantra ad nauseum.)

Be sure to check that your wood products are Forestry Stewardship Council-certified<