Green Living
Green Work
Why Bother?
A family of four can save GBP1,500 ($3,000) a year simply by buying products in the largest size they can use and by buying long lasting reusable items. Think about the effect of your purchases on the environment when you shop.
Items with excess packaging and products that need to be discarded after only a few uses cost more money, use up valuable resources and create more waste.
We hope the below articles put a smile on your face 
not only because you are saving money, but because you are helping to green the world while at it!
Support your Local Farmers!
Fruit, vegetables, meat and milk produced closer to home rack up fewer "petroleum miles" than products trucked cross-country to your table.
How do you find them? Try Organic Directory (UK), or Local Harvest (USA) for farmers' markets, greengrocers and food co-ops in your area. The websites, which include handy contact information in their directory listings, also identify restaurants that specialize in regional and seasonal ingredients.
If you really want to get close to the farm, join a Community Supported Agriculture project, which lets you buy shares in a farmer's annual harvest. In return, you get a box of produce every week for a season. It will take more than a few visits to the farm stand to reduce the carbon impact of the U.S. food supply. In the meantime, here's another reason to go local: the taste is great.
Green Gifts
Environmentally-friendly ideas for gifts:
- Forget holiday gift-giving this year, and partner with friends and family to donate time and resources to local or national charities.
- Give a subscription or membership to an organisation or charity. If you have a friend who cares for ethical buying like you, a good gift would be a subscription to ethiscore.org or another green on-line magazine.
- Avoid sending heavily packaged presents overseas. You may be sending a Made-in-China toy to Asia! And what about those CO2 emissions on the plane! Why not buy an overseas membership/subscription?
If you must buy,
- check-out our own shopping links by clicking here.
- Avoid battery-operated items: try ratchet-handle torches, solar-powered calculators etc.
- For environmentally-friendly gifts for that special occasion, click here.
Green Clothes
Organic Clothes and Laundry
You could make your own clothes with needle and thread using 100% organic cotton sheared from sheep you raised on a Whole Foods diet, but the environmental quality of your wardrobe is ultimately determined by the way you wash it.
A recent study by Cambridge University's Institute of Manufacturing found that 60% of the energy associated with a piece of clothing is spent in washing and drying it. Over its lifetime, a T shirt can send up to 9 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the air.
The solution is not to avoid doing laundry, tempting as that may be. Rather, wash your clothes in warm water instead of hot, and save up to launder a few big loads instead of many smaller ones. Use the most efficient machine you can find—newer ones can use as little as one-fourth the energy of older machines. When they're clean, dry your clothes the natural way, by hanging them on a line rather than loading them in a dryer.
Altogether you can reduce the CO2 created by your laundry up to 90%. Plus, no more magically disappearing socks.
Reuse and Swap Clothes
High-end hand-me-downs (the smart set calls them vintage) are more ecologically sound than new clothes. Why? Buying a shirt the second time around means you avoid consuming all the energy used in producing and shipping a new one and, therefore, the carbon emissions associated with it.
Every item of clothing you own has an impact on the environment. Some synthetic textiles are made with petroleum products. Cotton accounts for less than 3% of farmed land globally but consumes about a quarter of the pesticides. One quick way to change your duds: invite friends over for a closet swap, to which everyone brings a few items they want to trade. It's easy on the environment—and your pocketbook.
Recycle Old Fleeces?
Where do old fleece jackets go to die? Back to the mountain. Outdoor-gear label Patagonia is collecting used clothing (regardless of brand) made from Polartec and Capilene to melt and make into new fabric and clothes. (Some of that fleece is especially virtuous, starting out as fabric made from recycled plastic.) The company estimates that making polyester fiber out of recycled garments, compared with using new polyester, will result in a 76% energy savings and reduce greenhouse gases 71%. To shear your own fleece, visit patagonia.com/recycle.
Non-Toxic Liquids
Make your own less toxic cleaning alternatives using baking soda, soap and vinegar. You will save money and your house won’t smell like a hospital!
When repainting a room, be sure to look for paint that is low VOC (volatile organic compounds). Several manufacturers now offer VOC paints and they don’t leave that paint fume smell!
Paying Bills On-line
Eliminating your paper trail by banking and paying bills online does more than save trees. It also helps reduce fuel consumption by the trucks and planes that transport paper checks. If every U.S. home viewed and paid its bills online, the switch would cut solid waste by 1.6 billion tons a year and curb greenhouse-gas emissions by 2.1 million tons a year, according to Javelin Strategy & Research.
Worried about security? Don't be. Just ignore e-mails "phishing" for personal data, and monitor all (electronic) statements for any unauthorized debits. Report problems immediately, and your credit won't take the hit. To avoid unnecessary carbon dioxide-emitting car trips to the bank on payday, ask your employer to directly deposit your paycheck. You'll get your money faster that way too.
Green Packaging
Buy bulk packs and products with lighter packaging that its competitors (as long it is local). Avoid plastic packaging if possible.
Buy refill packs: light bags are better than another bottle (unless you can recycle the bottle!).
Paper or plastic? How about neither? All those Styrofoam peanuts and impregnable plastic CD cases cost energy to manufacture and deliver, and that means carbon. You can reduce the amount of packaging with a little consumer vigilance. Give back the extra napkins or unwanted sugar packets; carry that gallon of milk by its handle. True Greens will even bring their own cup to a Starbucks.
Say No to Plastic!
The plastic bags you bring home from the supermarket probably end up in a landfill. Every year, more than 500 billion plastic bags are distributed, and less than 3% of those bags are recycled.
They are typically made of polyethylene and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills that emit harmful greenhouse gases. Reducing your contribution to plastic-bag pollution is as simple as using a cloth bag (or one made of biodegradable plant-based materials) instead of wasting plastic ones. For your next trip to the grocery store, take your own bags!
Avoid plastic bowls, bottles, containers, plates and fast food vendors using plastic. There are many greener alternatives.
Plastic isn't all that bad when it is reuseable: plastic stackable cartons are being used by several supermarkets instead of cardboard boxes. So by using a little plastic many times is better than using many boxes once and not recycling them.
Bioplastics: biodegradable and compostable
Not all plastics are a bane to the environment. Products using the new generation of bio-plastics are already in stores nearby. Sainsburys and Tescos already use Mater-Bi® products in their retail stores. Made by the European Inventor of 2007, Novamont, their products are both innovative and eco-friendly. Look out for the Mater-Bi® trade mark at Sainsburys, the Co-Op and Tescos. Products include carrier bags, rubbish disposal bags, cutlery called spork, film, cotton buds, sanitary pads and nappies.
Read more here.
Buy Green Cosmetics!
Bright green may not be in this season, but eco-friendly makeup has trend written all over it. In February, Cargo Cosmetics launched PlantLove, a botanical lipstick packaged in a 100% biodegradable tube made of polylactic acid (a corn-based renewable resource). When the tube is empty, plant it in the ground, and it sprouts flowers.
The product represents only a sliver of the $50 billion industry in the U.S., but it's growing fast. The market for organic personal-care products will increase more than 8% this year.
For UK on-line green cosmetics 
Personal Care Products
Our health section has loads of information on how to find the chemicals hidden on labels: click here.
Justin Timberlake and other celebrities are shunning conventional deodorants for crystals! They are made from natural products and still give you that desired effect. Holland & Barrett sell the natural crystal deodorant and more, as do calm-n-comfy on-line.
Which Brand do I Buy?
Not sure which camera, TV or PC to buy? The decision will be easier when you take account of the manufacturer’s profile.
To be a responsible shopper and get an independent profile of company’s performance, visit www.coopamerica.org/programs. They list profiles showing social and environmental impact of many corporations. It will help you make those choices with an ethical mindset: Walls or Nestle ice-cream, Goodyear or Bridgestone tyres?
Remember that having a green heart means that you need to make ethical decisions about who you buy from. Do you still buy your brand of coffee when you hear that the beans come from plantations that were cleared from jungles? Do you buy a TV from a manufacturer who refuses to accept eco-friendly policies?
Several retailers are taking great initiatives towards reducing their carbon footprint and improving sustainability in the way they deliver a product to the shelves. GreenQuest's Who's Green and who's not may make those ethical decisions a little easier: for businesses and retailers.
Green Shopping Tips
- Plan every shopping trip to minimise the mileage and take a shopping list so that you don't forget something.
- Take your reuseable shopping bag with you: keep one in the car at all times.
- Buy locally grown products and foods. Seek out local farmers/produce.
- Buy from eco-friendly stores. Be happy if they charge you for their plastic bags!
- Buy fresh foods instead of frozen.
- Buy organic foods as much as possible.
- Buy Hybrio rechargeable batteries Uniross have made these instant-power rechargeable batteries (phone free 0800 066 4668 ).
- Buy bulk packs and refills.
- Buy food that’s in season. Out of season produce is often imported by air, which consumes vast amounts of energy
- Buy organic milk. Producing one litre of non-organic milk uses more than three times the amount of energy it takes to make one a litre of organic milk.
- Avoid plastics and heavy packaging.
- Don't buy drinks in plastic bottles when you can make your own refreshing drinks such as flavored iced tea.
- Don’t buy cut flowers: many are imported. Instead buy local varieties of potted plants. For funerals, make a donation to charity instead of giving flowers.
- Eat less meat.
- Look out for product Carbon Labelling. This shows which items have been earth-friendly before getting on the shelves.
Green Shopping Links
Ethiscore is the best UK online shoppers' guide giving you daily updated ratings of the companies behind the brand names. So if you want to buy a mobile phone, see how they rate the brands on the market.
For a catalogue of Natural Products, winner of The Observer Ethical Awards.
For on-line UK green technology, click here.
For UK shopping on-line with Green Directory, click here.
For all sorts of eco-gadgets and recycled products, visit greenfeet.com.
For the USA Co-operative for screened green businesses & products, click here.
For a green home product store (USA), try greenhome which has a tour showing you where you can save money and energy at home.
For everything organic.
The sustainable style foundation has many eco-friendly solutions to your needs and they have vetted suppliers prior to listing them. Visit sustainable style. They have everything from fashion, furniture, restaurants, organic food and green drinks clubs.