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Eco-Friendly Gardening

by BeSoGreen.com on 05/07/2012 - 04:27 pm |

Tags: Gardening, Home, Local Food

Not known to most vegetarians, a high percentage of fruits and vegetables sold in the market are not totally free from potentially harmful elements or chemicals. Most farms regularly use fertilizers and pesticides to produce better-looking produce even if some call them organic products. Perhaps, the best alternative is to use that green thumb and make your own eco-friendly fruit, vegetable, or flower garden.
 
Things to Consider

Choosing the plants. Green or eco-friendly gardening is not sensitive or limited to one or two types of plants. You can plant almost anything you want from ornaments to plants that produce fruits or vegetation. But of course, you’ll have to consider plants that thrive according to the current season. The native varieties are also recommended since they are more adaptive to soil and weather conditions and resistant to most pests. 
Assessing the soil. The condition of the soil also needs examination. Generally, almost all types of soil can be planted or enriched. The perfect ones are those that have a good texture, pH levels, and combination of organic and natural matters. Observing where plants or grasses lushly grow is one simple example of assessing the ideal soil for garden use.
Watering and sunlight. The good thing about eco-friendly or green gardening is that plants tend to survive even with minimal or less watering. Most native or organic plants can also endure environmental elements such as extreme sunlight, wind, etc.
 
Things That You Need
 
Compost or organic fertilizer
Enriching the soil for gardening can be done in long cut or short cut. The longer and more economical way is to create your own compost. Compost or compost pits are created from mixtures of soil and decomposed organic materials like leaves, decayed plants, food wastes, animal wastes, etc. On the other hand, you may choose to use organic fertilizers readily mixed and sold in the market which are formulated by experts and provide extra nutrition for your soil. When using organic fertilizers, it is more ideal to mix them initially to the soil a few days before the actual planting.
 
Gardening pots and holders.
With eco-friendly gardening, you are not forced to buy new clay or plastic gardening pots, instead, discarded containers, buckets, tires, discarded cans and bottles can be used. They can all serve the same purpose and you could even style or paint them according to your garden’s style.
 
All-natural pesticides.
Before you purchase the most popular and effective chemical pesticide advertised on TV, you might also want to consider using the natural ones like the Bacillus Thuringiensis (B.t), milky spores, and the types A and D spinosads, neem oil, pyrethrins, canola oil, etc.
 
Controlling the weeds.
Rather than using herbicides to kill and control weeds, why not use your bare hands and make manual weeding a daily habit. Stock or pile up these weeds because they could event ...

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Trash Talk: Environmental, Health and...

by Eco LunchBox on 04/13/2012 - 10:14 am |

Tags: Toxic-Free, Waste Reduction

SAVE $130 per year per person and generate a lot less trash

What’s for lunch? You hope it’s not plastic, lead, vinyl fumes or anything else that’s leaching toxins to people and our planet. As for the delicious, nutritious lunches you pack, they should fill up your tummy – not the garbage can.
 
Yet so often these days we can’t be sure our lunchboxes are non toxic and waste-free.
 
Everyday a mountain of trash is thrown away at lunchtime, creating environmental problems, health hazards and wasting hundreds of dollars for every family packing a lunch.
 
School trash cans nationwide are overflowing! Plastic water bottles. Granola bar plastic packaging. Plastic chip baggies. Plasticized cardboard juice boxes. Cheese stick plastic wrappers. Paper napkins. Plastic yogurt cups. Brown bags. Plastic utensils. Plastic Ziploc baggies.
 
The results of a waste-free lunch study by ECOlunchbox show that an average family using throw-aways and pre-packaged foods for lunch spend much more each year than a family that buys food in bulk and packs lunches in reusable lunchware, such as the reusable and non-leaching ECO lunch box stainless steel food containers.
 “Families are spending hundreds of dollars on throw-away lunchware and food packaging annually and adding to our landfills tremendously in the process,” said ECOlunchbox Founder Sandra Ann Harris. "But it's so easy to switch to reusable lunchware. Why not do it?"
 
Top Tips
How to pack waste free lunches:

 sandwiches, and other main dishes, fresh fruits and, fresh vegetables, and treats packed in a reusable stainless steel food container. 
 Machine washable cloth napkins
 stainless-steel and bamboo sporks or other reusable utensils
 reusable non-toxic drink containers
 reusable, dishwasher safe non-toxic, bpa-free lunchboxes

Common Mistakes

 Reusing throwaways like single-use plastic baggies. Baggies are hard to clean and thoroughly dry, so bacteria can proliferate.
 Relying on plastic packaging and containers.
 Choosing lunchware that’s not dishwasher safe & machine wash/tumble dry. It must be easy to keep your lunchware clean so you can keep using it safely for a long time.

Benefits…
…to your health
Scientific studies have linked toxins found in plastic containers and packaging to numerous negative health consequences, such as neuro-developmental impacts, breast and prostate cancer, infertility, early puberty in girls, type-2 diabetes, obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
 
A study published in the July 2011 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives found that hundreds of types of plastics leach these hormone disrupting toxins such as BPA (bisphenol-A), phthalates and other similar chemicals. 
“Our kids are exposed to this chemical in canned goods served at school lunches and at home, in water bo ...

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Going Bottleless at the Office: Water...

by Green Irene on 11/04/2011 - 12:35 pm |

Tags: Business, Water

Gathering around the water cooler has been a time-honored office tradition, but bottled water can be costly for your business, and can have a negative environmental impact! Those 5-gallon plastic jugs eventually end up in landfills, and bottled water services have a high carbon footprint due to the emissions of fossil fuel-burning delivery trucks.
 
When you also consider the inconvenience of lifting new bottles onto the water cooler, storing the empty bottles at your office until the next pick-up, and spending time in the reordering process, you may be ready to consider more sustainable, convenient, and inexpensive alternatives that still provide your staff with clean, safe water: bottleless water coolers.
 
Bottleless coolers draw directly from your tap water supply and utilize state-of-the-art technologies, such as ultraviolet (UV) sanitation, 5-stage water filtration, and reverse osmosis filtration, to offer you the cleanest, best-tasting water available. With no bottles involved, the expense and logistics of supply and delivery are eliminated, reducing your office overhead costs while also giving your business a smaller environmental footprint. A bottleless water cooler never runs out of water, giving you a convenient, less-expensive, more eco-friendly solution without eliminating the benefit of filtered water for your employees.
 
As one example of a bottleless water cooler provider, Quench is one the largest UV filtration companies in the US, supplying bottleless water coolers to more than 25,000 businesses (including more than a third of the Fortune 100). Offering a variety of cooler types, filtration options, and service plans, this can definitely be a service to look into for any business interested in going green and saving green!
 
You can learn more about Quench and about the benefits of bottless water coolers here:
http://www.quenchonline.com/landingpages/greenamerica.html

Seven Simple Steps to a Green, Health...

by Jennifer Hankey, President of Organic Baby University on 09/06/2011 - 12:10 pm |

Tag: Toxic-Free

Pregnancy is such a critical time to avoid harmful everyday chemicals for the health of your baby. Most moms-to-be do not realize how much their environment has changed since they were kids. In the last 50 years over 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced into our environment and bodies, and to the shock of most, less than 200 have been tested for safety by anyone...including the US government! Many of the chemicals that have just recently been studied are showing real links to infertility, birth defects, asthma, potentially autism, childhood cancer and more! These exposures are the most critical during development in the womb and in early childhood! Women are also surprised to learn that the everyday woman uses an average of 126 of these chemicals every single day! These chemicals are particularly dangerous to fetuses and growing children and their bodies are growing and developing at a rapid rate!
 
A brief overview of a few of the common chemicals you will be exposed to and what their dangerous effects on health:
 
BPA-

Found in some hard plastics, dental sealants, some baby bottles, some water bottles, canned food, formula containers and baby food lids, some plastic utensils, storage containers, small appliances, and toys
Linked to birth defects, miscarriage, reproductive disorders, and more research is showing more toxic links
For more information click here 

Parabens-

A common preservative found in personal care products such as shampoos and conditioners, lotions, body washes and soaps, deodorant, sunscreen,  cosmetics,  baby shampoos and soaps, baby lotions, wipes, diaper cream, medicines, hair products, and more!
Possible endocrine disruptor, possible link to breast cancer
For more information click here

Phthalates-

A chemical that makes plastics soft and pliable found in toys, some teethers, nail polish, hair spray, air fresheners, shower curtains, personal products, most products that contain "fragrance or perfume" in ingredient list, IV bags and tubes, cosmetics, cling wraps, building products
Linked to birth defects, developmental problems when exposed in womb, endocrine disruptor, may cause early birth, probable carcinogen (cancer causer) by EPA and WHO, transferred through breast milk, asthma, and more
For more information click here

Pesticides-

A wide variety of chemicals found in food, parks, yards, etc
Linked to a huge array of health problems including birth defects, lowered IQs, endocrine disruption, neurotoxity, cancer and more!
For more information click here

PDBEs, TRIS, and Other Flame Retardants

Flame retardants are found in couches, rugs, drapes, cars, car seats, mattresses, nursing pillows, swings, bouncers, changing pads, playmats and more!
Neurotoxins (damages the brain and central nervous system), linked to endocrine disruption, crosses the placenta to the fetus and is found in breast milk, potentially linked to cancer and more!
For more in ...

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