Green Kids Game by Play Green

Our gifts at Christmas this year had a distinctively green theme and one particular fun gift was this spinning top game by “ImagiPlay Play Green Spinning Tops“. This toys is made with all natural sustainable rubberwoods and managed-forest pines which are fast growing. Even the packaging is green, it is made from the same sustainable farming wood and doubles up as the “arena” for the spinning tops.

Play Green Spinning Tops - All Natural Eco Game

The top of the packaging slides out and can be reversed and slotted back into the box to create a battle field for the duelling spinning tops!
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My wife and I often browse our local Central Market store for new eco friendly products and on one our recent visits I found a great green alternative for my morning shave!

The first green shaving product that we found was an organic fair trade shaving gel by the Dr. Bronner’s company. It is labeled as the “Dr. Bronner’s Magic All-One Organic Fair Trade Shaving Soap Gel” which is quite a mouthful but I was impressed with the eco-friendly claims and was willing to give it a try.

Green Shaving with Dr Bronners Shaving Gel

This wonderful shaving gel is USDA organic certified and is also certified by the IMO as a Fair Trade product. This shaving gel is available in different blends but I chose the Spearmint Peppermint blend. The main ingredient in the shaving gel is organic Shikakai which comes from the seed pods of the small South Asian tree the “Acacia Concinna”. The Shikakai is mixed with organic sucrose and grape juice to produce a soothing and moisturizing shave gel.

All the organic ingredients have been certified by the same national organic program that certifies food so I was confident in the eco-friendliness of my choice!

This green shaving gel is also certified as fair trade which guarantees that the farmers who produced the ingredients and their families receive fair prices, wages and community funding.

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Zebra Longwings Butterfly photo by Sharen Chatterton

According to an American Indian Legend – If anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it. Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly cannot reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all. In gratitude for giving the beautiful butterfly its freedom, the Great Spirit always grants the wish. So, according to legend, by making a wish and giving the butterfly its freedom, the wish will be taken to the heavens and be granted.

Most People just like butterflies, whats not to like, they are graceful, beautiful, colorful creations. I don’t think any other insect has been the inspiration for so many, artists, writers as well as naturalists.

However butterfly populations all over the world are being threatened by loss of habitat. Butterfly gardening, is a great way to provide additional habitat for butterfly species in your area. The species of butterfly vary by region, but by doing a little investigating and planting both nectar plants to attract the adult butterflies and also planting larvae foodplants for the caterpillars, you can increase the local population of butterflies in your area. Not to mention increase your gardens beauty with these colorful winged flowers. Throughout the country, the general requirements for butterfly gardening are the same: full sun, nectar source plants, larval host plants, a pesticide-free environment, and knowledge of the local butterflies. Many butterfly-attracting plants are natives and require little attention, as they are naturally adapted to the region in which they live. Butterfly gardens are best planted in the spring with younger plants or in the fall with mature plants that will become dormant quickly and re-emerge in the spring.

Butterfly Attracting Plants

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I got a Sony portable reader system for Christmas, and I have to say, I love it! It is easy to download books on, easy to read (you can enlarge the print) and it’s lightweight.

Now that I own an e-reader, I started to wonder if it is eco-friendly to use one of these or better to buy the books. Here is what I found out…

The current book ordering system in the U.S. encourages bookstores to order more books than they could every really sell. This certainly increases the number of published copies but it also creates more returns. You not only have all the resources that go into producing the book, as in the printing , packaging , shipping and the paper (from trees), you also have the cost of shipping, gas and packaging to return it back to the publisher. For some Publishers, it isn’t worth the expense for the bookstores to return the books, so they have the store strip the covers and return only that for credit, they then throw away the rest of the book. That leaves about a third of the mass market paperbacks that are printed being dumped in a landfill without ever being read!

Here’s an excerpt from an article about reading on a computer vs. printing out an article to read it;

“The contrast is quite convincing, one-tenth of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions from reading the document on the computer, versus almost one-quarter of a pound of greenhouse gas emissions for printing it out!”

Another article lays out the environmental impact of reading a newspaper on a reader and reading the New York Times on an e-reader. Their conclusion;

“Reading the physical version of the NY Times for a year uses 7300 MJ of energy and emits 700 kg of CO2. Reading it on a Kindle uses 100 MJ energy and emits 10kg of CO2.”

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Our Christmas celebrations were very much green themed this year and I received numerous green gifts! One of my favorites is the Solio Classic-i solar charger battery which my wife bought me.

My Solio Classic-i Solar Charger Battery

The Solio Classic-i has an internal Lithium Ion 1650 mAh battery which can hold a charge for up to 1 year. It has three solar panels which fold out into a three blade design.
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This will be the first article I have published using my solar powered iPhone (which is an article in itself!) and I am hoping it works well.

Today we decided to give our three big dogs baths but in the cold and wet outside conditions I wanted an easier alternative to the hosepipe and soap method!

A quick visit to our local pet store and I found some great grooming wipes made by a company called EarthBath. They won’t get a dog as clean as a full bath but I was just aiming to freshen them up a bit!

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Precycling is becoming a buzz word amongst greenies like us and the Our Everyday Earth family wanted to share the following top 5 ways to boost your eco-friendliness with some waste stopping precycling….

Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by attempting to avoid bringing into the home or business items which will generate waste.

The practice of precycling includes buying essentials and groceries in bulk to reduce packaging, buying products that use recyclable packaging over non-recyclable packages, reducing or eliminating junk mail, and using the internet for reading instead of buying books, newspapers and magazines etc.

Method Number 1: Eliminate Junk Mail!

As a household we receive a lot of junk mail, advertising leaflets, promotional newspapers, credit card applications etc. and it all has to be recycled or shredded. Our favorite site for reducing or eliminating junk mail is DMA Choice;

Eliminate Junk Mail Being Sent to Your Address

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