Looking to shrink your energy footprint?
Yeah, who isn’t!

Well, Sue Reed helps you do just that with her book ‘Energy-Wise Landscape Design: A New Approach for Your Home and Garden’.

In her book, she presents hundreds of practical ways everyone can save time, money and energy by designing their landscapes and gardens to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

You’ll learn how to reduce your home’s heating & cooling costs, minimize fuel used in landscape construction, maintenance and everyday use, plus learn how to choose products and materials with lower embedded energy costs.

Sue combines general guidelines with tips, techniques and actions to help anyone make a positive difference without a major investment or change in lifestyle.

Buy Sue’s book now!

Big Dipper Wax Works is a little eco-friendly factory making really incredible candles from 100% beeswax. They are located in Seattle, Washington and have a huge selection of hand crafted candles including tapers, pillars, votives, tea lights, tins, sculpted and even floating candles.

Big Dipper is also committed to living local. Even saying ”living locally is living responsibly.” They back up their words by being an active member in the community and supporting a variety of local organizations focusing on either education, research, or sustainability.

Why does Big Dipper use Beeswax to make their candles?

• Beeswax is all natural
• Beeswax is a renewable resource
• Beeswax nontoxic & non-allergenic
• Beeswax burns clean & soot free
• Beeswax is naturally aromatic, infused with the sweet, subtle scent of honey
• Beeswax releases negative ions while burning that improves air quality by eliminating pollutants & allergens
• Beeswax burns for an exceptionally long burn time due to it’s high melting temperature

For more information & to order…check out Big Dipper Wax Works.

Try to avoid polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) for cups, plates, carry-out containers, meat trays, egg cartons and anything else that might touch your food. Not only is the material bad for the environment, but what you might not know is that it is also bad for you.

Polystyrene require petroleum to make, take eons to break down in a landfill, and can leach toxic chemicals into your food, specially when heated.

Polystyrene is marked with the plastic recycling code 6, however only some curbside pick-ups actually take it.

Choose a better food container for your health & the planet’s…like ceramic, recycled glass, paper or even safer plastics like numbers 1, 2 or 5.

Just say no to those electric mosquito zappers. Several studies have shown that they are inefficient at killing the pesky biting insects, but great at turning beneficial ecologically important bugs into charred insects.

Part of the problem is that traditional zappers merely emit UV light as an attractant, however mosquitoes could care less about the light. Newer models, such as the Mosquito Magnet, release CO2, which does excite the biting bugs. All and all they work better, but do cost a bundle.

I still recommend just using a good old eco-friendly spray to keep those mosquitoes at bay.

Keeping your lawn longer will require less watering; saving you time, money and of course water. This works because the length of the blade will shade the roots more and help prevent the soil from drying out. According to Paul Tukey, author of The Organic Lawn Care Manual, cutting your grass to 3 or 4 inches tall can reduce evaporation by 70% to 80% getting you greener grass with less work.

Kick off the summer this Memorial Day Weekend by greenifying your BBQ Party. Here are the top 5 ways to make your Memorial Day shindig a little more sustainable.

• Grill - A solar powered grill is the most eco-friendly way to grill these days, but if that’s not an option for you opt for a grill that burns natural gas rather than charcoal, as it is cleaner.
• Food - Shop at a local farmer’s market for your BBQ ingredients. You can usually find great local organic produce, breads & meats.
• Tableware - Switch to biodegradable dishes.
• Napkins – Use washable napkins to reduce paper waste.
• Compost - Compost leftover food scraps & other organic trash.

Happy Grilling!

Composting maybe great for the environment but it’s still a dirty, messy, smelly business with plenty of reasons not to do it. But what if you could called upon someone to handle all the dirty details of composting and make it as easy as 1,2,3?

Introducing… Compost Cab!

What is Compost Cab?
Compost Cab is a way to compost that doesn’t stink. It is a new service about to launch in the Washington, DC area making “reduce, reuse, recycle” simple.

1. Compost Cab provides you with a bin.
2. You fill the bin with what you used to call garbage: food scraps, coffee grounds, all sorts of organic trash.
3. Compost Cab will pick the bin up once a week, leaving behind a fresh clean bin with a new liner.
4. Compost Cab then turns your organic trash into fertile soil.
5. After that it’s up to you: keep some fertile soil for yourself, or Compost Cab can donate it for you to a local, not-for-profit urban farmer who grows sustainable, nutritious food for the community.

The cost for Compost Cab is a simple $8 per week per bin with no long-term commitments.

I absolutely love this idea & can’t wait for Compost Cab to hit Chicago!

Did you know that normal plastic bags never biodegrade? Well, at least not for a thousand years or so. That’s why Sam Paul & his team invented Green Genius bags. Bags that are biodegradable but still had the strength and price of regular trash bags.

Check out this animated narrative explaining the science & technology of Green Genius biodegradable plastic trash bags.

Buy your Green Genius Bags today!

Holidays, birthdays, Mother’s day, bridal showers, and any other gift giving occasion can add to curbside trash, sometimes as much as 25% more. Instead of throwing out your used gift wrap, what if you could plant it and grow real flowers.

Well, Little Kay Gardens has done just that. They have created pretty gift wrap paper that is made from 100% recycled newspapers and is embedded with wildflower seeds. So, after the recipient opens their gift, they can plant the paper and grow flowers!

In each pack you get 4 large 24″ x 36″ sheets of paper, 2 colors of raffia ribbon, plus 6 gift cards with instructions. You can use the paper as wrap for up to 8 shirt boxes or as tissue paper in a gift bag. The paper includes wildflower seeds for Corn Poppy, Red Coreopsis, Plain Coreopsis, Black-eyed Susan, Baby Snapdragon and more.

Check out their video for more details:

Planting Instructions:

1- Loosen topsoil of garden or planter to a depth of 8 to 10 cm (3 to 4 inches)
2- Place the paper down, cut to size if necessary
3- Sprinkle a very light layer of topsoil or peat moss over the paper to hold firmly against wind. Don’t cover with more than 1/8” of soil
4- When the paper is in place, soak with a fine mist until the paper is saturated and appears to melt into the topsoil
5- Keep well watered – water at least once a day until plants are established 3 to 4 inches high

NOTE: Plants can be thinned out when established and transplanted to other garden areas. Early growth resembles weeds, do not weed area for first 4-8 weeks

Make the world greener – one gift at a time with Little Kay Gardens!

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day marks the anniversary of the modern environmental movement in 1970. It is an annual celebration of the environment and intended to inspire awareness of & appreciation for the Earth’s environment.

Earth Day was founded in 1970 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who started a “teach-in” to protest the government’s environmental ignorance. This eventually led to legislation including the Environmental Policy Act (1969), the Clean Air Act (1970), the Clean Water Act (1977) and fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.