Janelle and I were going back and forth about her guest blog post for Practically Green.

I said, “Janelle, there’s no way you want to write about this one; who does this? Place bucket in shower and use runoff to water plants/garden.”

She shrieked, “That’s it! I DO that!”

So, dear reader, here is Janelle’s guest blog on one of our top Practically Green actions:

My DIY Gray-Water Shower System, by Janelle Sorensen

My family recently moved from Minnesota, the land of over 10,000 lakes, to Arizona – best known for its desert landscape. We actually live in the mountains where it does snow and rain, but the amount of precipitation is still far less than what we’re accustomed to.

Arizona Mountains, credit city-data.com

One other significant difference is that while we used to live in an urban area connected to the municipal water system, we now live on five acres far outside of town and we rely on a private well. Needless to say, water used to be so abundant, we rarely had to stop and think about it. Now, we’re in the opposite mindset.

You know what they say, “You never know the worth of water until the well runs dry”  – or until you rely on a well in the desert.

We’d love to install a gray-water system, but we’re renting our house – so we have to be creative. One of the easiest ways we’ve found to capture and re-use gray-water is by putting a bucket in the bathroom. This handy receptacle serves two functions:

1 -  We put the bucket in the shower to capture excess water that bounces off  our bods as we bathe.

2 – We also use it to reclaim water post-tubby (my youngest daughter doesn’t   like showers yet).

Since we use non-toxic shampoos and soap, this water is perfectly suitable for watering plants. You can also use it to flush your toilet (just pour directly into the bowl – with enough water and force, it automatically makes it flush without using the reserves in the tank.)

Whether you live in the desert or not, setting up a DIY gray-water system is so easy and makes so much sense – just do it! (Bonus: you’ll get 10 points on your Practically Green profile!) http://practicallygreen.com/place-bucket-in-shower-and-use-runoff-to-water-plantsgarden

Janelle Sorensen is the Chief Communications Officer for Healthy Child Healthy World, a national non-profit inspiring parents to protect children from harmful chemical exposures. Visit HealthyChild.org to learn more.

See Janelle’s Green Action Plan: http://practicallygreen.com/see/healthyjanelle

Sign up for a catalog-reduction service, by Shelby Hogan

Did you know that Americans receive 19 billion catalogs every year? Well, I’m pretty sure that 18 billion of those are addressed to me. We get a ridiculous amount of catalogs in our mailbox. I do a lot of online shopping, and for whatever reason, retailers interpret that as, “Shelby likes to browse our website and shop online! That means that she wants to receive a massive amount of actual mail from us!” And I really have to wonder—if I was smart enough to browse the website and order from there without the help of a catalog the first time, wouldn’t I be smart enough to do it again? Apparently not.

My personal favorites are the companies that separate out their various divisions so they can send you multiple catalogs. Like there’s the main company catalog, and then their “Home” version in case you need pillowcases or something, then the “Ladies” clothes, not to be confused with the “Men’s” clothes or the “Kid’s” clothes. Throw in the Swimsuit Edition and you’ve gotten six catalogs from the same company. Seriously—no. I get the idea of targeted marketing, but I think that any reasonably intelligent individual can differentiate between the monogrammed Egyptian cotton sheet set and Ladies Outdoor Footwear without needing separate catalogs.

So when I saw the action Sign up for a catalog-reduction service on Practically Green, I thought “Yes! Reduce my catalogs! Sign me up!” Well, actually my first thought was “There’s such a thing as a catalog reduction service? Sweet!” which is one thing I totally love about Practically Green—it’s introduced me to so many ways to go green I never knew existed. There’s the slash-and-burn service which opts you out of pretty much everything by sending an email to abacusoptout@epsilon.com, which is pretty cool. The tricky part for me, however, is that there are a small handful of catalogs I actually do want to receive, so I opened a free account with Catalog Choice to pick and choose which catalogs I’d like to cancel. Apparently the effectiveness can be a bit hit or miss, but it’s certainly better than what we have now.

And here’s Shelby’s bonus tip of the day: while you’re waiting for your catalog subscriptions to end, use the old ones as toys for your kids. Theo, my 2-year-old, loves to read but is sometimes rough on his real books, so I’ll hand him a catalog and let him go to town with his paper-destroying self. He’s also in speech therapy so we work on picture-word recognition, and my genius mother-in-law used catalogs and magazines to make inexpensive flash cards. And if your child is into puzzles, simply cut up a catalog page in interesting shapes and let them figure out how to put it back together!

Bio: When Shelby isn’t wrangling her toddler and saving the world one catalog at a time, she can be found blogging her quest to do everything there is to do at Disneyland at My Year With The Mouse. {She is currently conducting a contest for free Disney mouse ears.}

P.S. Shelby and a few talented friends started GenXMoms, a blog of insightful, terrific writing, in our opinion! It’s worth cruising the archives. Unfortunately for all of us, GenXMoms posted a farewell notice last month. We’re sure they have their reasons, but we miss GenXMoms (hint, hint: resume when you’re ready!). Regardless, we’re very fortunate to have Shelby on our guest blogging squad at Practically Green.

Shelby tweets at @GenXScrivener: “Just a thirtysomething Gen X mom living a truly, truly, truly outrageous life in the North OC.” Aka Anaheim, California.

Switch to all-natural sunscreen by Estelle Hayes

flickr

Just when I thought I could not become any more obsessive about the perils of sun damage, I went and birthed a redheaded baby. I’ve been hoarding tiny hats while frantically applying SPF to my daughter in hopes that I may prolong the health and beauty of her fair skin. I also often pray that she never worship the sun like her misguided mother. Learning the hard way that there is no activity less useful than “laying out” is a life-lesson best avoided.

In addition to worrying about skin cancer and premature aging, I’m also obsessively trying to eliminate parabens, nano-particles, synthetic fragrances and any other unnecessary toxins from my family’s life. So far, I’ve found a few sunscreens worth investing in this season.

I’ve been a big fan of all things California Baby throughout my daughter’s life. Their sunscreen is the only thing I would slather over her deliciously pink skin in those first few months. I didn’t mind that it was hard to rub in (a common complaint) and I soon started using it for myself. It’s SPF 30 and has done a great job protecting our skin on trips to the beach and daily walks around town. It can leave a slightly white and glossy film. This doesn’t really bother me but Emerson has started to fight me when I attempt to rub it in for more than 30 seconds or so. Side note: If you are a parent to a bossy toddler, than you may also be familiar with the concept of picking one’s battles.

Enter Alba Botanica’s kids’ sunscreen in SPF 45. Again, I use it for myself as well. Our skin seems to absorb this a bit easier and the coverage served my family well on a recent beach outing. i.e. no glossy white glow, no burning and no meltdowns over excessive rubbing. However, I didn’t read the ingredients closely and bought a tube that included fragrance. This always bums me out. I just don’t want to smell like anything. Period. The website shows a mineral version that is fragrance free. I’ll try this next time.

I plan on picking up Badger’s kids’ sunscreen on my next trip to Whole Foods {or buy it here at Practically Green!}. Full disclosure: I have yet to try a Badger product but I hear only good things about the company and the quality of ingredients they use in their formulations.

{Editor’s note: Personally going to grab this organic Bali Balm!! Partial ingredients list: Evoo, cocoa butter, shea butter, beeswax, ylang ylang – and certified organic!}

All three of these sunscreens received scores of one or two (that’s a good thing) on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database. Skin Deep is a great place to start investigating the safety of your personal care products. I’d love to hear if you have found an effective sunscreen. Do share.

Our guest blogger Estelle Hayes lives in Silicon Valley where she blogs at www.underapinkmoon.com. She’s also published regularly on Huffington Post.  

We discovered Heather Ferris on Twitter @practicallygrn when she appeared with a tweet that said Practically Green should be taught in every high school in America. Wow! We e-mailed her just to be sure she really meant it. Heather’s reply:

“Practically Green excites me. I mean really excites me! Thank you to all who are a part of the development and implementation of this site! I love being able to look at a list of all the little steps I’ve already made. It reminds me that I have come somewhere, even though I’m not perfect, even though there is more to do. It honors and gives dignity to those little steps. We have a right to feel proud of the little things! The demands of this world are crazy!! Yet, many are taking those little steps and they matter! Without preaching, and in a fun way Practically Green challenges us to go for that next step and shows us how many different ways there are to “go green”. It keeps track of all those little steps we make and shows us how they add up, literally!

“So, I confess I have my own dream for Practically Green. I want to see Practically Green used in every high school. I want it bundled in with every new Mac (Ok I’m a Mac loyalist) and PC. I want a version for businesses. I want it translated into every language. For me, this is THE tool for massive grass roots change. It is easy, straight forward and fun and it elegantly organizes the transition. Did I say that I love it?”

See? Obviously Heather had to join our guest blogging squad!! Here she is with her first post, about one of our Top Actions: Upgrade your water heater to an Energy Star model.

New Rheem Hybrid Electric Heat Pump Water Heater for Mom

“I’m far from perfect. Don’t tell them what kind of car I drive!” my mother exclaimed when I told her I was writing this post and calling her a cool eco-chick. I promised I wouldn’t tell. However, minus the car, my 72-year-old mother IS a cool eco-chick. She started recycling back in 1971, decades before the neighbors. She washes her dishes by hand, takes cold showers through the summer, never takes more than 10 minutes in the shower, and camps with minimal footprint for two weeks every summer in Maine.

Today’s Issue: My mother’s old electric water heater is in its final death throes. The hot water has been coming out a rusty hue. But, typical Mom, she is actually excited to get a new Energy Star heater! Since she never took to computers I signed up for the online research.

1. Through consumerenergycenter.org we determined that she needs a first hour rating of 43.

2. Next stop: energystar.com’s product page to check out our options.

TYPES OF ENERGY STAR WATER HEATERS

A. Energy Star Certified Solar water heaters – generally designed for use with an electric or gas back-up water heater. Can cut your water heating costs 50%. (Mom says: Too expensive for her and she’s worried about upkeep)

B. Energy Star Certified Hybrid Electric Heat Pump water heaters More than twice as efficient as standard electric models. Can cut your water heating costs 50%.  Higher price.  (Mom says: I’m interested!)

C. Energy Star Certified Tankless heaters – suitcase-sized units that heat water only when needed by using anelectric coil. Can cut your water heating costs 50%! (Mom says: Worried about fixing blockages)

D. Energy Star Certified Storage tank heaters – the most common, water heated in the tank, gas is the fuel of choice but costs more than electric. She doesn’t use gas. So, electric is the only option. But conventional electric is not very energy efficient.

1. Gas Condensing Heaters Can cut water heating expenses by about 30%.  (My mother’s house doesn’t have gas)

2. High Efficiency Gas Storage Can cut water heating expenses by about 15%. (My mother’s house doesn’t have gas)

THE SHOE THAT FIT

After a) reviewing the above options in more depth than there is room for in this post, and b) taking a few days to adjust to the higher price, my mother decided to purchase the Rheem Hybrid Electric Heat Pump Water Heater. (Alas, CT only gives rebates for GAS hot water heating systems. $300.)

Yes folks, it is a thing of beauty!

More about Energy-Efficient Water Heating at energysavers.gov

You can Compare Life-Cycle Costs Here.

Note: This is the sixth year that GE has received the ENERGY STAR Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  GE has over 750 ENERGY STAR-qualified lighting and appliance products that help consumers decrease their energy usage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, GE launched 131 new ENERGY STAR appliances.

Author Note: Hello fellow Practically Green fans! It is a big honor for me to have the opportunity to be a guest blogger for this important and beautifully designed endeavor.

A Little about Me

• I claim no green expertise. I am on the lifelong learning track.
• I started my blog a couple years ago in large part because I was doing research on less toxic products and I wanted to share my findings.
• I was also looking into who were the real change-makers so I could get behind them.
• I believe that supporting the 350 movement is the most important thing I can do right now to protect our future.
• I believe cradle to cradle is the model to follow in creating a better future.
• I believe 200% in Practically Green.
• I believe humans can do amazing things together when ignited by a common vision of a better way.

Reach Heather at hcferris@gmail.com. Read her blog: http://blog.nurturenatureproject.com, follow her on Twitter @nnus. Join her on Facebook. And check out http://pinterest.com/nnus/eco-intelligent-living/.

From Practically Green:

Why is “Switch to reusable sandwich bags” green?

More than 20 million sandwich bags go straight from school lunches to the garbage as part of the 67 pounds of trash the average school-child’s lunch creates a year. In addition to using oil and energy, the bags do not biodegrade and can go airborne, which affects wildlife and fish and contributes to a Texas-size area of plastic trash in the ocean.

The Sierra Club estimates the average family spends $85 on plastic bags, so switching to reusable isn’t only good for the environment, it’s good for your pocketbook as well.

See PG’s Healthy GreenLunch Badge!  

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A Tale of Motherhood and Re-Usable Sandwich Bags
By ecomom Alliance Founder, and ecomom.com Co-Founder Kimberly Danek Pinkson

First, let’s get one thing straight right off the bat –when you’re a mom, simple does not always mean easy. For example, as a Co-Founder of ecomom, you’d think reusable sandwich bags would have been a no-brainer in my home, right? Wrong! In fact, one of the most embarrassing moments of my life has to do with baggies. So when Sarah asked me to write about re-usable sandwich bags, I had to laugh because boy do I have a good story to share on this one.

It started with a phone call from 20/20. They were doing a piece about green moms and wanted to interview me. Several weeks later a film crew showed up at my home. I’d cleaned up all the dust bunnies, and prepped my family so I thought we’d all have a fun day. Things were going smoothly as we walked and talked and filmed until….the producer decided he wanted my son and me onscreen together, showing how we pack his lunch. “That’s great!” I thought, envisioning the number of moms who would see the piece and be inspired to pack No Waste Lunches for their children. (A No Waste, or Waste Free, Lunch by the way, refers to a lunch packed without any wrappers and/or disposable, single use containers so at the end of the meal, there is no packaging to throw away).

But Corbin, 5 years old at the time, had a different idea. As I got out his Kidz Konserve Sandwich wraps, he said “Nooooo, I don’t like that one.” So I got out the To Go Ware Tiffin set. “NOOOOO,” he said even more firmly.” “What’s wrong, honey?” I asked, trying to stay calm and sound like a good, infinitely patient mom, even as my heart began to race. “Iiiii want one of those bags!” he said, his eyes widening in a way that I recognized as a sure sign of a temper tantrum to come. So I got out the little cotton bag we sometimes used for sandwiches, feeling relief that we’d resolved the issue, only to be met by a wail that can be described as nothing less than a baby cow being branded. “NOOOOO!!!!” he yelled. “I want plastic bags like Aaron has!” Aaron being one of the little boys in his kindergarten class.

I glanced with embarrassment at the film crew, and as you can imagine, they smiled in mock understanding, despite their shock. I tried to remind Corbin about how we try to make choices that are good for our environment because we don’t want to add trash to our landfills. About how we want kids to have clean beaches and unpolluted waterways in which to play and swim. About how we try not to put plastic near his food because we don’t want icky chemicals entering his body. And with that last one, I tickled him as if imitating toxins as creepy little hands grabbing him to which he responded by running out of our home, upstairs to find comfort in Grandma’s arms. Even though most inorganic trash retains its weight, volume, and form for at least four decades and I know plastic really never goes away but rather breaks down into microscopic particles polluting our food, water, and bodies, for the next few weeks, I gave in and bought the smallest box of baggies I could find, figuring if I didn’t force it, the issue would pass. Eventually he was back to agreeing with me that we should use the healthy “kines,” our reusable bags and lunch containers.

Needless to say, that segment never made it on air but sometimes I think it should have. For despite our best of intentions, sometimes we have to compromise and accept that we’re practically green, not perfectly green. On some things I will not compromise, but I firmly believe in the adage about choosing one’s battles.

The moral of this story is to hold tight to your visions and intentions, but to be flexible, take it one step at a time, and trust the process. The right answer is usually the simplest answer but when you’re a mom, that still doesn’t mean it’s going to be a breeze.

Author Note: As the Founder of Ecomom Alliance and Co-Founder of ecomom, Kimberly wears many hats including managing the ecomom Approved vetting process. A mom with over twenty years in the health and sustainability sectors, Kimberly recognized a need for vetted products, information and inspiration, which would support mothers in making healthy choices for their families and thus began ecomom. Kimberly is a popular healthy living expert and media guest with appearances on the TODAY Show, 20/20, View from the Bay, ABC News, CBS News, and keynote presentations at moms groups and conferences around the world including the World Women’s Conference in Seoul, Korea, the North Carolina Women’s Conference, the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, CA, and the Marketing to Moms conference in Canada. Follow Kimberly on Twitter @ecomom and join ecomom on Facebook.

Join Meat Free Mondays and eat vegetarian once a week. 20 big easy points at Practically Green!

Meat Free Monday was launched by Paul McCartney and his daughters, Stella and Mary. We hope you’ll visit the MFM site and join up! And please read this guest post by Jeanine Behr Getz:

“Introducing Meatless Mondays to a family of carnivores!“

Growing up I remember Fridays were “meatless” at my grandparent’s house and no one said boo! So you can imagine my surprise when I sat down with my family to introduce the idea of Meatless Mondays and was met with eye rolling, deep sighs, and a list of terms and conditions…

Apparently no one likes “great ideas” imposed on them and they don’t like the threat of anything being taken away, EVEN if the “great idea” is a healthier choice for themselves and the environment!

Our family’s 4 steps to committing to Meatless Mondays:

1. WE LOOKED WITHIN: Before we started we inventoried the amount of meat and dairy we consumed a week. From breakfast to dessert, at home, school and at work; we were all a little surprised. Some consumed much more than others…
2. WE MADE IT EDUCATIONAL (certain members of our family are motivated by facts and numbers): We looked up why eating less meat was healthier for our family, what the nutritional value was and if indeed eating less meat would positively impact the environment . The more we learned, the less resistance arose.
3. WE MADE IT FUN: We started looking up recipes, planning menus for breakfasts, lunches , snacks and dinners and “desserts”. Everyone had the chance to pick a favorite dish and we made cooking Meatless Monday dinner a family affair. Favorites: eggplant parmesan, melon and strawberries with toasted sprouted multi-grain with jam, scrambled tofu, and my daughter picked rice krispie treats…I know that’s an entire other blog but you have to start somewhere.
4. WE DIDN’T GO IT ALONE: We started talking with our friends and family about MMs. 18% of households are committing to meatless Mondays. Schools, movie stars, companies, restaurants, cities…The first Meatless Monday started as a volunteer program during World War I, another resurgence came about during World War II and the most recent Meatless Monday effort was launched in 2003.

I am happy to report, after 6 Mondays, all family members are well fed, feel good and now look forward to our Meatless Mondays.  

Our family joined the Meatless Monday campaign, won’t yours?

Like Meatless Monday on Facebook.

Jeanine Behr Getz is an enthusiastic mom, author, and eco editor .  “I am always looking to take the next green step to live a healthier and greener life”. Connect with Jeanine and Kids Think Big on Facebook , Twitter, and schedule an author visit for your school, library and community organization.

Why use an energy monitor? by Catherine Rust

When you know how much things cost, you’re more likely to switch your behavior.

Right now you might leave the room the TV, computer, and lights on — with no concern about how that affects your next electricity bill. If you knew how much it was costing you, you’d probably think twice before leaving the unwatched TV unattended.

credit: www.makeyourhomeenergyefficient.com

We’ve all got lots of devices that suck up electricity — even when we’re away, or sleeping, or however and whenever we’re not using them. Refrigerators and freezers run constantly. Most of our electronics are placed either on stand-by or have a low current running through them at all times so that we — the generation of instant gratification — don’t need to wait an extra minute to watch our favorite show.

This latter power is referred to as “phantom power.” Translation: Your appliances’ power is on even when it’s off... if you follow me! They might draw as  little as one Watt per hour — but multiply that by 24 hours/day, 365 days/year by 5-10 appliances by hundreds of thousands of millions of households — and you get a lot of wasted power. In fact, Consumer Reports estimates that 8% of all power consumed by households is standby power, or more than 108 billion Kwh in the US.

Kill a Watt

Using an energy monitor gives you the knowledge you need to help you figure out where you’re using the most power.

There are a few ways you can measure your electricity use. The first one is the “frugal” way – which I myself am partial to. It involves a little math, some counting and a Kill a Watt or other watt measuring device.

1. Count the lights in your home, measure their wattage, estimate the number of hours per day they’re turned on and multiply by the cost per kilowatt hour your utility company charges to calculate the number of kwh’s your lights consume.
2. Identify appliance loads and electronic loads using an energy monitoring device. This action is particularly important to do for your electronics when they are on or off (TV, stereo, computer and any surround-sound systems).

Here’s what I found for my house: In standby mode my computer and accessories use about 8 kilowatt hours per year. The TV, digital box, and VCR consume 116 kilowatt hours per year when turned off.

Blue Line Power Cost Monitor

The easier way to measure your electricity consumption is to use a device that hooks up to your power meter, such as the Power Monitor by Blue Line Innovations. One end connects to your meter, and the other is a wireless device that “talks” to the one outside attached to your meter. You shut all appliances off in your home, put in a few required numbers, and turn on each specific device to determine just how much electricity each appliance or light(s), draws — and how much each one costs.

In either case, by knowing how much you use, you can decide just what isn’t necessary to keep on when you’re not using it.

When was the last time you actually used your VCR, anyway?

Cathy and her family

About Cathy Rust: Cathy holds a LEED AP (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). She has a B.Sc. in Biology (specialist, Human Genetics) from McGill University, and an M.A. in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Toronto. Before becoming a mom, she worked as an environmental consultant, in the 90s, “which was pretty much like talking to a brick wall.”  You can find her at http://becgreen.ca and follow her on Twitter @becgreentoronto.

You know the word ‘meh‘?

Have you sensed a bit of ‘meh‘ lately on the state of the American consumer re: the environment? Marc Gunther titled a recent post, “Will American Consumers Ever Go “Green?” and a Harris Interactive poll headlined that fewer Americans said they are “going green”.

We here at Practically Green believe there IS a profound cultural shift underway towards healthier, greener living. It’s not as fast many feel is needed. It can be hard for rational science-types to understand why certain issues blow to the top while other, more critical ones, languish.  And, certain green behaviors ebb and flow driven by a number of factors. But overall, Americans (particularly Moms) are embracing serious, real, healthy green changes in their lives.

How do we know this? Because we now have enough people and green action plans on Practically Green to be able to make statistically significant projections. We have a hot-off-the-press infographic to showcase what Americans ARE planning to do to live healthier and greener. This is not just “talking” about green.  These actions are on “to do” lists. How cool is that?!! Wait:  how cool are you?!! These are YOUR plans!

So: what’s trending right now on Practically Green? (click image for full size).

We love the overall momentum around composting, gardening, and rain barrels. Since I LIVE the gender differences every day with my better half, not a whole lot of surprise there. He’s all over the energy, water, and frugal green actions. I’m the overactive checker (as Laurie David dubbed it in her recent, excellent blog post for us). We’re having fun trying to explain Boston vs. San Francisco: Impact of college students? San Francisco-ites are just greener to start with? All thoughts welcome!

We have lots of great slices and dices of this data and will share more insights as we continue to analyze the trends. But the fact we even have this data requires me to pause for  minute.

Think about this: on Earth Day last year, Practically Green wasn’t even live yet.  And now we have tens of thousands of people actively using our service to find out how green they are, plan and track their progress, and compare and share their healthy green changes with neighbors, friends, colleagues.

We are truly awed, honored and extremely appreciative that you, our earliest users, have given us one of your most precious resources–your time–to help bring this service to life.

Someone asked me recently, “What’s your grand vision?” It’s challenging, but we think it’s achievable: We want every family in America to create a healthy green action plan and share their actions with their friends and neighbors. Because we know that people change when their friends and neighbors change.  And you, and we, ARE changing.  It’s just sometimes hard to know what someone did, because healthy green changes can be invisible–behind walls and cupboards and boxes and in the basement. But thanks to Practically Green, I found out I was an e-billing laggard (and changed!).  I can email my friend Jon about solar and energy management because I now know he’s done all this. We know we have room to improve (all sites do!), but we believe our tools make the process of going greener and healthier smarter, easier and way more fun. Which makes finding and taking that next step easier.  And it’s that next step that is the important one because progress is what matters!

I am convinced that times, they are a changing.

Happy Earth Day!

We love Laurie David — you will too: smart, funny, nice, loyal, soulful, spiritual, guru mom author activist…. And like so many friends, we love her all the more when she’s scary/brilliant/fierce. Lately she’s had our hair on fire with news about food.

Here she is with Robyn O’Brien on toxins in children’s food (and ours) that might be contributing to increased cancers in kids:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-david/post_1891_b_843577.html

And now even she may be at her limit:

“This is the Game Changer”

“I know, everyday there is another warning about sugar, or mercury or coffee (is it good or bad?). But this is different. This is a sirens blasting, red lights blinking moment. It’s hard to shock me, but when I read the report on Friday that almost half of the meat and poultry we’re buying at our local grocery stores is contaminated with Staph (Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria, I had to let out a scream of frustration. My frustration turned to anger, when I started reading the details.”

So we read this, and in the morning we got in touch and asked,

“Won’t you please write about our next top favorite action on Practically Green: Buy antibiotic and hormone-free meat regularly?”

“Yes!” she replied! “And believe me I’m just getting started” she said!!

Seriously. With champions like Laurie on the case, there’s no place to hide. So for Earth Day Eve, we offer these fresh thoughts from the woman who brought you An Inconvenient Truth and The Family Dinner. Follow her on Twitter @Laurie_David — and maybe you’ll “see” her at our Twitter party tonight! April 21, 9-10pm EST @practicallygrn. Be there!

I worry. A lot.  We all do, but my worry gene works overtime. A doctor once told me it’s called an “overactive checker” (or as I like to think of it, my OC). As far as afflictions go, it’s not terrible. OC’s are good to have around. They see danger from miles away. They pay close attention.

Motherhood can be particularly tough on OC’s. We know too well that there’s no such thing as “out of sight out of mind.” But over the years I have come to terms with my checker, and now consider it a trusted friend. It was my checker that helped me raise my kids with a minimum of cuts and scratches, rear three dogs from eight-week-old puppies, and eventually opened my eyes to the looming dangers of global warming. It’s the same trusted checker that is screaming, “Wake up! Wake up!” on the issue of antibiotic resistance.

Here is what I know for sure. We are dishing out 80 percent of our antibiotics on the animals we eat. Much of those antibiotics are used to make the animals grow faster, not to treat them for infections. Many critics of antibiotic-hungry factory farms claim producers are also using them to compensate for the truly disgusting living conditions in which most animals are raised, so bad that the industry is trying to make taking pictures of it illegal!

The industrial Ag business is free to use our antibiotics to make healthy animals grow faster, for what? To cut costs? Increase production? This is the meat we buy in grocery stores, and order from the drive-through window at fast food joints. Yup, that’s one reason why many of those chicken fingers and burgers our kids love for lunch and dinner are so deceptively cheap these days. But is it worth losing our antibiotics for? Might we be willing to eat a little less meat, and save our antibiotics for sick human beings?

Without having debated it or voted on it, or decided as a nation, we are giving away our chances to save one of most precious medicines man has ever developed for human use. Medicines we know we are going to need for our children, our elderly parents, our loved ones.

One of the more disturbing parts of this story is that the FDA has know for years that we are weakening our resistance to bacteria with the overuse of antibiotics on farm animals. Yet, very little is being done about it. That’s where worrying moms come in.

Moms, do you remember being given a choice, whether or not you prefer saving our best medicines, our antibiotics, in case a loved one comes down with a terrible illness, or pneumonia? Or do you prefer to continue to hand over our precious medicines to factory farms so that we can continue our supersized addiction to meat.

I don’t remember being given a choice. Do you? Talk about it tonight at dinner. See what the family thinks. Then let’s demand better. Start at your grocery store. Ask questions. Ask for antibiotic-free meat. Start a family ritual of Meatless Mondays (toss in Wednesdays too!). Tell your congressperson to support PAMTA, legislation to stop the use of antibiotics on healthy animals. Imagine the power of thousands of moms across the country demanding better for their children.  

Julie Du Brow

If you live in Los Angeles and you’re into healthy green lifestyles, you might already know Julie Du Brow. She’s discerning, funny, hard-working — and committed to making environmental change happen no matter what!

“I have the most incredible niece and 2 nephews, who live in Paris (my sis’ kids) and spend time w. us here.  Last summer, my (now 7) yr old nephew wouldn’t leave the beach till he’d picked up 10 pieces of trash (and that was almost every day!).  They are now 9, 7 and 5.  Loves of my life, along w. my beau of 11 yrs who is a tribal art dealer.”

So we’re soul sisters. We asked Julie to write something for the Practically Green blog, and her disarming, capacious reply is perfect for Earth Week. It relates to all of our popular actions around recycling, reusing, reducing, and reviewing.

For instance, coming up:

• Reduce showers to 5 minutes or less, which we’ll zero in on May 2 with guest blogger Shannon Hinderberger of Working Mom Goes Green
• Review the “dirty dozen” list of fruits and vegetables, focus a few dates later, by Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff of Healthy Child Healthy World and Ecostiletto
• Recycle cork (wine corks, cork boards, etc.) for which we’re still nailing a guest blogger  (hint hint)

*                    *                    *                    *                    *

Over to Julie:

“RE” is the name of the game

I have to be candid with you and say this is my first real blog post speaking for me. I write for clients all the time, but rarely for myself…so please be gentle.

I read 100s of blog posts a week, literally.  And everyone has great ideas for things you can do every day.  I like to try and weed things out, select what I think is doable, realistic and thought-provoking and share those through my social media outlets.  Heck, since I was 4 years old, I read the paper and cut out cartoons or articles that I thought would interest family and friends (here is a recent fave, just for kicks).  Daughter of a journalist, words and the ideas they create and actions they inspire are very important to me…it just came naturally.

So out of all this—and I hope I’ll get more than one chance to share with you—I think what sticks out to me today are two letters…R-E. There are so many great words that these two letters can be tied to in the ‘green’ world.  The obvious:  Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We all know this.  But take a couple minutes and think about how truly actionable—if we choose to listen—the “RE” words can be in our daily lives to engage our ‘green’ mindset:

Re-cover…things you set aside and have found again to fix instead of buying new.

Re-calculate…can you drive to five errands in one trip vs. five individual errands?  If major companies can shift on the huge concept of packaging, can we re-calculate our errands?

Re-lease…is there one thing a day (or week to start) that you really don’t need to consume?

Re-think…help your local school add even a little environmental education to their curriculum to set kids on the right path and have a healthier school.

Re-invest…in the idea of sharing: online libraries vs. always buying anew.

Re-energize…walk to the post office or restaurant and get a little energy and exercise and don’t use the $4.00/gallon gas car.

Re-adjust…filter your water instead of buying large bottle after bottle.

Re-form…sit your family down and make a commitment to do any of these other things, as a family!

Re-direct…this may be my current favorite. I have to think every day how to redirect my thinking and my actions in a way that is probably not so comfortable the first 5x but becomes easier and easier. One of my favorite ways to Re-direct is to try to purchase more locally.

The “RE” makes us stop, and think for a second how we are dealing with anything we touch, or know how we traditionally acted.  Ten years ago, I wasn’t a consciously ‘green’ person, and I have a ways to go, no doubt.  But growing up and going to Germany to see my mother’s family, I remember distinctly that everyone brought their own bags to the market even 40 years ago (ok, you got me, I’m 46).  It was such a natural, “duh” transition to me to bring my own bags. I re-direct my thoughts and actions every day and try to do one thing that makes more sense.

Because really that’s what being green and sustainable is in the end to me…it’s logic at its most basic.  It’s re-thinking things, re-directing our energy in how we act and plan…whether you are planning your day or planning a remodel or planning dinner.

Let’s continue this conversation…and I’d love to hear YOUR favorite “RE” word or YOUR re-definition of one of the above!

JOIN PRACTICALLY GREEN on EARTH DAY EVE!

Share ideas for living healthy & green with smart tweeters and win incredible prizes!

If Friday is Earth Day, then Earth Day Eve is this Thursday, April 21.

We’re going to celebrate with a Twitter party @practicallygrn from 9 to 10 EST.

And YOU are invited!

Here’s the conversation starter:

What are some fun easy ways to celebrate Earth Day EVERY day?

What healthy green changes have you made? What’s on your plan?

Please use hashtag #practicallygreen and insert @practicallygrn on your tweets.

PRIZES

We’re awarding these amazing items to our partiers!

NOTE: Real live people from these companies will be at the party AND there may be some last-minute additions to this list

Yummy treats from Late July Organic
Couture Planet bag (lucky winner chooses which one)

Beautiful candle gift set from Big Dipper Wax Works

Designer beverage accessories from Strawesome

Life’s a Picnic basket organized by Fabkins (featuring LUNA, Cleanwell, Plum Organics, and Green Toys!)

Happy Mama Hand-to-Toe Wash (with refill)
SodaPop earrings from Proxy Apparel (lucky winner chooses color)
Fabulous green group gift for baby, arranged by Inlu

Got Questions? Send us a tweet @practicallygrn or email Samantha: intern@practicallygreen.com

Hands down my personal favorite action: Switch to cloth napkins regularly.

But I have a confession: For me, this wasn’t a Switch. I grew up with cloth napkins. We did not use anything else! I grew up with a mother in pearls and tea at 4pm, and you can bet I grew up with cloth napkins. Just don’t ask me how they were washed, in what or on what setting. This was not a very green household, and lots of funky stuff went down the drain there….

Anyhow.

Fast forward to the 21st century: I think this Action is the EASIEST 20 POINTS on Practically Green! Our guest blogger Paige Rodgers wants to make it even easier for you. Paige is the Founder of Fabkins, and here’s her story:

I’m a mom of 2 girls, ages 6 and 9, and like many of us, I’m trying to balance work, family, friends, and me time. I’ve always worked as a parent. A few years in I got to a point where I wanted more control over my schedule and work, so I left the corporate world in 2007 to start something on my own. At the time, I had no idea what that would be, but a friend, Joyce, and I would brainstorm and research different ideas. A common theme was always eco-friendly and kid-oriented. An Inconvenient Truth had come out, and mom’s groups in our progressive town were all a-buzz with ways to live a greener life.

One day, Joyce called me. She’d been shopping for waste-free lunch components after her son’s preschool asked that parents pack lunches with all reusables. She’d found the containers, water bottles, and cutlery, but couldn’t find a napkin that wasn’t too big or too starchy. “Where are the cool kid napkins?” her son asked. As we talked about this, we pondered whether other families were challenged to find a small, cute, kid napkin for the lunchbox that could also be used for meals at home, or snack time out and about.

We decided to give it a try and a few months later, in August 2007, we launched Fabkins. Since then, the concept of packing waste-free has become more common as families realize the importance of reducing the waste from kids’ lunches. It adds up. The EPA reported that the average school-age child sends 67 pounds of waste to landfills each year. Multiply that by the thousands of school children out there and the impact is massive!

What I love about Fabkins is that we hear from parents all the time that we’ve made going waste-free fun and easy. We’re educating kids about the importance of doing little things – like replacing a paper napkin with a cloth one – for big impact. I’ve incorporated this idea into how I teach my kids about being environmentally responsible in our everyday lives. We turn off the sink when brushing our teeth, try to walk, bike or carpool as much as possible, compost and recycle, take reusable bags to the store, make or reuse wrapping paper, and turn off lights when we leave a room. We celebrate Earth Day every year by doing a park clean up with friends and talk about how we’re all in charge of cleaning up our Earth. They understand that they can do their part and play a role.

Now that Earth Day is upon us, we’ll again be cleaning up, and with Fabkins we’re going to give back. Fabkins has partnered with a group of amazing eco-friendly brands – Green Toys, Luna, Cleanwell, and Plum Organics – to offer a “Life’s a Picnic” kit that will be sold on Diapers.com from April 1 – end of May. Each kit is specially priced at a 25% discount and all profits from the sale of the kits will be donated to the non-profit Healthy Child Healthy World.

Focusing on the little things and giving back. As a mom, these are two ways that I can easily explain to show my kids: Actions count. But it’s hardly a perfect system. They’ll call me out for the actions I don’t take – I still drive an SUV, I love a long hot shower on a cold winter day, and sometimes I forget to bring bags to the grocery store. But maybe that’s the lesson in and of itself – we have to do the best we can, even if it’s not perfect.

*                    *                    *                    *

Go Paige!

Please find Fabkins on Facebook and on Twitter @GreenMyLunchbox. AND, please inspect the Life is a Picnic pack (photo)! Want it?! (Why wouldn’t you!) It’s one of the amazing prizes to be offered at our Practically Green Twitter party Thursday night! (9 to 10 pm EST, be there @practicallygrn!!)  

Fabkins has partnered with Green Toys, LUNA, Plum Organics, CleanWell to offer “Life is a Picnic” Eco-friendly Earth Day kit. Sold only on Diapers.com, all proceeds going to non-profit Healthy Child Healthy World.

If Albert Einstein said that positive patterns initiate with Threes, we’ve got a fantastic set of triplets to tell you about today:

First, CEO Susan Hunt Stevens went to Washington to compete in the finals of the William James Foundation’s annual prize for best socially responsible business plan. The competition was extraordinarily tough for the prestigious award this year. No surprise there, considering the generous cash award and top-notch in-kind services at stake. Let’s just say we were trying our very best but had absolutely no expectations of winning. AND WE WON!!!!!

We hope someone videoed Susan’s presentation because we couldn’t be there – but our entire PG team — and spouses, kids, neighbors — was chanting and rubbing lucky coins back in Boston.

(P.S. Seems like those happy chants oozed over to the Red Sox and Celtics, too!!)

Second, all you wonderful Practically Green Facebook friends and Twitter followers @practicallygrn are well aware that we survived a nail-biting finish for the Circle of Moms Best Eco-Mom Blog competition. In truth, after we saw the developing field of competing bloggers, Susan and I had a serious conversation about whether we should have entered in the first place: we LOVE all these bloggers. We want them to win! Some of them have become VERY good friends. Many of them are on our guest blogging team! And we loved one of them so much we even hired her! Alexandra Zissu! Regardless, we are absolutely thrilled to be included in this esteemed circle of the Circle. Thank you for your votes. And we really mean it when we say we voted for every one of the nominated bloggers, every day. We all win when the general public is made aware of this excellent fleet of smart, committed writers.

Third, we piled into the car for a humdrum family road trip on Saturday, turned on the radio, and WOW: ***IMMEDIATELY heard Shelby Hogan, of Anaheim, California — one of our amazing guest bloggers and Motherboard advisors – LIVE on the air, commenting on NPR’s popular show, “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” Shelby answered her questions smoothly, flawlessly, with alacrity and ease…. and we were so thrilled for her, screaming and beaming as we zoomed along!! Now Shelby has Carl Kasell recording her personal voice mail message. YES, we are: GREEN with envy. And bursting with pride.

That’s a LOT of WINS!! Did we mention this is an exciting time?!

Please watch for Shelby’s post about this top action: Sign up for a catalog-reduction service. It’s scheduled for April 29^th – and that’s when it will run, unless we need to interrupt our regular schedule with any more outstanding news to share with all of you!

Shelby Hogan, PG guest blogger and Motherboard member

Can you get sunburned through a car window?

I’m not sure. Even The New York Times is not sure.

But I can tell you, definitely, that you can charge a cell phone through a window!

Switch to a Solar Cell-Phone Charger

I love my Solio charger so much that I’m upgrading, from the Solio Mono, which I’ve had for a year, sitting on my windowsill …

… to the Solio Classic Hybrid Solar Charger (below), which you can buy via Practically Green. According to the product detail, this one includes solar panels that are 20% more efficient. And since it has three panels instead of one, well, you do the math. As I know is, I’m going to have a lot more solar charge for my phone when I want it.

It works with iPhone/iPod right out of the box, and also supports Micro-USB devices such as Blackberry, Motorola, LG, etc…. folding three-panel design, three photovoltaic cells plus a full-size charging battery enabling quick re-charging of your portable electronic devices. The Solio Classic Hybrid Solar Charger is simple to use. Charge the Classics battery one of three ways: directly from the sun using the integrated solar cell, or from your computer using the included USB charge-in cable, or from the included rapid wall charger. The 1,650 mAh internal Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery stores power until you need it – for up to one year. Select the appropriate adapter tip, connect it to your electronic device, press the start button and youre charging on-the-go.Just 1 hour of sunshine = 20+ minutes talk time or 50+ minutes MP3 music (depending on device).

And if you think it’s thrilling to charge your phone this way (which I promise you absolutely will, for at least the first few hundred times), imagine how you’d feel if you had solar panels on your house? On your office building?

Imagine how things might be different if, say, every school, mall, airport, hospital, warehouse and Cineplex in the country had solar photovoltaic panels?!

But I digress. Hey, a girl can dream.

Start small: start with a cell phone charger.

Jerelyn Wilson and her husband Alex are the heart and soul of BuildingGreen, which is the Acropolis of the green building world. The company was founded in 1985, so they’ve been around since ancient times. Alex’s famous book Your Green Home (which I suspect may have actually been written by Jerelyn) is essential for anyone who is planning to build — even if it’s just a little powder room closet you have in mind. I rely on BuildingGreen and all its publications for clear, no-nonsense advice, offered with a sly dash of humor. That’s why I called Jerelyn to see if she’d like to write about one of the dozens of home-maintenance items on Practically Green.

But Jerelyn wants to write about her Trash!

Interestingly, Your Green Home only has four pages on household trash. The concluding section is called “Involve the Whole Family in Waste Management.” (My bold.) Guess who is the Trash Mastermind in the Wilson family? You know the answer: The Mom. As in: Jerelyn. She’s proud of her decision to take charge of her household refuse, and I knew we’d get a great story for you. Enjoy!

~                     ~                    ~                    ~

ACTION: Track your trash for one week

CATEGORY: Stuff

POINTS: 5

Who on earth would read a book in their precious free time called “Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash?” Well, that would be me! I was really excited by author Elizabeth Royte’s persistence in following what she threw away along its long path and into the world of “away.” I guess my fascination with her story is rooted in a mantra of mine that my kids got quite familiar with, “You know, there really is no ‘away’!”

Of course what I end up putting in the garbage can for the trash man to pick up is directly related to my recycling and composting habits, and even more significantly to my purchasing decisions.

Tracking my trash has been a very revealing activity – and habit changing, I must say.

I find I often put things in the trash that could be recycled or reused. Excuses? I’m in a rush – it’s quicker, or I’d have to clean it out first – yuck, or I’ve cleaned out some drawer or cabinet and there’s all this random stuff I’d have to spend time figuring out if there’s someone else who’d want it or if it’s good enough for the secondhand shop – my head starts to spin! I just throw it away – it’s so easy. And then, there’s that darn voice of mine: “But, there really is no ‘away.’”

Tracking my trash, paying attention to what I’m putting in the garbage, makes me more conscious on the front end – the buying end. And, that’s a good thing. I have to say I’m finding it easier to reduce the amount of non-recyclable items in my household now that it’s just my husband and me. With two kids in the mix it was much, much harder to control. I gave myself a fair amount of slack. Now that they are off to college (and beyond) it’s way easier. I’m still pushing myself though toward that zero trash place.

Jerelyn's Trash Can

Right now, when I look in my trash bag under the sink, I see mostly plastic things – plastic bags from the broccoli I just used up, an empty tortilla chip bag, the plastic bag from 5 pounds of carrots, a cottage cheese container, a plastic wrapper from a new sponge. And then there’s the inside silver bag from some crackers (I recycled the box), a piece of tin foil, a piece of cotton from a new bottle of multi-vitamins. You get the idea.

I live outside the town limits so I have to pay for my own trash pick-up – it’s $35/month. I found with just my husband and me, we had only about 2/3 of a paper grocery bag in our garbage can each week. It seemed so silly to pay for trash pick-up for so little trash. After talking to Muriel, a friend who is a bit ahead of me on the trash front, I took the leap – I cancelled my trash service! Now anything I can’t compost, recycle, or give away, I have to bring to the dump myself. You can bet I’m really watching every little thing I put in the trash now. By cancelling my garbage pick up, I’m giving myself a new challenge toward zero trash.

Muriel was great. She talked me through the whole deal – she got right down to the nitty-gritty of things that will get smelly before her trip to the dump. For those things she keeps a paper bag inside of a plastic bag (both of which get recycled) in the freezer into which she puts things like bones and any meat leftovers that the dog doesn’t get, butter wrappers, cat food that her fussy cat doesn’t finish up, etc.

Here’s Muriel’s list:

1) glass and metals – recycle

2) newspapers – recycle

3) home compost

4) plastic wrappers and non-recyclable containers – to the dump

5) commercial compost – Residential Compost COW (commercial organic waste)

Number five is the really cool one and the one that allowed the most recent reduction in what ended up Muriel’s trash. I’m proud of my town for this and look forward to using the service.

Specifically tracking my trash this week helped me to identify yet another habit to change. I already bring my own canvas bags to the grocery store (which by the way took a while to figure out how to have the bags on hand when I needed them), but now I’ve decided I’m going to stop using the thin plastic bags for produce. I’ll continue to reuse what I have saved and then I’ll just figure out something else. I know they sell special reusable bags for produce, but first I’m going to see if I can do without. This will be one less thing I’ll have to put in the trash. I’ll let you know how I do!

Lynn Colwell has this action on her PG Plan for quite a while now. (You can see her plan at PracticallyGreen.com; click here.)

Frankly, you’d think the eco-guru co-author of Celebrate Green and family hostess extraordinaire might already have checked this one off. After all, anyone talented enough to come up with this heirloom Easter basket should be able to eliminate the Styrofoam in her life, right?

It turns out that this action is not so easy.

Lynn explains:

Eliminate Styrofoam especially from food and drink purchases

Ah styrofoam*, how do I dislike thee—let me count the ways:

1. You are made from oil. (What a waste!)
2. You never degrade in landfills. (Which the American Chemistry Council says is a good thing because “degradation creates harmful liquid and gaseous by-products that could contaminate groundwater and air.” Huh?)
3. You can release toxins when hot food or drink is placed on/in you. (Not good!)
4. While your cousins, styrofoam peanuts and packaging, can be recycled, when you are soiled by food, only landfills will accept you. (How is it that I don’t feel sorry for you?)

For all those reasons and more, I have been working to swear off styrofoam. (For instance, I just plain dislike so-called convenience items that we’ve been programmed by great advertising into thinking we “need.”)

It’s easy enough when it comes to packaging. I’ve got three giant bags of packing peanuts (saved from what others have sent to me), that I use whenever I need to mail something fragile. I always include a note asking the recipient to please re-use or check with www.Earth911.com to find a nearby facility that can re-use them. (If I ever needed an alternative to reusing “made-from-oil peanuts” I might consider purchasing dissolvable/compostable peanuts, or better yet, using shredded or balled up paper from my recycling bin, or rags or dishtowels.)

Styrofoam cups aren’t much of an issue for me because I almost always remember to bring my refillable water bottle when I’m going to the type of establishment where glasses made of actual glass are as likely to appear as Elvis.

On the other hand, as much as I try when eating at a restaurant, to dodge eyes-bigger-than-stomach syndrome, therefore avoiding the need for take-out boxes altogether, sometimes I end up with a stuffed tummy anyway, along with $10 worth of food sitting undisturbed on the plate.

But, of late, thanks to my Practically Green commitment, I’ve been carrying a glass food storage container in my car just in case. Of course no one blinks when a waiter appears with a styrofoam container for leftovers, even at a relatively upscale restaurant (this is Seattle, not Paris). But when I show up with my personal substitute, I have seen some eyebrows shoot right through the roof!

On the other hand, this habit, like any, is easy once you get into it.

But if you’re not ready to cart around your own take-home containers, you should know that there are alternatives available for stores and restaurants. None is as good as bringing your own reusables, but they are better than styrofoam for various reasons:

• Containers made from number 5 plastic: recyclable
• Containers made from sugar cane or cardboard: biodegrade under the proper circumstances and may be composted in facilities using high heat (like our compost facility here in Seattle)

So if your neighborhood hangout is still using styrofoam, why not ask them to look into a better alternative?

Recently I went to a Chinese takeout place and when I was handed my dinner in one of those #5 containers, I just about hugged the manager! In a loud voice to ensure other patrons would hear me, I exclaimed how happy I was that they were not using styrofoam and thanked them for caring for the planet and their customers.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a couple rolling their eyes in unison.

But I also got a half dozen thumbs up as I walked out with my beef and broccoli happily ensconced in a NON-styro container!

*To be precise, styrofoam as we commonly use it is not the correct word. The term Styrofoam™ with a capital “S,” is a trademark of The Dow Chemical Company for closed-cell extruded polystyrene foam used for thermal insulation and craft applications only. Styrofoam with a lowercase “s” has entered our vocabulary as a generic term for cups, plates and packaging materials which are made from generic foam and not from true Styrofoam™. Just in case anyone asks.

It’s a Love story for 2011: I met Ann Zuccardy through a friend, and we became Capital F Friends on Facebook. Ann is one of those Friends who can post a comment or question and PRESTO! Fifty people have commented and liked and loved. I’m fascinated by the Facebook star gene: does that person possess a special way of connecting with people in this digital age — an effortless technique of sharing heart onto screen — something we can all learn from?

Well. It’s no surprise that Ann has organized hundreds of her co-workers to participate in an extraordinary garden at their workplace! (Follow her on Twitter @annzuccardy.) I asked Ann to share her remarkable story today, for our Plant a Vegetable Garden spotlight. ENJOY!

Four decades ago, before it was cool to be organic, I plucked plump organically grown, heirloom tomatoes from my grandfather’s garden in Connecticut. Still warm from the late afternoon summer sun, their deep red skins stretched tightly and seemed ready burst with right there in my hands.   We used to slice them and sandwich them between a couple of slices of toast spread lightly with butter and a little salt and pepper.  This sandwich remains one of my favorite summer treats, not because of its culinary brilliance but because of what it symbolizes: innocence, elegant simplicity and love.

Ann in the National Life Group garden

I grew up in a vegetable gardening family, but as an adult I was drawn to perennial flowers, mostly because they were easy and dependable. As a single parent with a busy work life, I didn’t believe I had time to devote to a vegetable garden.

That all changed two Christmases ago when my mother bequeathed me the seeds from my grandfather’s heirloom tomatoes.  It had been 25 years since his death and she had been faithfully growing them and saving the seeds each year — just one or two tomato plants each year to keep her father’s memory and lovingly bred tomato variety alive.  When it became too much for her to do, she gave the seeds to me.  Oh, the pressure, that first summer as I watched my little plants grow from seed, as I hardened them in the Vermont May sunshine and as I visited them every day throughout the summer and as I ate the sandwiches I loved as a child!

Something curious happened that summer.  I found time for a vegetable garden.  This designer-purse carrying, diet-coke drinking, career chick/entrepreneur found peace in a vegetable garden talking to her grandfather’s tomato plants.  Yes, really.  No, I’m not a nut.

As if on cue, the universe rose to the occasion to give me even more vegetable gardening zen.

Last year, an opportunity to manage a corporate garden fell into my lap.  I work in corporate communications for National Life Group, a life insurance company based in Montpelier, Vermont.  A friend from New England Culinary Institute (NECI), who worked in our cafeteria had a vision – to grow a community garden on National Life Group’s property – a joint venture to teach culinary students about the value of sustainable agriculture, showcase locally grown vegetables in our cafeteria and to feed locals in need.

We planted seeds in the company cafeteria, carefully tended them — and then my friend left for another job opportunity in early May of 2010, leaving me with hundreds of little seedlings and raised beds waiting to receive them.  I was terrified. I knew nothing about growing a vegetable garden of this size.  So I planted.  And I waited.  I weeded.  I attended corporate meetings with dirt under my fingernails and manure on my designer shoes.

This year the vision has grown bigger and I don’t know where it’s going, but I know it’s good. We have expanded the company garden to provide employees who want their own garden plot to grow their own food to take home.  The company provides seeds, tools and education.  And we’ve teamed up with a local non-profit, APPLE Corps, to grow a community garden – everything we grow will be donated to local food organizations.  And as the vision and the garden expand, so do the people appearing to help.

I am not what you’d describe as a “crunchy-earthy” hippie chick.  I can be downright neurotic.  And every day I wonder, how I got to be in a position of managing a large corporate/community garden.  I’m a writer, a corporate communicator, not a farmer,  for goodness sakes.  I get pedicures and color my hair regularly.  I even eat at McDonald’s sometimes.  No kidding.

And yet…it seems just right.  Growing a vegetable garden is growing ME.

If you’ve never grown a vegetable garden before, consider trying just one item this year. A basil plant, a tomato container plant on your patio…something simple, something of beauty to you.

If you’re an experienced gardener, consider growing an extra row this year. Consider donating to your local food shelf.  I predict food prices are going to rise sharply this summer.  If you’re already gardening, why not provide something healthy and nutritious to others?

Innocence, elegant simplicity, love.  Grow some this summer.

Harvest Those April Showers…Put a Rain Barrel in Your Garden, by Jan Devereux

Don’t wait for a rainy day to take this recommended action (worth 50 points!): Install a rain barrel this month to collect garden water.

65 Gallon RWS rain barrel (made from 100% recycled HDPE plastic), from Clean Air Gardening

It’s puzzling that using a rain barrel isn’t the norm here. The U.S. has the largest per capita “water footprint” globally, yet for most Americans rainwater is a precious free resource that often goes to waste.

But very soon, all of us will have to become far more water-thrifty, as more than two-thirds of states can expect water shortages in the next five years. Whether you live in soggy New England or the parched Southwest, collecting rainwater for your garden is a simple, low-tech way to reduce your water bill and preserve reservoir water and the aquifer for drinking and other household uses.

The potential savings is huge: some households consume as much as 50% of their annual water usage in the summer for landscaping. Think about it: using treated drinking water in your garden is like spraying money right out the hose – you’re paying to purify that water for drinking, but your plants don’t care so long as it’s wet (in fact, they actually prefer un-chlorinated water). And, don’t worry, rainwater harvested from your roof, whether it’s tin, tile or asphalt shingles, is perfectly safe for watering your vegetable garden.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to how much water you can collect. Just a ½-inch of rain running off a 1,000 s.f. roof yields a whopping 300 gallons of water – one good storm would fill six 50-gallon rain barrels. Attach a barrel to any downspout and it’ll be practically raining pennies.

How to Set Up a Rain Barrel:

The Rain Barrel Guide site offers easy-to-follow instructions on how to set up a rain barrel in your garden. This site also provides an active discussion forum and comprehensive resources on the subject.

A Few Common Sense Tips:

• If you have small children, choose a barrel with a top or lid that you can close securely. An open container of water of any size presents a drowning hazard.

• Choose a location near where you want to use the water. This tip may seem obvious, but you won’t want to carry a watering can or run a hose too far from the barrel.

• Elevate the barrel (set it on top of a concrete block or two), so that there’s enough clearance to place a watering can beneath the lower spigot (most barrels have two spigots). Raising it will also increase the water pressure if you’re running a hose from the barrel into your garden. (A battery-powered pump can be added if you want enough pressure to spray with the hose.) Make sure the barrel sits on level ground, because a full barrel is very heavy and could do damage if it tips over.  

• Place a fine screen across the top of the barrel, or between the downspout and the barrel’s opening and check that your gutters are clean, or else leaves and sediment will collect on the bottom). A screen also helps to prevent any standing water in the barrel from becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

• Direct the hose(s) away from your home’s foundation, especially if the barrel is full and overflowing after a storm.

• If you use a recycled barrel (instead of buying one of the ready-made rain barrel kits suggested below), make sure you know what was originally stored in it. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to use a barrel that had contained chemicals!

A Secondary Use:

My Cambridge neighbor, Genevieve, installed a rain barrel two years ago to direct water away from the corner of her foundation where her unfinished basement always tended to get wet. Water from the problematic downspout now runs through the barrel and out two long hoses, sending the water onto her shrubs, not into her basement. She reports that although this strategy is “not recommended” by contractors, it has been effective in keeping her basement dry three seasons a year (she removes the barrel in the winter to keep it from icing up). Genevieve initially tried to attach soaker hoses to the barrel, but found that the pressure was insufficient.

Product Suggestions:

Clean Air Gardening and The Home Depot both offer a selection of plastic, ceramic and wooden rain barrels in a range of sizes and styles.

If a utilitarian rain barrel doesn’t complement your garden design esthetic, consider one of these products for a more sophisticated look:

Raindrop barrel

“Raindrop” barrel with a built-in watering can designed by Studio Bas van der Veer (Featured by Practically Green on March 24, 2011): http://www.basvanderveer.nl/main.php?p=page&id=13

RC-1 Rain Collector from Hero 365: http://www.hero-365.com/rc-1-features/

(This elegant cistern was featured recently on the Here in This House home design blog. Our thanks to the HTH’s design mavens, Mae Hacking and Elise Jones!)

Confession:  I’ve never belonged to a CSA. I’ve always been a little bit mystified by them. For years I ignored them, just shopped my local farm stand instead — even though it’s not organic and I suspect it might never be. But after reading the following guest post, I had another look at our local CSA and signed up pronto. You heard me: I simply threw down for the season and made the commitment. Despite audible grumbles from my dear husband. He’ll get used to it.

Everything in my (see? it’s already MY CSA!!) CSA’s delightful brochure sounds perfect, exactly what I’ve been looking for. No matter where you live, I bet your CSA has an amazingly articulate and thoughtful intention. Something like this:

We believe that you and your family deserve the highest quality food. In an age where the chain stores almost exclusively source their produce from large corporate farms more than half-way across the country or even half-way around the world! It is clear we have become disconnected from the source of the very food that sustains us. Add to that events like (9/11), and other news about world pandemics and food disruptions, etc…. It makes one pause and asks meaningful questions about what is important and sensible in the long run. There is no clever one-line answer to the problems facing our modern world, but a first step is building relationships and trust through commitments to one another on a local basis. Wishing Stone Farm is committed to not only growing organic and biorational/IPM foods for our shareholders but educating them and engaging them in this on-going debate of about our global future.

I’ll let you know how it goes with Wishing Stone Farm. Meanwhile, here’s our delightful guest blogger Mae Hacking. She’s a savvy designer, a real New Jersey wife and mom of two, and co-founder of Here in This House. Maybe she’ll convince you to take this action too — let us know!  Sarah

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Getting Started: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Now is the time of year when farms begin enrollment in Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs). These programs often have limited availability so it’s important to act early. If you’ve been eyeing the “Sign up for a CSA” energy action but have not yet pulled the trigger, read on to learn more about finding the program that’s right for you.

Living in California, we were blessed with a bounty of fresh produce all year round. Despite this, I found that I was always choosing the same fruits and vegetables for our home: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, eggplant. Ready to branch out, I signed up for an organic produce delivery service. Its pre-set boxes forced me to learn how to cook with new vegetables in a child-friendly way. We got introduced to the wonders of tuscan kale, chard, cabbages, pears and numerous varieties of apples and oranges. So when we left California and after getting settled into our new home, I set to finding a similar service. I have since met a few friends interested in taking part in these produce delivery services or other community supported agriculture. So I’ve gathered my tips on how to get started.

First off, why participate in a CSA? Through a CSA, you get a better sense of where your food comes from than when shopping at the big grocery stores. In some cases, you can actually meet the farmer and other folks who work so hard to grow your food. Another benefit is that CSAs eliminate steps in the process of getting produce from the farm to the grocery store to your table. This means fresher and more nutritious food for you. Lastly, CSAs are often local farms run by local folks. It’s a great way to support your community and local business. (These benefits are not entirely the same when you go with a produce delivery service but they can get you closer to the farm-fresh ideal when the CSAs are dormant for the winter.)

Okay, so you’re on board (right?). Now what?

●      Determine your family’s needs. Take a cold hard look at your family’s eating habits. How often do you cook with fresh vegetables? How much fruit does your family eat in a week (or two)? How selective is your family about what they eat? Will they tolerate new foods well?

●      Research local opportunities. Check out this handy the USDA National Agricultural Library as well as Local Harvest, a fabulous guide to community supported agriculture operations, [search by zip code!] to see what’s near you. CSAs can be very small local operations so it’s important to tap into the grassroots network. Talk to your neighbors, your friends, and your favorite farmer’s-market vendors for suggestions and recommendations. CSAs have been a hot topic in the news lately, so don’t forget to check out the local/regional newspapers to see if they have any recommendations.

●      Review assortment options. Having found a few potential CSAs, assess the assortment options. Do they offer just vegetables? Just fruits? A veggie/fruit mix? How big is each delivery? Is there a variety of sizes? Are you able to make substitutions? (Do you want or need to have substitutions?) What’s the payment arrangement? Hopefully one of these will be suitable for your family.

●      Find a share, if necessary. Are you really excited about the idea of a CSA but think it’s simply too much for your family to consume? Or maybe you’re not fully sold on the idea and want a less committed option? Then you need to find someone to go in on this with you. Shares can happen in a number of ways and it’s really all about the needs of your and your share family. One easy way to lessen the load is to alternate who takes each delivery, reducing the frequency of your orders. Or, you could choose to reduce the volume you receive each week by splitting each delivery with another family. The possibilities are endless.

●      Proactively participate. Once you’re in, make the most of it. One of my favorite parts of the CSA is the learning: how to store and prepare new vegetables, finding new recipes, figuring out how to get my picky three year-old to try some. It’s more fun if you fully engage. Read your farm’s newsletter. Visit the farm for pick-your-own if they offer it (a great outing for the kiddos). Hop online or scour your cookbooks for new recipes. If you’re a photographer (and I just may try this this year), try taking luscious still life photos of your produce delivery before delving in. 

So what if you’ve gotten this far but a CSA is still not the right option for you? Do the CSA-lite solution: farmer’s markets. Aside from logging CSAs, Local Harvest also maintains a database of farmer’s markets across the country. If you’ve never been, add the “Shop at a farmer’s market” action to your plan and commit to shopping there once a week in season. Walk around, smell the smells, taste the samples, talk with the vendors. If farmers are already part of your routine, spend an extra few minutes to befriend your favorite farmer. Even better, sometimes they will even pull together weekly boxes of their best produce for you, just like a CSA!

So check out your options, grab a friend and give a CSA a try. You won’t regret it!

Mae is a co-creator of Here in This House, a design blog which captures the creative and artistic pursuits we bring into our houses. She is a self described design- and fashion-enthusiast, photographer-in-training, transplanted Californian, amateur gardener, foodie and mother of two. Want to learn more about Here in This House, Mae and her path to becoming Practically Green? Check out her to-do list on the Inspiring Action Plan section!

One of the most eye-opening actions on Practically Green: Check your cosmetics against the Skin Deep Cosmetics or Good Guide Database. If you’ve been zooming through life responding to every pretty cosmetics ad and celebrity beauty-secret pick, you might, as I did, experience a gradual horror to discover that some ingredients in popular make up and personal care products are simply NOT SAFE. Today we have two experts to explain. Both of them are gorgeous examples of women whose beauty routines ONLY include safe cosmetics.

Corey Colwell-Lipson gives a quick introduction, and Stacy Malkan shares her recent interactions speaking at a high school kids in the Bay Area, San Francisco. Scroll down for Stacy’s TED presentation on safe cosmetics. Check your family’s body products against the Skin Deep Cosmetics or Good Guide Database and earn 5 points now!

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You are what you eat… er…wear, by Corey Colwell-Lipson

Up to 60% of what we put on our skin is absorbed into the bloodstream.

Toner, perfume, nail polish, foundation, shampoo, eye-shadow, sunscreen–you name it, a majority of body/beauty products enter our bodies (tissues, organs, etc.) via our skin, our largest organ. (Sorry, guys, it’s the skin).

All OK if the “skin food” you are wearing is safe. All less OK if the skin food you are wearing is not.

My family has a fun ditty. It goes like this: If you wouldn’t eat it, it doesn’t belong on your skin.

How to know if your lip gloss is body-safe gourmet? Look at the ingredients. If they are listed. If not, that might be a clue. Can you pronounce them? Do they sound like terms you’d need a PhD in chemistry to decode, or names that come from nature? You know: animal, vegetable, mineral.

For example, the following ingredients, commonly found in body/beauty products, are toxic. Not ideal skin food:

• Parabens – Hormone disrupting
• Diazolidinyl Urea/Imidazolodinyl Urea – Releases formaldehyde, a carcinogen
• Synthetic fragrances – Linked to damage in the brain and nervous system

No, thank you.

Another easy way to assess whether your fave lotion or potion is safe enough to eat: Go to www.CosmeticDatabase.com or www.GoodGuide.com and type in the name of your product. Then hit “enter” and cross your fingers (and toes).

Here’s how the ratings break down:

• Skin Deep Cosmetic Database:  0-2 rating is low hazard; 3-6 is moderate hazard; 7-10 is high hazard
• GoodGuide: Broken down into three areas (health, environment, society) averaged for an overall score of 0-10 (10=best)

How does your skin food score?

Corey Colwell-Lipson is a clean-living expert, author, radio host and licensed psychotherapist specializing the transition to parenthood. She and her mom, Lynn Colwell, are the mother-daughter team who launched the green holidays revolution. Connect with Corey and Lynn on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at CelebrateGreen and on their website at www.CelebrateGreen.net

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The Healthy EcoSystem of You, by Stacy Malkan

How many personal care products does the average teenager use in a day? I asked this question of hundreds of students at an Earth Day event at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, California. After counting up their hair care products, lotions and different types of make-up, many of the girls answered right on: 17 products!

The boys guessed much lower, but even many young members of the male species — what with the Ax Body Sprays and Old Spice guy — are using upward of 17 body-care products, according to the New York Times.

Since the typical grooming product contains a dozen or so chemicals, we can do a quick calculation to learn that the average teenager is exposing him or herself to more than 200 chemicals a day before even hitting the school yard.

Are these chemicals safe? I asked the kids at St. Francis if cosmetics companies are required to safety test their products before selling them. About half the students got this one right: No, they are not. Companies are allowed to sell personal care products containing nearly any chemical in the U.S. without conducting any safety assessments. (We’re working to change the law to fix this problem.)

So why should this matter to your typical teen? For one thing, most would be shocked to learn how many skin-care products contain chemicals that are actually toxic to the skin! (Break outs, anyone?). Many body-care products also contain carcinogens and chemicals that can scramble the hormones, which can be particularly problematic during the critical windows of development in the teenage years.

The good news is, safer alternatives are available that work just as well if not better than the chemical stuff. The challenge is, you have to do some research to find them. Here are five tips for greening your daily grooming routine and taking good care of the environment of you:

Buy in the Green Zone: Many companies are already making safer, non-toxic products, though these are not the products you see in the glossy magazines hawked by celebrities who don’t really wear them. To find the best products, and see how your favorite brands rank, check out the Skin Deep Database and choose products in the 0-2 green zone.

Avoid the Dirty Dozen: How about a little coal tar, petrolatum, phthalates and formaldehyde before breakfast? Um, no thanks! Here’s a handy list of cosmetic chemicals to avoid that will have you passing by most of the body-care products on the shelves at Walgreens.

Go Fragrance Free: What’s so sexy about a bunch of chemicals that disrupt hormones and trigger allergic reactions? Not so much! Yet product tests found chemicals linked to sperm damage in men’s products like Old Spice and Fierce by Abercrombie & Fitch, and a whole bunch of nasty chemicals in celebrity perfumes. Similar chemicals are found in fragrance-containing shampoos, deodorants, etc., so it’s best to choose products with no added fragrance (check the labels because even “fragrance free” products often contain masking fragrances).

Less is More: The greenest option is to just say no to unnecessary products. Companies love to make us think we need a different lotion for every part of our body and a different cleaning product for every room in the house. Air freshener? Open a window. Bubble bath? Not so good to sit for an hour in a tub full of chemicals. And here’s a tip for reducing toxic exposures while saving lots of time and money: Bye bye hair dye (see my Facebook page on this topic).

If you do just one green thing: switch to all natural hand sanitizer. There’s no need to rub a toxic pesticide all over our hands before we eat, yet many people do so thanks to all the marketing hype about how germs will kill us. Many conventional hand sanitizers contain triclosan, a chemical that is not only dangerous but unnecessary. Safer alternatives are available, including plain old soap and water, which is just as effective at killing germs, according to FDA.

Happy Earth Day Everyone! Here’s to a healthy ecosystem of you.

Stacy Malkan is co-founder of the national Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of the award-winning book, “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry.” Watch Stacy’s presentation at TED a few months ago: