Green is People

Am I sucker?

2009-03-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

Happy belated New Year

Sorry for the lack of green-age, My son Leke was born in January so please forgive my tardiness. As a new father and changer of diapers I'm thinking of ways I can live a cleaner life not just in products I use at home, but also on my kid. So when I saw a Serta Organic sleeping mattress while on my first baby shopping trip, I thought great , “sign me up bitches”. But then I got to thinking .... I've slept on a non organic mattress for some 30+ years and I'm fine. Shinanigans Serta. What would be cool is if they made a sustainable mattress. You know, cotton sourced from local communities, unbleached cotton, etc. As-is the mattress is made with organic cotton and wrapped in less-chemical free SIDs causing "STUFF" which I guess is good...If you feel that the organic cotton by definition is sustainable cotton..which could easily not be the case.

P.s. Actually with my newfound parent alarm/radar less SIDs it's GREAT, so Leke has an Organic mattress.

What classifies as “green” nowadays

2008-11-29T20:37:00.000-08:00

Possibly anything acually colored green...or off-green

For a couple years now I’ve been wearing glasses, and now and then I find the urge to use lens wipes. For those not visually handicapped, wipes are little pieces of cloth that you can use to clean your glasses . Now call me old fashioned but I’ve never actually used one of these things. I just blow on my glasses and rub the lens on my shirt. I’ve been doing this for years and never have had a scratched lenses.

Flash to yesterday when I am reading the paper and I see a newspaper AD for Wipe-n-clear “Biodegradable lens wipes”. At first I was all “ hey it’s great that this green thing is really catching on”. I mean I’m still waiting for the stuff I use every day to be green, I didn’t even think of green lens wipes, Holy cow.

But then I started to think...The non-green lens wipes are just pieces of cloth. Isn’t "cloth" already biodegradable? What’s new? Do they biodegrade faster? Did the stuff on the old wipes make them non-degradable? I couldn’t find anything anywhere (if somebody does let me know) to justify their green claim except an “*” that said “Lens wipe pouch is not biodegradable”. Oh, and It comes with a plastic desktop canister!!!. Obviously these guys are missing the point. It’s like the marketing department and said “Green is in, put biodegradable on a new green box and charge 20% more, Americans are eat that shiz up”.

Unfortunately people will buy it. But for all you other marketing departments, if you are going to make a clean product, go whole hog. Make a canister or pouch out of recycled metal, paper, fiber. Use organic wipe solution. Plant a tree for each wipe or some gimic like that.

I can get over companies trying to sell me products that I don’t need, but at least try to do a convincing job at making me think I need it.

*Update. I just noticed that the box the wipes come in is 100% post consumer recycled paper. So this product only sucks by 3/4 as much.

Finally a legitimate reason for MAC fans to gush

2008-11-29T19:31:00.000-08:00

Or A reason why my PC just mysteriously shut down

So like many people across the us I was sitting home watching a show saved on my TIVO , then as I as fast forwarding through commercials I saw a spiffy new MAC Ad

Here are some fun facts:

Arsenic-free glass

Mercury-free PVC-free

41% smaller packaging

Highly recyclable aluminum and glass enclosures

Makes your CO2 and Methane farts smell like mint

While watching the video you’ll swear that Apple in their effort for efficiency wastes a heck of a lot of water and aluminum in the development process. Maybe not the best propaganda video Apple….But I still think it’s pretty cool.

http://www.apple.com/macbook/

And the cool environmental report http://images.apple.com/environment/resources/pdf/MacBook-Environmental-Report.pdf

Organic Weisen-Edel Weisse

2008-11-29T19:12:00.000-08:00

Das BRAÜ ist GRÜNE

I’m a big wheat beer fan and when I saw Weisen Edel Weisse in its o-so oldschool bottle I said to myself “this has got to be geed” then right next to It in a more colorful bottle I saw the organic version. I then said to myself “self, not only is the going to be good, it’s going to be self righteous” . I bought 3 bottles and headed home.

It’s a Hefe Weizen and Certified USDA ORGANIC According to Schneider " By law, German brewers must have their production facility in Munich in order to participate in the Oktoberfest. Thus, Schneider had to leave the Oktoberfest in 1942 when their Munich brewery was destroyed in the war. "

The beer is pretty good I must say, and at6.2% alcohol it does a noggin good. I highly recommend drinking while eating some free range steak. For an extra dose of holier than thou recycle the bottle J

http://www.schneider-weisse.de/

Green Hangers

2008-11-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

Green Hangers

I lose, and as a result buy a new set of hangers (5 pack)about once every three months. Either it’s the curly hanging end that breaks off or the dog has some private time with one I leave lying around. I don’t want the chewed up thing near any of my clothes. Well welcome Paper hangers. These babies are made out of 100% recycled paper and don’t use any of the plastic or wire that old-school hangers use. One could get bamboo hangers or wood ones and reuse them…but then you would still get all bent out of shape when they break, or when your buddy steals your shirt or expensive hanger. Sad thing is that these puppies are hard to fine.

Some places to get them:

http://www.greenhanger.com.au/hanger.html
http://www.hangernetwork.com/

Green e-Signatures

2008-10-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

"Save a tree. Don’t print"
"Think Green - Please do not print this email unless you really need to"
"Please reduce waste and do not print this email"

These have been under the signatures in emails that I have been getting lately. They seem pretty good and kindly remind the receiver to not print the email thereby saving some trees. I always thought printing an email, especially if you work on a laptop, as one of the most ridiculous things ever. People always give the lame, “I like to feel the paper", or "it's easier to read" argument. To prevent such faux pas just slap a small note like the ones above in your email signature and jab them with a small jolt of green guilt. Hopefully that will stop the tree killers…or you can add the signature below.

“Think, Don’t print...Stop killing trees jerk”

Greener cleaners

2008-10-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

Arm n' Hammer Essentials
Not only does it clean without "chemicals" it also costs less to ship and by mixing it yourself you feel like you had a hand in keeping the environment safe for another day. They even have a British guy (who doesn’t really sound British) promoting it like an infomercial. Ways to make it better? How about only selling the refills and ...wait they do...Now if they made the bottle out of biodegradable plastic that would be sweet. Check out Essentials