One of the most oft recommended ways to reduce your energy consumption is to begin using compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs.  We have recommended this purchase both in the Greener Under Twenty and in the Green Life Project series.  

Many will bring up that the bulbs contain mercury, which is true.  However, they can be recycled at more and more places, including Home Depot stores.  And even if they don’t make it to the recycling center, which is bad, because they should go there, there is still less mercury being emitted by coal-fired power plants due each bulb replacing a less efficient incandescent bulb.

So, they’re much more efficient and can be recycled, taking away that mercury complaint, which makes this seem as if it might be a no-brainer.  Not so fast.  It’s not so simple!

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been touted recently as another contender for replacing our lights.  They are even more efficient than CFL bulbs, however are much more expensive than CFLs which are usually more expensive than incandescent bulbs.

Plus, Matthew Phillips sent me this story from the Times of London (‘Green’ Lightbulbs Poison Workers) last week, which highlights workers being poisoned due to working with the mercury in the bulbs in factories in China.  

The U.S. citizenry is again gaining interest in what they are eating and for various reasons.  Some are interested in the financial benefits of starting your own garden, others are concerned about their health, and many are concerned about the negative impact most of our agricultural and grocery industries are having on our environment.  

So, although I have not yet seen the film, Food, Inc., which features the likes of Michael Pollan (who, by the way, I get to hear speak at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago next Monday), it seems to focus on many of the problems with our food industry, most specifically, its production.

Check out the trailer below and let me know what you think!

Your detergent doesn't have to be sickly blue like this one! Make the switch to something more natural!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

||Week Nine||

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to purchase a green laundry detergent.

Green Life Project is into full swing and if you’re following along, I hope that you’re implementing these changes on a week-by-week basis, taking advantage of a gradual process our articles are meant to guide you through toward a more sustainable life.

And we’re focusing mostly on very simple choices you can make — many of them done at the grocery store, where it’s an easy difference in decision.

What’s next up for us?  Well, we’ve concentrated so far mostly on consuming less, consuming smarter, and making less waste.  So for example, using a metal water bottle will cut down on the amount of waste you produce (or that produced on your behalf) and using recycled paper toilet paper helps reduce the number of trees that get cut down, processed, and used for your dirty deeds.

Similar to when we recommended a switch to a greener dish soap, now we’re recommending that you change to a more sustainable laundry detergent.  The guidelines for choosing a greener laundry detergent are similar to those we used for a more sustainable dish soap.  Back then, I had this to say:

Yes, even your crayons can be recycled!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their lives in order to gradually green their lives.

||Week Eight||

This week’s green life project action item is to find one or more odd item you normally throw into the garbage and begin recycling it.

You’re reading about helping to improve your envirohuman impact and I suspect that you already recycle some things.  Most likely, you recycle such items as glass, metal cans, paper and cardboard, and plastic.  If you are not already doing that, please join in because those tend to be the simple ones!

We’re not going to concentrate on the simple stuff that you can recycle in this article.  Rather, let’s take a look at some of the small pieces of trash in your life that you could be recycling but maybe didn’t know that you could.  

We create mounds of plastic, metal, paper, and plastic waste (okay, so, “mounds,” is an understatement) but there are so many other sundry items your everyday recycler may not accept but that you could be giving a second life to by sending to a special recycler.

Small plastic garbage? Each month, more than 45 tons of CDs become obsolete—outdated, useless, or unwanted. What to do with them and their cases?

I just received an email with the following questions regarding recycling CDs and their cases:

How would I recycle plastic CD cases?  Can I just chuck the whole CD into the recycling bin?

Admittedly, I didn’t know the answer and needed to do some research.  After wading through some how-to crafts, I found the answer I was looking for.  Read on!

How would I recycle CD plastic covers?

Beyond, “I don’t know,” my first reaction to this question was that, sure, as the second question implies, you can put them into your general recycling bin and send them off with whatever cans, bottles, and paper you put by the curb or deliver to a recycling center.

However, I was skeptical of this actually working, because I could not find a recycling symbol and plastic type labeled on my jewel CD cases.

So, while some might have such a symbol, some do not.  I’m concerned that

Recycled paper toilet paper no longer looks like the rough-as-a-cob stuff pictured here. You can find TP made from recycled paper that is actually soft!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.  If you’re just joining us, feel free to jump right in here on week five — you can catch up later!

||Week Five||

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to begin purchasing 100% recycled content toilet paper.

A popular recent New York Times article states that, “In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands.”

What should you do?  Wipe your butt — with a green toilet paper!

Purchase a 100% recycled content toilet paper.  Try to find one with at least 50% post-consumer product and one which was not manufactured using chlorine-based bleach.

But it’s toilet paper.  Why does it matter what I flush down the toilet?

As we work toward personal sustainability, we have to look beyond our own backsides.

Check it out these four must-read bullet points regarding the, “toilet tissue issue,” (mostly from the same New York Times article) and see how your use of a such a seemingly mundane product could be so very damaging to our environment!

You don't have to sacrifice your suds when you switch to a greener dish soap!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

||Week Four||

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to purchase a green dish soap. This is yet another simple step toward a more sustainable you!

Where to start? Here are some broad, basic guidelines to use for a greener dish soap:

1. First, try to get a dye-free, frangrance-free soap.
2. Second, attempt to find a dish soap with plant-based surfactants, such as coconut-based ones.
3. A third, related item to look for

We ran a story earlier this weekend that featured a video of various diapers decomposing over the course of one year.  While the regular plastic-based diapers looked virtually identical after one year compared to when they started, one diaper had completely disappeared!

That magical, disappearing diaper was the gDiaper!  Demand for more information on this super-diaper quickly led to us posting a follow-up article that solely focused on the gDiaper so here it is!

First, I found out about gDiapers through my wife who is a neo-natal intensive care nurse at one of the premiere children’s hospitals in the United States.  While we don’t have any children yet, she works with babies on a daily basis — changing diapers, feeding, cleaning, and other care — many on premature babies.

She comes home and says “Hey have you heard about gDiapers?  They’re an earth-friendly, disposable diaper that fits into these really cute, cloth exteriors.”

Did you know? Every day, Americans send 50 million dirty diapers to landfills.  That’s right, 50 million every day.  That’s approximately 20 Billion each year!  Guess how many years it takes for each one of those 20 Billion turd receptacles to decompose? <answer at bottom of post>

Check out the following video which comes to us from gDiapers, which makes eco-friendly plastic-free baby diapers (no adult versions that I could find LOLZ).  Basically, it shows 3 different types of diapers decomposing over the course of one year.  The results: truly eye-opening!

Environ|Mental is a series of posts regarding changing your mentality about the environment.

Adjust your environmentality!

What?  Don’t recycle plastic?  A website promoting greener living telling you not to recycle?

Kind of…  but not really.  Read on!

Actually, I’m telling you to think about not even needing to recycle plastic — that is, when possible, avoid using plastic altogether.

Don’t let plastic into your life!

Plastic is difficult and costly to recycle, it degrades each time that it is recycled, and it takes many lifetimes to break down. So, when you can, stop using it! Just cut it out of your life!  Use metal, use wood, don’t use it at all!  Don’t buy that gadget.  Don’t pull that plastic bag off the roll.  Give