Jack Pat Wood | Eco Friendly ideas

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Environmental research and conservation has moved a long way in the last few decades. What was once a fringe movement now involves scientists and research institutes from across the world who try and identify and address the problems caused by our presence on the environment.

Once such thinktank is Worldwatch, a leading research institute that tries to encourage green initiatives in business and society. They issues advice into the latest ways people go green and here are their latest top ten ways to become more eco friendly and save money:

1. Save Energy – They advise you take measures to turn down your thermostat, use energy saving lightbulbs and use eco friendly products and methods when you wash clothes.

2. Save water – they emphasise the importance of water conservation and how showering instead of bathing can drastically reduce our water consumption

3. Save petrol – walking and cycling are possible replacements for he car on many journeys, they suggest.

4. Think about the environment when you eat – Worldwatch suggest you cut back on the meat in your diet as the rearing of livestock has quite a large impact on the environment.

5. Don’t drink bottled water – the thinktank suggests that bottled water creates a lot of waste with empty bottles filling landfills.

6. Buy second hand – by recycling other people’s unwanted items you’ll save money and help the environment.

7.Borrow when possible, they recommend using libraries rather than buying books and hiring tools as examples.

8.Buy longer lasting products and not things that won’t last. Eco-friendly products will save money in the long run too.

9. Try not to dispose of electronics – they urge you to keep hold of old electronics because of the environmental impact of some of the metals and chemicals that make up their composition.

10. Their final suggestion is to try and make your own cleaning products instead of buying harmful cleaners

For more information from Worldwatch why not visit their website.

Richard N Williams is interested in green innovations and writes about them. Please visit our website if you are interested in Eco-friendly ideas or other eco-friendly products

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When you want to lower your heating bills or you want to make an environmental friendly impact, you have several options available. Most people look to saving money as the overwhelming factor in making eco-friendly lifestyle changes; money has always influenced the way people do things or, in some cases, not do things. These changes are very important in today’s society.

Getting Your Home Winter Weather Ready – Did you know that people tend to waste a lot of energy in the winter because they did not prep their home for the cold months? If you spend time caulking and sealing doors and windows, you can save yourself a lot of money but it must be done before the first initial cold snap. Before you waste energy and money, grab those reusable shopping bags and purchase sealing products to help you in your project. You certainly don’t want to send more money off to the electric/gas company during the winter months.

Utilize The Home’s Fireplace – Does your home have a fireplace? If so, make sure you use it. If you don’t, then you’re wasting a great heating resource. It shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who has wood scraps or works in urban harvesting. When you have an urban harvester, you know the wood you get is recycled. Keep in mind that it doesn’t take a lot of money to heat your home.

Wood/Pellet Stoves – There was a time that wood burning stoves were popular ways to heat a home; the same is true today. Wood stoves can be very expensive initially so many people will opt for pellet stoves.

Bio Diesel - Have you been an eco-friendly person using reusable bags for quite some time? If so, then you may want to use bio diesel as an option to heat your home.

Radiant Heating – If you want a system that will heat the ceiling, floors and walls of your house directly, then you’re going to want a radiant heating unit as your heating source. It’s highly more effective at heating a home than forced air heating and baseboard heating.

Solar Heating – You can always opt for solar heating but it’s important to keep in mind that the cost can be highly expensive initially. In the end, it pays for itself time and again. It’s not uncommon for new home developments to have this as a heating option. Passive solar heating is another alternative that allows you to take in as much sun as possible through your windows.

Replacing Windows – Rather than using single paned windows, go with double paned ones. These windows can reduce the amount of heat you lose as well as make your home eco-friendly.

Put On Clothes – Sometimes the most effective method of keeping warm is just adding more clothes to your body and placing slippers/socks on your feet. Not only will it keep you warm but it also keeps you from having to turn up your thermostat; thus, saving you money in the long run.

If you want to save money and help the environment, the smartest thing you can do is go green. Don’t just stop with the organic cotton reusable bags at your local grocery store. Make your home energy efficient since saving energy goes a very long way.

Eliza Reeder writes articles that deal with environmental concerns and eco-friendly living. She encourages everyone to help protect our planet’s future by doing things like using reusable dry cleaning bags. You can find more eco-friendly living tips on her reusable bags site.

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There are two great points about turning your home eco friendly.  The first is that you will be helping to make the world a better place because you will be reducing your carbon footprint.  The lower that you get your levels of trash and the less resources that you consume, the better off the Earth will be for this.  You are looking to make as small of an impact as you can upon the environment to make sure that you are going to leave it in tact for as long as you can.  This is not the immediate benefit that you will receive from an eco friendly home, however, which is what inspires most people to start adopting greener practices.  The amount of money that you can save from an eco friendly lifestyle is significant enough to help you make a change.

 

You could first look to a few different areas when you are hoping to figure out how you can make the biggest difference with your eco friendly home.  The smallest changes which you can make can actually have some of the biggest impact.  The simple decision to start using cloth towels instead of disposable paper towels can make a huge difference in the final amount of trash output which you have in a year.  You should also change the type of cleaning products that you are using.  Traditional cleaners, while they may be strong, can have detrimental effects on both the environment and your health because of the products found within.  When you make your home eco friendly, however, you can start using safer products all of the time.

 

An eco friendly home will also want to look at the levels of energy consumption which they are experiencing.  Appliances are one of the biggest drains on making your home eco friendly, although life as you know it will depend on these appliances.  If you make the switch, however, to eco friendly energy efficient appliances, you can begin to start making less of a carbon footprint on the environment.  The more steps that you take to cut back the level of your consumption, the easier it will ultimately be for you to do your part for the environment.  On top of this, the fact that you are using less energy means that you will pay less for your bills every single month.

 

Ultimately, turning your home eco friendly will take a commitment on your part to always do what is needed to help reduce, reuse, and recycle.  You are going to need to do everything you can to help cut back.  You will be immediately rewarded by having an eco friendly home, however, as the money that you save will immediately start to present itself.  Ultimately, your change is going to be one which has a direct impact on both the world and on your finances.  The more confidence which you have in your actions, the better you will be able to implement them into every aspect of your life and help make the world better one day at a time.

An Eco friendly home is going to give you the ability to save money on your monthly bills. Visit HomeEcoFriendly website to discover exactly how you can turn your own Home eco friendly.

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The Skynde from adidas by Stella McCartney:
The Eco Friendly Child of the Barricade V

Clothing and shoe production is damaging the planet too!

It seems that in the last few years, the environment has forced it’s way into most people’s consciousness from the sheer weight of bleak predictions about the implications of rapid global temperature rise.

The gas-guzzling motor car has been in the firing line for longer, but now there is a growing awareness that everything we buy has a greater or lesser effect on the well-being of the environment, our fellow human beings and animals.

The clothing and shoe industries have long escaped any negative scrutiny, but recently it’s become clear that their environmental impact is as damaging as any other. Many chemicals traditionally employed to treat and dye fabrics are carcinogenic and serious pollutants if allowed to escape to rivers and streams. This equally applies to the chemicals used to tan leather in shoe uppers and the petroleum based rubber used in the soles.

Consumerism and the move to the east

The problem has worsened with the gradual shift in production from the relatively controlled, (but costly), working environments in the West, to the low labor cost ’sweat shops’ of some Asian countries. Here, human and animal resources can be exploited beyond the reach of the umbrella of compassionate and humanitarian health and safety legislation many of us take for granted.

The explosion in ‘consumerism’ in recent decades has fueled these changes as people, quite reasonably, want to enjoy the benefits of as many competitively priced products as possible. For example, if you’re a woman tennis player, and you see your favourite tennis player, Ana Ivanovic wearing adidas’ Barricade V women’s tennis shoe on television, and your friend at the tennis club buys a pair, you are naturally inclined to want to buy a pair for yourself, (at the best possible price), to keep up.

The enormous multi-national companies catering to this demand know that to stay in business they must compete in every area, not least price. They must be keenly aware of their rival’s like-for-like athletic shoe pricing.

The ‘Big Boys’ respond to heightened public awareness

However, with the sudden leap in the population’s awareness of ecological issues, ‘normal’ business considerations for these companies have subtly changed, as evidenced by the recent almost simultaneous declarations by the ‘big two’ sports apparel manufacturers, adidas and Nike, that they are ceasing to source leather and other raw materials from any country where any collateral damage has been done to the rain forests. There’s no point in designing, producing and marketing a fantastic sneaker at a great price, only to throw away many of these ‘positives’ by being associated with practises people now perceive as seriously detrimental to the planet and eventually even their own health and well-being.

To better align themselves with public opinion, both adidas and Nike now produce athletic shoes with eco-friendly considerations. The pressures have probably been slightly greater on adidas as it’s a German based company, and Germany has one of the most powerful green movements in the world. In fact Germany’s ‘Blue Angel’, formed in 1978 and composed of a group of 13 people representing diverse views across the media, industry, unions and the environment, was the world’s first body that attempted to label products and services according to their eco-friendly, (or otherwise), content.

‘Reuse a shoe’ to recycle, reform and replace

However, Nike were the first off the mark with their ‘Reuse a shoe’ program in 1993. They collect old worn-out athletic shoes to disassemble and then to recycle and reform into a material suitable for the construction of running tracks, court surfaces and playgrounds.

They also manufacture the ‘Trash Talk’ shoe composed of shop floor off-cuts, leather and synthetic leather compounds and shoe soles composed of reformed rubber from recycled old athletic shoes.

The Stan Smith Grun Shoe, (German for green), is one of adidas’ contributions to the growing demand for environmentally friendly shoes. It is a much greener version of an already successful mass-produced shoe.

How Green Can You Be?

Unfortunately, for any manufacturer aiming to be ‘totally’ eco friendly in their shoe production, the nature of the process is very complex and a wholly ‘green’ shoe is unrealistic for most, as the ‘natural’ alternatives would make the venture uneconomic. Many high volume shoes are produced with a combination of traditional raw materials with the more economically viable greener ones, which is a step in the right direction. (Excuse the pun).

A natural ‘by-product’ of concern for eco friendly shoe production is vegetarian or vegan shoes, as toxic leather treatments are replaced by less dangerous plant- based synthetic leathers. Indeed it could be argued that as ‘animal agriculture’ is the largest single contributor to global warming, these shoes are the only alternative to those serious about preventing it.

Certainly, farmed animals require a disproportionate amount of resources for the meat/leather that they produce compared to the plant alternatives, and the methane they readily produce is 23 times more efficient at storing the sun’s rays than carbon dioxide.

Panda Food, Lady Bugs and Rice Husks provide some answers!

There are a number of smaller shoe companies that by their very nature are able to create products with next to no environmental impact. They use materials such as tree-tapped rubber, (not chemical), bamboo, hemp and organic cotton.

Bamboo and hemp are fast growing hardy plants that don’t need careful nurturing or rich soils. Their natural fibers can be woven to produce materials that are hard wearing, water resistant yet breathable, lightweight and easy to clean. Organic cotton is produced without recourse to pesticides that eventually pollute many of the world’s watercourses. Organic cotton farmers use natural pest control methods like introducing Ladybugs to their crops!

Boston based environmentally conscious shoe company, ‘New Balance’ even add rice husks to their soles to reduce the rubber requirement, whilst similarly aware ‘Keen’ add natural cork. New Balance also score environmental ‘plus points’ for keeping shoe production wholly within the US despite probable cost advantages of production overseas.

Some Seriously Earth-Friendly Businesses

Some shoe manufacturers center their entire businesses around an environmental awareness. A few worthy of note include ‘Patagonia’ who give 1% of their income to help preserve and restore the environment. ‘Chaco’ purchase wind-powered green certificates to cover their entire yearly electrical usage, and ‘Toms’ donates a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair bought from them!

All these companies seem to have core considerations that the earth must be protected, the people producing their products must be valued and cared for, and the end product must be built to last, to counteract the ‘use it up, throw it out’ culture that has prevailed lately.

It is vitally important that the trend towards earth-friendly consumption is not just a fad, and that some of the shortcomings of plant-based clothing and shoes can be overcome, like the difficulty in infusing strong colors in vegetable-based fabrics without recourse to nasty chemicals.

Even now eco friendly athletic shoe alternatives are mainly confined to sneakers and general use sports shoes, whereas specialized running, basketball or tennis shoes are still made the old way.

The mechanism of change, if it happens, will stem from informed individual decisions, which when taken en masse, will change buying patterns and reward companies brave and enlightened enough to give us the choices we want and need, to minimize the daily damage we are doing to our fragile planet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheri Britton is dedicated to highlighting all that’s best and new in women’s tennis clothes, women’s tennis shoes and tennis bags for women and any and everything of interest to a women who wants to look stylish and fashionable on court.
She’s particularly interested in eco and animal friendly tennis clothing and footwear, especially the creations of fashion designer Stella McCartney.

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Too many people are hesitant to buy eco friendly because they think that eco friendly products are expensive.  This is usually not the case.  These environmentally safer products will usually cost the same amount as their counterparts, they may simple require a little more work on your part.  For example, it is smarter to use dish towels and cloth napkins over disposable paper ones.  You will not be contributing the level of trash that you once did, which is important.  The only catch is that you will have to wash these cloth napkins on a regular basis, which means that you are going to need to work a little harder for this eco friendly lifestyle.

 

It can be beneficial, however, because you are saving a great deal of money over time on top of the good you will be doing for the environment.  To use the example of cloth napkins once more, when you use these products, you will be making a one-time purchase of the napkins.  They should continue to last you for years into the future.  The paper napkins, while convenient, will need to be replaced over and over again, which can grow expensive.  Therefore, when you buy eco friendly, you are helping to save yourself money on top of everything.

 

You will not be able to purchase eco friendly products, however, unless you know what you are actually looking for.  This will play a major role in helping you to make a difference in your lifestyle.  You are going to need to find the products which will still help you maintain your normal quality of life without forcing you to make major sacrifices.  For this reason, looking into how to buy eco friendly products is going to be important.  You will need to make sure that you are still getting the items which you need.

 

The first thing you need to do when trying to find eco friendly products for your home is to look at the various products that could easily be replaced.  This will relate to the cleaning products you buy, the cloths which you use to clean up messes, and the light bulbs which you normally purchase.  Once you make these small changes, you can look to larger ways to buy eco friendly purchases.  This might be the use of rechargeable batteries, energy efficient appliances, and upgrades to your vehicle which can help you extend your gas mileage.

 

Ultimately, you are going to discover that the more eco friendly products that you buy, the more money you will save.  Whether you are buying in bulk, which can save you money over time because you are not regularly replacing items, or whether you are buying smarter items, you can save money because you are not constantly replacing things as you did before.  When you buy eco friendly appliances, you are going to save on your electric bill by using less resources.  That will help you to make an overall difference, not only on the world, but on your wallet as well.

Turning to Eco friendly products can help you save money. Visit Home Eco Friendly to discover how to buy eco friendly items when you need them the most.

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