Green Tips

I've been behind on my Green Tip of the Week. Two weeks ago the tip was to buy bars of soap instead of body wash. The packaging for soap bars come in cardboard whereas body wash comes in plastic. Yea sure, you can recycle the plastic, but it will never biodegrade.

This past week's GTW (green tip of the week) was to buy Sun Chips! I absolutely love this brand of chips. Every single time I go to Subway for a sandwich. I personally love the original flavor. Sun Chips are an eco-friendly brand! They power their factory by solar power!

Starting Earth Day this year all of their bags will be 100% biodegradable!! I am so excited. I can plant the bag after enjoying my chips. :) How cool is that? I mean seriously... they are helping reduce landfill waste.

Next week's green tip is to give your e-waste (old computers, cell phones, batteries, tvs, vhs players etc.) to Best Buy!

This picture is of the billboard that is located in Times Square. It is made out of old electronics! Cool huh? Best Buy will take any old electronics that are no longer useful to you. It is free of charge. They will only take 2 appliances per day. I commend them for taking on such a great project!! It is really important that e-waste goes to the right place.

When e-waste gets in our landfills they emit harsh chemicals that harm our health.

Each of these simple little things that you do are supporting the environment!

Update

A while back when we had a lot of rain the mountains got a lot of snow! I took a picture on my way to school. It was gorgeous!

This photo is from the school's website.

A beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day.


Homemade valentines. :)

I'm Missing the Zoo Animals

This morning I was supposed to go to the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. I've had a sore throat since Friday and I thought I would still be ok to go, but when I woke up this morning I had a bad cold as well. :( I decided not to go. I didn't want to get anyone sick and I knew that I wouldn't have as much fun.

I was looking forward to seeing the giraffes and other wildlife animals!

Oh well... I can go another time. My good friend Amanda is sick as well so we want to go another time.
Today I can do something with Hillary! She came home last night for the long weekend. :)

Green Tip #10

Saturday afternoon I planted my eco-plantable January calendar. click here to see where it came from. At Christmas I received a full year desktop calendar that contains wildflower seeds in the paper from my cousin Heather. :)

I can't wait until the wildflowers grow. I hope they are successful. The day after I planted it I checked on it to see how it was doing and discovered it to be ripped apart!! There were paw prints all over the area... apparently some little critter did not like my gardening. I have an idea who this critter was... Mom says that Snicker's gate was left open all night and he could have slipped into the garden area. Haha... of course he would want this!! It's paper! ahaha Snickers loves paper towels. When he saw me planting this he probably thought it was a paper towel. So funny... I guess I can forgive him. I replanted it and hopefully the little bits and pieces will grow.

Saturday evening before going to my friend's 18th birthday party I ran an errand and saw this beautiful sunset. I love how the sky looks just after it has rained.

Green Tip of the Week: Use Burt's Bees products.

The ingredients are natural and the containers are made from recycled plastic. Supporting a company that is earth friendly is a wonderful thing to do. I love Burt's Bees. I always have their lip balm with me. Their radiance shimmer lotion is also great. I love that on the labels of their products they list the percentage of how natural it is.

Have a great week everyone!

Michael Jackson's Earth Song

Last night at the Grammys there was a tribute to MJ. I absolutely LOVED it. I have always known that MJ was a humanitarian but I never knew his political views on the environment. I saw the Earth Song in This Is It, but I absolutely loved the version last night with Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Smokey Robinson and Carrie Underwood.

(the performance starts at 2:06)



This song is so powerful. I wish this video were in better quality, but if you saw it last night you know how amazing the performance was.

Green Tip Of The Week #9

I feel terrible for being such a slacker for not coming up with a green tip of the week! This week I have decided to focus on reusing!

"Anytime you can re-use something instead of buying a new item to replace it, you've done a good deed for the environment."- 100 Ways to Save the World by Johan Tell

My absolute favorite objects to reuse are glass bottles. I love the look of putting a freshly home cut flower in them. It really brightens up the room! Try it. :)

I think we need to take a step back and realize how we buy things. Ask yourself before you buy that new _______ that you have been dying to have. Do you really need it? Can you make it yourself? Most of the time the answer is that you can make do without it.

If you really do need that new _______ make sure that it is durable and will last. Is it coming from a company that benefits your community?

Making your own things is fun! I love to make envelopes out of old paper. I rummaged through the family library and found a really old map book that I decided I would use to make envelopes! They have turned out really cute. The best result of a handmade object is the fact that you made it yourself!

In my local neighborhood there is a bookstore that mainly sells used books. It's called the Book Rack. You can buy books at such a great price. They also allow you to bring gently used books and build "credit" for future purchases. I love it all! :]

In the magazine Real Simple there is a section called "New Uses For Old Things". They come up with such creative ways to reuse everyday household items.

Happy reusing!

Green Tip Of The Week: Buy Music Online!

Buy music from iTunes and other online sources rather than purchasing them from the store. You will save plastic and carbon emissions. An album on iTunes is around $10 and a CD from the store is around $15. Why not?!