Simple Steps

Find a green cleaning product, the easy way.

I love, LOVE when other people vet things and make life easier for me. It’s important to trust the source doing the vetting, and I do look through the process to make sure it sounds reasonable and not like they are skimming or manipulating data. Last week the Environmental Working Group released its new online Guide to Healthy Cleaning. They are known for their database on skincare products already and this time their scientists tackled products that claim to be chemical free, non-toxic, natural, and their non-organic counterparts. Due to yet another US regulation gap, home cleaning products are NOT required to list any ingredients harmful or otherwise on their labels (disgusting right). OSHA only regulates workplace products, so while you may see ingredients on the back of some spray bottles you have at home, these are entirely voluntary and many companies leave out a few things they aren’t proud of! For instance, formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen and illegal in Europe is found in 409. Way to go USA.

EWG’s scientists went to work and spent 14 months doing a deep dive into over 2,000 products and assessing them against both national and international toxicity data sources. The full process of their research is described here.

Some brands on the A list:

Seventh Generation, Dr. Bronner, and Green Shield. Every product from Whole Foods brand was an A or a B and Mrs. Meyer’s got Bs across the board.

And brands that are doing bad things to you, from the F list:

BabyGanics, Simple Green, Tide, Gain, Downy, All, Green Works dish soap, Method dish soap, Palmolive, Cascade, and a host of others.

 

Check out EWG’s full list to see where your products rank.

 

Perhaps an eco baby gift?

Leah (yes the Leah who wrote about period cups) is preggers!! I’m super excited for her and her hubby and my mind obviously went straight to baby gifts. We sent them a few PeopleTowels in the mail (honestly, who doesn’t need a PeopleTowel) because I’ve heard babies are messy and then we put together this gem:

 

Things started off good; I found a Burt’s Bees Baby Bee set while at Target. I’ve been iffy on Burt’s since they were bought by Clorox, but still use a few of their products with positive GoodGuide ratings. This set contained no parabens, no fragrances, no sulfates, no phthalates, no petrochemicals. It was certified cruelty-free AND the tray was made from potato starch and the box is 60% post-consumer content. It also seemed to contain all of those things you need for a baby (diaper cream, baby shampoo, you know).

I was feeling pretty good until I took a tour down the baby clothing isle and ended up with this adorable duck face baby towel. I probably should have bought a similar organic cotton version online (if I was being truly eco) but the thing was so damn cute. I made up for it by then heading to my new favorite reuse center SCRAP. I LOVE this place. It only sells reused crafty things and it also is a non-profit that focuses on getting art donations to low-income schools and teachers. I browsed around and found half a roll of yellow wrapping paper and a cute wicker baby carriage (I also bought a hurricane candle holder, several items to make a jewelry board, another basket, and a hangy thing with hooks and the total was $6).  I got home, wrapped everything together with some twine that was once on a present of mine, made a card out of recycled paper (scroll style, sweet right), and felt pretty smug about myself.

That was until I spent an hour researching D–Limonene.  I figured I should check GoodGuide before I actually gave them the present, and while most of the BB products I use score an 8 in health, several of the items in the Baby Bee box were at a 4 (environment and social categories were high so overall scores were 6). Crap. The reason was the same in each category: D-Limonene, a completely natural ingredient found in lemons (which is why I hate that meaningless word natural!). I read EPA reports, Scorecard summaries, and in my opinion the research is sketchy and it seems pretty harmless. It hasn’t really been proven to do anything bad. And, many doctors and naturopaths recommended ingesting it for cancer prevention, as a digestive aid, and to treat gallstones. It’s found in almost every food that has a citrus flavor (gum, pudding, OJ) and the EPA classifies it as low-toxicity. The best summary article can be found here.

I still gave Leah the present and will let her make the choice on whether to return it, but I did mentally kick myself for not pulling out the GoodGuide app at Target and figuring all of this out before purchasing it. I think this also just goes to show that no matter how hard you try, you very often will not get it all right.

I’m in love with our new table.

People seem to think that the eco-friendly option is always the more expensive one. I’m sure this stems from years ago when anything organic or Fair Trade was 50% more (side note market demand is starting to really even some things out!).

One eco-friendly item that isn’t more expensive than its regular counterpart: our fabulous new kitchen table. I was strolling through SF’s Indie-mart, a mecca for the local/eco minded, and came across J and his shop The Dirt Floor Studio. My breath caught as I slid my fingers across a reddish-brown farm table with dark knots, wide beams, exposed screw heads, and bench seats. I fell in love, but it looked like something I could never afford. I have a phobia of talking to any sales-type person if I know I can’t buy what they’re selling. However, for this table, I pushed my limits. We didn’t talk dollars. We talked reclaimed wood, reuse, and how he could make something to fit any budget. (Any budget I thought? Even a recent grad student’s?!). I took his card.

He seemed so nice and honest that I found myself working up the nerve to call him a few days later. I paced around the apartment waiting for dollar signs that would crush my dream of owning this or a similar table. I researched similar reclaimed tables at Pottery Barn and at antique stores and the prices for one bench SEAT started at $549 (the same size table at Pottery Barn would have been $2200). Our budget was about $600, crap.

I panicked as I told him this over the phone, but all I heard was ‘ok, I can work with that.’ YES! We chatted further – he could get less fancy reclaimed wood and joinery; there is a way. We had another phone call and a few emails as I saw pictures of his work and pointed out things I liked. This all led straight back to the original table I saw. After one of our chats, J told me he would sell us THE farm table for $700 with the two benches included. He also lowered the table and expanded the benches for no additional cost to fit with our space and the style we had in mind.

Less than a week later, we had this gorgeous piece of art to light up our living room. The wood came from an old barn in Nevada, he built it by hand, and though ours has a polyurethane seal because it is a soft wood, many of his tables instead are finished with a hot linseed oil soak, multiple rubs of Tung oil with a beeswax top rub. So, buy local, buy reused, chat with the artist. The result can be incredibly unique.

Giveaway winners announced!!!!

Thanks to those of you who participated in the giveaway by posting on facebook, sending me emails, tweeting at me and leaving a comment. It was so much fun to read all the green you’ll be up to this month!

I truly loved each goal but picked two winners that will benefit specifically from having PeopleTowels. I also picked these two because their September green is easy to turn into long-term green.

The first winner is Pupfiction who is committing to kick her paper towel habit! With a toddler at home, I’m sure paper towels seem crucial and hope PTs are just the thing to help! Our second winner is Kristin, who will find PTs useful at work. Her office has tons of paper towel and napkin waste (living in San Fran I forget that not every city has office composting!) and these reusable gems will help keep her hands clean and dry and her garbage can empty. Ladies, please let us know if these PTs come in handy!

Honorable mention goes out to Dave who is only going to eat only organic veggies – love that you’ll be pesticide free! Thanks again to everyone who entered, next month I’ll be giving a way a Bioserie compostable iPhone cover (in PINK!)!

Starting the Week Off Right- GGG 1st Giveaway!

In addition to sharing green tips, I’m now in a fun place where I can share some of my favorite green items! We’re starting off small, but have even more great green gifts coming down the line this fall.

For our first giveaway we have two sets (2 in each set) of awesome on-the-go alternatives to paper towels, PeopleTowels.

I use mine ALL the time, as a place to dry my hands in the kitchen, bathroom at work, and as a napkin/spill remedy (I spill a lot…).

PeopleTowels are not only absorbant, convenient, and colorful, they are also 100% Organic cotton (thus compostable) and Fair Trade Certified (my favorite certification!). I am giving away two of these PeopleTowels 2 Packs (in Sustain, Not a Tree, Blue, and Celebrate Earth Day Everyday prints).

To enter: tweet this article and let me know the one simple step you are going to take this September to be green. Make sure to cc @Gudergoesgreen! No Twitter? Then post a comment with your simple green step below.  I’ll announce a winner by Sept. 1!

A Move Made Green

We have moved, yet again. This time (luckily) we only moved across town, instead of across the country. While I have no tips for moving across country except to not ship anything breakable, ever, I do have some easy ways to stay green if you’re moving somewhere close by.

First, you do not need bubble wrap, newspaper, or any packaging materials that will just end up in the trash. Use your clothes instead! I wrapped every glass, dish, picture frame, and even Nana’s china platters in clothes, towels, and sheets that were already coming along. It saves you a ton of excess material waste and cost, is easier, and as long as you are not shipping the boxes (nothing survives shipping no matter how you wrap it), it stays safe. 100% of the items we moved across town wrapped in clothes made it perfectly intact. To wrap a glass, I like to use a T-shirt. I stick one sleeve inside the glass, then roll the it up. I put jeans or pants in the bottom and top of the box with layers of these T-shirted dishes inside.

 

 

 

 

 

We also buy bankers boxes that can be reused over and over again instead of shipping boxes. While the previous bankers boxes didn’t make it across country (you can’t ship them because of the handles/top), we used our last ones for 3 moves and storage and know we’ll get a lot of use out of these new ones too. They are 65% post-consumer recycled (the good kind remember!) at Staples. We also labeled them generically as ‘bathroom, bedroom, living room, storage, or kitchen’ as there is almost no chance next time you move you’ll put the same exact things in each box, but you can easily put items from the same room in each box. If you’re moving across town or driving to another state you don’t really need to know what exactly is in each box, only where you should put it. The bankers boxes also fold and unfold for easy storage. We also used reusable bags, boxes, and suitcases that we had around the house and are proud to say we only used 1 garbage bag (I’ve seen some people move with ALL garbage bags) that we then promptly put into our garbage bin to reuse!

Moving is also a perfect time for purging and donating what you don’t need to your local reuse center – in our case GoodWill. Those pants you’re saving to wear for that one special occasion that hasn’t happened in 3 years, the shoes that don’t go with anything, and even that frying pan that you bought at Target for $10 but don’t use because you were given really nice pans as a gift – they all will be put to great use by others!

Finally day-of details. Instead of borrowing friends cars and moving things piecemeal, we rented a UHaul for $20 and moved everything in one shot (less gas = less pollution = less GHGs). We also hired day laborers from SF Day Labor, a worker-led nonprofit that allows those with barriers to employment (language, education, prior life choices, etc) a place to come together and organize. The nonprofit pays the workers 100% of the dollars we gave them (they keep themselves afloat through grants and private funding), and the workers were fantastic (and cheap!). Two movers for 3 hours each was only $100 total and it felt great to be able to employ a fellow San Franciscan who really wanted to work. Check into these type of organizations (another larger one in SF is Delancy Street which employees only ex-convicts), as you get really reliable people trying to turn their lives around. What better way to support the sustainability of your city or town?

A Leg-Powered Vacation

I’m going to skip the ‘sorry I took a few months off to travel, get engaged, get a new job, get a new apartment, etc post’ and just jump right back in. Here’s hoping you will too!

My (now) fiancee and I have been dating for 3.5 years and until just a few weeks ago, we had never been on vacation. This was primarily due to him starting a company and me going to grad school (thus one of us was always super poor), but also because we did long distance for almost 3 of those years. Since we were always hoping a bus (and then later a plane) to visit each other, going elsewhere wasn’t in the cards. Due to the lack of fun trips together, we knew we had to really kick vacation’s ass, and we wanted it to have an eco-component.

Well, our vacation kicked our ass (literally and otherwise), but it was truly awesome. We decided to bicycle our way through Tuscany Italy for an 8 day leg-powered adventure! We used a company a friend had recommended, EcoRent, who rented us the bicycles, helped plan our route, and even set up hotels, villas, and farmhouses in each destination spot. We started in Calci and made our way to Casciana Terme, Volterra (no vampires encountered), Pomarance, Castagneto Carducci, Pomaia, and Pisa – and lots of towns in between!

We biked about 40 miles per day through medieval villages, vineyards, farmland, 10 person towns, and fell in love with the wine, the pizza, the people, the riding, and even more with each other. Experiencing a country on bike is really beyond words. You don’t have a car window to block out the sounds, the smells, the HEAT, but you can still cover so much ground in a day. You truly get to SEE and FEEL the place you are visiting. We got to stop and do both an olive oil tasting and wine tasting at local farms! Due to the 90 degree days we had to wake up and get on the road by 6am, and were usually finished with the ride by noon. While much of the trip was simply magical, I did have two breakdowns – one of which resulted in a lot of tears and throwing my bike into the woods, and the other resulted in me calling Ecorent to come bring me up the last 9km hill 🙂 I think that’s fair though given the conditions.

I would definitely do it again (although not in the heat of summer!) because it left me feeling so proud of my body. Our legs, lungs, hearts, and attitudes got us so far each day. It was also an incredible team-building activity as we learned the right ways to encourage and push each other; this definitely took a few days to figure out. Each morning it was me, my fiancee, two bikes, and a map and we had to get ourselves from A to B. It really felt like survival training as we had to focus on making sure we had enough food, water, and shelter when it became too hot.

While it wasn’t completely energy-free (a diesel van moved our luggage from point to point along with other bikers’ things doing similar trips), we ate extremely local, reused what we could, used the sun to dry out our laundry, and tried to keep our waste to a minimum. One of the best parts of Tuscany is that everything you find to eat is local. I did end up eating meat (and now I remember how good salami is!), cheese, and bread – three things I don’t normally eat, as there wasn’t much of an option in the small towns (tofu does not exist there ha). But, it was delicious, and fresh, from the butcher down the street, and I felt good to be supporting the local economy. Since returning to SF I have also returned to vegetarianism but it was quite fun to eat like a local, I’ll admit.

Biking through Toscana!

More summer stories coming soon 🙂

Get Your Green On This Earth Day!

Earth Day, this Sunday the 22nd, is a great time to dive in if you’ve been on the edge of getting into green, make a stronger pledge if you’re further down the spectrum, and CELEBRATE!  Earth Day is your chance to honor the hard work we’ve made happen so far, learn new ways to go forward, and make commitments to keep change moving. It’s also a just great day for a party!

One of my first teenage Earth Day celebrations included a concert at the Meadows in CT, two years ago I planted trees in Staten Island, and this year I’ll be at Ocean Beach in SF cleaning up trash. You can get involved wherever you live! Check out an ED festival, volunteer with a group, or do something at home. The EPA’s list of Earth Day events and volunteer opportunities  lists ways to get involved in each state (just click on your region)! This is the best list I’ve found so far, although Sierra Club does have some cool events in a few cities as well.

If you’re in SF you should definitely join me at SF Earth Day at the Civic Center!

How will you celebrate?!

Easy Ways to Go Greener at Home—This Earth Day!

Plant a tree. This is one of the easiest and best things you can do to make an impact. You’re taking carbon out of the air and providing oxygen and habitat!

Garden! Start an herb garden or just get planting. It’ll be amazing to feel soil between your fingers, I promise.

Get on your bike or go for a walk to do your errands and get some exercise in the process!

Buy that reusable water bottle, now it’s seriously time.

Time to purchase that Energy Star certified appliance you’ve been craving?

Is there a farmers market close by you can check out?

REUSE! Check craigslist, go to second-hand stores and tag sales, or look to borrow before purchasing something new.

Teach your kids about the Earth, recycling, and not wasting. We are definitely going to need their help!

Swing and a Miss: Compostable Sponges Suck.

A friend told me that she tired out Leah’s ‘cup’ and had a hard time with it, but didn’t want to comment about something ‘not working’. I told her to comment away because the things that don’t work are the ones we need to focus our energy on! Sometimes you might need a different explanation, and often the product itself still needs a little tweaking, but that’s how we’ll get to real change. Learning and trying things, seeing how they work, and advocating to make them better. I do try pretty hard to find something that does work in a ‘green category’ before I post, but I often go through a few losers on the way.

One such category is coming up all losers. I still haven’t found a compostable sponge that doesn’t suck. Sponges are one of those annoying trash items that I know must have a suitable green option. I envision all the sponges I’ve used in my lifetime sitting in a landfill in Pennsylvania (because that’s where NYC ships their trash), and it irks me. But, I’ve gone through a few of these bad boys and they’re all completely useless. They tend to absorb water and can clean things that don’t have any build up on them, but a dirty pan after it’s been in the oven, no chance. Or the pot we used to cook rice (I know I need a rice cooker), scrubbed and scrubbed; still nothing.

I’ve tried microfiber, I tried this adorable gem from a farmer’s co-op (thanks Mary!), and I’ve tried Trader Joe’s cellulose sponges. Fine to clean off a non-sticky item, but when it comes to the hard stuff (even if I soak it), fail, fail, fail.

The search will continue and I hope to post an update someday. If anyone finds something that works, let me know!

GUEST POST: Green Mascara

Hey, I’m Jen. I had a professor who once had us stand up in front of everyone to introduce ourselves. She asked the class to take out anything we had that could describe us without words. While my peers fumbled through notebooks, backpacks and purses for iPods and books, I swiftly pulled out a tube of mascara and held it up.

Maybe not the best first impression to give my teacher, but mascara is a big part of my life. Yes I love books, movies, and my family, but mascara is something I just can’t live without. Seriously… I would consider going naked before leaving the house without my beloved cosmetic.

I remember the glorious day I first put it on. It was my first day of seventh grade, my big year, and I needed BIG lashes to go with it.  My hair was half up, half down, my purple bedazzled Gap tee was looking fresh and my eyelashes were skyscrapers. It was the first time I looked in the mirror and didn’t feel like a kid.

From that day on I was hooked. And twelve years later, I’m still in love.

In 2008, I made the decision to only use cruelty free products, priding myself on such a conscious decision about makeup. But it wasn’t until I watched a little documentary that I realized how mistaken I was.

The “Story Of Stuff” Project is an amazing tool that helps us realize what we are doing to the planet, our environment and ourselves. I watched their “Story Of Stuff: Cosmetics” and my head almost exploded.  The makeup we are putting on our bodies is not safe!

The average woman uses 12 products a day. Those 12 small products contain hundreds of chemicals, less than 20% of which are inspected by the FDA. In fact, include elements that are known to cause cancer, asthma, learning disabilities and infertility. Think about putting that on your face for the next 60 years.

The documentary taught me that there are no regulations on makeup in our country. Since words like “natural”, “herbal” and “organic” have no legal definition when it comes to cosmetics, I set out on a mission to find a beauty line that can help me make the right choices for the planet and my body.

And I did.

I found 100% Pure Cosmetics, a company that uses no chemicals or harsh dyes. Their make up is 100% vegan and is even more surprisingly reasonably priced. 100% Pure offers cosmetics, body washes, shampoos, conditioners, and skin care, and is totally committed to the idea of unadulterated products.  Since as much as 60% of topical skin-care products are absorbed through the skin and into the bloodstream, 100% Pure has taken on the task of cosmetics with no synthetic chemicals, chemical preservatives, artificial fragrances, artificial colors, harsh detergents or any other unhealthy toxins.

As I looked further into 100% Pure I found that they not only had amazing products but great gift sets. I purchased the FRUIT PIGMENTED 3-pc KIT, which includes a tinted moisturizer, the renowned coffee bean caffeine eye cream and the thing I was most looking forward to: black tea mascara. These three full sized products came to $50.00 with free shipping, which I consider reasonable, especially for the quality and peace of mind.

The tinted moisturizer is sheer yet covers small imperfections. It offers SPF, which is so important if you expect to be outside a lot during the day, and provides a quick way to smooth out your complexion. The Coffee Bean Caffeine eye cream smells delicious and has been featured in a bunch of magazines. It’s not an everyday item for me, but on my tired or hung over days it definitely saves me from looking like an extra on “The Walking Dead”.

The black tea mascara was something I was so excited to try and oddly nervous about at the same time. Now that I know how horrible other brands are, what if I didn’t like it? How could I ever go back?

Thankfully, 100% Pure did not disappoint.

This is the perfect daytime mascara. The black pigment is totally there, the lashes are definitely lengthened, although it does take a few coats to get the volume I like.

Overall, I think I’m in LOVE with 100% Pure. I just can’t help myself from trying more and more make up! In fact, I am expecting more 100% Pure in the mail while I write this. I just purchased their “All You Need” gift set and it is pathetic how often I track the shipping.

So if you’re as blind as I was before, make sure you know what you’re putting on your body. Now, I am constantly on the hunt (pun intended) for better and better green makeup products, and if I find any more I promise to share them with Sarah and the world.

About the Author: Jen and Sarah have dabbled in yoga, gone on a few hikes, and seen a lot of improv together. Jen is a teacher, a student, and as you can see from this post, into cosmetics. She grew up in New England but transplanted herself to Los Angeles where she’s started composting, trying out meatless Mondays, and attempting to walk in heels.

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