Green Living

Green Family Projects – Compost

Many homeowners may feel that their efforts in reducing their collective household members' carbon footprints are simply insufficient to make a positive impact on the environment.  If you are one of these homeowners, don't despair because it is possible to make a greater impact towards protecting the only planet we can live on. The good news is that you do not even need to go far to look for these eco-friendly ways.  Just go out into your backyard, look at your garden and the answer will come leaping right at you - compost!  That is, if you have not adopted the methods of compost gardening yet. As can be expected, there are many benefits to be had from making compost as your family's next eco-friendly project.  It will definitely make for a good time in terms of bonding with your children and educating them on eco-friendly issues in a more relaxed setting. For one thing, you need not spend money on artificial fertilizers and pesticides as compost itself acts in these manners, one more than the other.  Your household waste from your vegetable and fruit peelings to your own human waste - yes, we are talking about your poop - can be transformed ...

Giving Your Flip Flops a New Lease on Life

When you want to start looking for ways to go green and when you want to be creative about it, there are a lot of options in front of you.  We all know that we should recycle and that we should ideally walk instead of drive to where we need to, but have you taken a look down at your feet?  If you are someone who wears flip flops fairly regularly, you know that they wear out within a few months.  These are not the toughest shoes around, but did you know that there are plenty of ways to reuse them? The problem that we run into when we are looking at flip flops is the fact that they are made out of polyurethane.  Though older flip flops were made out of rubber (and tended to last a little longer as well) polyurethane is a material that you unfortunately cannot simply chuck into your recycling box.  Another problem that you can layer on top of this is that the materials used to make them are derived from crude oil, which makes them extremely difficult to deal with when it comes to the process of breaking down. What can you do with your ...

Natural Fertilizer

When you are starting a backyard garden, the matter of using fertilizers on your plants will definitely come up.  After all, fertilizers boost plant growth that, in turn, can provide your kitchen table and living room table with delicious vegetables and beautiful flowers, respectively.  You must, however, take extra care in choosing the type of fertilizer, either synthetic or natural, that you use since both have environmental implications. Synthetic Fertilizers Most commercially available all-purpose synthetic fertilizers contain the so-called “big three” – nitrogen, phosphate/phosphorus and potassium.  Other ingredients include calcium, iron, magnesium, and other trace elements but the big three have greater environmental impact due to their relatively large quantities. • Nitrogen is necessary for foliage growth but its production process, specifically the Haber-Bosch process, requires plenty of natural gas.  The more natural gas used, the greater the strain on Earth’s natural resources. • Phosphate or phosphorous in synthetic fertilizers promotes flower and root development but at the expense of rapid depletion of the world’s phosphorus deposits.  Also, the excess phosphorus in the soil contaminates waterways that stimulate phytoplankton and algae growth.  This, in turn, lead to adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems. • Potassium is needed for plants’ overall health.  It has its uses in ...

Green Consumers

We love mother earth.  More and more people are showing this love to protect and save this planet we call home.  We just don’t THINK GREEN but need to ACT GREEN too.  We have been finding, innovating and inventing ways to live an Eco- friendly life.  And not just common people are participating towards the aim of a cleaner and greener earth but companies have thought of becoming Eco- friendly as well. This is an outbreak of businesses going green.  Businesses are slowly delving in this idea of incorporating Eco- friendly ways in their companies and got more people into seriously thinking about what is happening to our environment.  A lot of consumers are more conscious about the products they purchase and how it can affect our environment.  As these environment- concerned citizens’ increase, it is a responsibility for these businesses to commit to serving and caring for these clients needs as well as the earth’s.  The amount of support they get from consumers have sky rocketed giving them more reasons to produce “green” products and services.  Environmentalism can actually become a part of a company. There are numerous ways on how businesses can take part of this earth- saving plan like ...

Going Green and Becoming Rich

To paraphrase President Barack Obama in one of his State of the Union Address, the nation that becomes the leader in clean energy economy will become the leader of the global economy.  How very true, indeed, especially when one considers that the renewable energy industry and its allied industries are growing by leaps and bounds even in the worldwide recession.  Any nation that can supply the increasing demand for all things related to renewable energy from the solar panels to the wind turbines will become rich by going green. At present, it is China that is cashing in on the green revolution, with factories spread out over the rural and urban areas dedicated to the production of renewable energy equipment and materials.  This is very ironic considering that China is not exactly a nation that environmentalists will award the most eco-friendly in the world, far from it.  Then again, the United States is guilty of many dastardly acts against the environment, too. Proofs of this fact are the following statistics of how China fares in comparison with its nearest competitor in the renewable energy industry.  First, China and the United States are the top two producers of greenhouse gases, with Russia, India ...