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Green Gift Guide: For Her
Tweet Share on Facebook December 9, 2008 Comment (3)Caving to peer pressure (all the other green bloggers are doing it) and my love of online shopping, this week I'll feature ideas for green holiday shopping, for different recipients each day. The gifts will be green through and through, but not in a crunchy-granola-treehuggy way, and they won't break your budget. Today: Gifts for her.
Monday: Gifts for friends and coworkers
Friday: Gifts for philanthropists
Any hipster fashionista knows that Katherine Hamnett rose to fame in the 80s for her slogan tees, like "Frankie Says Relax." Hamnett cares deeply about green issues, creating "Save the World" and "Stop Killing Whales" tees, among others, in her signature font. They're printed on organic cotton and use natural inks, as well. (katherinehamnett.com, £40, or about $59)
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Green Gift Guide: For Friends and Coworkers
Tweet Share on Facebook December 8, 2008 Comment (5)Caving to peer pressure (all the other green bloggers are doing it) and my love of online shopping, this week I'll feature ideas for green holiday shopping, for different recipients each day. They'll be green through and through, but not in crunchy-granola-treehuggy way, and they won't break your budget. Today: Gifts for coworkers and friends.
Friday: Gifts for philanthropists
- For your lunch buddy, a cheap and simple reusable sandwich wrap would replace plastic sandwich baggies. They come in cheerful patterns, and are easy to clean in the dishwasher. (Reusablebags.com, $8.95)
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O Christmas Tree! Fresh or Fake?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 5, 2008 Comment (6)'Tis the weekend for holiday decorating, and with it comes a flurry of articles about how Christmas trees are good or bad for the environment. The discussion is similar to the perpetually unsettled argument about paper versus plastic: the former is biodegradable but involves cutting down trees, while the latter is reusable but also made of PVC and other harmful plastics that don't biodegrade.
Plastic trees, says Grist's eco-expert Umbra, are bad because of their ingredients: "Polyvinyl chloride is the monoculture of the artificial forest." The decidedly biased National Christmas Tree Association agrees.
So, how to green your holiday decorations?
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"Recycle" An Old Engagement Ring for Cash
Tweet Share on Facebook December 4, 2008 Comment (3)Time to give more green credit to the recessionistas. A New York Daily News story from today examined the trend of women selling their old engagement rings to websites like IDoNowIDont.com after marriages or engagements dissolve. In better times, women often kept the rings for sentimental reasons (even if the relationship ended badly) or turned them into necklaces or bracelets. Now, they're craving cash.
By selling to an online retailer, a woman is likely to recoup more of the ring's value than if she were to sell it to a wholesaler. Basically, it's a fancier online version of a pawn shop. A woman is legally allowed to sell her ring if she married the person who gave it to her; if the engagement does not result in marriage she is obligated to give the ring back to her ex-fiancee. If he does not want it, though, she's free to sell it and keep the cash. Each ring that the site sells is checked by a gemologist and verified for authenticity. Of course, it would be a good idea to have your jewelry appraised independently before putting it up for sale.
So how is this green?
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Would You Play in a Park that Used to Be a Landfill?
Tweet Share on Facebook December 3, 2008 Comment (4)New York Magazine takes a detailed look at the former Fresh Kills Landfill, and James Corner, the architect who is working to reclaim it. The heaps of trash that were built up on the Staten Island dump from 1948 until 2001 comprise one of the world's largest manmade structures. Though the dump has been closed ever since (with the exception of some loads of post-9/11 debris), parts of Fresh Kills will reopen within the next two years - as an outdoor oasis three times the size of Central Park.
Which begs the question - how would you feel about playing tennis, hiking and even kayaking through a site that used to be heaped to the height of the Statue of Liberty with trash? Most of has been buried, of course. An article on Scienceline about the project says that the mounds of trash are enclosed in plastic or clay, and then covered with two feet of clean soil, which now sprouts with wild grasses. Pipes allow methane gas, sold as fuel, to escape from the decomposing heaps as they compress. Leachate, a mix of water and chemical garbage sludge, channels out from underneath the mounds, and is processed like sewage.
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Ford Accelerates Green Cars for Bailout
Tweet Share on Facebook December 2, 2008 Comment (4)Hybrid and electric vehicles will be fast-tracked through Ford, according to plans for the company's bailout presentation. In a phone interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Alan Mulally, chief executive of Ford, says that the company will accelerate development of hybrids and electric vehicles to 2011, with a plug-in hybrid following in 2012.
Said Ford Chairman William Ford Jr., "We want to come blasting out as a global, green, high-tech company that's exactly where the country and the Obama administration want us to head." Ford's recovery plan "isn't just about slashing -- we've already done that slashing and burning -- but about building for the future."
Auto executives were criticized for taking private jets to Washington for hearings last month. This time, they plan to drive hybrid cars to the hearings this week. Mulally will drive a Ford Escape hybrid, while GM's Rick Wagoner plans to drive a Chevy Malibu hybrid, accompanied by members of his group in Chevy Cobalt hybrids and a Buick Lucerne that will run on 85 percent ethanol.
