Wikis tagged with Eco-Home

With spring upon us and Earth Day right around the corner, many of us are thinking about how we can green our cleaning routine this year. Last week we ran a Spring Cleaning Contest and asked Mothering members to share eco-friendly ways they found to keep things clean. Below you'll find some of the great ideas our members shared, as well as awesome green cleaning products our community has recommended.   Photo by Suzettesuzette via Flickr.   Soak orange peels in vinegar "I love cleaning with vinegar, but not the vinegar smell.  So I saw on Pinterest the idea to soak orange peels...

Actress and The Honest Company co-founder shares her non-toxic, eco-friendly vision of the future.   By Sharon Kehoe   Mom always said honesty is the best policy, and the story behind The Honest Company is no exception. One day, actress Jessica Alba, mother and co-founder of The Honest Company, had an allergic reaction to a baby-friendly laundry detergent. Surprised by this, she began researching the ingredients found in conventional baby products, but didn’t find enough information to make her feel comfortable using them.    Mothering: How are your products effective...

By Annie Berthold-Bond Dioxin in paper and chemicals in plastics can migrate into food. For example, everyone knows the taste of water from a plastic bottle that has been left in the sun. One should go to extremes to eliminate these circumstances and others that can cause such migrations of chemicals because some plastics can disrupt hormones. The following guidelines should help give you ideas for how to avoid food contamination from packaging. 1. Plastic tends to migrate into fatty foods, especially hot fatty foods. Don't leave cheese wrapped in its plastic wrapper sitting in the...

  With fall and winter fast upon us, our time spent outdoors is going to diminish from what it’s been during these nice last days of summer.   Our windows will close up, and the heater and fireplace will turn on.  Now while I absolutely adore sitting by a roaring fire, cozied up on the couch with my little loves, I also realize that the health impact from those seemingly benign luxuries are not what I’d like them to be.   When I think of air pollution, I often think of the Southern California sky where I grew up.  On the vast majority of days throughout the year, we weren’t able to...

It was almost eight hours after my son was born that I first had the presence of mind to ask my husband if I could see the certificate that the birth center had made us to celebrate the birth of our son.  The ‘name’ slot was blank still at that point (my husband later filled it in), and the only identification was a beautiful tiny footprint.  It still makes me smile to think of that tiny footprint.    As I looked at my son’s footprint for the first time, the last thing that was going through my mind was our ecological footprint – which is a measure of our impact on the...

This week I’m going to answer a question that many moms get asked at least once a week. Imagine the usual scenario:  Your little darling is screaming in the check out aisle.  He won’t let go of the magazine that he just grabbed somehow with his sticky hands, and, oh, he just ripped the magazine.  Wonderful.  And he NEEEEEDS that chocolate bar, and also the cough drops hanging from that clip.  You are keeping a smile pasted on your face.  You try reason.  Fail.  You try ‘toddlerese’.  Fail.  You try bribery, but not even that is working today.  And the lady behind the register has only...

I’m a lover of all plants in all of their forms, but do seem to be on an essential oil kick lately.  They are the most potent form of herbs, and when used appropriately can do wonders.  So to continue on my essential oil rant, here’s a list of do-it-yourself cleaning products that are not only safe and super easy to make, but work just as effectively, if not more so, than anything that you’ll find at a store.   All Purpose Spray 1/4 cup white vinegar (kills germs, cuts grease, deodorizes & dissolves mineral deposits) 2 cups water, preferably distilled 2 tbs natural dish...

It’s not your imagination, it actually is hotter than it used to be.  Climate change has kicked in and we are breaking heat records left and right.  It was a spring for the record books and we may be in line for another record breaking summer.  No matter what state you live in, it is hotter on average now than it was forty years ago.  Of course one response to this heat is to crank up the A/C.  But unless you select a renewable energy  option from your utility (an option not everyone has), that response would actually cause more coal to be burned, and more global warming in the coming...

The New York Times reported today that the FDA has banned bisphenol A, otherwise known as BPA, from infant bottles and sippy cups–despite its reluctance to admit to any safety hazards associated with the chemical. Manufacturers have already stopped using the chemical in baby bottles and sippy cups, and the F.D.A. said that its decision was a response to a request by the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s main trade association, that rules allowing BPA in those products be phased out, in part to boost consumer confidence. But the new prohibition does not apply more...

Awoke to a forecast of hot and dry. So I washed my new favorite (went Goodwill shopping Saturday) sleeveless white shirt, then hung it on the clothesline to dry, jumped into the shower, and—voilà!—hopped out of the shower and into a clean, dry, cool shirt. # Photo: How can laundry on a line NOT be beautiful with a sky like this one? High altitude, clear skies, sunny weather make for a blue that’s almost impossible to match in CMYK (though, admittedly, much easier in RGB!). I love living in Santa Fe. # # # # # # Tags: clothesline, dry, laundry, line, sheet,...

Credit: Carlos Pardo In two days, the nation will pay its taxes. But did you know that April 15 is also Bike to School Day? I discovered this while writing an article for Mothering about ways parents can help green their schools, due to be published in its Fall back-to-school issue. The people urging families to walk or bike to school normally frame it as a solution to rising rates of childhood obesity: Thirty years ago, reports the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 90 percent of children who lived within a mile of school walked there. Today, that number is 25 percent. In the...

  How do we ensure a healthy future for our children? In America savvy marketers have effectively duped us into believing that convenience in the Holy Grail: fast food, paper plates, quick-drying high-tech fabric, take-and-bake pizza. We eat our meals out of cans or boxes or plastic bags; we put diapers made of wood pulp and petroleum-based super absorbent polymers on our babies, and we use our cars to drive half a mile away. The happy woman in the TV commercial spraying toxic chemicals to get stains out of a collar shirt has no wrinkles on her face. The family piling into the...

www.HollyHawk.com Digging Dirt Going Green By Jessica Williams, www.LoveParentingLA.com My friend is a landscape artist. She brings green things to life, beautifying everything in her path. I have had aspirations for our backyard but busy with three children and L.O.V.E. Parenting, I had yet to follow through. One Saturday, my friend took the reigns and decided to involve our children and work together to transform a portion of our yard into an edible garden. The children, five total between the ages of two and seven, were eager to dive in. My friend put on her work boots...

Our neighbor’s 14-year-old son has been battling leukemia for the past two years. My daughter’s classmate’s older sister died when she was eighteen of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As parents we try so hard to keep our children safe and protected. The threat of cancer may seem amorphous: it’s not a contagious disease like the whooping cough that’s been going around our small town lately. But, according to a 240-page report by the President’s Cancer Panel, our babies are coming into the world “pre-polluted.” Exposure to harmful chemicals can be especially damaging during pregnancy....

Peter was buying tomatoes on the vine at the Ashland Food Co-op. He stuffed them in a plastic bag and deftly twisted it shut. “You know, you don’t really need a bag for those,” I suggested with a smile. “Oh Yes I Do.” Peter was categorical. A friend of my husband’s and foodie from the north of England, Peter seemed like the kind of Gen Y guy who would be open to critiquing American culture, which is the only reason I was brave enough to say something. It drives me crazy how Americans, even the hippie progressive types who shop at the Co-op, shove one banana or a half dozen...

Shampoo and my hair just don’t get along. This is a recent enmity. In my twenties and early thirties my hair looked good no matter what shampoo I used. I don’t think I should give you the details about how my hair has been coming out in clumps since the baby was born or about how greasy it looks no matter the shampoo, but suffice it to say that my once thick hair has become so uncooperative that it would probably be better if I just made it into dreds. I’ve tried the no ‘poo approach espoused by Beth Terry and also used by Frugal Kiwi with less-than-positive results (maybe I didn’t...

This week on Mothering Outside the Lines we’re talking about the sexy topics of energy conservation and conscientious living. Yesterday I wrote about how conserving energy might actually promote happiness and last week I admitted being in love with No Impact Man. Today, as promised, we have a technical report on Microsoft Hohm’s Blueline PowerCost Monitor, which James installed a few days ago, for your reading pleasure. This monitor retails for $268.00 but we didn’t pay for ours. The manufacturer sent it to us for review. Here’s more than you would like to know about this...

Athena came home after school today feeling sick. It’s been about 56 degrees in our house since I have stubbornly refused to turn on the heat. I’ve been wearing a wool hat and a winter coat in my office, drinking tea and working with the my laptop on my knees to help me get warm. But seeing my lanky 9-year-old lying miserably on the couch under two thick blankets this afternoon made me reconsider. It’s amazing how warm 60 degrees can feel. As the house was heating up I started to feel uncomfortably hot. Poor Athena threw up three times. Then she ate some brown rice pasta and celery...

Hi… Um, April is coming in like a lion. What the…? So much for plans of early-evening tennis. The wind would blow the ball into the next court. At least I could blame it on the wind if I whomped it there…and yet…no.  So I got turned on to this really great site: www.ecosteal.com. They offer one affordable eco item until it’s sold out, and then move on to a new item. The products are 40-80% off, and you can buy up to three of them, so it’s one way to do holiday shopping all year long, in small, manageable increments. You can sign up for alerts so that when a new product is listed, you...

So here are some things I learned… I stayed in a net-positive, freshly built green house right outside of Burlington, one of the houses in the South Farm Homes development (Hinesburg, VT). It was designed by the architecture firm Truex Cullins. Net-positive means that not only is it made so that it generates all of its own power; it actually generates more than it needs and gives power back to the grid. The owner will actually get a check for about $200 every year for her contribution. How is this done? The house was built to maximize passive solar heating. Depending on its...