Earth Rated Products

As of a couple of months ago, Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand came out with dish soap, laundry detergent and a couple of other environmentally friendly products.  In fact, the words “environmentally friendly” appear on the products almost as prominently as the brand name so they must be pretty proud of the themselves for coming out with this enhancement.

While I’m all for the greening of Costco products, especially because of the massive impact they can have on consumers, I’m a little skeptical about how green these products actually are. The Ingredients list on the label is way too vague to be helpful, or to prove one way or another how green they actually are.  Does anyone out there have any information to enlighten us on the ingredients? To what extent is this line actually greener?  

I don’t exactly expect the Kirkland products to be on par with BioKleen, Epic or Ecover, but I would like to know where they stand in relation to these super-green products. 

As I said, I’m all for making the products greener  but I’d still like to know what shade of green.

Went to play Bingo the other night with a few hundred people that actually knew what they were doing. Bingo sure has gotten complicated since the 80s. Honestly, I’m not sure if its because of improved technology, or if people just got bored with the 5-in-a-row garden variety game.

The new games like Kite, Picture Frame, X, L, etc. require a lot more attention than 5-in-a-row and I could barely keep up with looking for the current number being called, much less scan my cards for the winning patterns. Considering that a majority of the players were senior citizens with worse vision and slower hands than mine, it was quite a shock how much faster than me they were at playing each number. Plus, they played the bonus side games that compliment the actual bingo game being played. Don’t ask for more details, I have no idea how the bonus games work. Couldn’t keep up with them!

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Today was THE day. After weeks and weeks of feeding our worms all the banana peels, coffee grinds, egg shells, lettuce, bread, tortillas, avocado peels, artichoke stalks, edamame pods, artichoke petals, and other miscellaneous scraps from the kitchen, it was time to spread the love! We were looking forward to this day ALL WEEK!

The plan was to take out the lower of two trays in our worm composting bin and use the castings to feed our outdoor plants, as well as to enrich the soil for re-potting 10 indoor plans I bought recently. (Click here to read more about our bin set-up.) To prep for this momentous occassion, we had added the second tray to the bin around three weeks ago and began putting the food in this upper tray in order to encourage our worm friends to migrate up.

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Four months into our experiment with vermicomposting it looks like we are doing it! We are Worm Farmers! But maybe I’m using the word “we” a little too liberally. After all, after setting the bin up with its original bedding and fresh batch of worms, I probably haven’t fed the little critters since the second week of the experiment. However, since it was my idea to buy the bin and gift it to my dear spouse as a romantic gesture of my love, I continue to take credit for its success. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, its true! The geniuses at gDiapers have found a middle ground that helps make baby’s bottom a little greener - without all the extra work and nastiness of cloth diapers. Admittedly, gDiapers require a little more effort than disposables, but the extra effort is more than offset by the satisfaction that comes from seeing those dirties disappear down the toilet.

No mountain of disposables in the local landfill, no questionable chemicals next to baby’s bottom, and as an extra bonus, no more stinky diaper pails in your living areas! Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching Plant Green’s Wa$ted the other night and learned something shocking. Well, shocking to me. Maybe I’m naive? Seriously, I would have believed something like this 10 years ago. But not now. Not today. Not with all the news. Not with all the studies. Not after the publicity from the movie (you know which one) and ensuing Nobel Prize.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was watching Wa$ted the other night and was shocked to see that the show producers were able to find a family that didn’t follow the 3 Rs AT ALL. I mean, zero, nada, zip. They didn’t even OWN a recycling bin! Read the rest of this entry »

OK. So I didn’t include Mr Gore on my original ecocrite post… I pretty much assumed that everyone already knew of his very public and blatant hypocrisy, and I didn’t need to waste the time/space/electrons repeating it yet again. However, after today’s revelation from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, I feel compelled to ensure that everyone is aware of what the TCPR found.

There are two specific points that really say it all:

1. In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.
2. In the wake of becoming the most well-known global warming alarmist, Gore won an Oscar, a Grammy and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, Gore saw his personal wealth increase by an estimated $100 million thanks largely to speaking fees and investments related to global warming hysteria. Read the rest of this entry »
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So, it turns out that having a Ford vehicle (Escape hybrid) entitles us to receive the Ford Magazine. As you might expect, the “magazine” is basically a blatant extended advertisement. However, surprisingly, it did have interesting news on their cars (the new Flex, a new plug-in Escape), some fun facts on eco-driving, as well info on a new site they’ve developed called Driving Skills for Life. Wonder if they got the idea for combining self-promotion with useful information from Costco Connection? Costco’s got the whole self-promotion-disguised-as-interesting-articles thing down to a science.

Anyway, let’s start with the eco-driving facts. They really did a good job of pulling together some interesting stats:

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While I applaud the plethora of high profile folks currently using their celebrity to bring attention to the importance of moving toward less carbon-heavy lifestyles, I still get a good laugh at what giant hypocrites the majority of them are…

• George Clooney - cuts back on CO2 emissions by driving a Prius. Seems that CO2 emissions only count on terra firma though. He still feels okay flying around on a Gulfstream. Somehow, releasing the pollution directly into the atmosphere makes it better. Even his lovely girlfriend, Sarah Larson, is confused by the contradiction.

UPDATE: About 2 days after Sarah’s interview was made public, news broke that George and Sarah had broken up… think he’s upset she outted his hypocrisy?

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Geez, now that we’ve pretty much blown by the $4 per gallon mark (I filled up this morning for $4.10/gallon), looks like the next milestone is $5 per gallon. While it might seem insane to our country of SUV-lovin’, exercise/walking adverse cheap gas addicts, our petrol is still relatively affordable compared to what Europeans have been used to for decades. I remember spending about $80 to fill up a little go-cart-of-a-car when I lived in Europe almost 15 years ago (makes me sound OLD, doesn’t it?). I’m still not to $80 to fill up a much larger vehicle, and gas tank, here yet. But, I see it coming…

Right on cue, after my $4.10 per gallon experience this morning, I saw an article in MSN Autos for Volvo’s latest concept plug-in hybrid based on its C30 model. As with all things still in concept, this little gem has been given the somewhat cool name of ReCharge. Though, knowing Volvo, the actual production name will be something entirely more bland like R30.

Some interesting highlights for the ReCharge include:

• No central motor! Rather, each wheel is driven by its own electric motor. Read the rest of this entry »
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