Supernatural Botanicals

Did you know that 84% of all household waste can be recycled?  Recycling is one of the easiest ways to go Green, yet makes a monumental impact to the environment.  At a bare minimum, everyone should be recycling.  Take care of the waste you create.  Be eco-responsible.

Daryl Hanna: www.DHLoveLife.com

Alicia Silverstone: www.TheKindLife.com

Adrian Grenier: www.Shft.com

Gwyneth Paltrow: www.Goop.com

Leonardo DiCaprio: http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/

Certain greens can help remove indoor air pollutants like formaldehyde and benzene. English Ivy is an easy-to-grow toxin fighter.

• It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones.
• The garbage in a landfill stays for a for about 30 years. In 1995 over 200 of the world’s landfills were full.
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day. If we are cognizant, we can reduce that…a lot!
• Most lighters are made out of plastic and filled with butane fuel, both petroleum products. Over 1.5 billion end up in landfills each year.
• Going Green” doesn’t have to be a daunting task that means sweeping life changes. Start by planting a tree in your backyard.
• Lighting an empty office wastes enough energy to boil water for a 1000 cups of coffee and doubles a company’s annual electric bill.
• Adjust your thermostat 1 degree higher in the summer and 1 degree cooler in the winter. Each degree less will save about 10% on energy use.
• Nearly 90% of plastic water bottles are not recycled, instead taking thousands of years to decompose. Why? It’s so very easy to recycle.
• Recycling just the Sunday papers would save more than half a million trees every week.
• A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
• A laptop is more environment friendly than a desktop. It consumes five times less electricity.
• A plant on your desk acts as a natural filter, absorbing airborne pollutants and computer radiation while replenishing oxygen levels.
• An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now! It’s so easy to recycle. Please do!
• Everytime we burn oil, coal and gas to generate electricity and power, we produce the heat trapping gases that cause global warming.
• Average number of pounds of paper used annually by every American: 680
• Number of gallons of water wasted by a leaky faucet dripping once per second: 2,700
• Eco Facts: Number of trees required by every American to meet their yearly demand for paper and wood products: 7

Green’s mantra is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  Did you know that by reducing plastic bag consumption by just two bags per week, you’ll throw away at least 100 fewer bags per year.  If tied together, handle to handle, these plastic bags would make a rope long enough to wrap around the earth more than 126 times. 

You can purchase canvas bags for about $1.00 a piece.  They are stylish, green, and so much better for the environment than plastic bags.  It’s one simple way to becoming more eco-responsible. 

Summer Energy Efficiency Tips:

*  Close curtains or blinds on the sunny side of your home during the day.

*  Replace standard light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.

*  Inspect, clean or replace air filters monthly. 

*  Do laundry and run your dishwasher at night.

*  Raise your thermostat setting and use ceiling fans to keep cool. 

Every step in the right direction eliminates damage to the environment.  It’s your responsibility to tread lightly on the earth, and mine too.  Teach your children well and set a good example. 

   Skip the bottled water. For every one million bottles of water that are manufactured and shipped to consumers, 18.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions are pumped into the air.

Enter To win a Black and Decker Monitor.  Track how much energy you use at home—and how much it’s costing you—with this handy monitoring device. By tracking your appliances’ energy consumption, this tool can help you save 20 percent off your electric bill (value $100). By Black & Decker.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that by replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs at the same minimal rate, Americans would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year.

Book Review:  My current read is Renee Loux’s Easy Green Living.  Its 396 pages of ideas to go Green.

The upside:  The book is packed full of info such as Green Living, Green Cleaning, Steps to a Green Kitchen, Natural Beauty (a favorite of mine, of course), Energy Efficiency, etc.  And, lets not lose focus here, it’s about being Green.  I support anything or anyone who supports going Green.

The downside:  The pages of the book don’t do much to draw you in with art work, and contains absolutely no pictures.  This could all be in the spirit of being Green, but I know there are soy inks that could produce some excellent photos for the book.   My personal view is…if you’re going to write a book, contain as much information as possible, and make it beautiful.  How many times do you write a book in your life….twice?  Three times?

Have you not yet considered going Green?  I strongly urge you to watch Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.  The environment is deteriorating before us and it’s equal opportunity deterioration, whether you’re a Rep or a Dem.  Love him or hate him, and I love him, this issue isn’t about politics.  It’s eye-opening informative, and down right frightening!  Everyone I know has walked away from that movie a changed person.   Borrow it from the library, and for a sneak peek, watch the trailer on You Tube.