Gifts from an exotic locale?

While traveling away from home, you might find yourself looking for that perfect souvenir to commemorate the trip. While that’s a great idea, be sure what you bring home helps, not hurts, the place you want to remember. As a general rule, sand, shells and other natural elements are best left where they came from, but what about the man-made stuff? In today’s global economy, it’s way too easy to buy products abroad that were actually manufactured not far from where you started. A friend of mine recently bought Mineral Mud from the Dead Sea on a recent trip to Israel, only to read the fine print back home in the U.S. to learn it had been produced in Boston. Not only was that disappointing, it means that that mud took two very long International trips to end up on the skin of our pal. If you’re headed to Brazil, a bikini or pair of flip-flops is a great, useful keepsake, but be sure they were locally made to fully benefit the community. The same thing goes for Alpaca sweaters in La Paz, Hello Kitty in Tokyo and berets in Paris. If it’s not made locally, it’s probably not benefiting the local community, so why bother? Keeping it local is better for the community you’re visiting and better for the environment.

Give your china a facelift

Before you diss the dish - dunk it in milk. If Grandma's heirloom china is starting to crack, give it a facelift with good, old fashioned Vitamin D. Place the plate in a pan and cover with milk (powdered or fresh or a little less than fresh but before the chunks set in) and bring to a boil. Once it hits boiling point, lower the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes. The protein should mend most fine cracks and the dish can keep on dishing.

Reheat the right way

Because you're awesome, you don't waste anything -- especially food. Right now you have at least one container of leftovers in your fridge waiting for round two with your palate. Whether you brought food home from a meal on the town or because you cooked more than you could eat last night for dinner, use your microwave, not your oven or stove to reheat. Microwaves use less than half the power of a conventional oven and cook food in about one-fourth the time. Toaster ovens and slow cookers are also a great way to cut energy use in cooking, but the microwave is still the energy conservation winner in the kitchen.

The choice is your's

The choice is yours – literally. Being green isn’t about driving a hybrid or installing solar panels on your roof – it’s about all the small choices you make each day to reduce your waste and consumption of the Earth’s natural resources. Instead of the pre-cut and washed broccoli in the bag, maybe you’ll reach for the whole vegetable instead. Rather than heading to that far-off restaurant, you’ll keep it local to save gas. When stocking up on breakfast bars for the work week, you’ll buy the individual bars instead of the ones that come individually wrapped and in a box. While waiting for an oil change, you’ll turn down that just-because-you’re-bored cup of coffee when you see only Styrofoam cups. You’ll buy the mustard in the glass jar instead of the plastic bottle. You’ll put off replacing your perfectly good couch another year. You’ll bring a plant, instead of flowers to your friend’s housewarming. The list is endless! Once you begin to think this way, you’ll find that your brain will begin to continuously weigh your options. With a little thought and a little know-how, you’ll be seeing green in no time!

Check out the Library......

Try borrowing books instead of buying them – it's free! Americans buy about 1.9 billion books each year, which uses paper made from over 300,000 trees. Producing books is energy consuming, and usually means using petroleum-based ink. Try digging out your old library card and giving it a spin. Most county libraries in the US have made great strides technologically, and allow you to reserve and re-new books online, saving you the late fees, while saving precious trees at the same time.

Work it out

Sure, the gym is great, but with the weather getting nicer, you now have the option to take your workout outdoors. Whether it’s a hike up a mountain or a jog down your road, keeping off of the electrically powered machines at the gym saves energy and will get you out in the *real* world.
Keep your motivation high and your exercise intensity in check by enlisting a workout partner. A good conversation during a hike or run will allow you to apply the “talk test”: if you can speak comfortably while working out, your heart rate will tend to fall within the range considered safe when exercising.

Time to do some shopping

Nothing helps protect you from a winter chill quite like fleece. Fleece jackets, vests, pants, socks and blankets are a great way to stay warm without bulking up or turning on the heat. Our favorite fleece is made by Patagonia, which is one heck of an awesome company, environmentally speaking.

Patagonia is a $275 million a year, privately owned company based in Ventura, California. In addition to fleece apparel, they develop and market clothing and gear for a wide range of outdoor sports, travel and everyday wear. They are best known for innovative designs, quality products and a strong environmental conscience. Patagonia’s Mission Statement is: “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.” They use environmentally sensitive materials (organic cotton, recycled and recyclable polyester, and hemp among them) and both sponsor and participate in a host of environmental initiatives that range from promoting wildlife corridors to combating genetic engineering. To date, they have given over $29 million in grants to grassroots environmental organizations. They’re even working to create a new National Park!

Patagonia’s great fleece products are our favorite, and they’ve been made from post consumer recycled plastic soda bottles since 1993. Over the course of 13 years, they’ve saved more than 86 million soda bottles from the trash heap! In addition to reclaimed plastic, the fleece is also made from unusable second quality fabrics and worn out garments made into polyester fibers. Eco-fleece is wonderfully soft and provides superior warmth with minimal weight, while wicking away moisture. Think that Patagonia fleece couldn’t get any better? When your old polar-fleece gets too worn to wear, they’ll recycle it! Patagonia recycles many of their own products, and polar fleece from other companies as well. Once you’ve recycled your old piece of fleece, you can pick up an environmentally friendly replacement to keep you snug as a bug in a rug. Check out their incredibly dense website for more information on Patagonia’s products, environmental programs and even videos tracking the life of your Patagonia fleece from the cradle to the grave.