Long gone are the days when a person wearing hemp clothing and eating a raw carrot dipped in raw hummus is looked at and judged as a “hippie, ugh!” Instead, people are discovering their inner desire to be more ‘hippie’, which has now taken on the new term of ‘eco-chic’ or ‘green goddess’. It is time to seize your eco-ness, now that it is “cool” to be eco-friendly, organic, veggie, a granola cruncher, and flaunt your stuff. Interested, or do you need proof? I have compiled a list 10 deep of reasons to get involved and become ‘green & cool’ or if you are already ‘green’ here are a few resources to add to your eco-collection.

1. Get a chic new kitchen compost bin. You can keep your kitchen food scraps like vegetables, fruits, eggshells and coffee grounds (and leftovers) in a bin or container next to your sink. You can then add the compost, when full, to your garden or create a compost site in your yard and in some cities (like Oakland, CA) you can add it to your yard debris trashcan to be picked up by your waste management company. By diverting this type of ‘trash’ you could curb over 50% of your weekly trash from the landfill. My favorite ‘bins’ are:

· IKEAs KNODD pedal bin for $19.99

· Gaiam’s Compost Crock

2. Get a green subscription. The best magazines on the rack today are GREEN! By purchasing a subscription from the handful of green magazines you will be supporting a environmentally conscious organization, purchasing a product that is made from recycled materials, and you will be up-to-date on the newest green news and event. If you want to take it a step further, sign up for an e-subscription, which quite a few publications are offering, and save some trees. My favorite Mags are:
• Green Parent
• The Environmental Magazine
• Vegetarian Times
• Ready Made
• Mother Jones
• Mother Earth News
• Plenty Magazine
3. Invest in some Eco-jewelry or Eco-threads. Nothing is cooler then saying, “Hey, check out my new bracelet, it is made out of recycled plastic bags!” or “ Did you know that it takes five two liter bottles to make one XL T-shirt? This is why I wear recycled clothing!” At this point your friend may be wondering what in fact ‘recycled clothing’ means, and you can explain to them it is clothes individually created from used garments, giving old clothes a new life, and diverting them from going in to the land fill. There is a hand full of ‘recycled clothing’ designers, and it is really becoming the newest, coolest thing. Not only will you get a one of a kind garment, but you really will be reducing waste as well! Check out these web based recycle designers:
• http://www.chrisiadesigns.com/
• www.clothesmadefromscrap.com/

Another new trend is recycled jewelry. There are a few innovative designers out there dreaming up ways to take things that are considered ‘trash’ and turn them in to jewelry. One example I have just recently been astounded by is the recycled plastic bag bracelet. Designer Stephanie Huffaker, has taken used plastic bags and wrapped them around thrift store found bangle bracelets and turned them in to this eco-chic ultra funky colorful new age jewelry. I am deeply excited about things like this, where people are taking things that would normally clog up our landfills (plastic bags account for 10% of all plastic in our landfills) and turning them into wearable and fashionable art! She deserves an eco-warrior medal in my opinion!

Check out these bracelets at btcelements.com

4. Join a car share service. Rather than pay astronomical amounts per year for a car payment, insurance, and of course gas, why not join a car share. Instead you will pay a nominal annual fee and obtain the right to choose from a wide variety of different cars (my fave, the mini cooper) and pay only the amount that you drive the car. Unless you rely on you car for your job (usually in that case the company is paying for the car anyway) then it is a great (and cool) opportunity to test out different cars and since you will be paying for it every time you drive, you will most likely drive less, ride your bike and take the public transportation more, and really be contributing to a more concious lifestyle. And research has proven that every car-sharing vehicle removes, on average, 15 cars from the road, which translates to less smog, less emissions, and less greenhouse gases, yeah! Add to that that the cost is a bargain, take for instance the Zipcar service, that charges $50 per annum, $25 registration fee and then allows you to reserve a car for $9 per hour (including gas). So if you were to drive and hour to and from work each day, then 5 hours on the weekend, that would be 10 hours per week or $90. That is only $360 per month, and I know first hand that I pay that in gas per month, what about you! For more information on car sharing log on to www.carsharing.net, www.zipcar.com, and www.flexcar.com.  Look on zipcar.com for a price comparison calculator which will calculate how much you drive and the price difference between owning and car sharing!

5. Recycling anything and everything. Since my family has started recycling as much as we can, we only produce about a half bag of true ‘trash’ each week! When we go to take our trash out, it is now ‘cool’ to be the neighbor that produces the least amount of trash. And there are so many ‘cool’ recycle bins out there to add to your kitchen, and now days it would be unfashionable not to have recycle bins and sorters. IKEA has great pull out waste bins that come with a lid that has a symbolic picture on top for recycling or compost ($3.99). They also sell three circular recycle bins, for paper, plastic and glass, to make sorting easier. There is a great product called the Ecopod, which easily compacts your recycling for easier storage, and I have also listed a ‘how to’ on making your own simple and chic recycle center from scratch. Here is a list of resources to help you recycle anything you might need to get rid of (and if I don’t mention something, just call your waste management company they should know where to go):

• Chemical cleaners: donate to non-profits(call ahead) or log on to Freecycle.org and post
• Medication: Log on to www.thestarfishproject.org, a project that redistributes medications to other countries and U.S. states. Studies have shown that 80% of tested waters in the U.S. contained residues of chemicals from antibiotics and other meds like birth control pills from being flushed or dumped.
• Clothing: There are so many ways to dispose of clothing without throwing them in the trash. Some popular sites such as www.swapstyle.com,
• www.buffaloexchange.com, www.dressforsucess.org , www.Craigslist.org , www.Freecycle.org , and of course www.salvationarmy.org. Also check out my post on hosting a swap party!
• Shoes: Everyone needs a pair of shoes, so why not donate your old kicks to a person who can use them. The Goodwill, Salvation Army, and homeless shelter is a good place to start. Another good option is Nike, who takes your old running shoes and turns the soles in to basketball courts, tennis courts and running tracks, log on to www.nike.com/nikebiz/reuseashoe
• Cell phones: take your old phone back to where you bought it and they should take it back to refurbish. Or you can check out www.collectivegood.com, which is a charity that will accept your old phones and even pay you for them!
• CD’s, DVD’s, and VHS tapes: They are ubiquitously a part of someone’s clean out party, and usually people just huck them in to the trash. Now you can donate them to a great organization called Act recycling, which is a non-profit that helps disabled people find work, or you can put them on Craigslist/Ebay or log on to www.greendisk.com, that will take most any hardware/computer stuff lying around. You can also check out the CD wall hanging found at Readymademag.com

6. Monitoring you electricity use. Want a great conversation starter for your next get together, invest in “The Wattson” which is a wireless electricity usage transmitter that you attach to your electricity meter and then place the ‘cool’ reader on your coffee table, and it will tell you (and your guests) your total electricity usage in watts or dollars per year right on your coffee table unit. It is really neat because as you turn your lights off and unplug things, you will see your usage go directly down as you flip the switch. This is really neat when you have friends over because you can show them that it really does make a difference to shut down your computer or turn off the lights! This also makes a really great house-warming gift for friends and family. I have listed three different websites below to find the newest in energy usage tracking devices.

• www.diykyoto.com (The Wattson)
• www.p3international.com
• www.consumerpowerline.com
• www.smarthomeusa.com

7. Drink Nondairy Milk! Dairy products have been linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, bloating, gas, osteoporosis, colic in infants, breast cancer, autism, Crohn’s Disease, acne, and ear infections, just to name a few. In addition to these diseases, the Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), the synthetic hormone used to boost milk production, and used regularly across the United States, has been linked to cancer. It takes five pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to make just one single pound of beef, and it is true that livestock creates (from flatulence) more greenhouse gases (18% of total emissions) then our cars and planes do!!! The good news is that there are now numerous substitutes on the store shelves that are packed with nutritional benefits and taste smooth and delicious. Now you can peruse the aisles of your local health food store, and pack the cart with oat milk, vanilla rice & soy blended milk, or chocolate almond milk, and when you get to the register you will feel cool and ‘in the now’ as you pay. Celebrities are the first to boast about their nondairy milk selection that they drink with their morning meals, and now you can do the same! I have listed below my favorite selections (don’t forget to always buy Organic):

• Original EdenBlend Rice & Soy
• Silk Soy Milk Plain flavor
• Blue Diamond Almond Breeze
• Rice Dream Supreme Vanilla Hazelnut
• Silk Soy Non-dairy Creamer
• Pacific Foods Organic Oat Vanilla

8. Buy Secondhand. It is now considered ‘trendy’ to buy vintage or second hand. Shopping at Goodwill is no longer for the less fortunate, it is for the uber cool people to find the most unique one of a kind outfit that nobody else has. And it is true, I have found the coolest old school dresses, fabrics, shoes, from second hand stores, and when I put them on, people rave “Where did you find that?” Buying secondhand is great for your kids too! Rather than spending a fortune on sweatshop made clothing at Gap or Gymboree, why not peruse your local St. Vincent, or look on Craigslist to find what you need. Another bonus to wearing second hand clothing is that any toxins that may have been in the clothing fibers when brand new are sure to be washed away by the time you get a hold of it. Some of my favorite sites for resale clothing are:

• www.freecycle.org
• www.craigslist.org
• www.efreeko.com

*look on the right side of my website on front page for additional links

9. 
10. 9.  Save water. Collect rain water, take shorter showers, plant native plants in your yard so you don’t have to water, shut your water off when brushing…these are all steps you can take to conserve water. And it is cool! If you pay close attention to magazine articles, tabloids and star interviews, a rather normal quote you will hear from someone famous is “It is important for me to take a two or three minute shower in order to conserve water. I know that the water from my two minutes of showering is more than the amount of water one person in Africa is able to use for the entire day, to do dishes, washing, drinking, etc.” You can start small by doing things like running full loads of dishes in your dishwasher, using drip irrigation instead of hoses to water your garden, and turning off the water when you brush and teaching your children to do the same. And if you don’t think conserving water is an important issue, just remember this statistic: “Americans use at least twice as much water per person as anyone else in the entire world”. (www.eia.doe.gov)

10. Drink Organic Fair Trade Coffee. If you know anything about coffee you should know that Organic Coffee tastes much better than conventional coffee. And since the Organic farming practices leave all the chemicals and pesticides out, then your cup of java will be clean and toxic free, and you can sip knowing the workers who plucked those coffee beans were working in a healthy environment. In addition, Fair Trade Certified coffee, means democratically-organized farmer organizations receive a guaranteed minimum floor price for their beans, they do not use harmful agrochemicals and workers are treated fairly and working in safe labor conditions. There are quite a few new local coffee shops (skip the Starbucks) out there that are boasting this ‘cool’ coffee trend of serving Organic, so get out there and support them, it is a great way to support your local community and promote a healthy environment. Look for the “Fair Trade Certified” label when buying coffee at your local market.