Yesterday was Earth Day, and you can continue doing your part for the environment by joining an Earth friendly DVD club that has the sole purpose of increasing social and environmental awareness through some great DVD’s that you can watch with the entire family. When you join this DVD club you will get the best environmental films that come with 4 films per DVD every month that you keep. When you join this club you are supporting environmental filmmakers and best of all these DVD’s are shipped to you in eco-friendly packaging. After watching these films, you might want to the right thing and spread the word to your friends and family and let them watch these films so they can take a stand and make a difference for the environment.

Click here today to become apart of the Earth Cinema Circle DVD club and you’ll soon start receiving your DVD’s each and every month. If you join today, you will save 15% off the regular retail price!

Gimme 5 Recycling by Paige Brady,  on January 20th, 2009

Great news for recyclers out there! Some of our Whole Foods Market stores are piloting a new program for recycling #5 plastic with Preserve called Gimme 5. If you don’t have the recycling numbers memorized (like me), #5 is commonly used in containers for yogurt, cottage cheese, hummus, medicine bottles, etc. I’m told that many communities don’t have recycling for #5 plastics and when it is collected, it’s often shipped to Asian to be burned as energy. Yuck! Oh yeah, as an added benefit, Gimme 5 also accepts Brita water filters for recycling. (Since water filters are all different, this is only for Brita.)

So here’s the deal. You bring your #5 plastics to a drop-off bin at
our participating stores. (We’re starting with our stores in the
Midwest, North Atlantic, Northeast and Northern California. Check for specific stores.)
We’ll send the plastic to Preserve, who make recycled household
products including toothbrushes, razors, tableware, and kitchen
products. When they get it, the plastic is ground up and turned into clean plastic pellets. The pellets are then sent to Preserve’s
manufacturing facilities to be transformed into new Preserve products.

Obviously, when you choose to purchase Preserve stuff that closes the loop on the whole recycling chain. How cool is that?

Preserve Gimme 5 is supported by a partnership with Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm. Pats on backs all around. This whole program started because Preserve wondered: “Wouldn’t it be cool if more people could recycle their #5 plastic? They could just fill up their reusable shopping bags and drop off their #5s every time they go shopping at Whole Foods Market.” A Green Mission Team Leader in our Reston, Virginia store had the same good idea. Together they piloted the first Preserve Gimme 5 program and it worked! Store guests loved the bin and filled it with so much clean #5 plastic that Team Members emptied the bin three times a week. Preserve called their friends at Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm. Together, they agreed to fund a program that would
make #5 recycling available at other Whole Foods Market stores.

Preserve hopes to expand Gimme 5 to more Whole Foods Market stores in the coming months. If your store isn’t on the list of current stores and you’d like to see it in your store, post a comment below on the original article here.

One easy method to detect and examine the amount of electricity your devices use is the Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor.  I am currently performing an audit on some of my household appliances and I must say I’m a bit suprised by some of the results.  Upon completion I will post the results for you, but I would love to hear about some of your results now in the comments section.

To make a safe homemade window cleaner, combine 1 tablespoon of vinegar to one quart of warm water. Pour the solution into a reusable spray bottle, and you have the safest, best window cleaner for your home. To prevent streaking, do not clean your windows while the sun is on them and use crumpled newspaper to wipe them dry. The newspaper can still be recycled after cleaning your windows.  You may need to add about a “pump” of a good liquid detergent to the mix for your first batch to help remove some of the wax left by previous commercial cleaners.

You can use regular vinegar, of if it is in your budget, give organic vinegar a try. Since you are using such a small amount of vinegar, a bottle should last you a long time.