Alternate Health Magazine July/August 2007 Issue

Alternate Health Magazine
July/August 2007 Issue

Green, earth friendly talk and hype are ubiquitous.

Here I found something I wanted to share with my readers. I have also included the web site URLs to find out more information.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…Reward!

Each week you diligently drag your recycling bins full of bottles, cans and newspapers down to the curb. Yet you notice that most neighbors fail to do the same. To reverse the recycling slump, Philadelphia based company RecycleBank teamed up with city waste haulers in 2005 and raised the number of recycling households in one neighborhood from an abysmal 7 percent to a healthy 90 percent. How? By offering customers RecycleBank Dollars – a currency that’s good at Whole Foods, Borders bookstores, EMS, Starbucks, and many other national and local retailers – just for recycling. It’s free to join, and you can earn up to $35 a month for eco-efforts. People in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware have so far spared more than 66,000 trees and 4 million gallons of oil through the program, and folks in Vermont, Massachusetts and New York will soon be able to do the same – all while cashing in on their new-found virtue. Learn more at www.recyclebank.com.

Preserve cutting board
Cut veggies on paper. Yes, paper. Recycline Inc.’s PaperStone Certified, 100 percent post-consumer–recycled paper cutting boards are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and come in two sizes—8 inches by 12 inches and 10 inches by 16 inches. They’re nonporous and dishwasher safe, too.
$24 and $32; www.recycline.com

The omop
The ergonomic, all-purpose mop from Method could help make a dent in landfill size. The mop pad is washable and reusable up to 50 times. The sweeping cloths are made from compostable corn-based polymers. And it comes with biodegradable cleaning fluid.
$30 for the omop all-floor starter kit; www.methodhome.com

The EcoSpongeConventional
synthetic sponges are made from either wood pulp, which encourages deforestation, or polyurethane, which can emit formaldehyde. Adding to the environmental impact, experts recommend replacing kitchen sponges every one to two weeks. Pacific Dry Goods’ EcoSponge is washable and dryer safe, so you can use it again and again.
Starting at $2.50; www.pacificdrygoods.com