Smells Like Green Spirit

Maybe you’ve heard all the press about lead in lipstick or L’oreal’s assertation that mercury is perfectly acceptable in mascara…

Just wanted to put up a quick post with a searchable list of companies who are producing safer makeup for your browsing pleasure: click Safer Cosmetics.

Also, apparently the state of Minnesota has banned mercury in mascara: click Minnesota Bans Mercury.

And, since the US has no regulations on the truth that makeup claims of “natural” or “organic” really are, it’s best to purchase organic makeup from Europe where regulations exist: click Buy European Organic Makeup

Share This

With Dreams of Sustainable Alternative Fuels, This is Kinda Frustrating

The federal government has called upon oil companies to buy 4.7 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel in 2007. Normally ethanol is more costly than gasoline, adding pennies at the the pump, but because of overproduction, ethanol is currently cheaper than gasoline by about 5-10 cents per gallon. Other pro-ethanol mandates in the past that are helping contribute to this overproduction include a 51 cent per gallon tax credit, subsidies for small ethanol producers and payments to corn farmers.

Although ethanol is higher octane, burns cleaner and helps engines last longer, it’s long been known that, contrary to the support it’s getting from the government, ethanol is not an ideal fossil fuel alternative due to its inefficiency (taking about as much energy to produce the ethanol as it burns), and it’s taking away from corn production for food sources, making corn products more expensive. It’s less fuel efficient than gasoline, because it contains only around 2/3 the energy content of gasoline.

So what’s going to happen as a result of this government mandate? It’s currently raising food and energy prices, and being that America consumes around 140 billion gallons of gasoline, is this mandate little more than lip service in the right direction?

Share This

This fall, I had the pleasure of spending time in Antwerp with some new friends who’d remodelled their adorable house in a green way. The Belgian government offers huge tax breaks for green homes, and hopefully Chicago will be offering more of this in the future. Currently, Chicago has around $1 million available for grants for solar heating, and waives the service fee of around $5,000 - $50,000 for developers installing green roofs.

What are some things you can do to build/remodel your home in a green way?

*Remodeling instead of starting from scratch is essential - think of all the bricks and lumber you’ll save when you use what’s already in place!

*Realize that some things might cost a little more up front, but in the long run the pay off will be huge!! This can range from small things like compact fluorescent lightbulbs to lots and lots of insulation to a more efficient water heater.

*Consider “lumber” made from materials other than wood (products made from recycled plastics exist, among others).

*Environmentally certified lumber can save forests as logging is done in a sustainable manner. For more info, visit the Forest Stewardship Council.

*Look for paint and adhesives that don’t release gases and organic materials for more breathable air around your domicile.

*Rooftop gardens insulate your home, saving on energy costs, add to your resale value, helps to reduce overall city warming, and reduces runoff that leads to water pollution. You can even grow herbs and vegetables on an accessible roof!

*Build a compost bin to reduce trash produced and generate fertilizer for your gardens.

*When buying appliances and items for the home, think about how long the items will last and how easy or difficult it would be to recycle and reuse the materials.

*Double pane windows help to insulate your home from the outside environment.

*Solar heating can be expensive, but government grants are available for them (Not sure how difficult it is to get one–more on this in a later post.)

*Disconnect your downspouts from the roof and garage to stop runoff into sewers.

For more info, click:

Energy Grants for Historic Chicago Bungalows

Energy Star

US Green Building Council

Landscape with Native Chicago Plants

Share This

A Greener New Years Eve Celebration in New York City
As the ball drops this New Years Eve in Times Square, it will be a new and improved green version equipped with 9,576 energy efficient LED bulbs from Phillips lighting. The bulbs will use the equivalent of 10 toasters, and yet appear even brighter than previous years’ balls.

Greener Christmas Lights for Next Year’s Holidays
And although it’s a little late for this Christmas (oops!), I just found out about LED Christmas lights, which can greatly reduce the energy consumption of the twinkling li’l things.

An article by the Union of Concerned Scientists states that this year’s energy usage by Christmas lights “could generate as much global warming pollution as about 250,000 cars.” Double YIKES! Just goes to show that every little thing we do differently can really add up!

Benefits of LED Christmas lights:
*They consume less energy
*They stay cool to the touch (no fire hazard)
*They are more durable than traditional lights
*They last thousands and thousands hours longer

For more info, visit EcoMall.

Share This

This is just insane!

I first stumbled upon this a while ago at The Healthy Green Blog, but apparently a few years ago the winner of the British Ashten Award (which honors sustainable energy products) was an overpopulated Rwandan prison which had begun converting prisoner waste into combustable biogas for cooking and fertilizer! That’s so wonderful! And gross! And amazing! And creepy…

Sewage disposal had been a major health hazard for the prison and the surrounding area, and while not a new development, Rwanda was the first to impliment it on such a grand scale with such grand success.

The organization which is responsible for this amazing and disgusting development is KIST, or the Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management, established in 1997 to “transfer technical innovations, managerial, and entrepreneurship skills into community applications”. For more information, visit the KIST website.

What the Heck is Biogas??

The production of biogas involves putting organic material into an air-tight tank and letting bacteria break it down, where by it releases gas. (Does this mean we could eat lots of beans and produce our own sustainable biogas? That I do not know.) The biogas can then be used as fuel, with its remants usable for organic composting.

To greatly simplify the process, the human waste is flushed into things called air-tight “digesters” where the gas-making process takes place. It is then piped into kitchens for cooking, and this process somehow also deals with the smell and unsanitary-ness of the waste.

For more information:
Ashten Award
Kigali Institute of Science and Technology

By the way, I read an amazing book about the Rwandan genocide by journalist Philip Gourevitch entitled We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda that I’d highly recommend anyone read who wants an indepth, moving and fascinating history of those dark days in Rwanda. The last story in the book made me bawl. It’s a sad but important history we should all know more about.

Share This

The thought of riding a bike throughout the winter in Chicago is a terrifying one to me, but many people do it, and dang it, I want to give it a shot too.

Whatcha Wearin’?

Most roads in Chicago are plowed and salted fairly quickly, so it seems the only necessary component is dressing in layers like one would for winter sports. I hear if you walk outside and only feel mildly chilly in what you’re wearing, soon you’ll warm up on the road. It’s recommended that for a serious ride you wear a “wicking layer” next to your skin and not cotton, but most of my rides would be like to a bar or to work, so I don’t think I’ll need to worry about wicking just yet. Or wiccans. I won’t worry about them either.

If where you are is “cold/wet” like Chicago, (as opposed to “cold/dry” in somewhere like the southwest), a perfect outer layer is a rain suit with ample layers underneath. Don’t overlayer though, or you’ll be drenched in sweat after a couple of miles.

Helmet liners can be purchased at bike stores, and face masks, while scary looking, keep your face warm. My friends simply wrap scarves around their faces.

Make sure your hands are amply protected! You can buy winter biking gloves at bike shops, but heavy wind proof gloves would work fine too.

Pumping those pedals through piles of snow is tiring, probably much like jogging through think sand on a beach. It’s the thought of biking on ice that scares me, though!

Studded Tires

My friends say to remain as still as possible when going over ice, don’t break, and try just to coast. Make sure you have reflectors on and a bike light while riding around at night.

But, apparently there exists something called studded tires that make even the most terrifying patches of ice bikeable. I’ve never used these before, so you should head somewhere else for expertise:

Ice Bike
Commute By Bike
Peter White Cycles
Chicago Bike Blog
Bike Winter
Chicago Bicycle Federation

Share This

A few years ago, a chilling documentary called “Chernobyl Heart” aired on HBO about a children’s mental asylum in Vesnova located near the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. A reported 40% upsurge in birth defects linked with the nuclear catastrophe coupled with the area’s poverty filled the children’s home with twisted creatures rarely seen in more well-off western countries. The girl whose brain grew entirely separately from her head, the girl with “water on the brain” that made her head swell to the size of a huge upside down pear, the young one whose body was twisted painfully into a backwards horseshoe shape by a bent spine…these were just some of the tear jerking images of what 100-200 years ago would likely have been marketed in circuses and sideshows as circus freaks.

And yet, another strange thing emerged from the nuclear disaster. As the area with an 18 mile radius has been completely abandoned by people, the incredible biodiversity that has erupted has stunned scientists. Free from the interferences of people terrified of the nuclear core that will be burning for thousands years from now, the flora and fauna of Pripyat is flourishing at a startling rate.

Over 100 animals listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List of threatened species have been found in the area. While genetic mutations and deformities abound in young creatures, they are rarer in adults, implying that the mutations are weeded out as the fittest survive and the deformed die young. Trees have been found to grow twisted and confused, almost as if they “don’t know which end is up,” says Discover Magazine.

Will nuclear fall out in the future lead to less people and more animals on earth? Time will only tell. Surely for the answers, let us ask the cockroaches and the beetles who have been laughing at our foolish ways since the beginning.

For more information:

Chernobyl Children’s Project International
They have a wealth of links on the left hand of their home page with Chernobyl information.

Note: This article has previously appeared in Atlanta’s Heroine Magazine, with copyrights retained by the author Laura Callier.

Share This

Bikes are a wonderful form of transportation…no fossil fuels burned, no carbon dioxide emitted, it’s great exercise and much quicker than walking…here are some tips when looking for a used bike…

Damaged Goods?
First, check for frame and fork damage…if you see any, better keep looking.

Look at the bike from the side and make sure nothing seems bent or cracked…if there are dents or bulges in the top or down tubes, the bike likely had a wreck at some point. Rusty parts can be too weak or can be expensive to repair, so look out for rust also.

Check to make sure the wheels aren’t rusted or corroded, and that they don’t wobble when they spin.

Any parts that are worn out will need to be replaced, (such as the tires or chains) adding to the price of your bike, so take them into account when purchasing the bike.

Take Her for a Spin!

Be sure you test ride the bike to make sure it rides smoothly, that the brakes work properly, that the bike height is comfortable. Comfort is key to satisfaction with your new bike!

What sort of a bike do you need? Mountain bikes aren’t very practical for the city, and if you’ll be locking your bike outside in a big city with regularity, consider the chance your bike might be stolen if it’s an expensive brand.

Speaking of brands, if you can, do some research on the brand of used bike you’re considering purchasing. Certain brands are cheaply made and not worth purchasing used, whereas other bikes were built to last.

Don’t be afraid to haggle on the price of a used bike!

Great places to find used bikes:

A bike shop is one of the best places to buy a used bike, because it will be the most roadworthy, but other places to look are…

Craig’s List
Thrift Stores
Garage sales
Police Auctions
Freecycle
Working Bikes in Chicago

For more detailed information visit Bike Universe

Share This

No Breathing Easy In Beijing

Imagine air pollution so bad that you can’t even go outside…that’s what Beijing is currently experiencing - such horrible smog that government officials are urging citizens to stay in.

Suspended particulate matter, largely from coal burning plants and auto emissions make up the awful pollution, exacerbated by the lack of wind recently.

Beijing’s air quality has long been considered among the world’s worst, whereas…

England’s Ecotricity

On the other side of the planet, self described hippie Dale Vince has been using the windy air of the UK to create his highly successful company Ecotricity, providing wind turbine energy to over 22,000 customers. With the ability to be backed up by the grid if the wind ever falters, Vince promotes his turbines reminding us that wind will never run out, is 100% renewable, it produces no pollutants, and the turbines pay for themselves within the first 6 months in energy saved.

Wind energy is now price competitive with traditional energy sources in the U.K…too bad Beijing has had had such a lack of wind!

More about Ecotricity’s turbines:

*They’re quiet enough not to disturb people living nearby.

*They need to placed strategically so as not to disturb television signals.

*Turbines must be placed in areas sensitive to bird habitats. (Ecotricity’s statistics suggest that millions more birds are killed by cars each year than would ever be killed or harmed by wind turbines.)

For more info, click here for Ecotricity’s website.

Share This

I began Smells Like Green Spirit as part of an internship with Sarah Lewis from Blogging Expertise, but I had selfish reasons too. I wanted to have motivation to educate myself about living conscientiously. When I started this blog I didn’t even know what a carbon footprint was. I was hoping that along the way, some people might stumble upon this and learn something themselves, or teach me something, because heaven knows I have a long way to go! Here I’ve compiled a list of “green goals” I’m slowly working towards. The only one I’d been doing before starting this blog was breaking my dependency on cars by moving to Chicago, and using public transit, bikes and my two feet….here goes…

Stop driving gasoline powered cars, or drive infrequently and conscienciously.

Stop eating meat, or eat only meat from humanely, locally raised animals.

Stop eating any animal products, or eat only humanely, conscientiously derived animal products.

Ride bicycles whenever possible!

Help to make your community more bike friendly.

Walk somewhere whenever possible.

Buy locally made, locally grown products whenever possible.

Support companies with conscientious business practices.

Use as much green power as possible.

Work to spread awareness of green power.

Live your life to create as little a carbon footprint as possible.

Support public transit programs.

Register your address to stop receiving wasteful junk mail.

Purchase cleaning products that aren’t harmful to the environment.

Reuse products instead of recycling.

Take part in or help implement local recycling programs.

Purchase personal care products that aren’t harmful to the environment.

Stop buying bottled water.

Don’t be preachy!

Turn off lights and appliances when you leave the room.

Take shorter showers.

Use native plants in your landscaping and gardening, as they need less water to live.

Plant some trees!

Donate some money to a charity or non profit that is working towards these same goals (be sure they’re responsible, honest, and well-managed.)

Volunteer your time at a charity or non profit that is working towards these same goals.

Build a rooftop garden.

Start composting.

Use Energy Star Appliances.

Get a low-flush toilet.

Use natural or compact fluorescent lighting whenever possible.

Make sure your home is well insulated.

Buy products made from recycled materials.

Take care not to over-water plants.

Collect rain water to water your plants.

Recycle the water from your laundry for your yard.

Go to a green dry cleaner.

Buy clothes from thrift stores and vintage resale shops.

Use recycled materials when building or remodeling.

Request to be taken off catalog lists.

Share This