Smells Like Green Spirit

Air Dry? But…But…
The obvious way to dry your hair in an environmentally friendly way is to let it air dry. Nuff said.

But My Hair Sucks!
But…what if you have stupid wavy hair that looks really bad air dried? Hair like mine? I had cute ringlets when I was a wee one, but now that I’m an adult, with the fading of my cuteness have gone the ringlets, leaving a wavy ugly fest if I don’t blow dry. It might be vain, but I don’t always want to air dry my hair and have to wear a hat. I have a freakishly large head, ok??  And I haven’t been able to find information about this anywhere!

Off course you must thoroughly towel dry your hair, and you can use a lower energy setting on your hair dryer, but does this really save energy if it just means you have to blow dry longer?

I let my hair air dry for a while and then blow dry it to save energy. And time too.

If You Want to Look Crazy
Using the hand dryer in a public restroom will not save energy, but it would save you money on your electric bill. And lend credibility to your requests for change in the parking lot outside afterwards.

Is Infrared the Secret?
Infrared hair dryers say they use less energy than conventional hair dryers. They’re quite a bit quieter too. My mom has one, and it takes a little bit longer to dry my hair with it than a conventional hair dryer, but heck, it works, and it is supposedly gentler on one’s hair too, wreaking less havoc on those potentially split ends.

Instyle Magazine recommends Bio Ionic’s infrared hair dryers, but those run close to $175. Yikes! A company called Tourmaline supposedly has good infrared hair dryers too, but it seems like infrared is not infracheap. Sigh…

Any more product recommendations?

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With free wireless, Scrabble Sundays, fair trade coffees and teas, special doggy treats, paninis and salads, why would you not stop by Swim Cafe?? 

I like that the smoothies are healthy, made with just fruits and juices and no extra sweeteners. The two salads I’ve had were fresh and delicious. The Brie Salad came with mixed greens, chickpeas, dill and brie, and the Summer Salad overflowed with mixed greens, avocado, red onion, hearts of palm, and sunflower seeds.

Some vegetarian paninis on the menu include a Caprese, a Tri-Color Veggie (with spinach, roasted red peppers, and feta with lemon hummus), and the Omelette panini.

Swim Cafe has revolving art exhibits on its walls (some of which I’ve really liked), a variety of baked goods, and fresh, seasonal soups of the day.

My only complaint is that they don’t stay open later.
Their hours are weekdays 6 am - 8 pm and weekends 6 am - 6 pm.

1357 W Chicago Ave
312-492-8600
www.swimcafe.com

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While the recycling program in Chicago can be criticized as being slightly dubious and not far-reaching enough, and while air quality is still a real problem, Chicago is determined to be America’s greenest city. 

Indeed, living carfree in Chicago is cake with its many bike-friendly roads. I walk almost everywhere, and criticize the public transit all you want, but having lived before in Houston and Atlanta, where transit is a ridiculous joke, I think it’s amazing.

Daley’s environmental commissioner Sadhu Johnston thinks cities are the salve the environment needs, compared with the sprawl and car dependency of suburbs and rural areas. He’s hellbent on making Chicago the greenest city in the nation, as well as a hub of environmental design and alternative energy production.

A few more green facts about Chicago:

*Chicago is one of the nation’s biggest users of green/renewable energy.

*Over the last 20 years, 500,000 trees have been planted and park space along the lakefront has increased.

*City Hall is outfitted with a rooftop garden.

*Several million rooftop gardens have been constructed around the city or are being planned, more than the rest of the U.S. combined.

*Chicago is investing in greener vehicles, with idling for longer than 5 minutes illegal for city vehicles.

*Chicago’s Green Alley Initiative is helping water pollution and energy consumption. (Click here to read my article about that.)

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One of my favorite things about walking around Chicago is the network of alleyways the city has weaving through the city, very fun to duck through, often laden with treasures like discarded bedside tables and old record players.

Mayor Daley is now going through with his Green Alley initiative, where alleys will now be outfitted with environmentally sustainable material. Water will be able to penetrate the permeable concrete or porous asphalt, get filtered in the underground stone beds, and rejoin the underground water table or Lake Michigan rather than becoming polluted runoff.

Created from recycled materials, the green alleys will reflect heat (rather than absorbing it) in the summer and stay warmer in the winter, and the alleys will even be outfitted with new lighting to conserve energy. Congrats to Mayor Daley for helping Chicago get greener and greener!

For more info:

New York Times Article

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I think one of my biggest complaints about eco-friendly clothing (no offense to anyone here) is that most of it looks too flowy and hippie to me. What about the chic eco-friendly clothing? What about the eco-friendly mods and punks? The eco-friendly yuppies? The green clothing industry has properly outfitted the hippies, now what about everyone else?

A boutique in Houston, called Green by Adeline, is a “high fashion” boutique in the Galleria area where everything is made from all-natural materials like bamboo, corn, soy, hemp, and wood pulp. The store features a bamboo floored runway for future fashion events, fluorescent and halogen lighting to cut down on energy consumption, and is located at 5136 Richmond Ave.

Endeavoring to be relatively affordable (prices range from $30 shirts to $700 gowns), Adeline makes sure her products follow through on their promise to be made from what they say they are.

If you’re in the Houston area, check out the long awaited high fashion green boutique!

Website: www.greenbyadeline.com

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One problem I have with the concept of purchasing carbon offsets is, as many critics have put it, the similarities to the medieval practice of purchasing indulgences to offset sins.

How can we really be sure that the charities we’re supporting are actually doing what they say they are, and that we are really getting our money’s worth?

While I do support the idea, and as I’ve mentioned, one charity I support in this endeavor is the Conservation Fund, it’s so important to not rely on things like recycling and carbon offsets instead of actually living conscientiously, reducing the total amount of waste we produce, and reducing the total amount of carbon we produce on a daily basis.

It’s frustrating to read about Al Gore living in a mansion that uses over 20 times the amount of electricity of an average person, to think that he could probably afford solar panels and such, and to read about him flying private jets all over the planet while he preaches about global warming, and it’s frustrating to think about the fact that some organizations offering carbon offsets might just be capitalizing on the market for them, but that is why we should just try to educate ourselves, do the best we can, and try to live by example.

And, while purchasing “indulgences” might psychologically lessen the weight of our environmental “sins,” let’s together be sure to do as much as we can to reduce our carbon feetprints!

What do you think? What do you do to offset your carbon dioxide production? What do you think about the purchase of carbon offsets? Leave a comment and let me know what’s on your mind…

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In North America alone, around 30-35 million trees are sold for the holidays…luckily though, the jolly trees are a recyclable, renewable source of holiday joy as typically around 3 seedlings are planted for every Christmas tree cut down, and as around 93% of Christmas trees purchased are estimated to be recycled.

Recycled Christmas trees are used for a variety of purposes, including for chipping (for mulches and to line trails), for enrichment of fish habitats, for the reduction of beach line erosion, for the stabilization of the shorelines of lakes and rivers, and for the management of river delta sedimentation.

 Although perhaps the best idea for the holidays is a living Christmas tree that is planted in your yard, dug up for the holidays and then replanted, choosing a real Christmas tree over an artificial one means using a recyclable product versus a likely unrecyclable artificial tree, and supporting North American businesses. (Most Christmas trees are grown in Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington whereas most artificial trees are produced in China.)

For more info and pro live Christmas tree propaganda, visit the website of the National Christmas Tree Association.

And, here are a list of locations to drop off your Christmas tree in Chicago:

Bessemer Park: 8930 S. Muskegon Ave.

Devry Institute: 3401 N. Rockwell

Forestry Site: 900 E. 103rd St.

Garfied Park: 100 N. Central Park Ave.

Grant Park: 900 S. Columbus Dr.

Humboldt Park Boathouse: 1440 N. Sacramento Blvd.

Jackson Park: 6300 S. Cornell Dr.

Kennedy Park: 11320 S. Western Ave.

Kelvyn Park: 4438 S. Wrightwood Ave.

Lake Meadows Park: 3117 S. Rhodes Ave.

Lincoln Park: Cannon Dr. at Fullerton

Margate Park: 4921 N. Marine Dr.

Marquette Park: 6700 S. Kedzie Ave.

McKinley Park: 2210 W. Pershing Rd.

Mt. Greenwood Park: 3721 W. 111th St.

North Park Village: 5801 N. Pulaski Rd.

Norwood Park: 5801 N. Natoma

Portage Park: 4100 N. Long

Riis Park: 6100 W. Fullerton

Rowan Park: 11546 S. Avenue L

Sheridan Park: 910 S. Aberdeen St.

Warren Park: 6601 N. Western Ave.

Wentworth Park: 5625 S. Mobile Ave.

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So…we’ve all heard of green or live roofs (if not, here’s my post about them) but you have to go here and look at this company’s living walls!!!

Other Than Just Being Cool, What are the Benefits of a Living Wall?

The name of the company is ELT Easy Green Living Walls System, and they say their living walls conserve energy through insulation, filter the air, and look amazing..

They apparently require very little maintenance, and you can even grow vegetables like lettuce, beets, radishes, carrots and herbs on the walls of your home!

Oh…if only I didn’t live in a tiny Chicago apartment…sigh…

Here’s that link again: www.eltlivingwalls.com

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One of the most wasteful things about giving presents this time of year is all of the wrapping paper that gets thrown right into the garbage after the unwrapping.

Here are some alternatives you can use to cut down the unnecessary waste:

*Newspapers - My relatives this year are getting many of their presents wrapped in the newspaper my mother subscribes to! All except for the things that might get dirty from the newsprint like the white purse I’m giving my sister in law. (I hope she’s not reading this.) The comics are a fun thing especially for wrapping the kids’ presents in.

*Old drawings or posters - The presents I mailed to my dad and step mom I wrapped in old drawing paper I had lying around that I was never going to use, and once my friend Joe wrapped a present he gave me with a Beastmaster 2 poster, something I still enjoy to this day.

*A gift inside a gift - What about putting a gift inside a bag that your recipient can reuse as an alternative to plastic bags, something like a canvas totebag? ( PS If you need any inspiration to stop using plastic bags visit this No Plastic Bags Blog.) You could even wrap the gift in a t-shirt or a pillow case. (I can always use new pillowcases if anyone is wondering.)

*Hide a gift - This is especially fun for kids, but if someone did this for me in my adulthood, I’d be delighted. Instead of wrapping the gift, hide the gift so that your recipient will either stumble upon it of their own accord, or you can play the “Hot and Cold” game to help them find it. My mom used to hide our Christmas stockings when I was little, and I convinced her to keep doing it until I left home at age 17 because it was really fun!

There are an infinite number of other alternatives, use your creativity to reduce the wrapping paper waste that goes straight to our already overflowing landfills!

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College of the Atlantic in the fair state of Maine, received the honor of being the first carbon neutral campus in the U.S. As you many know, this doesn’t mean that they have eliminated all carbon emissions, but rather have taken action to neutralize or offset all of the carbon they produce.

As one of the 450 colleges or universities to take the “net-zero” pledge, CAA says it spent around $25,000 offsetting 2488 tons of carbon over the last 15 months.

Over the summer, I endeavored to do the same, and I suggest if you should do something along the same lines if you can!

Honestly, I don’t know if there are better charities out there, but the one I used was The Conservation Fund. The Conservation Fund has a calculator where you can estimate the amount of carbon your lifestyle produces, and then donate money which they use to plant native trees, planting one tree for every $5 you donate. According to them, the tree planting will “address climate change, protect wildlife habitat and enhance America’s public recreation areas. Since 2000, The Conservation Fund has restored nearly 20,000 acres and planted more than 8 million trees through its carbon sequestration program. Over the next 100 years, these new forests will capture an estimated 9.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere.”

Please visit the Conservation Fund “Go Zero” website for more information, or if you know of other, better charities to support, please let me know!!

PS Doesn’t the phrase “carbon neutralizing” sound like something a gun in an old sci-fi movie would do?

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