Tips for Living Green: Reuse Common Household Items

Do you recycle your paper bags, glass jars and plastic food containers? Great, but you can still do more to help reduce the never ending garbage problem as well as some packaging that is not environmentally friendly. 

Here are a few tips for living green for reusing common household items as suggested by The Cleveland Women’s Journal West Edition (Feb-Mar 2009).

• Baby Food & small food jars – These small jars with study lids are great for storing spices, keeping fingerpaint, small nails or thumbtacks organized. 
• Aluminum Foil – Foil tips for living green is to simply rinse and reuse. Other tips for living green is to wad up the foil to clean baked-on food inside pans. You can also layer used foil and cut with scissors to sharpen the blades.
• Paper bags – While these bags are more eco friendly than plastic bags, paper bag tips for living green include covering student textbooks, organize other recycling, costumes for kids and can be used for cooling cookies instead of waxed paper.
• Socks – Sock tips for living green include using them as dusting rags especially when you are only left one of the pair. Other useful tips include filling the sock with rice, sew the end, warm in microwave and use as a heating pad. Make a tug toy for your dog by tying knots in the sock or fill with catnip for your kitty.

Remember these tips for living green before you throw the items in the trash or recycle bin.

Green Businesses are Attending EarthWatch Ohio’s First Annual Green Gala

If you are an eco friendly or green business in Northeast Ohio, then you won’t want to miss Earth Watch Ohio’s Green Gala on Friday, April 3. Ed Begley, Jr., an environmental activist and actor, will be the celebrity guest speaker.

Attendees can claim $75 of the $100 ticket price as a tax deduction and this includes appetizers, dinner, Begley’s presentation about living an eco friendly and sustainable lifestyle, live music and more according to EarthWatchOhio.org.

To reserve your ticket, visit, www.EarthWatchOhio.org. Sponsorships are still available for the Green Gala as well, which will also help support three program areas of Earth Watch Ohio. Download a packet on their Web site or call 216-387-1609.

If you are concerned about Ohio’s environment and want to become a green business, or connect to other sustainable and eco-friendly businesses, don’t miss the Green Gala.

Market a Green Business at Green Showcases

Marketing a new Green business can sometimes be difficult. A great way to promote your bussiness or idea is to attend showcases. There are many showcases in the counrty and around the world. Attending showcases is great for networking and hopefully finding people who are interested in your idea or bussiness. 

Fair Green Trade attended its first showcase last year and benefitted from it greatly. The showcase is what got the business on its feet. Fair Green Trade went to ”The Green Dreams 2008″  showcase, which was the largest showcase in Ohio. Fair Green Trade was a sponsor and put their advertisements on everything that was either handed out or shown at the showcase.

This year Fair Green Trade plans on doing it again and hopefully attending showcases around the country whenever it’s possible to attend. Prices for booths at showcases can range from a couple hundred dollars to upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Attending these showcases can be very beneficial for a start up green business or even a green business that has been around for a while. Sometimes for very little money you can attend a showcase where 2,000 to hundreds of thousandas of people will get a look at your green business. At natural food expos on average, there are about 50,00 attendees.

So for all new green start up companies, in my opinion, would be to attend a couple showcases and get your ideas and business out there and then go from there.

Achieve Laptop Energy Conservation and Be Cool with ThermaPAK’s Laptop Mat

If you own a laptop, you may have experienced the unpleasant sensation of your overheated computer resting on your lap. Not a fun feeling. So what’s to be done? Ditching your personal computer for a cooler one isn’t really the most viable option. But fortunately, a company called ThermaPAK has a cool, low-cost solution for both energy conservation and your own comfort.

Their slogan is “Be Green. Be Cool.” And with that simple goal in mind, ThermaPAK has created a HeatShift Pad that keeps laps cool even when laptops are getting hot. The rippled mat absorbs heat from your laptop. Keeping your laptop cool doesn’t just mean that you can work longer and more easily, but it also achieves better energy conservation. Also, your battery will last longer.

It’s an easy way to get great energy conservation and keep cool. If your laptop has been getting too hot under the collar recently, give it a break and try the ThermaPAK HeatShift pad.