Cool stuff to help you go green | Environment

From the Hartford Courant

Cool stuff to help you go green

Easy tips, simple steps, and, oh yeah, where to find some cool green stuff!

February 8, 2008

"Cool Green Stuff: A Guide to Finding Great Recycled, Sustainable, Renewable Objects You Will Love" [$14.95, Clarkson Potter, 248 pages] is a thought-provoking collection of, as the title aptly puts it, really cool stuff — such as place mats made of woven silver candy wrappers that can be wiped clean of spills ($68 for four mats at www.ecoist.com).

Each glossy picture in Australian photographer Dale Evans' book features an interesting product made out of something we never would have thought about, like the colorful catchall basket made of used potato-chip bags collected on the streets of Nepal that are cleaned and wrapped around dried grasses ($10 to $34, depending on size, at www.btcelements.com).

If you're looking for a conversation starter, one-of-a-kind sculptures of roosters and owls, built from cans and tins salvaged from the trash, are sold for $130 to $175 each at www.annabuilt.com. The sculptures are colorful, and they have sharp plumage, too.

"We bet we can guess what your morning routine looks like: You gently click off your solar-powered alarm clock, crawl out of your hemp sheets, don organic cotton slippers and a recycled fleece robe, and shuffle across your bamboo floors to the bathroom, where you bathe in rainwater and botanicals harvested from your own garden."

Not.

"Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Non-Pompous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day" [$14.95, Skipstone, 176 pages], edited by Brangien Davis with Katharine Wroth, is a "greenifying" book for people who can't afford to make expensive changes to help the planet (bamboo floors cost a fortune!) but want to do their part.

Davis and Wroth — editors of Grist.org, a Seattle-based nonprofit environmental website with a sense of humor — have filled this book with excellent tips delivered in a pithy way on things you can do to make the planet a healthier place.

For instance: If your workplace isn't recycling, "Think Norma Rae, Be Norma Rae," the book advises, by making it your mission to change office policy.

If you're an eco-parent, you probably wonder, "Are all diapers diabolical?" The authors' answer is — yes. Disposable diapers fester in landfills; cloth diapers require too much water and energy (to wash and dry). The solution: "Going Commando" a method the book says involves watching bare-bottomed infants and toddlers for signs of "imminent" activity. We'll let readers figure it out from there.

"The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time" [$12.95, Three Rivers Press, 201 pages] by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen isn't as funny as "Wake Up and Smell the Planet," but it includes environmentally correct advice from movie stars.

There's this from Jennifer Aniston: "When I found out that my cellphone charger still uses energy when it's plugged in and it's not being used, I began unplugging it." We didn't know that.

And this from Ellen DeGeneres: "I've seen people drinking water out of plastic bottles and then not recycling them. That's infuriating." DeGeneres urges readers to do one "small thing" and put their used plastic bottles in a can that is marked "Recycle." We knew that.

— VALERIE FINHOLM