A round-up of this week’s environmental, green and ecofriendly news and updates.
Bottled water became hugely popular because marketers told us tap water wasn’t safe. Now, marketers are telling us we need wet wipes instead of toilet paper.
Don’t fall for it! Adult wipes are supposed to be flushable, but they’re not. Instead, they’re causing huge problems because they’re blocking sewage systems – costing billions of dollars a year in worldwide sewer maintenance.
Some adult wipes contain microbeads (lousy for the environment) and now they are being made with added chemicals (supposedly for hygiene). What will we be adding to our wastewater next?
Non-degradable wipes with microbeads and chemicals cost much more than toilet paper – and even more in taxes to have removed from our sewers. Don’t fall for the hype!
It can be really difficult to find time for yourself, especially as a woman. There always seem to be so many demands on your time.
However, “me” time is really, really important to your health and well-being.
And it doesn’t need a huge amount of of time, nor a lot of money.
Use these 5 tips – you’ll enjoy them! – to make sure that you get the time you need for yourself. (A recent study found that many women feel they live their whole lives for other people).
Don’t fall into that trap. You CAN make time for yourself. Read the 5 tips here.
We normally associate the state of Texas with Big Oil. However, the Longhorn State wants to remain America’s energy hub, and so it’s investing heavily in renewables (hooray!).
Texas produces 37 percent of America’s crude oil and 28 percent of its natural gas.
But it now has more than 10,000 wind turbines, allowing it to produce more power from wind than the combined power produced by 25 other states from all energy sources.
Plus, it’s installing lots of solar power, hoping to eventually generate over 10,000 megawatts of solar power.
It’s coming up to that time of year again – the time when people buy more than normal. Many of those purchases are made online.
Although it’s very easy and convenient, just how green is it to shop online?
Well, interestingly, if you do it the right way, it can be more green to buy online than to go to a store yourself (that’s good news for convenience!).
See how easy it is to be green and eco friendly with these 6 easy tips here.
One of my readers asked a great question about buying recycled products.
You know how a product might tell you something is made from, say, 60 percent recycled content? Well, is there a difference between pre-consumer and post-consumer recycled content?
There certainly is – and it’s important.
Post-consumer is the best. It’s made from old products that have already been used and discarded (e.g. used plastic bottles, used food cans, old newspapers). If they’re not recycled, they go to landfill. But if they’re recycled into new products, we keep our landfills smaller. Plus, by buying post-consumer recycled products, we’re telling manufacturers we want more of the same.
Pre-consumer recycled content is still better than new, but it comes from manufacturing scraps – which are often recycled anyway to save the producer money.
So if you have a choice, always choose post-consumer.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
Please spread the Green word and share this info.
And if you’re on Twitter, get a daily green tip by following me – @EcoExpert1 . See you there!
