City Raised Hippie: green design

Saturday, February 7, 2009

There Are A Few Things I Simply Can Not Give Up

Green design, green products, green living, green this and green that -- the word Green has overtaken the general media! With the advent of so many fine things there will always be some things that just do not make the cut where safety, convenience, comfort, price, or a combination of all of the above, is concerned. As a self proclaimed Greenie I tend to give everything a try and if it works for me, fits into my lifestyle, then it will be here to stay. If not then I must revert to my old choices with no guilt and know there are so many other ways I can make a difference instead.

This past Thursday night was the latest Bennetts Brook Green Group (BBGG) meeting. It was small, only seven of us, but once again we touched on many fantastic topics and I was the lucky recipient of two lovely items that evening! One of the members picked up reusable shopping bags for everyone at Walgreens (I love this store) and at the end of the night I also won a door prize. I had the option of choosing between a bar of soap and a box of tissues. I eyed both but decided to go with the tissues because I had never used any of this company’s products before and was rightfully curious.

The brand is Seventh Generation, a well known name just about everywhere these days. The box is eye catching with little green leaves on a white background and on one side details of the product are given. These hypo-allergenic tissues are made from 100% recycled paper, have no dyes or bleach and are two ply. The bottom of the box indicates that if all households using tissues were to purchase a recycled product we would keep 17,000 pounds of chlorinated pollution from water ways and save:

☼ 283,000 trees
☼ 730,000 cubic feet of landfill space
☼ 102 million gallons of water

Yes this is wonderful and yes I am excited to feel good about making a difference. But am I literally looking down my nose at this gift? Well, sort of. No, they are not soft and no I do not believe I could use them if I had a cold as my nose would be raw after just one day. I am certainly happy to have the opportunity to try them out but I am a firm believer that anything we use has got to be the right thing for each of us personally or it will end up in a landfill before its intended life cycle is complete.

I will leave these tissues in the holder on the back of the toilet because we do not get sick often in this household and may only ever use one tissue a day. For that purpose they will be just fine and it will make me feel good knowing I am doing something more environmentally friendly but when this box runs out I will not replace it with another. Instead I will donate to plant a tree and use that as the trade off for the box of Puffs Plus with lotion that will make its way into my cart.

City Raised Hippie

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Saturday, February 7, 2009

There Are A Few Things I Simply Can Not Give Up

Monday, October 13, 2008

A Comprehensive List of Eco Fashion Friday Featured Designers

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