Hybrid Living

It’s not all that hard to green your kitchen. Try one, two, or more of the following small changes. When added up all of them make a big green difference.

Green your brew: Buy organic, Fair Trade coffee and use a reusable coffee filter instead of paper filters. If you take your coffee from home to the office use a stainless steel, toxin-free reusable carry along mug.
Green your clean-up: Harsh chemicals in the kitchen are so over. You can use safe and natural cleaners and still have a perfectly sparkling kitchen. Greening kitchen clean-up counts for more than when you green [...]

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Six Ways To Green Your Kitchen

If a new baby is in the works for 2010 then of course you’ll want to design an awesome green nursery. This is the fun part – while there are important decisions to make, there are also tons of amazing green baby products out there just waiting for you to browse.

Here are some tips for designing a super green nursery…

Start with the skeleton – that means walls and floors – before you move in any furniture or accessories. Choose eco-friendly low-voc / no-voc paints or non-toxic wallpapers for the walls. Go with natural, sustainable, or organic flooring and [...]

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Design a greener baby nursery

Envirosax has been making eco-friendly reusable bags for years and now they’ve got another product that’s perfect for those who want to help keep the earth clean and green – Envirosax Aqua – a brand new design savvy reusable water bottle.

Of course there’s no good reason to use plastic bottles when you don’t have to. The new Aqua bottle is just one more smart solution to said plastic issue and a fashionable solution too. These bottles are really pretty and stylish; made from food grade stainless steel. Aqua has been tested and is certified to be BPA safe. What with [...]

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New Envirosax Aqua Reusable Water Bottle

Ask 20 people in one room and you’ll likely get 20 different answers as to what exactly makes a sustainable house. It’s a large topic and if you’re considering building or buying a sustainable house you’ll have a lot of research and planning to go through. Not to mention, green housing standards are changing all the time – such as LEED for example.

That said, there are some general ideas behind green housing you can follow. Decent sustainable housing is in line with the following ideas…
Each level of the process is sustainable. From how you choose a site for your green [...]

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What makes a sustainable house?

And by spiffy I mean not an eye-sore. Personally I don’t much care if my recycling bins look great or not – but that’s what happens when you have an outside recycling bin area. If you do need to have a home recycling center inside, say in your kitchen or garage, you may want something that looks a little nice than typical plastic bins. While a set of awesome looking bins will cost more than plastic bins, the benefit is that you won’t hide them away and thus will become a much better recycling advocate.
Following are some recycling bins that [...]

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Stylish home recycling bins

If you get the newspaper delivered to your home, you may want to reconsider. If you truly read that sucker cover to cover DAILY, or at least mostly read it, then it’s a better deal for the planet and your footprint due to the energy it takes to manufacture, ship out, and even recycle the paper.

If you find that you don’t have the time to read the paper or you only read the Sunday ed. why not cancel the daily paper and switch to weekend only. You’ll save resources, money, and time.Another option is to subscribe online. Most newspapers offer [...]

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Uses for Recycled Newspaper

Regular mopping is a big waste of water because of the constant dirt you’re slinging into the bucket (chagning out the water). It’s also not very efficient because you simply can’t keep a bucket of mop water hot enough to be a super efficient cleaner. With this in mind, folks tend to add chemical cleaners to their bucket of mop water.
In many cases a greener option (beyond a typical mop) is a steam cleaning mop which will get super hot and does save water. However, there are pros and cons.
Pros of steam cleaning mops:

Use less water than traditional mops.
Very [...]

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Steam Mops Save Water & Cut Chemical Use

Previously we’ve looked at how the new toaster ovens of today can save you energy. However, I didn’t go into specifics about how to buy one. If you’ve been wanting a toaster oven you should consider the following before you buy.

Brick Oven Classic from Cuisinart shown above
Toasters come in many flavors: Toaster ovens can save energy but technically toaster ovens fall into many categories such as your basic pop-up toast-making toaster, smaller sized toaster ovens that fit larger pieces of bread or other foods including leftovers, and gigantic toaster ovens that can actually broil fish or chicken, bake a pizza [...]

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Choose the right toaster oven

Green your toilet: Older toilets are considered a major water waster. In recent years toilets have become more water efficient, but if you have an older (not remodeled) home you may want to consider a toilet upgrade. The EPA notes that a good WaterSense labeled toilet can save you $90 per year in reduced water utility bills and $2,000 over the lifetime of the toilet. Also, you may even be able to score a tax credit or rebate for your new toilet which of course allows you to save even more.

Green your cleaning: Most conventional bathroom cleaners are anything but [...]

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4 Ways to Green Your Bathroom

It’s easy to find plenty of plastic dishes, toys, and boring conventional cotton sleeping spaces for your pets but traditional pet items aren’t eco-friendly and thus don’t make much sense in a green home. If you’re going to green your space you may as well green your pet’s space too. Here are some options…
Doca Pet offers pet food bowls that are beautiful as well as sustainable. These sets are very functional, lovely to look at and made with pet-safe stainless steel and comes with rubber non-skid bumpers for less mess.
Organic Bumper Bed – The Organic Bumper Bed is made with [...]

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Eco-friendly Pet Gear