ReUse Connection – Ideas for Repurposing, Freely Shared

Ian Moise is the founder of ReUse Connection, a Facebook page and future website dedicated to finding alternative uses for items or materials people might otherwise throw away. For example, do you ever wonder what to do with used plastic tape dispensers? ReUse Connection readers suggested ideas as varied as making candle holders, using them [...]

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My 5: Jennie Nigrosh, The Green Garmento, President and Co-Founder

Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) asks our interviewees to answer two questions that give us insights into their thinking about the planet we all share. Today, Jennie Nigrosh, president and co-founder of The Green Garmento, gives us her responses. The Green Garmento is a reusable polypropylene bag that replaces the ubiquitous, single-use, plastic dry cleaning bags.

BPGL: What are the five most important things we can do to protect the planet?

NIGROSH:

1. Education. We have to learn where the problems are, understand the answers, and do the best we can to solve them….

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Breeze Dryer – Eco-Friendly Solutions for Drying Your Laundry

“Why do you care about drying clothes outside?” Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) asked Gary Sutterlin, President and CEO of Breeze Dryer. “Do you have a passion for this, or is it just a business?

“For us, it goes beyond that,” Sutterlin said. “It really was a life lesson for our children. I’m a pharmacist by training, my wife’s a Ph.D. by training. I was doing very well in the pharmaceutical industry as an executive and pretty much walked away overnight. Our passion was to make a difference in this world. We found that medium through clotheslines.”

The clotheslines that Sutterlin and his wife, Gayle, sell are made by Hills, an Australian manufacturer known for quality and reliability. We interviewed Sutterlin by phone from his home in Pennsylvania….

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Working for Green – A “Video-Based Web Community” of Ecopreneurs

“A big part of what we’re doing — and what gives me great passion — are the personal success stories about individuals,” says Susan Neisloss. “I can’t tell you how important it is for me to be able to share these stories and to have people give us good ideas. That is the key to building this community.”

Neisloss is speaking about the community of people who visit Working for Green, the website she has published for about a year. A seasoned broadcaster and reporter, she interviews ecopreneurs who are making a living by starting and running environmentally friendly businesses….

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The Green Garmento – An Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaning Tote

“Using The Green Garmento for your dry cleaning is similar to the reusable totes movement, which started as something grocery stores were offering and has changed the way people do their grocery shopping,” says Jennie Nigrosh, president and co-founder of The Green Garmento.

Nigrosh’s product is a dry cleaning bag that consumers use over and over again, both as a hamper at home and as a way to transport their dry cleaning without plastic bags. “Way beyond the fact that we have an interesting product that helps make life easier, helps to organize your closet, and helps you be green all at the same time,” Nigrosh adds, “it’s a new category.

Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) interviewed Nigrosh by phone from her California office to learn more about The Green Garmento as well as its acceptance in the dry-cleaning world and in homes around the nation….

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Sustainability – A Personal Journey… by Stuart W. Rose, Ph.D.

When I started reading Sustainability by Stuart W. Rose, Ph.D., I expected to learn about the innovative community he and his wife, Trina, had designed and built in Poquoson, Virginia. And I did. But I also learned many more things about sustainable communities and futurism that I hadn’t expected.

The book is an easy read, but also sort of quirky. Rose has a habit of ending one thought with ellipses and trailing off into a new paragraph. He has an interesting idea about where to place commas (e.g., as the last character before closing parentheses) — not exactly standard English composition. But it’s kind of charming in its literary naiveté.

Rose, however, is far from naive. As readers learn at the beginning of the book, “Dr. Rose is a registered architect, and a graduate structural engineer. He holds a doctorate in organizational development, has been a professor at three major universities, and has worked for several decades as an educator and a consultant to architects, consulting engineers, and other design professionals. Sustainability is arranged in chronological chapters, beginning “Circa 1985″ with the author’s professional and personal concerns about global sustainability.

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Fair Trade Connects Local Producers with Global Consumers

Zulugrass necklaces are at home in both Kenya’s pasturelands and a trendy boutique in Los Angeles. A colorful, coiled group of The Leakey Collection’s Zulugrass™ strands costs $39.95. But what the price tag doesn’t mention is that the woman who cut, dyed, and beaded the native Kenyan grass into this necklace is earning enough money to feed and educate her family for years to come.

Katy and Philip Leakey founded The Leakey Collection™ after a devastating drought a decade ago destroyed the livelihoods of their neighbors in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. As the landscape became charred and depleted, the community’s men moved north to find grazing grounds for their cattle, and the women and children were left behind with no source of income….

Recently, Philip and Katy visited one of these retail outlets — Zero Minus Plus in Santa Monica, California — to discuss the local impact of buying fair trade products. “Fair trade is a response to globalization,” Philip said. “Several decades ago, people produced [goods] for their local markets. With the internationalization of markets, many producers lost their buyers.” Fair trade is a market-based attempt to connect these producers with their new, global consumers, focusing on ethical and sustainable business practices….

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Hallowell Acadia Is Revolutionizing the Heating Industry

How do you heat and cool your home? Do you have both a furnace and an air conditioner? What if you could install a single, highly efficient, and environmentally sound system to handle both heating and cooling?

The Acadia, designed and built by Hallowell International, is a revolutionary, next-generation, air-source heat pump — the first that functions efficiently in cold climates down to -30˚F. Even residents of Canada and New England can enjoy comfortable indoor temperatures year ’round without the use of fossil fuels.

Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) spoke with Duane Hallowell, president and co-founder of Hallowell International, to learn about the latest innovation in heat pumps….

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My Wedding Workbook Simplifies Wedding Planning

When Steve Feingertz’s fiancée was planning their wedding, she wanted to find something besides a big paper binder to help her keep organized. But, she couldn’t find anything online.

So Feingertz and his business partner, Jeff Kear, set about creating My Wedding Workbook, an online site to help couples plan their weddings. The two men had been building websites together for about ten years, but they didn’t realize how much of an undertaking it would be, Kear says. The site now boasts 15,000 users since launching last year.

Kear and his intern, Rosanna Harding, both think of My Wedding Workbook as the “next-generation wedding planner.” The site is easy to use and helps D.I.Y. brides stay organized — often eliminating the need for a wedding planner and saving tons of money….

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What Are You Waiting For? So Act, Already!

When Stella and Greg Halpern say, “We’re on a mission to build a better world,” they have the credentials to prove it. As the founders of So Act, a new social action network that’s connecting people around the globe, the Halperns are putting their goals into action.

We wanted to know what motivated the couple to create this ambitious network. So Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) spoke with the Halperns while they were traveling in California with their daughters, three talented musicians who go by the name Truth on Earth…

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Ecopreneurs Make High Performance, Eco-Friendly Cleaners

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” so the saying goes. Ask Mark Cunningham about Bayes Cleaners, and you’ll find out how the need for a premium, eco-friendly cleaning product launched the company he shares with partner Matt Bays. Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) spoke with Cunningham about Bayes Cleaners after trying — and liking — several of the company’s products….

CUNNINGHAM: My partner, Matt Bays, and I were talking about how we had just both installed stainless steel kitchens, and we couldn’t find any stainless cleaners that worked. I must have tried five or six different kinds of cleaners, and he had tried some as well. We said, “Hey, if anybody ever comes out with a stainless steel cleaner that works, they’re going to make a lot of money!”

We met the next day, and decided to get serious about developing a stainless steel cleaner. We both were into recycling at the time. We both had young kids, and using nontoxic products was important to us. We said, “Let’s make sure that whatever we come out with as a stainless steel cleaner not only works better than anything on the market, but it’s safe.” …

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Gently Used Wedding Gowns — More than a Fashion Statement

You can use eBay and Craigslist to buy anything from boats to aquariums to musical instruments. And when it comes to your wedding day, you can use them to buy your dress, centerpieces, or other décor — but huge Internet marketplaces make this task seem daunting. Some sites, like PreOwned Wedding Dresses, Recycled Bride, and Bride Share, and have narrowed the focus to make online shopping for gently used wedding items simple for brides-to-be….

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My 5: Jody Sherman, Sprout Baby Founder and CEO

Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) asked Sprout Baby founder and CEO, Jody Sherman, two questions we like to ask all our interviewees.

BPGL: What are the five most important things we can do to save the planet?

SHERMAN:
* Commit to making one positive change a month that will reduce your personal impact on the environment. It takes time to get into the habit of doing something, and then it becomes second nature. I started with something simple: putting recycling bins in my house. At first, sorting trash seemed like a chore, now we don’t even think about it, we just do it. Then I started picking up trash every time I went surfing. Before long, that became part of my after-surf ritual. I keep adding things monthly, and I don’t find it overwhelming that way….

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W3LL People – “Hippie Tested, Diva Approved”

There’s a lot to love about W3LL PEOPLE cosmetic products — and not just because they have a smart marketer telling us so. (Who could resist a line like, “Hippie Tested, Diva Approved”?) In our house, every skin- or haircare product gets scrutinized to make sure we’re not using toxic chemicals. With W3LL, that’s not a problem. Here’s what their site says about the ingredients:

“We’re not sure who decided it was a good idea to pack skincare full
of artificial preservatives, fillers and other “scientific” chemicals, but as it turns out they’re not so good for your skin, or the planet.

“W3LL is driven to create a fresh, safe focus on skincare by providing products with proven, medical-grade nutrients that actually work, and don’t increase the mounting toxic load each one of us faces every day.

“So no, our products don’t have a nuclear half-life. But when you think about it, would you really want them to? W3LL is a truly beautiful choice by offering small batch products chock full of live, active natural ingredients every bit as effective as their evil counterparts – while leaving as gentle a footprint on the planet as possible. Now that’s beautiful.”

The company philosophy is beautiful, and so are its products…

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Our 5: Rob Irwin, Brett Maurer, and Paul Quick, reThread

Blue Planet Green Living asked reThread’s Rob Irwin, Brett Maurer, and Paul Quick two questions we like to ask everyone we interview. Here are their collective answers, given by Rob Irwin.

BPGL: What are the five most important things we can do to save the planet?
Education. Educate yourself and carpé diem, sieze the day. But be careful how you educate yourself. Make sure it is from reputable sources. There’s a lot of greenwashing going on, especially at the beginning of this trailhead – and I think we still are at the beginning. We are under global commerce now, and every choice you make in your lifestyle affects everyone in the world….

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“This Product Is Made from GARBAGE”

At first glance, the title of this post might seem like a slam against an inferior product. That’s not the case at all. In fact, the title comes directly from a product insert I received with two sample items from XS Project.

When a representative for XSProject first contacted me, I was intrigued with the description of how their products are made — and why. The email I received said, “Don’t be surprised if you soon spy some hipster with an accessory you can’t take your eyes off of (something that makes you think, ‘Oh, what a piece of garbage’).”

Who could resist finding out more? …

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Earth-Friendly Fashion Cry – “Save the Ties!”

A few years ago Brooke Costello couldn’t use the word “recycled” in describing the unique line of fashion accessories she produces at the helm of her independent Chicago-based design company, Tongue Tied.

“That didn’t help the sale,” she explains. “So I coined the term ‘respirited.’ I’ve seen it used by other people since, but I believe that term originated with me.”

Now the association of her wares with the recycling movement contributes substantially to the bottom line. “People across every socioeconomic level are responding to the concept,” she says. “Shopping in resale boutiques is born of the philosophy that you don’t have to spend a king’s ransom to wear couture.” …

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ReThread “Threads the Word” about the Environment

ReThread is a hip, new clothing company that sells “rad and responsible” organic t-shirts and hoodies, screen printed with enticing environmentally focused designs. Each item is linked with a nonprofit, so that proceeds from a particular design support a related environmental cause.
Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) interviewed reThread co-founder and lead graphic designer, Rob Irwin.

IRWIN: ReThread has a little bit different business model than most companies. Even some of the sustainable companies out there — where people are trying to be green and sell green products — oftentimes, they’re still just concerned with the bottom line.

We attempt to embrace collaborative efforts across a multi-disciplinary plane. By doing this, we create a cooperative commerce. The ability to be sustainable in an economic downturn hedges very much on joining hands and networking with other companies. That is to say, your bottom line doesn’t stop at your own company. You end up transferring back and forth, not just clients, but actual education and analysis to better the world and increase the quality of life.

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Travel for Change Brings Fair-Trade Cultural Tourism to Tanzania

Soon after University of Iowa senior Stephanie Enloe graduates in December, she will be on a plane to Tanzania. Enloe, 22, is the director of sustainable projects for Travel for Change International, a small group of committed volunteers who are building an eco-lodge near Njombe, Tanzania. Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) met with Enloe to find out what makes Travel for Change different from other travel venues serving visitors to Tanzania. — Publisher

ENLOE: The term for what we’re doing at Travel for Change is “fair-trade cultural tourism.” In East Africa, quite often, tourist initiatives are foreign-owned — the hotels, resorts, safari companies, and climbing companies. This is the case in a lot of developing countries. Travel venues and services are foreign-owned and really expensive. People go over there thinking that they’re getting an “African experience.” They pay huge amounts of money, which goes to foreign bank accounts and is not even remotely beneficial to the people in the area.

The first goal of our organization is to create a community-owned travel initiative, where, once the business model is intact and sustaining itself, it passes into community hands….

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Dream Green Weddings Offers Brides a Touch of Green

The amount of waste produced by weddings is one of their most negative factors, according to Heather Teague, owner of Dream Green Weddings. And there are 2.5 million weddings in the United States every year. “That’s a lot of waste!” Teague says.

But waste and weddings don’t have to go hand in hand. Eco-conscious brides can lessen the environmental impact of their big day by making a few small changes, suggests Teague. Her Dream Green Weddings virtual storefront features eco-friendly invitations, favors, décor, and gifts to make any wedding a touch more green…

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