When you're searching online for a good green deal, where do you go first?

The two behemoths of the online classifieds world are Craigslist and eBay. Their continent-cracking size isn't always a good thing - sifting out the eco-friendly from the not-so-much can turn into one of the labors of Hercules. Luckily these sites have corners that are greening up nicely, such as eBay's World of Good - but in the main, you're on your own.

Alternatives? Here are a couple we've spotted.

EcoFlip. Founded by Forrest Kolb and Joseph Paone, it's a "classifieds community for eco-friendly people". It's free to post, available in 42 countries, and in addition to adverts for sustainable services and products, there's a section called "Reuse and Recycle" which presumably works the same way as the fabulous Freecycle. I'm particularly impressed with how you navigate around: first up, you choose your state, then your nearest city, and only then can you access all the listings. Start locally and work outwards - the way it should be.

Planet Thrive's focus is wellness, and the Ask the Expert and Wellness tabs on the front page lead to an impressive range of personal healthcare resources. The site is the work of writer, photographer and holistic health counselor Julie ...Read More

Footwear waterproofing technology has just taken a giant step forward - but we're wary of the implications.

Shoe manufacturers Hi-Tec have just unveiled a form of chemical treatment that can be applied to any surface to render it ...Read More

If there's one method of recycling glass that's even better than popping it into the local bottle bank...it's reusing it as a bottle.

Twenty years ago, glass milk bottles were the norm. The whine of the electric milk van and the clink of bottles were the sounds of deepest morning, a time early enough to burrow under the covers for ...Read More

We hope you're all having a great holiday weekend.

We want to see our cities overflowing with urban gardens, horizontal and ...Read More

You know by now that we fly the flag for local farmers' markets. They're economical (no. 3 on our 10 Ways To Eat Well On A Budget), healthy, food-mile free, seasonal (varying your tastes and ...Read More

We know that the artificial preservatives and detergents in mass-produced soaps are bad for our skin and the environment. (They're also horrible for any unfortunate tastebuds that get in the way.)

I'm currently trying out some of Strawberry Hedgehog's range of ...Read More

For the first time, food irradiation techniques have been approved by the FDA for keeping salad clean and fresh.

Food irradiation is a controversy. Treatment of food with ionised radiation (which doesn't contaminate products with ...Read More

A big part of going green is disposing of disposables. Not the new, eco-friendly biocompostable ranges...the bad old one-shot items that lurk in landfills where no recycling initiative could ever reach. The answer is another question: what came before ...Read More

Brace yourself. I'm just about to suggest you try wearing ivory.

Vegetable ivory, that is - from the tagua or ivory nut, found in South America. It's a near-perfect match for the hard, creamy polished animal dentine that we have such a destructive relationship with - and that's the key to the tagua nut's success. Mammal ivory is ...Read More

It seems an unspoken rule that all modern businesses never have enough conference rooms free. So here's an idea - go sit outside.

During my Archaeology degree here in England, when the weather was good enough (a rare occurence), our lecturers would hold seminars on the lawns outside the department, snaking a power cable inside when ...Read More