There’s a sad sight. After they’ve lugged your belongings from one corner of the world to the other and obviously won’t last another mile, the final stop for your careworn companions is the trash. There’s no alternative. It’s a fact.

Nonsense, says the team at Junktion!

If you’re keen to make your life a trashless one (particularly on Tuesdays), there are many ways to upcycle your garbage – but there’s a limit, surely? There are some items …

Tags: art , chairs , decor , design , furniture , junk , recycling , sofas , sustainable , tables , trash

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As a rule, hospitals aren’t all that keen on the alcohol industry. Alcohol, after all, is seen as causing many of the accidents that bring victims through their emergency room doors every day.

But one hospital in LaCrosse, Wisconsin is starting to see the alcohol industry in a totally new light. Gundersen Lutheran Hospital and the local City Brewery are participating in a joint heat and power project with the potential to create about 3 million kilowatt hours of energy a year.

The project consists of …

Tags: biogas , city brewery , clean energy , converted methane gas , energy independent , gundersen lutheran hospital , recycling , wisconsin

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If you’re sending correspondence through the mail these days, why not design your own stamps to promote your green message?

Many sites, including Zazzle.com, allow you to either select from their designs or customize your own using photos or images downloaded from your computer.

If you decide to make stamps for a special occasion, remember to weigh whatever you’ll be mailing before you order so you can specify the correct postage amount. If you aren’t going the route of Evites or other email invitations, using stamps that say something …

Tags: conservation , earth , eco friendly , endangered species , fair trade , green , hang dry clothing , invitations , mail , messages , paper , post office , postage , postal , recycling , slogans , stamps

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My lovely, celebrity-style dressing room is a spare bedroom I stole in the house, a spare that once housed a maple crib, green nursing glider and armoire of precious, spit-up stained Baby Gap dresses on mini-hangers.

Today, it’s my own little retail Mecca (organic, of course). But I do allow my daughters to visit and check out the blouses and shoe rack, and yes, even borrow on occasion. That sort of thing was taboo when I was growing up. Moms were moms.  Friends were the ones loaning stuff.

My own stylish …

Tags: budget , Community , cross-dressing , family , fashion , frugal , gay , green deoderant , jeans , recession , recycling , sharing , shoes , swapping , teens , wardrobe

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My mother, the nice Jewish lady seen here at her box at the Hollywood Bowl,  is among the biggest paper and water consumers in the country. It hasn’t been easy getting her to turn over a new leaf. (Or rather, fewer of them.)

She has a varied and colorful history of helping herself to fistfuls of disposable napkins at restaurants, collecting hundreds of brown paper grocery bags from Gelson’s Market and requiring daily soaks or showers. She’s pretty darn clean, my mother.

“I never, ever get …

Tags: children , composting , conserving , Italy , Jewish mothers , Life in the Green Lane , parenting , recycling , renewable energy , seniors , towels

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Is it possible to make great California wine in an unfriendly environment? Not according to Hall St. Helena, the first winery in California to achieve Gold LEED Certification.

LEED is an internationally-recognized green rating system that measures how well a building or community does in its efforts to save energy and water, reduce CO2 emissions, improve environmental quality and show leadership in the stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts….

Tags: California , conservation , LEED certification , local building materials , radiant floors , recycling , solar energy , wine

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If killing trees is murder, we need a darn good reason to commit the act.

In truth, it is very challenging to morph into a pulp-free society -  one that celebrates without greeting cards and wrapping paper, communicates without monthly statements and markets without catalogs. And there is nothing like holding a tactile piece of newsprint in your hands to stay informed.

Here are some, but not all, reasons for and against ending our paper chase:

Good uses of a paper

1. Love Letters

…

Tags: biodegradable , catalogs , disposables , e-books , face tissue , greeting cards , love letters , napkins , newsprint , novels , online banking , paper use , photo paper , plates , recycling , school art projects , toilet tissue , utencils

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Color me hydrated! Yes, these appealing fruit shades enlivening the sleek water bottles are part of KOR Water’s new Thirst for Giving™  program.

Each color is tied to a different non-profit identified by KOR as part of this environmental mission – and clever marketing campaign.

KOR will donate 1% of annual sales to organizations doing exceptional work related to the causes that KOR supports: ocean and watershed protection, the global water crisis and container recycling.

“KOR’s mission is to celebrate and protect water,” said KOR founder and CEO Eric …

Tags: copolyester , global water crisis , ocean causes , ocean protection , recycling , water bottles , water pollution

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Their good friends, the fuzzy white polar bears, are losing their icy homes. Rising sea levels will wash away those nice pastel houses along the beach. Some day, every moving thing that relies on gas -  cars, trains, ships and planes – will come to a screeching halt and the world will be in shock because people won’t know how to live, work, feed themselves or get around.

These are real fears being shared with children – and not just around my own …

Tags: animals , child education and conservation , composting , eco fears , extinction , fears , kids and the environment , polar bears , recycling

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