by Marina Hanes

Green Moms

Do you try to be an eco-conscious mom? Are you often looking for alternatives to the traditional home cleaners, because you worry about how the chemicals affect your children? A mom who knows what it’s like to juggle your personal life with raising children is the creator and writer of Green & Clean Mom. This site includes a forum where eco-friendly moms can discuss their challenges and solutions to living a greener lifestyle. There are also opportunities to win contests and prizes from giveaways. The blog is updated regularly with articles examining eco-driving, chemical free products, rain barrels, etc.
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Sustainable News

Are you looking for eco-friendly jobs or the latest green news on travel, architecture, cars, fashion and beauty? Tree Hugger is a comprehensive green site that can help you get informed on the environmental issues you care about. You can also look into the lives of other environmentalists by watching some video eco-tips. Tree Hugger’s readers have sent in videos showing their green habits and green hacks (renovations). You can learn how to make recycled paper, how to teach children to compost and various other ways to be more sustainable.
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Many of us are so busy renovating our homes to conserve energy, driving a new Smart Car, and even composting, but we fall short when it comes to skincare. Most drugstore brands comtain chemicals that may contribute to breast cancer and many other ailments. Your best all natural, green skincare secrets may be hiding in your kitchen cupboard.

1. Avocados – Avocados are not only delicious, but they are considered a good fat to eat. Consider a moisturizing avocado facial mask. Smash up a ripe avocado with some honey and royal jelly. Leave on your face for 20 minutes, then rinse off. Your face will be baby smooth with a natural glow.

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I think by now we all know that cell phones work by involving radio waves “made up of electromagnetic radiation propagated by the antenna.” Logically, this has raised many questions regarding potential health risks to cell phone users.

While no one has a concrete answer on how to Green our much needed cell phones, there is now an earth friendly answer to recharging them which goes by the name of the Solio Solar Charger. These green chargers give you unlimited power because it uses the always available renewable resource of the sun to power your electronic devices from cell phones to GPS systems. The Solio is also considered a hybrid, accepting power from either the wall socket or the sun, storing this energy within Solio’s internal rechargeable battery. Solio then uses this energy to power your gadgets at the same rate as if they were plugged into the wall. Last, but not least, the Solio is designed to hold it’s power up ton one full year. Talk about fun in the sun!

This eco-friendly charger will run you about $119.99, plus tax and shipping. If your interested in picking up one of these Green Gadgets, you can check them out here.

Green-Zen.com

Let’s face it, the bathroom isn’t the most glamorous room in your household. Ranging from staid and boring to downright dangerous, many modern bathrooms are not designed as thoughtfully the rest of our homes. The irony in that fact is that bathrooms are one of the most expensive rooms in the house to build, averaging about $10,000 a pop. Still, for all their expense, the design hasn’t evolved too far beyond shiny fixtures and his ‘n her sinks: many of us are still using the five-by-eight bathroom with the three fixtures — toilet, sink, and tub — all lined up in a row. And while it might help maximize space, having a dirty fixture where you deposit your waste (the toilet) next to two where you clean yourself (the sink and the tub) doesn’t make for the healthiest environment.

Here are some great Green Bathroom renovation tips that will make your home healthier for your and your family as well as Greener:
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1. Laptops use a quarter of the power required by a desktop computer.
2. Leave your shoes at the door. Contaminants are tracked into our homes on the soles of shoes. Dr. Oz, of the Oprah Show, says we should take our shoes off at the door and leave them in a nearby basket
3. Generating enough electricity to cook for an hour in a standard electric oven creates 2.7 pounds of carbon dioxide. Here’s a list of what can do it for less: toaster oven, 1.3 pounds over 50 minutes; slow cooker, 0.9 pounds over seven hours; and microwave, 0.5 pounds over 15 minutes.
4. Keep your vehicle’s tires filled at the correct air pressure. If a vehicle’s tires have less than recommended air pressure, your car will burn more gas than it should.
5. Wrapping a water heater with insulation can keep as many as 1,000 pounds of global-warming CO2 a year out of the upper atmosphere.

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Going Somewhere? Is Your Laptop Going With You?

Recycled Laptop Bags are an instant way to feel good and protect your goods. Materials range from PET (recycled soda bottles) to Mountain Tarps. Frietag has been making bags from recycled tarps, seat belts, and air bags since 1993. I love that while every bag may be cut from a shared cloth, each piece is unique. See http://www.freitag.ch/shop/FREITAG/shop.jsf.

Want a simple laptop sleeve then check out Act 2’s Laptop Green Sleeve. Made from recycled soda bottles, they give you the bottle count for all their products and offer a view of the recycling process. This one can be found at www.act2greensmart.com.

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