Junk mail, to me, represents dead trees, polluted rivers, toxic chemical production, carbon and hours of my time shedding the damn stuff. I’ve finally had it. Today I signed up for GreenDimes, a stop junk mail company that offers a couple plans to help you get a handle on junk mail. The basic plan helps you find out how you stop junk mail for yourself but the premium plan does it for you and they plant 5 trees when you sign up. Of course I chose the premium package which also allows you to add your entire household to your do not mail list. 
My favorite part of the GreenDimes website would have to be the statistics on the home page which state that over 1 million  trees have been planted, over 2 million catalogs stopped and over 10 million pounds of junk mail stopped. Never mind the millions of gallons of potable water saved in the production of the junk mail. 
GreenDimes was founded by Pankaj Shah, 34, shortly after he launched it’s parent company Tonic in August 2006 when he found a “stunning” amount of junk mail in his mailbox. Since then the company has grown to 16 employees and over 50,000 customers. GreenDimes has been featured by BusinessWeek, New York times and Good Morning America. Even Matt Damon has talked up GreenDimes!
Reading through the How it Works tab on the website, it looks like it takes a few days before I’ll start seeing any change in the flow of junk mail. I can’t wait! 

Research in Sweden seems to be positive when it is trying to prove that discarded items made from cotton can be used for energy. Researchers at Borås Högskola in Sweden have been using discarded jeans from their local dump to create ethanol. Ethanol is a popular type of fuel to use in automobiles and for heating in Sweden. Last year, word was spread that pine cones would be a good way to inexpensively create bio-diesel. (more…)

I was recently sent a link to Chris Jordan’s website, to his exhibit called Intolerable Beauty, Portraits of American Mass Consumption. Chris has taken photos from 2003 to 2005 of views of trash dumps, “recycling” centers and storage yards. (more…)

I hadn’t heard of this until I received an IM from a co-worker. This is a great site and competition. Now, all we have to hope for is that some of them get manufactured and available for the public masses (except, of course, for the item that won!).

This Wednesday at 8pm EST, Focus the Nation will be streaming a free, live and interactive webcast called the 2%  Solution. This webcast will feature Stephen Schneider, Hunter Lovins and Van Jones for a discussion on global warming.  (more…)

The following text is a translated excerpt of an article by Heike Buchter, that has recently been published in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. Just in case you are interested in reading a bit about how people elsewhere perceive environmentalism in the USA - as a superficial fashion trend, a substantial movement, or a late but inevitable development? (more…)

It took me a while to sample my way through the chocolate section in the local grocery store, but I finally found what I was craving: Endangered Species Chocolate (ESC). It’s smooth and rich, and has the perfect balance of bitter cocoa flavor and sweetness. (more…)

photo by Simon Pais-Thomas on Flickr

There have been so many negative headlines about the cosmetics industry including the words “phtalates”, “parabens” and “lead” lately, it made me want to think that these substances had to be controlled by whatever national agency is responsible for consumer safety. (more…)

public art at Union Square by Stuck in Customs on Flickr

2007 definitely was a bright green year for San Francisco (although tarnished by the terrible oil spill in the San Francisco Bay): <!–more–> first, the city decided to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets and chain pharmacies in March, then moved on to stop buying single-serving water bottles and prohibit their sale on city-owned properties in June. In September, they came up with a proposal for a bike sharing program, modeled after those of European cities like Berlin and Paris. November brought the Green Festival and the (more…)

Bamboo has been noted to be the hottest fabric of choice for the eco-conscience. While websites such as treehugger provide some caution to readers about bamboo, details of the growing, harvesting and manufacturing of bamboo into fabric and flooring has gotten little press. It’s time to expose the truth. (more…)