Filtered Water Bottles

When I'm at School I like to bring a reusable water bottle so that way I'm not wasting plastic. I have a 24 ounce water bottle and I found that sometimes I will drink all of the water in the bottle before I get to my third hour. I usually just refill my bottle with the water from the water fountain and I'm fine. I'm not too picky with what water tastes like so the flavor doesn't really bother me, but I know it does bother some people. I was shopping at Target and I found this new thing called a Filtered Water Bottle. It has a filter that is connected to the lid of the bottle and the water goes through the filter before you drink it. It is made with BPA Free plastic and its proven to remove 90% of chlorine, bad taste, and heavy metals. So that mineral taste that you get when drinking from a faucet or water fountain will be almost diminished. Its good for 200 uses or three months, if your not much of a counter you will be able to tell by the taste of the water when its time to change the filter; the water won't taste as pure. The water bottle itself comes with one filter and costs 13 dollars and the replaceable filters cost around 11 dollars, which isn't to high if you think about it. You would have to buy four filters a year which would be about 44 dollars. Think how much you would be spending if you bought a years worth of bottle water, there is a major difference. So not only are you keeping thousands of plastic water bottles out of landfills BUT you are also saving yourself hundreds of dollars! If you want to check out the water bottle click here!

Would You Like A Spot of Tea?

Now, I am a huge tea lover. I like it iced, hot, sweetened, unsweetened, anyway you can make tea I drink it! So for all you tea lovers, like me, I'm going to share a few eco tips about tea! One is, if your gonna drink it opt for organic. The reason you should drink organic tea is because other teas have the possibly of being treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The conventional way of growing tea is pretty harmful to the environment as well, it leads to soil erosion and disease. Not to mention that the pesticides being sprayed on the plants are harmful to workers who have to harvest it. Teas that are certified organic do not treat the soil with pesticides or anything harmful to the environment. A few great brand of organic teas that I recommend are Tazo, Yogi, and Stash Teas. If your not into any of these brands check out your local Trader Joes or Whole Foods. All of their teas on the shelf are organic! Another great way to go green with tea is to compost the tea bags! They make a great natural soil for your garden! Using tea will allow your flowers to flourish without the need of any chemical fertilizers.

Eco-Friendly Ways To Dye Easter Eggs!

Happy Easter everyone! Whenever I dye Easter Eggs the first thing I notice is the smell of the dye. Its smells so disgusting to me because of the vinegar mixing with all those nasty chemical ingredients. Of course, once your done dying the Eggs you usually dump it outside or down your sink and then it leaves that icky smell for days. (Yuck!) So for all my lovely readers, I did some research and found a great eco-friendly way to color eggs! 

Materials:

Grape Juice (For Purple)

Red Cabbage (For Blue)

Spinach (For Green)

Carrot Tops, Lemon Peels, or Orange Peels (For Yellow)

Coffee or Black Walnut Shells (For Brown)

Yellow Onion Skins (For Orange)

Beets or Cranberries (For Pink)

Red Onion Skins (For Red)

Water

Stove

Boiling Pot

Vinegar

Eggs

Directions:

First boil your eggs in water with a bit of vinegar and one of the materials for the colors above. Then allow it to simmer for 15 minutes. Then your all done! Simple, right?! Hope you all have an amazing and environmentally-safe Easter!

Go Organic!

Have you ever bought an apple and thought wow this thing is the size of my head! If so, that's defiantly not an organic apple! An apple is suppose to be around the size of the palm of your hand and when I mean palm, I mean that you can actually close over half of your hand around it. Now, that may seem small to you, but it is the natural size of the fruit. Natural size is the size of the fruit without growth hormones added to it. Growth hormones are added to fruits, vegetables, and meats to encourage excessive growth in a small amount of time. These are very unhealthy to the Earth and your body. When you eat produce or any food in that matter that has growth hormones in it, it adds unnatural substances to your body. Over time this can be very damaging on your immune system. The way it harms the Earth is it adds chemicals to soil which makes it become tainted and infects everything that grow in and around that area. Now, if this information is new to you this may sound pretty scary, but no worries there's an easy solution. Its pretty easy to figure out if something is Organic or not. You can tell by the size and most of the time if its truly Organic there will be some sort of label that says USDA certified. If you want to avoid the guessing game with your food then search around for a local farmers market. You can find all of your favorite in-season fruits and veggies. Sometimes you can even find meat there too!

Feeling Creative?

Once again I was surfing Internet and I was just thinking about random things. Like how much I spend on haircare products a year or how much plastic is wasted from the containers and bottles of the haircare products. Then I though, well I wonder if you can make your own hairspray. So I research some more and found out you can! Its so simple too and it will be saving tons of plastic and money! All you need is a lemon (or orange for dryer hair), water, rubbing alcohol, and a plastic spray bottle (a reusable one, of course!) First, you chop up the lemon or orange but leave the peel on. Then you place it in two cups of water and heat it on the stove. Allow it to boil until there is only half of what you began with left. Once it gets to the right amount, strain it a few times until all the extra pieces are out. After, add one ounce of rubbing alcohol in it as a preservative. Then place it into your spray bottle and keep it stored in your fridge. You can leave it in your bathroom, but if you keep it in the fridge it allows it to last longer. It only lasts two weeks when it is unrefrigerated. If you plan on making your own hairspray for a while, then go the extra mile and decorate your spray bottle! It'll keep it fun and cute, plus if your storing it in the fridge then you will know that its your hairspray and not something else! If your not too sure where you could find a plastic spray bottle, check out your local drugstore or target and check the travel section! Remember, using this tip will help the Earth and your wallet! I give credit to free-beauty-tips.glam.com for this tip!

An All-Natural Way To Clean Your Toliets

I was watching the news the other day and a segment came on about being a "smart shopper." Which has tips about saving money and being economically aware. They started talking about ways to clean your toliet and keeping it clean. It included simple household items such as a lemon and table salt. They sliced a lemon in half and sprinkled a great about of salt on it. Then they rubbed it all around the inside of the toliet and the outside. Not only did it sanitize it but it removed that nasty, rusty ring around the inside of the toliet. Now that truely amazed me because not many cleaning products can remove that. Also, you don't have to worry about inhaling the cleaning product chemicals anymore! All you smell is pure lemon! There is no reason you shouldn't try this tip! It saves the Earth from nasty chemicals, plastic (from the container a toliet cleaner would come in), and money! Don't be afraid to try this all around the house, it works on everything!

Eco-Friendly New Year's Resolutions!

I know this is sorta late but better late than never! If you still haven't decided on a good New Year's Resolution that you could stick to then try some of these!

• Stop using and buying plastic water bottles! Invest in a nice, insulated water bottle. This is one of my resolutions and I've been sticking with it ! I've noticed that since I've stopped using plastic water bottles that I've been drinking more water, weird right? If all you buy for water is in plastic water bottles, then you can buy a nice Brita Filter (These are so fun! You can get special filters if you want flavored water!) or start buying the huge jugs of water. (Which is a lot cheaper!) Click here to learn about delivery of water to your house!
• Start using reusable canvas bags when grocery shopping. Like this one!
• Eat more organic food and less processed. Even if you eat only 5% organic food and 95% processed food, it still helps the environment!
• Have a recycling bin for everything!
• Watch the news daily. This will allow you to see what the traffic is like so you know what highway is congested and where there has been accidents so you can avoid them and save gas!
• Carpool with a friend or co-worker
• Use recycled or reusable lunch bag and utensils for lunches.
• Switch your light bulbs to environmentally friendly ones!

Rip Em' Apart!

This is probably the easiest tip in the book, and you all probably know about it but I just want to stress the importance of it. Its cutting the plastic on the six pack of soda, beer, or any other drink. This helps prevent fish, dolphins, turtles, and other sea creatures from getting caught in between the holes which can choke and kill them. Remember the movie Happy Feet? Did you happen to notice that Doctor of Love (or whatever his name was) happened to have a six pack ring around his neck which eventually choked him? It was really sad when they had to get it off because they went to see where it all was coming from and there were tons of trash and other gross things in the ocean water! Its horrible because sometimes the animals mistake the trash for food. You may all be thinking right now, "Why do I have to cut it if I'm throwing the trash away and its not being littered in the ocean?" Well, accidents happen and the trash can somehow end up in the ocean. So instead of waiting for it to happen and then deal with it, we are taking the steps to prevention. It only takes maybe two seconds of your life if not less. Also these rings not only choke them, they can stunt growth, make it hard for them to out run predators, and eat.

Sun Chips New Decomposable Bag.

Just when you think that Sun Chips could not get any more eco-friendly, they do! Now their goal is to get a fully decomposable bag by Earth Day 2010! Already this brand makes their chips healthy and Earth friendly, by making the chips with Solar Power and packing 18 grams of whole grains per serving! That's about once slice of whole wheat bread! They also are low in salt, saturated fat, and have 30% less fat than regular potato chips! These chips are now my favorite chip brand! I love eating them they taste delicious and are guilt-free! There are four different flavors! They are Original, Garden Salsa, Harvest Cheddar, and French Onion. Mmmmmm, delicious (: I have tried every flavor and I really love them. Its an easy swap out for regular potato chips. If you would like to learn more about the Solar Powered Plant check it out here!