Ten years.  Ten years since the most terrifying day of my life.  A day that filled me with fear and shock and horror and unbelievable sadness.  A day that brought loss and grief to so many fellow New Yorkers.  I was one of the lucky ones.  I didn’t lose anyone close to me, didn’t witness the planes hitting or the people jumping or the towers falling, since I was uptown that morning (I was supposed to be at a meeting down on Wall Street at 10, but of course never made it).  I watched it all unfold on TV, like the rest of the world did.  For weeks after, I smelled the smoke in the air, jumped at every loud sound on the street, and was heartbroken when I saw all the ‘MISSING’ signs and photos at the firehouses and churches, and when each day went by and the rescue efforts became recovery efforts and the hope of finding survivors faded away. We were a city, and a country, very wounded and broken.  I was broken.

As a parent and a business leader, I had to pull myself together for my kids and my employees.  But I wasn’t doing a very good job.  If you asked me then what life would be like in 10 years, I probably would have said it would be pretty scary.  I couldn’t imagine ever feeling safe in NYC again.  I had visions of frequent terrorist attacks and bombings and living in a war zone.  For the first time in my life I had a very small clue of what it must have been like for my mother as a teenager hiding from the Nazis in WWII.  I thought life as we knew it was over.  Of course for those families experiencing the anguish of loss, life for them as they knew it WAS over.  But those of us who didn’t lose a loved one were experiencing a different kind of loss and despair.  When I woke up on the morning of September 12, 2001, I didn’t think anything would ever go back to ‘normal.’

Yet the past ten years have been full of the joys and sadness of every day life.   Beautiful celebrations, births, graduations, bar mitzvahs, and proud accomplishments, as well as funerals, hospitalizations, natural disasters and economic hardships.  Life went on.  Things went back to ‘normal’.  I wasn’t even planning on having another child until the sadness from 9/11 (and some very sad family events in 2002 and 2003) got me feeling like I wanted to create something beautiful.  My little angel, my love and joy and bundle of cuteness may not have even existed!  So, while I understand that it is important to take this anniversary as a time to reflect back on that horrible day, I would also like to use this as an opportunity to count my blessings, and be thankful for all that has happened in the last 10 years.

How will you spend this 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks?

This is a collage I put together in the days after 9/11

photo by Gerry Thomasen Flickr Creative Commons

Did you ever hear the one about the group who goes out in a small boat together? One of the passengers pulls out a drill and starts drilling a hole underneath his seat. The person next to him is shocked and, afraid that the boat will sink, asks the man why he is drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat. The driller replies, “it’s not your business, I’m drilling the hole under MY seat!”

That’s how I feel every day. When I’m behind someone in line at the drug store who takes that CVS bag just for the pack of razor blades they just picked up when they could easily slip the blades in their handbag (or better yet – use a reusable razor), or when I see hundreds of people buying bottled water and disposing of the bottle before it is even empty, or when my friend gets in the car to drive to the coffee shop that is less than 1/4 mile away, I think – why are these people drilling a hole in my boat???

Believe me, I’m far from perfect and I realize that every human creates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions just by living, but at least I am trying as hard as I can to minimize my footprint every day. You are reading this, so obviously you are trying too. The question is – how do we reach those millions of other people, people we interact with every day? I’ve been asking that question, and trying to come up with solutions, since I started this blog two years ago. And while I know from the emails and comments I receive that some of the tips and information and guidance I have posted here has inspired and helped a few people here and there, and the content we churn out weekly on EcoPlum and monthly in our newsletter has helped some to go green, it just seems there is still so much work to do…

I want to figure out a way to reach people who just haven’t had that Aha! moment, who just don’t think about the waste they produce or their GHG footprint, who just go about their lives consuming, disposing, wasting, polluting, without a care in the world that they are drilling a hole in my and my kids’ boat. I’m convinced that fear and guilt don’t work. It just causes people to feel insignificant and to throw their hands up and to go about business as usual. What we need is inspiration. How do we inspire people to care? So I’m reaching out to you, my readers, for some ideas. Let’s come up with some grass roots, community oriented action, that will get more people fixing the hole and less people drilling the hole in our boat.

Please post your ideas here, or on EcoPlum’s facebook page, or send me an email: gia@ecoplum.com.

Last weekend I went to my 30th high school reunion (yes, I’m that old).  I was blown away by how good everybody looked.  Earlier this spring, I went to my 20th business school reunion and I have to say that not everyone aged so well.  Why the difference?  Is there something in the water up in my hometown of Croton-on-Hudson that makes people age better?  My husband pointed out that the reason everyone looked so good was probably because the folks who didn’t look so good decided not to come to the reunion. The whole point of a high school reunion, after all, is to show up and say “look how great I look and how well I am doing!”  The motivation behind attending a business school reunion, on the other hand, is likely networking and business opportunities – regardless of how you look.  So I’ll venture to say there was a bit of self selection going on at the high school reunion.  What on earth does this have to do with anything??  Well it got me thinking; I wonder how much self selection is contributing to our environmental crisis?  At the risk of sounding like a simpleton, here’s my theory:

Business and the for-profit world attract people who are motivated primarily by money.   Non-profits attract people who are motivated by making a difference and trying to change the world.  Business has more power that non-profits, so efforts to curb pollution, conserve our resources, and save the environment take a back seat to profit making ventures.  The government is led by politicians who are either also motivated by money, or seem to be so distracted by their secret sexcapades and scandals, that they can’t effectively get anything done.  Sad state of affairs we are in.  Oceans are in crisis, climate change is upon us, landfills are overflowing, children’s asthma rates are soaring, and cities are running out of fresh water.

So what do we do?  We change the face of business.  Those of us motivated by social good need to infiltrate the business world.  While social entrepreneurship is not brand new, it is still in its infancy.  When I went to business school 20 years ago, my choices for a “major” were: Finance, Marketing, and Management/Operations.  The “Social Enterprise” program is maybe 10 years old, if that.  There was no “Green Business Club” back then, and this was the first year that the Earth Institute at Columbia (my alma mater) offered a Masters in Sustainable Business Management.  This is our future, our hope, and our best bet for change.  I’m not saying that non-profits don’t have their place, they are extremely important and play a crucial role in counterbalancing big business.  And so are those politicians who are fighting for change against the pressure from big oil and the powers that be.  But the more we marry business and social good, the better off we will be.  Kudos to pioneers like Gary Hirschberg of Stonyfield Farms and Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation. They have made incredible inroads as environmental activists and successful business leaders. They are my heroes.  But we need more folks like them to choose this path.  We need to realize that the most effective way to make change is by solving social crises with business solutions.  As those businesses succeed, their leaders with a conscience will hold more and more power in our society.  And we will have self selected our hope for change.

Here are a few of my favorite social ventures:

TerraCycle

RecycleBank

Wearable Collections

What’s your favorite “Social Enterprise”?

In case you haven’t noticed, we are an e-commerce site. We sell stuff. Our tag line is “Where it Pays to Buy Green.” EcoPlum started out as a place to buy eco-friendly products and earn rewards in the process. But it quickly morphed into an educational/informational site. My passion has always been teaching and I come from an academic background, so as I learned more about environmental issues, I wanted to educate as many people as possible: through my blog: “Confessions of a Reformed Consumer”; by bringing on experts to write monthly columns on Green Design, Green Schools, Eco-Friendly Beauty Products, Local and Organic Food, and Green Entertainment and Media; by posting top green news stories every day on facebook, Twitter and Google; and through our monthly newsletter EcoPlum Pie. However, somewhere along the way the fact that we sell products got a little lost. Well I’m here to bring it back.

So, let’s get the obvious part out of the way. Of course buying nothing is greener than buying something. So if you don’t need it, don’t get it. OK? I said it, don’t buy if you can help it. The problem is, most of us need stuff, want stuff, and will continue to buy stuff. Take clothing, for starters. Don’t know about you, but I’m not a nudist, and I need things to wear (plus I live in the North East and I don’t want to freeze my tushy off). So when my workout clothing has seen one too many spin classes and it’s time for a new cycling jersey, why not buy one made of recycled plastic? Or when my son’s backpack falls apart from carrying 500 pounds of books to school every day, might as well replace it with one made 100% from recycled water bottles.

This kind of thinking can be extended to all your purchasing habits. Rather than buying my daughter a new handbag, I got her one made of recycled juice boxes. I stopped buying plastic disposable straws for my kids’ drinks and replaced them with glass reusable straws. Lunches get packed in a reusable folding sandwich container instead of Ziploc bags, disposable coffee cups have been replaced by reusable mugs, we make our own seltzer and have eliminated plastic soda bottles from our waste stream, we use stainless steel water bottles and never buy plastic bottled water, and those awesome Chicobags are with me on every shopping trip. I know there are a LOT of people who could make these small changes towards a green lifestyle. But this will only work if:

1) People know WHY and HOW to go greener, and,
2) People know WHAT the greener alternatives are, and WHERE to BUY them.

So this brings me back to education and disseminating information. While my marketing people tell me I need to focus a little more on the products and a little less on the education, I still maintain that “An Educated Consumer is Our Best Customer.” Sy Syms, can I steal your tag line?

My Son Noah, Circa 2000

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with gadgets. I remember going to the Science Museum in Boston and playing with a really cool calculator that made clicky noises when you pressed the buttons – my parents had to tear me away from it. I even made a hand held “communicator” out of a juice box and tin foil that had an antenna, buttons, and was capable of transmitting secret messages to other kid spies all over the world. In my wildest fantasy I could not have imagined that something as cool as an iPhone would exist in my lifetime. I grew up before personal computers, cell phones, MP3 players, Windows and the internet existed. Then I think about my ninety year old dad, whose childhood pre-dates even television, and I am blown away by the technological progress we have made in the last century. OK, so we don’t yet have the flying cars pictured in the futuristic 1970s Woody Allen comedy “Sleeper” – but we’re pretty damn close.

So when I look at my son with his android phone that does just about everything but brush his teeth for him, and my daughter watching videos on her iPod I think – where do we go from here? Clean energy, that’s where. I know, the pundits have been saying that President Obama’s focus on ” clean energy” in his State of the Union address was just lip service because he knows he has given up on trying to enact any kind of meaningful climate legislation (not to mention the fact that he included COAL, NUCLEAR and NATURAL GAS in his definition of clean energy – Pheh!). Yet I’d like to take the optimistic road (for a change) and point out that anything’s possible. I realize that without the same subsidies that are enjoyed by the oil companies, clean energy companies will have a hard time competing. I also understand that big oil is powerful, nasty and desperate to keep its reign. But the times they are a changin’. At least I hope so:

1) The BP Oil Spill -While it was not the huge catalyst for change that it could have been, this disaster had an effect on people’s attitudes towards the need for clean energy. Graphic images and pleas for help spread over social media like wildfire. These images will remain embedded in our minds for a long time.

2) Crazy Storms – The effects of climate change will become increasingly obvious and the general public will no longer be able to ignore them. While those who believe that “God has our back” will never be convinced, the majority of people out there who are currently too busy and wrapped up in their daily struggles to be concerned will be jolted into paying attention as their cities start to sink under water.

3) Growing Eco-Aware Consumers – a few years ago, terms like “urban farming,” “collaborative consumerism” and “group buying” were virtually unheard of – now they are mainstream. Consumers are getting smarter about their purchases and are finally starting to revolt against planned obsolescence and inferior goods.

4) Education – more and more schools are incorporating environmental education into their curricula. As an example, my son is doing a science project on the effects of BPA. (No – not at my urging – I had no idea he was doing this until I stumbled upon some of his discarded notes.)

All of these things will lead to a greater demand for clean energy. While putting a price on carbon and methane emissions would certainly speed things along, I believe we are on the right path. I can only hope that my kids will one day say “I remember when I was a kid we still depended on fossil fuels for energy.”

As I’ve mentioned frequently, a few years ago I was clueless about environmental issues. I didn’t even know about the effect of cow farts on climate change. But then I had my “AHA!” moment and became keenly aware of the effect that my actions (and my eating habits) had on the environment. I changed my behavior and tried to preach as much as I could about it. Problem was, I was preaching to the choir. My mission to convert the unconverted, to get them to see the light and have their “AHA!” moment was falling upon deaf ears. What I failed to realize was that the majority of people are not going to have an “AHA!” moment and completely change their lives like I did. There needs to be a shift among mainstream consumers, which includes buy in from business, government, and constituents. I can imagine the frustration amongst the folks who have been environmental activists for years, banging their heads against a wall while the rest of us carried on with our wasteful ways. I’m sorry! I wish I knew then what I know now.

The good news is the tide is finally turning (can I use any more cliches?) and I think my job is going to be easier than the one that the veteran environmentalists had in front of them. Thanks to Al Gore and others, at least the issues are out there, whether or not people decide to take action. But there is another big catalyst in play: we are no longer having a party with ourselves. What do I mean by that? A decade ago, Seventh Generation refused to do business with Walmart – just on principle. Fast forward to 2010, Seventh Generation is all over Walmart. (OK, the fact that founder Jeffrey Hollender was later ousted by the company board definitely puts a skeptical spin on this – but try to set that aside while I attempt to make my point). Why the shift? Because Hollender realized that the only way to make a dent was to reach out to people where they were. Another pioneer who has been given a hard time for dancing with Walmart is Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S. Yet thanks to his efforts he has brought personal sustainability practices and awareness to hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide.

About 6 months ago, I was approached by someone in the sports world who wanted to partner with EcoPlum to promote sustainable purchasing to their fans. My initial reaction was to decline associating with a sport that, well, wasn’t exactly green. No way! However, as I started to learn more, it started to make sense. The sports teams were, in fact, taking steps to incorporate sustainability into many aspects of their operation. And while not perfect, we have the opportunity to get EcoPlum’s message out to so many, many more people about how they can live a green lifestyle and we can encourage them in making good purchasing choices by offering a great array of sustainable products for which they can earn EcoChipz.  Am I selling out? Absolutely not. I could continue to sell green products and publish green living articles to the already committed, but we’re not going to change the world by throwing a party for ourselves. We need to reach people where they are. Fans will go to these spectator sports and spend money on products promoted there whether or not the green companies get involved. So let’s bring our message to where people are already hanging out – whether or not it is a place with which we are altogether comfortable.

Can you think of a few examples of green companies that are reaching the general public without greenwashing?

Kids tend to see things in black and white: You don’t like me? You must hate me. He’s not smart, he must be stupid. For many of us, the tendency to present a False Dilemma carries forward into adulthood. Big kid that I am, I often forget the shades of gray in between choices and tend to think in extremes. So when I embarked on my environmentalist journey, I became passionate about minimizing my environmental impact in every aspect of my life and left little room for transgressions. I stopped buying plastic water bottles, started carrying around reusable bags and coffee mugs, switched to organic produce, cut down on my energy use, stopped buying things I didn’t need, reduced my water use, practically eliminated my meat consumption, switched to natural cleaning products, stopped using disposable dinnerware & Ziploc bags, bought a home seltzer maker, and cut down on my water use.

I thought if I could just get everybody else to do what I did, the world would move quickly in a direction of healing and repair. I went on a mission to spread the word about my enlightened way of life and thought that through education and sharing of experiences I could get others to follow suit. I became a green hall monitor, of sorts, and found myself giving the evil eye to all those bottle drinking, plastic bag toting, meat eating planet destroyers out there. Now, while quite a few people have told me that I’ve inspired them to change their habits, so many more have not even thought about changing the way they live. Why? Could it be that my drastic transformation from over-consuming materialist to radical greenie is rare, and that it represents one extreme? Maybe expecting the majority of consumers to give up the majority of their consuming habits is just unrealistic?

Then I started to look back at my own evolution and realized that I, too, was living in a shade of gray. For example: I didn’t completely give up eating meat because I wasn’t ready to stop making my favorite ragout sauce, but when I do eat it I make sure it is grass fed and organic. I still buy paper towels because, for some things, I just want to throw away the mess, but I buy towels made of 100% post-consumer content. I’m pretty good about not buying or drinking bottled water, but if I find myself in a situation where is the only choice of beverage that I have (i.e. it is given out at a conference where there is no access to tap water), I will drink it and make sure I recycle the bottle. So if the (self proclaimed) queen of green herself isn’t living a purely green life, then surely others can do the same? Maybe encouraging this shade of gray will actually rally more people into a greener lifestyle. Maybe I was going about it all wrong with my “green police” attitude. Cast a wider net, my husband likes to say, and you will catch more fish.

So goodbye, black and white, and hello green! If you are not ready to make drastic changes in your lifestyle, then OK, start with little steps. Make a change that doesn’t make you feel frustrated to the point of giving up. Pick something and stick with it. Then pick something else. Here are a few easy things you can take on:

#1: Stop buying plastic disposable water bottles. Carry around your own reusable bottle in your backpack, briefcase, shoulder bag, or purse.

#2: Stop using disposable plastic shopping bags. Carry around at least one Chicobag with you – these definitely fit easily into your pocketbook, briefcase, even pocket.

#3: Recycle at home and at work. Check out our “What do do with your stuff” page for where and how to recycle different types of materials.

#4: Stop using disposable coffee cups. Carry around your own reusable coffee mug. Ask for a ceramic “for here” cup if you plan to hang around the coffee shop to enjoy your coffee.

#5: Stop buying wrapping paper – use colorful newspaper, children’s art projects, reusable gift bags or cloth for your gifts.

#6: Stop using disposable wrap and bags for your kids’ lunches. Instead purchase reusable bags and lunch materials.

#7: Eat less meat. Reducing the amount of meat you eat can have a significant impact on the environment – methane from cows is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

#8: Take public transportation whenever you are in a city. Check this out for a guide of public transportation options in your city.

#9: Ask yourself “do I really need it?” when you are about to buy a new appliance. If you do need it, make sure it is Energy Star rated.

#10: Stop using paper plates and utensils. If absolutely necessary, buy ones made of recycled and biodegradable material.

…or How Big Cities Will Transform the Way We Eat

I’m not talking about the kind of spam you get in your inboxes, I’m actually talking about the canned meat of Monty Python fame. Why? Well, I don’t know exactly, but my topic today is sustainable food, so somehow I associate spam with… non-sustainable food? Anyway, I remember when I first conceived of EcoPlum back in 2007, and I had a team of students from NJIT’s Capstone Project working on a prototype website. We were programming the “EcoTipz” section of the site and were looking for some tips to start off with. One of the students wrote “Eat Less Meat.” Well I was SO uninformed at the time, that I actually thought this was a joke. I thought the student was just populating EcoTipz with random phrases to test it. Turns out, the student knew a lot more about sustainability at the time than I did. (Horrified? Read more about my green evolution throughout this blog). It wasn’t until I started to educate myself in preparation for our beta site launch in October 2008 that I began to learn about how eating meat affects the environment. We then published several articles on the topic, and I learned more.

Fast forward to September 2010. Last night I was at a House Party where Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer came to talk about his sustainable food initiatives in NYC. I was thrilled to hear more about his Go Green East Harlem program and how it is now expanding to other parts of the city. Celebrity Chef Mario Batali has joined the cause by adopting Meatless Mondays in his restaurants. Chef Jamie Oliver and First Lady Michelle Obama are raising awareness and starting a school food revolution. Something really big is happening here and in other cities: urban farming, green roofs, curbside composting, healthy school food. I realize that for many of you in more rural areas (and some cities on the West Coast), this has been a way of life for a long long time. But this is different – I mean, who ever heard of growing cucumbers in the South Bronx? To get a good feeling of the kind of stuff about which I am ranting, check out this great video:

I hope you enjoyed it. Not only is this transformation fantastic for our personal health, but it’s also going to have a huge impact on the environment. I mean, we all have to eat, so this is something that touches each and every one of us, every day. How will you revolutionize your food?

Do you remember where you were when MTV debuted on August 1, 1981? (If you’re too young to remember, then hurray for you). I was at a sleepover at my friend Allison’s apartment on West 95th Street in Manhattan. I lived in the suburbs at the time, so those city sleepovers were super cool. The first music video ever played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. That song has been stuck in my head for the past two weeks because: “look at me now, Mom, I’m a radio star!” OK,maybe I’m not exactly a “radio star” – but I was interviewed for two radio shows this last week. The first interview, which was taped ahead of time, will air on John Shegarian’s Green is Good Radio show on Clear Channel network and on greenisgood.fm the week of August 27th. I also had the pleasure of appearing LIVE on “Valerie’s New York” last Friday, July 23rd on WOR 710 Talk Radio. Click on Valerie Smaldone’s picture to listen:

Why all the publicity? Well, of course I want to get the word out about my social venture EcoPlum. But if you listen carefully to both of my interviews, you’ll hear that I am desperately trying to reach people – trying to get them to be aware of their ecological impact. We are trashing the earth and we don’t even seem to care. While I am encouraged by all the hard work by environmental advocates like Annie Leonard, Sylvia Earle, Bill McKibben, Ken Cook, Kieran Suckling, and way too many others to name, I am also very frustrated. Excuse me if I’m starting to sound like a broken record (to continue with the “multimedia” theme) but based on what I see every day all around me here in NYC, people just don’t get it!! WHY CAN’T WE ALL STOP THE MADNESS? I mean seriously, what’s it going to take to get people to be more conscious of their impact? While I am tempted to start standing outside Duane Reade stores yelling “did you really need that plastic bag?” and “are you sure you want to use those chemicals on your baby?” and “are you kidding me? – you did not just drink half of that bottled water and throw it in the garbage!?!” – I know that’s not the answer. We just need to get through to people on a higher level.

A colleague of mine recently recommended that I watch this video series by economist Joshua Farley where he talks about Ecological Economics. I thought he made a lot of sense, so I’m passing it along in the hope that it will resonate with someone in an “AHA” sort of way.

Economics not your cup of tea? Well there’s always the good old “Story of Stuff” video that does a great job hitting home the message. Other good videos are: No Impact Man, Tapped, An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc.,
Crude Impact, and Who Killed the Electric Car.

So here’s what I’m thinking: most of you reading this don’t need to be converted – you already are doing as much as you can to reduce your ecological impact. But I know you all have friends, colleagues, co-workers, family members who are still going about their business as usual and not thinking about their destructive behavior. So please pass this on to one of them and ask them to take a few minutes to listen to my radio show or watch one of these videos. If they do this and write to me (or better yet – send a video) with ONE thing they learned and ONE habit they will change, I’ll pick one lucky winner of $100 worth of EcoChipz that can be used for purchases in our EcoShop or donated to environmental causes. It’s that simple. Let’s all be video and radio stars and get our message out, one person at a time.

Please send all submissions to videostar@ecoplum.com or post them to our FACEBOOK page.

So I have this dear friend who just won’t give up the bottled water habit. I have told her about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, about the fact that it takes 700 years for a plastic bottle to begin to decompose, and yet, when I was visiting with her recently, she and her family went through bottle after plastic bottle of water. Since I was a guest in her house, I felt it was not my place to question her or lecture her for the millionth time. Also, I really hope she does not feel singled out or upset by this post (if she figures out it’s her), but I am really disheartened that I have not been able to get her to change her dirty habit. I know she cares deeply about the planet’s future, so why the disconnect?

How can this type of behavior be explained? There are surely many elements of the “MIGG” mentality coming into play here – a topic I’ve written about extensively. A MIGG is term I made up to describe a person who is not changing their wasteful habits because of a combination of feelings of insignificance, helplessness, laziness, and mistrust. Be assured, I am not pointing fingers, because I count my younger self (when I was under 40) in the ranks of the MIGGs. But in this case I think here is another factor contributing to the resistance: the Green vs. Clean mentality.

We were sitting outside in the hot sun, and my friend mentioned she was thirsty. I asked her if she wanted some water and she said she did. I pulled out my reusable stainless steel water bottle filled with ice cold tap water and she looked at it and politely declined. Another friend pulled out a store bought bottled water and she immediately accepted that offer and rushed to quench her thirst. I’m pretty sure she thought my water bottle was not clean – not to mention what she thought of the tap water inside.

I’m wondering how many people have not given up some of their most wasteful habits not because of the small inconveniences involved (like carrying around a reusable bottle), but because they like things nice and new and clean. I know I had to suppress many of my obsessive compulsive tendencies when I began my journey to go green. So I’ve put together a Green vs. Clean list with some myth busters and some recommendations. Please add your own!

1) Bottled Water vs. Tap Water. Myth: Bottled water is better for you. Fact: Bottled water is less regulated than tap water, and in a 2008 study by the Environmental Working Group, 38 contaminants were found in 10 of the top brands of bottled water. Also, plastic bottles leach harmful chemicals into the water. Finally, if you like things clean, then why add to the huge amount of plastic that exists in our oceans and landfills? That stuff is not going anywhere, and eventually it will show up on your beach and in your backyard. That’s pretty gross.

2) The Disinfection Obsession. Myth: Green cleaning products aren’t as effective as antibacterials. Fact: Unless you are a surgeon requiring a sterile environment, good old soap and water or even home made concoctions like vinegar and baking soda are just as effective cleaning agents as antibacterials – sans the side effects of toxic chemicals, indoor air pollution, and water pollution. These don’t sound so very clean to me.

3) Use and Toss. Myth: Single use products are more hygienic than reusable ones. Actually, you can get a better clean from cloth towel than a paper towel, without the paper waste and mess. Cloth towels are more absorbent and stronger and therefore are more effective at getting the grime out of your kitchen. Use and wash is still better than use and toss, and if your mess is not a wet one, you can even reuse your cloth towel a few times before washing it, making it even more environmentally preferable to paper.

4) Kleenex vs. Handkerchief – I got nothin’ here – sorry, you won’t catch me blowing my nose over and over in the same hanky. Even I have my limits….but I am open to suggestions!

5) The Hippie Stigma. Myth: People who are passionate about the environment are tree-hugging hippies who don’t shave, wear deodorant, or shower regularly. Fact: while I may be known to let my razor stubble get a little visible on my legs in between shavings, I am a far cry from crunchy. Actually, prior to becoming informed about environmental issues, I was your typical over-consuming (Italian/Jewish) American Princess. Still pretty concerned about my looks and my style, but I have changed my waste producing habits to do my part in helping to preserve our earth’s natural beauty. (Disclaimer – some of my best friends are crunchy granola tree-hugging hippies – and I love them).

Do you have examples of Green vs. Clean myths that can help us eliminate the “yuck” factor as an excuse for not going green?