http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz Where it Pays To Buy Green. http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/120 The Environmental Working Group's 2011 "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean Fifteen" lists can be found at: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/ The Shopper's Guide to Pesticide in Produce will help you determine which fruits and vegetables have the most pesticide residues and are the most important to buy organic. You can lower your pesticide intake substantially by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated produce. Food and Dining http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/119 Summer is definitely here, but don't get caught red-handed (or anywhere else for that matter). Environmental Working Group has their 2011 Sunscreen Guide with the top sunscreens to use. Find one that's good for you and the environment.  Check it out here! Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/118 If your phone has suffered screen damage it is important to note that it can probably be fixed. Hard scratches, cracks and breaks have resulted in most phones being thrown in the trash. These days, there is a phone repair store in many of the major cities across the United States.  It is common that people look at features and appearance when buying a phone but another thing they should consider is fixability. What is this made up word? Fixability has to do with the difficulty and cost of repair.  The age of the iPhone has brought us several smartphones that are awesome to use and easy to break. One thing to look for when buying a phone is that the screen is not glued to the LCD. When this happens, you can not replace one of the parts solo because when one breaks they both need to go. Also of not is the cost of parts. An HTC Droid Incredible repair is really cheap because the screen can be found for $30. This is a great deal. You can also repair the iPhone 3G and 3Gs at a great price. All of these things when buying a phone. It will save you money and save us from some more e-waste. Home Electronics and Appliances http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/117 try out dryer balls. very cheap & awesome!!! no package waste, no chemicals, multiple uses! i have used same ones for 14mths and paid $3.00 for them! Cleaning Products http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/115 Are you looking for great ways to cut your energy bills this winter? Try out these hot tips from Energy Star! Make sure you seal up any air leaks in your home to maximize energy efficiency. Check your heating and cooling system filters each month. You should schedule maintenance of your systems before each upcoming season. If you are buying new appliances or products, check to see if they have the Energy Star logo. These are products approved by the EPA. Use a programmable thermostat to regulate your home's temperature when you're away. Lastly, assess the energy efficiency of your home. You can use the Home Energy Advisor site that also gives advice based on your area. Check out the Energy Star Site for other great tips on how you can reduce your energy bill and your carbon emissions! Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/114 Are you looking for ways to make your holidays a little greener this year? Then check out Jane's Holiday Kitchen tips from Environmental Working Group! Everyone knows that the holidays usually include presents, loved ones and lots of food! Jane Houlihan (the Senior Vice President for Research at EWG) has some easy, simple tips for your kitchen this food-consuming season. Try and buy organic, especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables since they contain less pesticides. Cook with fresh foods that don't contain any packaging and try and use recipes that don't call for canned foods. Also, using non-stick cookware increases the chances of releasing toxic fumes. Opt for iron, stainless steel and oven-safe cookware. These are only a few. Check out her other tips here! Have a happy holiday and an eco-friendly one!   Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/113 Thanksgiving is just around the corner and what better way to give thanks to our planet than by having a green, eco-friendly Thanksgiving! Did you know that waste increases 25% per household from Thanksgiving to New Years?! Here are some great tips from Earth 911 to help reduce the amount of waste we produce this holiday season. Instead of just going to any grocery store and filling up your cart with the usual holiday goodies, why not take a moment and actually think about where your food is coming from ? Try and purchase organic or local food for some of your holiday meal. You can also try a farmers market in your area. Not only will the food taste better, but it produces less carbon emissions since it's not being transported from across the country. When you do go to the store make sure to bring reusable bags. Also, try and only buy the amount of food you really need. According to Earth 911, 28 billion pounds of edible food is wasted each year! Plan your meal in advance and get a definite head count before you go food shopping. Try and keep track of the amount of food eaten in previous years and adjust accordingly. If you do end up with tons of leftovers, why not donate them to a homeless shelter or a food bank instead of just throwing it away? Instead of using disposable plates and cutlery, opt for reusable ones. Get a cloth tablecloth and napkins you can use again and put out your real plates. It may be more of a hassle piling on those extra dishes, but think about how better it is for the planet. These are just a few of the great tips. Check out Earth 911 for more tips on making your Thanksgiving a green one!   Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/112 We know that everyone hands out candy on Halloween, but how about some green tips for this Halloween season?! The Environmental Working Group has some great ideas for making this October a safe one for your kids and the environment. Instead of using hairspray to turn your hair different colors, use a wig or some ribbon which has less toxins. Also, why buy a brand new costume when you can make one out of items you already have? Maybe you can do a costume swap with friends and/or family and reuse an costume they probably only wore once! Check out more tips from the Environmental Working Group! Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/111 They say everyone should walk a mile in someone else's shoes, but not everyone has a pair. You can change that by donating your old shoes to shoes in need. Soles4Soul is a charity based in Nashville and they collect donations of old shoes (that are still in decent shape) from people and from footwear companies. They give the shoes to those who need it, free of charge. Click here to find out how! Check out another shoe recycling organization called Global Treads from another Ecotip to recycle your shoes! Also remember you can always return you old sneakers to Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program. Here's a tip that's good for you feet and your carbon footprint! Recycling http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/110 Whether you're bringing out the silverware for a dinner party or looking to give your silver jewlery a little spruce, try out these great tips from Smart2BeGreen! Instead of using commercial silver polish, which contains a lot of chemicals and toxins, use baking soda. First, line a glass pan with aluminum foil with your silver on top. Then, pour boiling water and a cup of baking soda. Watch the tarnish collect on the aluminum foil. You can also make the baking soda into a paste by adding water and rubbing out the tarnish. Then, rinse with water and dry with a soft cloth. Clean your silverware without tarnishing our planet! Read more on EHow.com! Cleaning Products http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/109 Do you like eating seafood but worry that its quality may be a tad fishy? Well, now you can enjoy seafood without the fret by eating sustainable seafood! You can make sure your restaurant serves sustainable seafood by checking out rating systems beforehand. They also warn you against restaurants that serve fish on the endgared species list. Check out Fish2Fork for restaurant rating systems in your area! They also have lists of the top ten fish to avoid. The Enviornmental Defense Fund has a database of fish listings that are sustainable as well. You can also make a delicous sustainable seafood meal at home by heading over the your local farmers market and trying out some of these delicious sustainable seafood recipes! Now that's seafood we can all see helping our environment! Food and Dining http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/108 The Environmental Working Group has come out with it's 2010 Suncreen Guide to help you find suncreens with fewer hazardous ingredients. The best sunscreen is a hat and a shirt. No chemicals to absorb through the skin, no questions about whether they work. But when you can’t get away from exposing your skin to the sun, use EWG’s top-rated sunscreens to provide broad-spectrum (UVA and UVB-sunburn) protection with fewer hazardous chemicals that penetrate the skin.   Best Beach & Sport Sunscreens Personal Care Products http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/107 Summer's coming up and that means that we are in the middle of wedding season. Every bride needs something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue, but what about something recycled? RecycledBride.com is a website where brides can sell items from their weddings to future brides. There are 2.4 million weddings a year and most of the items purchased aren't used again after the big day. So why not let another bride use them and reduce the bridal carbon footprint? Check out Recycledbride.com and make your special day a green day! Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/106 The Environmental Working Group has just released a report ranking 17 top frangrances by the number of "secret" chemicals that are not listed in their ingredients.    These secret are associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and include many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products. Also in the ranks of undisclosed ingredients are chemicals with troubling hazardous properties or with a propensity to accumulate in human tissues.   NOT SO SEXY: HIDDEN CHEMICALS IN PERFUME AND COLOGNE   DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT Personal Care Products http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/105 GREAT GREEN MONEY SAVING IDEA!!! Club Members in the media swapping sites PaperBackSwap.com, SwapaCD.com and SwapaDVD.com have just passed the $21 Million mark in savings for swapping used Books, CDs and DVDs. With the economy in a downturn, everyone wants to save money. Over 300,000 active members have found out that swapping online is a great way to do it. These clubs are changing the face of home entertainment: no rental fees, no hassle, and real money savings to boot. All that is required is a working email address, a mailing address served by the US Postal Service, and some Books, CDs or DVDs in good condition that you don't want to keep anymore.  How it works:  When you are ready to share an item you list it as available for swapping. When another club member requests it, the system will send you an email asking you to mail it out. (Yes, you have to pay the postage.)  Simply print the wrapper using two regular pieces of paper. And you can add pre-printed  postage directly from the site. Then you can mail it from your home mailbox. When the other member gets it (and can keep it or re-swap it), you get credit for sending it. You're asking, well, if I pay postage, how am I saving money?  Well, each item you send gets you credit good to order for yourself. Each book is 1 credit, each DVD and CD 1 credit per disc. When you use the credit you earned, the item you order comes to you free of shipping costs. So you get each book for just the cost of the postage you spent to send out a book of your own. CDs and DVDs, being lighter in weight, are even less expensive to mail. You can transfer the credits between your accounts at the three sites, and choose from the over 4 million books, over 300,000 CDs, and over 182,000 DVDs currently available. So, if you pay $2.23 in postage to swap a book, you get a book of your choice for free. Pay $1.28 to swap a CD, you get a CD. Pay $2.02 in postage to swap a DVD, get a DVD for free. If you would normally pay 4 or even 5 dollars for each of these, you have saved dollars with your very first swap. And once you have finished reading (or watching or listening to) an item you can re-list it and swap it again and get the credit back. We calculate that each book swapper saves about 2 dollars a swap; each CD swapper saves about $2.50 a swap; and each DVD swapper saves about 3 dollars a swap. With 8 million books swapped, that means that the members of PaperBackSwap have saved collectively more than 18 million dollars! The CD club members have conducted 485 thousand swaps, saving a collective million dollars,  and the members of the newest club, the DVD swappers, have swapped 188 thousand times and collectively saved over a million dollars. When multiple items are swapped at once (which is very common -- the sites make this easy to do), the savings are even greater. PaperBackSwap was founded in 2004 as a way to swap books with friends and family. Through positive word of mouth and some great stories in Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, CNN and The Today Show among many others, these clubs have grown by leaps and bounds. We now boast members in all 50 U.S. states and territories, as well as at APO/FPO/DPO addresses, and currently PaperBackSwap members swap over 65,000 books per week -- not just paperbacks, but hard covers and audio too.  As the clubs grow, features are added: the Wish List, which allows a member to "queue" for any item that is currently unavailable in the system and to be notified via email when it is available; the Discussion Forums that offer lively conversation on nearly every topic imaginable; Live Chat that offers a way for members to meet "virtually" in real time. There are even local Club Chapters where online friends can meet in real life. The clubs have over 100,000 active members and the membership grows every day. For more information, visit: www.PaperBackSwap.com,www.SwapaDVD.com  & www.SwapaCD.com.   Entertainment and Media http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/104 The Environmental Working Group has published it's 2010 edition of the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides.  Download your copy or see the full list. Bottom line - always buy organic peaches & nectarines, apples, peppers, celery, blueberries and strawberries.  OK to buy non-organic avocados, onions, and frozen sweet corn. Food and Dining http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/103 Here's an eco-tip from Smart2BeGreen that's really supportive. The Bosom Buddy Program actually recycles old bras! They take bras that don't fit or you don't wear anymore and they donate them to women in shelters and other programs who can really use them. So, when you're cleaning out your closet to find old clothes you can donate, don't forget to look in your underwear drawer. You can actually be supporting a good cause! Recycling http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/101 Most people don't really consider what they should do with their electronics once they go bad. Your microwave, cell phone, computer, television and so on all contain harmful waste. In fact, while ewaste only occupies 3 percent of the landfills, it makes up 70 percent of the toxic waste. This toxic junk seeps into our soils, gets into our waters and is very very bad. Generally speaking, this is a good place to look to see what to do with electronics that are no longer useful. But one thing beyond that is consider do-it-yourself repairs. Or if you can't figure out how to repair what could be a quality electronic items, have someone repair it. Services are popping up all over that can be real money savers. Some fixes like iPhone repair and more specifically iPhone screen repair are very popular. In the past a broken screen would mean trash. But now, there is value. These companies will buy the broken item from you broken or fix it and send it back for a fee. Just one good thing that came from a lagging economy and growing environmentally conscious society. So if your favorite item breaks, do a Google search and you'll see there could still be value.  Hazardous Waste http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/99 Here is a great green tip from About.com! Everyone loves a clean car, but washing a car is actually dirty business for the environment! Did you know that it's actually greener to take your car to a commercial carwash than to wash it at home? According to International Carwash Association washing your car at home actually wastes 80-140 gallons of water and the toxins from washing your car end up in your storm drain, polluting rivers and streams. Washing your car at a carwash only consumes 45 gallons or less and commercial carwashes are required by law to treat the water so it doesn't pollute the earth. If you do chose to wash your car at home, make sure you find eco-friendly products. You can purchase biodegradable soap at Simple Green or make your own! Also, try not to use your driveway, but wash your car on your lawn. This way the toxic water can be absorbed and neutralized by the soil.               There are even ways to wash your car without using water at all! There are some carwashes that use the waterless technique, which includes a solution that is sprayed on the car and then wiped away with a cloth. You can search for a waterless carwash in your area; just make sure they use eco-friendly products. You can even buy your own waterless car wash products on the Freedom Waterless Carwash website. Let's have a sparkling clean car and a sparkling clean planet! Check out the About.com website for more info!   Green Living http://www.ecoplum.com/tipz/view/98 Are you looking for a way to recycle your those old cd's you don't listen to anymore? Attend the Recycle Your Music event at Housing Works Bookstore and Cafe on Thursday February 25. Bring any of your unwanted cd's to donate. There will be great live music while you peruse other cd's donated to add to your music collection. Not only is this a great way to recycle your old music, but all the extra cd's and proceeds from the event go to Housing Works. Housing Works is a not-for-profit organization fighting homelessness and aids and is New York City based. So if you live in the area, come on out to Recycle Your Music and do something good for you the environment and your ears! Check here for more info! If you don't live in the New York City area, but still want to recycle your cd's, mail them to the CD Recycling Center of America!   Entertainment and Media