Archive for July, 2011
« Previous EntriesEasy Peasy Tip: Cancel your Catalogs!
Saturday, July 30th, 2011You may find yourself accidentally getting lots and lots of catalogs in the mail. If this is the case, take a few minutes and cancel them. You can call each company individually and request to be taken off of their mailing list. If you’re the kind of person who is nervous about confrontation, offer the [...]
Happy Eco-News Fridays!
Friday, July 29th, 2011The Dalai Lama guest judges ‘MasterChef’ Could you use the internet to heat your house? Go ahead: Confess your Eco-Sins! Floating hydroponic farm makes food with zero waste London Public Transit Directions Now Available on Google Maps Nice Shades: Tips From The Pros On How To Keep The Heat Out Fast trains are way safer [...]
white rooftops
Thursday, July 28th, 2011Don’t you just love when there are easy eco-answers to un-eco situations? For example, consider the sea of hot, black, rooftops in most cities. We’ve all heard that city living is overall much more environmentally friendly than suburban or rural living, due to the shared living of apartment buildings, less car ownership/more public transportation use, [...]
iPhone Apps for Eco-Friends
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011So many of us have smartphones these days, and I’ve been hearing more and more about different smartphone apps that sound so neat. I’ve compiled a list of them below - many are for both iPhone and Android - do you have experience with these? some are free, some you must buy - so any [...]
Eco-Moving
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011I’ve been changing homes rather frequently these days, which, on one hand, is awesome- it’s probably the best way to avoid accumulating too much stuff, because what a pain it is to move everything every few months. On the other hand, there will always be the things I need around me on a daily basis, [...]
Preservation and Planning Ahead
Monday, July 25th, 2011We are several weeks into our abundant CSA season and some of the vegetables are getting away from me. You will probably recognize my old friends: kohlrabi and cabbage. oy! I love them both, but it’s hard to eat them in large quantity. So right now I’ve got a crisper drawer full of kohlrabi and [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Know When to Trust The Experts
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011We talk about DIY a lot here at TinyChoices, but sometimes, you should know when to trust the experts. By letting a professional do some tasks, you can avoid buying lots of extra materials or tools that you don’t really need to have around. For example, if you can swing it, have someone come mow [...]
Happy Eco-News Fridays!
Friday, July 22nd, 2011In India, Rural Residents Abandon Grid and Embrace Solar Panasonic May Build Energy-Saving Homes on Ex-Factory Sites Solar-Powered NASCAR Track Mows Grass With Sheep (Video) The clean economy employs more workers than fossil fuels Solar: Now for renters, too After my long-ago post on DIY bicycle skirt guards, I’m in love with these hand-crocheted skirt [...]
Swapping Words
Thursday, July 21st, 2011Friends recently came to visit me, and asked what they could bring- so I asked them to bring me their old magazines. I’ve never been a big magazine subscriber, but these days, with a smaller income than I used to have, my subscriptions are exactly zero. So sometimes I thumb through the older mags at [...]
Carmegeddeon!
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011In the Carmegeddon Thunderdome, only the BICYCLES leave! Did you hear about the LA freeway being shut down this weekend? I didn’t, really, until I noticed that lots of tweets this weekend included the hashtag #wolfpackhustle - which is so hilarious that I had to look it up. It turns out that while Rt 405 [...]
The Tiny Choices Meal List, Revisited
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011We last had a Tiny Choices Meal List post back in 2007, and it was so incredibly helpful I thought it was time to revisit the idea. The backstory is that sometimes I get into ruts where I just don’t know what to cook. Does this ever happen to you? Day after day, I know [...]
Firefly Magic
Monday, July 18th, 2011I’ve been making a strong effort to spend a little more time looking around at my environment this summer, and one thing that I noticed was that we have a boat load of fireflies (or lightning bugs, to some) in our yard this year. I talked to a friend about it and she pointed me [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Rinse the Tin Foil!
Saturday, July 16th, 2011Aluminum foil is made from metal mined from the earth then milled into thin sheets, and has been transported from mine to factory to store to your home- so it’s a resource-intensive material even though we think of it as a “disposable” one. If you’ve just unwrapped some leftovers or food transported from one location [...]
Happy Eco-News Friday!
Friday, July 15th, 2011Some helpful hints on how to reduce energy draws while you’re away from your house on vacation - like, shutting off your water heater! If you’ve been following the political maneuvering in Washington DC, you may have been thrilled to hear that the “BULB Act” which sought to repeal lighting provisions of the (George W. [...]
Beer Can Planters
Thursday, July 14th, 2011Ingenious folks have been making fantastical creations from beer cans forever; check out all the ingenious beercan-art from around the interweb there on Google… But what I saw at my local flea market recently really made me smile- a clever gardener took his empties, sliced off the top 1/3 of the can, and planted tiny [...]
Bio-digesters
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011My local grocery store has got a new toy - it’s a biodigester! And it’s designed to “turn food waste to water” according to this article. I am a little fuzzy on how it works - it uses bacteria to digest the food, and water, and the machine churns. This is a simplified explanation. But [...]
Low-Impact Leftovers Packaging
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011The neatest thing happened today, while at lunch with some dear friends. One of them couldn’t finish her pasta and asked for it to-go, and instead of the leftovers coming in one of those incredibly durable “disposable” plastic containers the food was wrapped into a piece of tin foil and put on the table. Without [...]
Review: Absolute Green Natural Bug Repellant
Monday, July 11th, 2011I was contacted last year by the makers of Absolute Green Natural Bug Repellent, who provided me a sample of their kids-safe deet-free bug spray for my use and review.* I received the sample in September, by which time it was already cold enough that most mosquitos left me a lone, but I got it [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Use Powdered Detergents
Saturday, July 9th, 2011Powdered detergents are much more eco-friendly than liquids, for a few reasons: the packaging is usually paper instead of plastic, and (more importantly) dry products are much lighter and less fuel-intensive to ship than liquid-based ones. So the next time you’re choosing, choose powdered! [Image by Squeaky Marmot via Creative Commons]
Happy Eco-News Friday!
Friday, July 8th, 2011For those who love wind energy but aren’t quite sure where to start - Home Depot is selling personal wind turbines! Speaking of buying things, Amtrak is getting 70 new efficient locomotive engines! and even better, they have a FLEET STRATEGY, which means maybe at some time soon they’ll become wildly successful. Bike sharing programs [...]
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