It’s a green Halloween.

This is my favorite time of year: cool mornings and leaves turning warm shades of ochre, red and rust. It is also time for my favorite holiday, when all the spooky and creepy things are afoot. This year I vowed to have an eco-friendly Halloween party. I looked into what was on the market for eco-friendly items and found there is not many option at the local mega mart. Being the creative type, I decided to recycle some items I have to create a sustainable Halloween.

One of my family’s favorite Halloween traditions is carving pumpkins. There are not many options for lighting a masterpiece jack-o-lantern other than tea-light candles or battery-operated lights. A little trip to our backyard shed made me think of other options. Riffling through boxes of things waiting to be fixed, I came upon a great inspiration: if you have ever had solar garden lights, you know how the stems often break, rendering them seemingly useless. If you are anything like me, these lights won’t be tossed in the trash, but put back for some other use. In this case, why not use them to light the season’s jack-o-lanterns?

It’s easy to make a solar powered jack-o-lantern. Just cut a hole in the cap of the pumpkin big enough to insert the light. Place a small square of aluminum foil in the bottom of your pumpkin as a reflector (this can be recycled along with the pumpkin after Halloween). This is a very easy eco-friendly project: charge the lights during the day, and you are ready for spooky jack-o-lantern nights.

Another use for existing solar lights is turning them into luminaries. All you need is some paper lunch bags cut with funny or spooky faces on them, place them over your lights, and you have an inexpensive decoration that can be recycled after your party. Here are a few more tips on other ways to go green for Halloween.

Buy organic cotton and make your family’s costumes. Be sure to make the kid’s costumes a size bigger so they can be reused another year.
Make your own costume from thrift store finds; you can always donate them back after the holiday.
Costume rental is always an option, and it is sustainable due to being rented repeatedly.
Use natural and recyclable decorations, such as apples, cornhusks, pine corns and pumpkins.
Make homemade makeup to use with your costume. Here is a great site with all the recipes.
Toast the left-over pumpkin seeds for a snack or place them in a bird feeder for a wildlife treat.
Remember to buy organic pumpkins and candies. Find local organic markets in your area.
Happy HalloGreen!

Spilling the beans…

I cannot imagine a day without coffee—the aromas and tastes awaken all my senses. Personally, I have gone green with this daily practice: buying organic beans, using ceramic cups and composting used coffee grounds. As a coffee-loving greenophile, I often ponder how we can take personal practices, such as drinking coffee, into the local marketplace. While most of us have heard bad press about disposable coffee cups, perhaps we’ve not considered other opportunities that can take the daily coffee ritual into green territory. With cup in hand, I’ve thought of a few ideas for how green coffee-lovers can take to our home-based environmental practices to the local coffee marketplace. After all, small steps practiced at home can often be encouraged on the local, community level. You can take green ideas the next level by talking to these merchants about some ideas that they can use to go green. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Fair Trade produced coffee. Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, which seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in South America. By purchasing and drinking Fair Trade coffee at home, you encourage local coffee shops and retailers to carry more Fair Trade products.

• Encourage your local coffee shop to sell reusable BPA-free stainless steel cups and offer refill discounts. This helps to solve the disposable cup issue.

• Convince retailers that burlap bags used for shipping coffee beans can be sold to customers for craft and garden projects—they make great layers in flowerbeds in lieu of mulch.

• Retailers can also recycle used coffee grounds to local farmers and gardeners for composting and plant food. Some plants that need the acidity these grounds provide are rosebushes, azaleas, rhododendrons and hosta.

These are just a few of the ideas I’ve had. I’d love to hear about other ways we can go green with coffee. If you know of a local coffee shop in your area that has gone green, please share it so others can support their efforts.

Green with envy ‑- Can your tattoos be green?

As a collector of living art -- better known as tattoos -- I’ve questioned the impact of my collection. In my pursuit of living a “greener” lifestyle, is getting tattooed a bad thing? What types of chemicals were in the ink that was pushed under my skin?

Reading the article “Tattooed Greenies” on agricultureguide.org shed some light on my own thoughts and concerns. It was really scary to read that the traditional inks used in today’s tattoos are unregulated by the FDA. It has only been within the last year that the FDA has launched probes into the implications of the inks used in tattooing.

There are some questions that are still left unanswered. Are there truly green alternatives for the tattoo enthusiast? I would love to get some feedback from readers with their own experience in going green and tattoos.

If you would like to read the article on agricultureguide.org please follow this link. http://agricultureguide.org/tattooed-greenies-whats-really-lurking-under-your-skin

Are organic foods really healthy?

There is a new report that might make rethink "Organic".

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/08/05/there-change-afoot-how-organics-are-marketed

Hobit style green homes.

I just came across this article about hobit style green homes on earthfirst.com.http://earthfirst.com/7-amazing-handmade-eco-friendly-homes/

What's up with SIGG bottles?

I stumbled upon an article on treehugger.com about SIGG bottles. It seems the truth is not quite so clear. Read the article for more details. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/08/sigg-bottles-now-bpa-free.php

Bamboo ,who knew?

We’ve all heard about bamboo flooring and clothing. Here are some facts about this fast growing tree (it’s actually in the grass family).

Bamboo is the fastest growing “Tree” on earth.

Bamboo is as strong as hard wood.

Hardwoods can take over a hundred years to mature; some varieties of bamboo can mature in as little as three years. Under the right conditions bamboo can grow from 1.5 to 2 inches an hour.

Its healing properties have been utilized in the treatment of infection and respiratory ailments.

Bamboo has been used to make cooking utensils as well as being the dish being cooked.

Bamboo has been used as paper since the 5th century in China; it was the standard during the Han dynasty.

In Japan bamboo forests surround Shinto shrines to ward off evil.

There are almost 1000 species of bamboo in the world today.

The information here was found onWikipedia follow the link for more facts about this amazing plant.

I’d love to hear about some unique uses for bamboo everyone might not know about. Send me comments.