OK, so this one’s kind of a no-brainer, but it’s not something that people necessarily intuit on their own. For years, I proclaimed myself a dedicated environmentalist, and yet… every time allergy season rolled around, I would go out and purchase box upon box of “Ultra” tissues, or “lotioned” tissues, or “Super” tissues. All made from trees and going straight into the trash.

This isn’t to say that one isn’t a “true environmentalist” until you stop using Kleenex… but making the switch to a non-disposable way of blowing your nose is incredibly easy, and anyone can do it—and it will have a very concrete impact on the world. Paper companies will receive less money, cut down less trees, and less waste will end up in our landfills.

The Modern Hankie

The clear alternative to tissues are handkerchiefs, or their modern-day, budget equivalent: bandanas. You can usually purchase bandanas for relatively cheap at your local clothing or camping supply store ($1 a piece or cheaper). If you’re hoping to go the organic cotton or hemp route, the price can climb quite steeply ($9-20) but the tradeoff of a sustainably produced hankie might be worth it for you.

When you first purchase the hankies, they will be stiff and somewhat painful to wipe your nose with. Throwing them in each time you do a load of laundry can help to break them in. Soaking them in vinegar overnight is also a good way to soften them up. The more you wash them and break them in, the softer they will be on your nose.

Care and Feeding

Once you have them broken in, you can carry them around (I have one folded up in my pocket at all times) and use them each time you need to blow your nose. Again, this seems like a no-brainer, but think of how many tissues the average tissue-user goes through in a given year. Ten boxes? Twenty? Forty for the more stuffy-nosed out there? It is a tremendous amount of paper, at any rate, and using a hankie can eliminate all of that waste and save some trees too.

Of course, washing is important. I like to wash mine, as a rule, every week; but during high-usage times I will sometimes go through a hankie a day. And when I have a cold—forget it! I’ll go through 3 or 4 a day, as they slowly get sodden and… well I won’t go into it. Anyway it’s good to have a stash of 10 or 15 hankies, so you always have a ready supply even when your laundry pile is building up.

One way to start affecting some change in your nose-blowing world is converting your friends to hankie-using ways. An easy way to do this is to simply surprise them with a supply of 7 or 8 hankies. It makes a nice gift, and they will think fondly of you each time they blow their nose in a reusable, sustainable hankie.

Eliminating disposable paper products is an easy way to start changing your world. Tissues are pervasive in our society—and they are also utterly avoidable. Making the switch is easy, and not only will your nose thank you; the forests will too.

Over the months I've been slowly eliminating all sorts of unnatural and synthetic chemicals from my diet and my life. Processed foods and and unsustainable clothing have been thrown by the wayside. So why am I still smearing pesticides all over my body?

Mother Earth News has a fantastic article on Why You Don't Need Antibacterial Soap. While a simple google search will turn up dozens of articles and debates about this across the web (people seem to feel pretty strongly about their antibacterial soap!), for anyone who is serious about eliminating chemicals from their lives and our world, antibacterial soap has got to go.

Featuring a host of nasty chemicals, chief among them triclosan and triclocarban, antibacterial soaps are quickly polluting our water (up to 60% of US streams are contaminated with triclocarban, says Mother Earth News) and our food supply (as the chemicals make it into crops through biosolid fertilizer). Science-A-Go-Go reports on the surprising persistence of triclocarban in our environment. Overall, there is lots of damning evidence coming to the same conclusion: antibacterial soap must go.

There are dozens of options out there for the conscientious soap consumer. A quick search for organic soap turns up dozens of soap companies who are making all-natural, chemical free soaps that won't pollute our earth. After my partner Sam pressured me for months on the issue, I gave in; we've even found homemade natural soap at our local farmer's market!

Pertinent links:

wikipedia on antibacterial soap, wikipedia on triclosan, Worldwatch Institute on soap

While I tend to shave infrequently, when I do it has always been with the viciously harsh chemicals found in commercial shaving creams. Such lovely items as: stearic acid, triethanolamine, isobutene, diazolindinyl urea, and sodium lauryl sulfate, amongst others. Yes, the time honored tradition of shaving passed down from father-to-son (in my case) carries with it a legacy of toxicity.

In the process of greening my life, I have been especially reluctant to let go of my conventional bath + beauty products. I have a job that gets me especially dirty quite frequently, and so I like to feel especially clean. I guess I’ve always felt that harsh chemical cleansers got me clean. My partner Sam has been attempting to dissuade me of these habits.

Natural Shaving Soap

Recently, as a St. Patrick’s Day gift, she gave me a natural shaving soap kit from A Wild Soap Bar. It consists of a sassafras shaving soap bar, an old-timey bristle brush for lathering up my face, and a hardwood bowl. And best of all, the ingredients are so natural, I could conceivably make it myself: olive, palm & castor oils; aloe; clay; sassafras root and cinnamon bark; oats and sea salt.

And so on a recent business trip, I traded in my Barbasol in for all-natural shaving soap. I was a little confused as to the application process at first—without any pressurized goo spewing out of a nozzle, I didn’t know what to do. But after a little water and some swishing with the brush, a nice (and nice-smelling) foam began to appear.

I have to say that overall, the natural shaving soap didn’t provide quite as smooth a shave as the conventional stuff. But I’m OK with it. As I said earlier, it’s been tough for me to give up the trappings of the non-green world when it comes to bath products, and so taking a step forward with shaving soap is a big move for me. A little less comfort or smoothness on my face is worth it to know I’m making a statement with my dollars not to support the chemical-industrial world.

A Greener Razor

As another way to green my shave, Preserve Recycled Razors are a big step forward as well. Made from 100% recycled plastics (in the handle), the razors act just like regular ones, but are a way of making a statement with the dollars I spend. They are also reusable, as you can interchange the heads while keeping the same handle over and over. The EPA estimates that over 2 billion disposable razors end up in landfills every year in the US. Preserve Recycled Razors are a step in the right direction.

And so I’m excited looking forward: one day when I’m passing down the tradition of shaving to my (potential) son, I’ll be able to pass it down with a legacy of sustainability—a greener way to shave is a step in the right direction.

For years the idea of a traditionally dressed American has been in jeans and a t-shirt, all decked out in traditionally produced cotton. Cotton is the ubiquitous American (really, world-wide) clothing fiber, and like most things that we consume with reckless abandon, there are many quite serious problems associated with it. In particular, pesticides. The stats that are thrown around are that 10% of the world’s herbicides and 25% of the world’s insecticides are used for cotton. There are also issues with the way that the United States’ dominance over the market (a 41% worldwide market share according to wikipedia), utilizing price supports and subsidies, contributes to Third World poverty.

I have long fallen prey to the “disposable clothing” phenomenon (NYT via Treehugger), buying clothes as absolutely cheap as possible. And of course, they fall apart rapidly. However, while Wal-Mart and Madison Avenue are not moving quickly towards sustainable clothing, there is a large movement towards shifting our manufactured clothing supply to use sustainable materials.

Organic Cotton

A few weeks ago I needed some new undershirts, and decided to go organic. There are a variety of manufacturers out there (see the organic cotton directory); I ended up going with Maggie’s Organics, due to their commitment to 100% organic cotton, as well as their utilization of fair trade in manufacturing their clothes. The shirts were certainly more than the disposable kind at Wal-Mart (13.95 for one shirt, rather than $10 for 3), but the payoff was great. The shirt is actually more comfortable than the bleached, poor-quality shirts I used to buy, and it can be worn with pride.

There are many other materials that are alternatives to plain old cotton. Of course the two conventional alternatives to cotton are wool and polyester. However, to me I feel that both of these fabrics have their own issues: wool is not always gathered in the most humane of ways (and sheep can be particularly environmentally destructive) and polyester is made of petroleum products. This doesn’t mean that you can’t find sustainable alternatives to the traditional wool and polyester (Patagonia utilizes recycled polyester for their clothes, and there is a humane wool movement). But there are two other fabrics that I’ve tired out: hemp and bamboo.

Hemp and Bamboo

Hemp clothing is widely available (see a list of hemp clothing retailers http://www.greenpeople.org/Hemp.html ) and has proven to be far more durable than conventional cotton clothing. I get my hemp from Patagonia , who make very nice hemp shirts and pants. Hemp also has the benefit of being typically a looser weave, so that it keeps me cooler in the hot desert sun.

Bamboo clothing is just starting to move into the forefront of the alternative clothing world. Bamboo is a very fast growing plant, which also takes in five times the amount of CO2 of an equivalent stand of trees (benefits of bamboo), and can be spun into fabric. I got a Bamboo shirt from Kavu—the fabric is tough but supple, and does not wrinkle much. There are lots of other bamboo retailers out there if you search for them.

All decked out in my sustainable clothes, I feel like I’ve made a small stab at changing the way I dress myself, and the impact what I purchase has on the earth. While it will be some time before I can say I have a sustainable wardrobe, buying some organic, hemp, and bamboo clothing is a small start towards a better world.