Computers and other electronics are some of the biggest energy hogs in our homes and offices.  So anything that helps recude your power use is worth taking a look at and maybe giving it a try.

The EcoButton is a handy little power-saving gadget that sits quietly beside the keyboard to help remind you to save electricity when you step away from your computer.And it’s really simple to use.  It plugs into a USB port and then the L-E-D glowing disc sits on the desktop and waits for you to give it a press when you’re taking a break. 

The EcoButton website takes you through the easy install steps and includes a power consumption screen where you input the wattage of your computer, the size of monitor and the price per kw of electricity to help calculate your energy savings.

While most computers have a stand-by mode, the EcoButton takes your computer down to a deeper energy savings without totally shutting down your computer; it’s called S3 sleep state.  The beauty of that is when you’re ready for lunch or to slip away from your computer for awhile, just press the EcoButton and your computer takes a snooze without losing the work that’s open on your screen.  When you return press any key on your keyboard and the computer refreshes - right where you left off and you’re ready to work again in seconds.  Cool. 

The nifty gadget costs about $20 and the maker says it can save you up to $100 a year on your power bill - depending on how often you remember to use it.  The EcoButton works with Windows 2000, XP and Vista programs.  It is not Mac compatible yet, but they’re working on one.  And you must have the hibernate mode available on your computer for the EcoButton to work.  I couldn’t find it readily available at U.S. retailers, but you can get it on-line.  Here are some sites I found - other than EcoButton.  If you find it in stores - let us all know.  It might make a great stocking stuffer for the holidays!

It looks like a puffed up Alka Seltzer tablet BEFORE it becomes a moistened paper towelette.  It’s called the Ec’o Towel (not a typo - “Ec’o” is the right spelling of this product) and I think you’ll be amazed at how a few drops of water can produce a handy little wipe in a matter of seconds. (See demo.)  Pour a few drops of water on this hydrolic-processed thick nickel-sized pellet - and voila! - it grows into this moistened 10″x8″ handy wipe, ready for use to clean up whatever you’ve got - wherever you are!  I loved it.

The Eco’o Towel was discovered by a woman named Gertrude, who thought it was a fantastic product that could help clean up our footprint on the planet by cutting back on using paper towels, napkins, wipes, etc.  The little white wipe is 99% lint-free and it’s totally reusable.  You can wash it and use it again… and again.  When you do throw it away, it’s bio-degradable so it breaks down in the landfill. 

The towel is darn convenient, too.  You can carry it in your purse, your pocket, the briefcase, a lunch kit, the golf bag or the diaper bag.  I think the price is affordable for the convenience; $4.95 for a 10-pak and $8.95 for 24.  Check out Gertrude’s website for ordering and some other nifty products.  She also carries bio-degradable doggie poop bags and kitty litter pan liners by Bio-Bag.  Neat stuff to keep our planet a little cleaner.

It’s Green Consumer Day and it may be a good time to reflect on our buying habits.  Many of us consider ourselves to be eco-conscious, but are we true eco-consumers?  Do you consider the resources used to make a product before you buy it,  and even if you knew - would it change your buying habits? 

A recent video called, “The Story of Stuff” shares a theory on how consumerism is stuffing our eco-awareness away in the closet, while we go do more shopping.  The video was produced by a group called, ”The Story of Stuff Project” and definitely has strong political views of how our buying of stuff has spun out of control.  Whether you agree with the point of view or not - just watching this video did make me think about how voracious our appetites for stuff has become and how readily available more and more stuff is all the time.   

And could we really change the cycle of the way stuff is produced, consumed and disposed of simply by demanding earth-friendly products from manufacturers and retailers and becoming more vigilant in reusing and recycling our own stuff?   I may not agree with everything in the video - but I sure wanted to clean out my garage after watching it!

Eco-products for our furry friends can be hard to find, but I managed to track some down at the SuperZoo pet convention this week at the Mandalay Bay.  If you ever doubt how people splurge on their pets - you should go to one of these pet product shows!

Grooming products are always in demand.  One company, called Earthbath, puts out bio-degradeable and chemical-free pet shampoos, lotions, potions and wipes.  The products are people-tested and cruelty-free (although having a poodle-doo can be cruel, ha ha.)

Natural shampoos with ingredients like tea-tree oil, eucaplytus and peppermint and tango mango help moisturize dry skin and give your pooch a nice shiny coat.  Their oatmeal flavor is the best for itchy or sensitive skin.  There’s even a conditioner and bubbly cleanser for kitties made from cherries.  Meowwww.

No time for a dunk in the tub, Earthbath has a variety of flavored spritzes to spruce up your pup’s fur and get the stink off until you get them in the bath.  All natural wipes are great between baths, too and super for the St. Bernard drooler in your house.  (You can even keep them around when your hubby’s watching the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders this weekend on TV)  ha ha!  They also have ear and eye wipes - cool.  They’re the same ones the San Francisco Zoo uses on their new baby gorilla. 

But maybe some of the best earth-friendly items I found at the show are made by a company called, West Paw Design, out of Bozeman, MT.  They have some cool eco-toys for dogs and cats that are made with various amounts of pre-consumer and post-product waste and are totally recyclable.  There’s the Tux, the Zisc, and the new Bumi (pronounced boomie) and when your dog is finished chewing and tearing them up - you can send them back to the company where they are ground up and used to make new toys!  Priced at $10 to $15.  Neat.  There are fluffy kitty toys, too, made from recycled plastic bottles.  Huh?  Purr-fectly safe for your pet.

The Renitz doggie sweater is made in the U.S. from 100% reclaimed cotton.  No pesticides, no dyes.  They’re adorable and the small runs $34.  And an awesome pet bed - called the Eco Nap - is made with a neat material called, “Intelliloft” that are fibers made from recycled plastic soda bottles.  The tags on each item tells you how many bottles were recycled to make the product.  Now that’s eco-cool.  And I LOVE their website.  Great pictures and explanations of products and shows pets <with> the products.  Plus they have prices on everything.  You’ll have to show some restraint in spending because you’ll want to buy it all.

Have you ever heard of a “smencil?”  Me neither.  You can’t eat it, but wait ’til you smell one!  Cotton candy, root beer, cinnamon, and very berry, to name few flavors.  You can find them at a really cool earth-friendly website called, “Stubby Pencil Studio.” 

Kate Rosenthal started the site about 3 years ago, when her twin daughters were two years old.  She wanted to find safe, eco-alternatives for art supplies for her girls.  She started with adorable Color ‘n Kids note cards - printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper and cholorine free!  And things took off from there.  Before she knew it - she found items like Beeswax crayons, Banana paper notebooks and monkey pencils.  What a wonderful menagerie of eviro-conscious creative stuff for kids!

There are things like O’Bon pencils, made from 100% recycled newspapers with rainbow and wildlife patterns.  Who knew you could roll old newspaper into pencils?  (Jeans into carpet was an eye-opener for me.)  But this is fantastic!  Then you take a great idea like that and make it even better by adding yummy smells like chocolate, watermelon or peppermint - and you have one gourmet-licious writing utensil.  They’re affordable, too; a set of five costs $5.95.  The peppermint Smart Smencils actually enhance your kids’ learning power by stimulating their concentration.  Seriously - research says peppermint is a great brain booster and kids who smell it - get better test scores!  That school tool gets an A+!

A must for little kids - is crayons, of course!  Don’t you have about a thousand of them all over the house and under the backseat of the car?  Well, Stubby Pencil Studio carries crayons so cool that I bet the kids will keep them in a safe place to use over and over again.  Soy crayons by Prang, don’t flake like regular petroleum wax color sticks and are made with pure soybean oil.  Eight crayons for just $1.00 - that’s very affordable.  And crayons made out of beeswax and vegetable oils with natural pigments for color?  What a honey of an idea.

Check out all the earth-friendly ideas for your budding artists - and YOU - at Stubby Pencil Studio.  (I didn’t even get to the Banana, Coffee and Tobacco fiber papers and notebooks.)  It’s a whole new world of green creative fun!  P.S. Kate says she can ship within 2-3 business days.  Yipee.  I can almost taste my grape smencil now!

You have to search store shelves and the web for eco-alternative school supplies - but they are out there!  Most of the time - but not always - they are a little more expensive.  Here’s what I found.

At office supply stores - like Office Depot and Office Max - I found laser printer paper made with 30% post-consumer waste, 100% recycled filler paper, and pencils made with 100% sustainable wood instead of wood harvested from rainforests.  Office Max also carries Fellowes brand mouse pads which are made from 100% recycled rubber.  Both carry the At-A-Glance notebook and desk calendars that are 100% recycled paper.  They carry EcoVue 3-ring binders that are made from 70% post-consumer waste and are 100% biodegradable.  And on their clearance shelf - I found pens made corn, recycled pencils and colored pencils and coffee paper - both stores carry Post-It notes with 30% to 100% recycled content.  At Office Depot, I also found Pentel RSVP pens made with about 60% recycled plastic.

I didn’t find much of anything really eco-smart at Target, except a nice contemporary 3-ring binder by The Greenroom.  It’s made from 100% recycled fiberboard and printed with soy-based ink.  Smart.

How about glue?  You can find washable, non-toxic glue by Elmer’s and other off-brands.  But it’s still far from enviro-friendly.  On treehugger.com, I found a totally natural paste and glue stick made in Italy by Coccoina.  It’s almond paste and tastes like marzipan - for those little paste-eaters in your house!  Only $3 for the glue stick.  That’s much cheaper than a visit to the emergency room!

Ever since an Idaho college student prepared a thesis paper saying toxins were released from frozen or extra hot water bottles, there has been controversy over the safety of drinking water from plastic bottles left in extreme temperatures.   According to the FDA, the research for that paper was poorly done with some bad results.  But between the media and the internet e-mails, the so-called study spread false fears throughout the world.

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It’s always green, never needs mowing and saves a bundle on your water bill.  Synthetic turf may be the answer to keeping a grass-like lawn yearround, without the cost of keeping up the real green stuff. 

Green Living Services installs about 10 different types of turf, from the lawn variety to commercial landscape to football fields.  Harry Jackson, owner of Green Living Services, says turf has many advantages over lawn and desert rock landscape.  He says the water savings is the biggest benefit.  The second is its durability.  The warranty for turf is about 8 years, but synthetic lawn can last 10 to 15 years. 

The hot desert sun can definitely heat up the surface of artificial grass, reaching 130 to 140 degrees in the middle of a summer day.  But Jackson says a squirt of water cools it down quickly enough for the kids to play on it - even in the heat of the day.   And unlike rock which can hold heat for hours even after the sun has left it, turf cools down very quickly once the hot sun moves away, so it doesn’t hold heat around your home like desert rock can.

 Green Living Services also sells a product called, Fresh Fill.  It’s made entirely of crushed natural zeolite - which is volcanic rock - and it neutralizes pet odor when Fido picks out a favorite spot for doing his business.  Sprinkled over the turf, Fresh Fill is 100% safe for pets and kids.  It also helps keep the turf cooler as a substitute for water.

Jackson says turf is durable and clean.  He thinks it’s the perfect answer for saving water, time and the chemicals of fertilizers and polluting emissions of gas-powered lawn mowers.  You can give him a call at 367-TURF and check out their website at www.AGDwest.com  Harry also says you can e-mail him directly at harry@AGDwest.com; he’d like to hear from you.

Dermatologists urge us to lather on the sunscreen to protect us from  the sun’s dangerous cancer-causing UV rays.  But environmentalists say the chemical ingredients in sunscreens could be just as hazardous to our skin and bodies.  Most sunscreens contain ingredients like Avobenzone, Oxybenzone and Parabens - to name a few that I can pronounce.  Studies by the Environmental Working Group have shown that these chemicals can actually increase your risk of getting skin cancer because they produce free radicals, which damage skin cells and make them suseptible to disease. 

These toxins have also been linked to allergies, hormone disruption and low birth weight in babies when mothers are exposed during prenancy.  Not to mention, the chemicals pollute the waters you’re swimming in when they’re washed off your skin.  The FDA has been looking at new standards for sunscreens for years now.  In the meantime, you might want to protect your skin naturally.

Products that are made with natural ingredients, such as botanicals like wild pansy or green tea extract.  I found quite a few products locally at Ulta Cosmetics.  Burt’s Bees has been around for quite a while and has a great reputation for natural products.  Their chemical-free sunscreen has an SPF of 30 and is made with hemp seed oil.  It costs about $15.  Other products made by Ocean Potion have Cranberry Seed Oil and sea botanicals.  (I guess there’s a reason Neptune never looked a day over 40), about $8-$10.  I picked up other goodies like Shady Spray, made from botanicals and paraben-free for $24.  Also, a sweet-smelling face sunscreen, SPF 30, with watermelon extract by Korres (pronounced Kor-ez), $28.  Two products the cosmetic ladies told me are popular are bareMinerals Natual Sunscreen (SPF 30) and Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 30.  Both run about $30 and list Titanium Dioxide and Zinc Oxide as their biggest skin protectors.

Experts agree that those two natural minerals are the best at blocking both UVA AND UVB rays!  These minerals sit on the skin and act as barriers to the harmful broad-spectrum rays which can damage cells and age your skin.  That’s what has always made them healthier, too because they didn’t absorb into your skin.  Zinc oxide has long been associated with products like Bull Frog; you know, the white globby stuff that most people put on their nose and ears?  Well, now there are versions of invisible zinc in products like Solar Sense.  While it looks much better than the oder versions of zinc oxide, and still offers great protection - enviro groups are now concerned that the micronized zinc - called nanotechnology - used to make the product invisible, is now able to sink into your skin and may not be so healthy for you either.  Wow - it’s always something!  Read about it and decide for yourself.

Environmental Working Group has a Skin Deep cosmetic safety database that you may want to check out.  They’re about to release a new study of 1,000 brand-name sunscreens that you may find interesting.  You DO have to sign up with your e-mail address and zip code to get the articles, but it’s really good information!

So do your homework.  There is so much information to “soak in” about the topic and it will definitely broaden your green horizon on a subject many of us “just spray and move on” about.  You might also check Whole Foods for their products and there are plenty on-line that you can order, too.   Happy summer! 

There is a new wine in Nevada that hopes to help the planet while you enjoy a nice glass of vino.  ONEHOPE wines are doing their part to preserve our environment by giving back half of their profits to community and eco-organizations.  A new sauvignon blanc with the label - One Hope - dons a big green ribbon and the pride of helping plant trees in communities that need more vegetation and areas devastated by wildfires.  Fifty percent of every bottle sold will be donated to American Forests to accomplish that goal.

The new wine is sold exclusively at Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Markets - known for their planet-conscious practices in their stores.  ONEHOPE also uses Sonoma County Wine Co. in Sonoma County, California to produce their wines.  The company recycles a large portion of their water in their wine-making process and uses other energy efficient methods.  So you can feel good that the $10 you spend on a nice bottle of vino is produced by a green team who cares about the planet.