PLAYGROUND COTTAGES HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

Supporting Fair Trade GoodsPosted by admin on June 23rd, 2011

The weather has been crazy for the past two years, and crazier now more than ever. One minute it is raining cats and dogs the next minute it is the hottest day of the year. It has been a great problem for my kids who have respiratory problems – asthma and allergies. I am not a socially aware person, and I am ashamed to admit that I have done my share in polluting the environment. But now I have realized what I can do and need to do to save whatever is left of our environment and do my share to restore its beauty.

One of the things I am doing besides recycling and practicing proper waste segregation is to Shop Fair Trade. Fair Trade Goods not only make great presents but allow me to support communities who produce goods responsibly without harming the environment.

What is Fair Trade?

Fair trade is a method of doing business that ensures producers are fairly compensated for their work. Products that are deemed fair trade have been bought from the producers at fair market value. This sets off the chain of events that is the goal of fair trade commerce, including sustainability of the lifestyle of these producers, better local economies and improved conditions for the workers who produce many of the foods and goods people use every day.

These are usually food items and bear the FLO label – the Fair Trade Labeling Organization. Eco Gifts are a great idea to give away this Christmas too.

How to Recycle (Cell Phone) Batteries – A Disposal Guide for Households.Posted by admin on June 7th, 2011

How to Recycle (Cell Phone) Batteries – A Disposal Guide for Households.

Batteries come in all forms of shapes and sizes. A usual household, owns about two button batteries, ten normal (A, AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, etc.) batteries, and throws out about eight household batteries per year.

Studies show that about three billion batteries (which include discount batteries, cell phone batteries and motorcycle batteries) are sold every year in the US alone. These batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury and lead which can contaminate the environment when not properly disposed of.

Batteries should not be thrown together with other disposables in the trash. Usually, these are often incinerated in a landfill and this can trigger certain chemicals to be released in the air. It is always advisable to recycle batteries or buy rechargeable ones.

To reduce battery waste, start with prevention. It all starts in your household!
1. Check first if you have batteries on hand already before buying more.
2. When applicable, buy hand operated items that can function without batteries.
3. Choose to buy batteries that have less mercury and heavy metals.
4. Consider buying rechargeable batteries for some needs, but remember they may also contain heavy metals like nickel-cadmium. They result in a longer life span and use fewer batteries. Just remember to recycle when disposing rechargeable batteries.

Nature Fundraising IdeasPosted by admin on May 23rd, 2011

Do you care about your environment? What are you doing to help improve your surroundings, the nature that’s supposedly there? What is your contribution to lessen the destruction and the demise of the forests? Are you helping in creating awareness in your little area of the world? Do you have the vision to take that awareness to the whole world? Are you joining other campaigns to help others with their environmental concerns?

Most are aware that it costs much to do something to get people aware of the good you are doing to the environment. Good thing, the world is listening more these days now that they feel the bad impact which also affects their children and will ultimately affect their grandchildren. More people are going for products made out of recycled materials. You can go for nature fundraising to send your message across the world. As a nature fundraiser, you can be sure people will support your advocacy.

If you think you are still young to start doing a good thing, think again. You can voice out your concern and let the whole school get involved. Children are now heard. The internet exists to hear everybody. Youtube and other video avenues over the internet have been used to be instruments to get the message across by children. You are never too young to encourage others. You can be part of the United Nations as a child. Actions speak louder than words. You can be the good example your classmates can emulate. If other parents see your example, they can teach their children to follow suit and the parents themselves doing so so there will be no opposing examples in one household. Start looking for fundraising ideas for schools and from there you can decide on what you probably need.

Be an instrument to make our world a better place.

Naturesvisionfundraising.com ReviewPosted by admin on April 4th, 2011

Websites with noble missions always have a place on the internet. Nature’s Vision is a company that can help you with your fundraisers. They become fundraising partners by offering environment friendly products that you can sell at your fundraisers.

Naturesvisionfundraising.com showcases a predominantly green home page – all in theme with their environmental thrust. You automatically get an earth-friendly atmosphere especially with the earth logo on their header together with the image of a frog. A collection of nature images are also continuously flashed behind a picture of a window which gives you a feeling of looking out at different sights.

Although the website’s selection of products is accessible through one of the header links, the complete catalog is available on the home page. There are also links down the home page that brings you to more information on other environmental organizations that Nature’s Vision supports like the Animal Planet project R.O.A.R. and World Wildlife Fund.

Among the products that Nature’s Vision offers are nature themed shirts, recycled material travel mugs, natural soy candles, environmentally themed towels, canvas bags, nature themed jewelry, green themed hats, household gift items, and many more.

The website is simple and easy to navigate. The product pages come with images that are big enough for you to scrutinize and appreciate the product. However, it would have been better to have a version of the catalog that is easily viewable on their website because the catalog is only available in pdf version right now. The download area gives access to numerous helpful files like a letter that you can send to parents for school fundraising activities, order forms, important notes, keys to success, and a customer service form.

With the global drive to be more aware of the environment, it is not surprising that ventures like Nature’s Vision become successful. Nature’s Vision provides you with more ways to help by having a profitable fundraiser and promoting the environment as well.

Reasons Not to Use Plastic BagsPosted by admin on December 19th, 2010

More and more people are becoming more environmentally conscious nowadays and this shows in the popularity of ecobags as replacements for plastic shopping bags.

Many establishments are slowly making a move from plastic bags to paper bags. To prove that they mean it, some establishments do not use plastic bags for particular days of the week while some has opted to charge an amount for customers who want plastic shopping bags.

So with everyone swearing off plastic bags from their lives, should you follow suit? Read below to help you decide.
• They are made from non-renewable resources. Plastic bags are made from polyethylene which is made from crude oil and natural gas.
• They kill lives. Many animals, including wildlife and marine life, have been killed by plastic bags. Once scattered, it is quite easy for a shopping bag to get choked on and strangled with. These plastic bags have killed hundreds of thousands of animals around the world.
• They do not easily biodegrade. Many plastic bags carry the label ‘Degradable’. Well, of course, they are degradable but it would take around 1000 years for them to degrade in landfills and 20 years if left lying around.
• They create litter. Lots of it. You only have to look around you to notice that there are littered plastic bags everywhere.

Dual Flush Toilets: Conserving WaterPosted by admin on July 8th, 2010

Designed for light and heavy flushes, a dual-flush toilet tends to average less than 1.2 gallons per flush. They meet HET criteria of 1.28 gallons per flush or less (HET criteria for dual flush toilets identifies the effective flush volume as the average of one high flush and two low flushes). They can also be called HET toilets. Dual flush models are available from many well-known manufacturers with light flush capacities from .8 to 1.1 gallons and heavy flush capacities from 1.3 to 1.6 gallons per flush. These toilets typically operate with a handle that can move up or down, or a two button system. One direction or button will activate the lower flow flush, while the other will activate the higher flow flush.

You can always have your current toilet converted with a Dual Flush Conversion kit, to help you save money and legwork especially if it’s a busy household with one toilet. SelectAFlush dual flush retrofits current toilets to perform like low flow toilets and in some cases saves more water than a high priced HET  toilet. No need to buy a new toilet and send your old toilet to the dump, just convert your current toilet into a water saving dual flush. 

What to do with your Empty Printer CartridgesPosted by admin on June 7th, 2010

Every year, we deal with environmental problems that seem to get worse and have no solution in sight. I think we should start in our own homes – I believe that a little stone thrown in the sea can still create ripples that can be felt at a larger scale.

For example, what do you with empty printer cartridges? Years before, we just usually throw it in our trash can. Recently, we can now exchange an empty printer cartridge for cash and better, we can buy ink refill sets for our printer ink cartridges! Printer-cartridges.com carry everything you need for your printer! They have ink cartridges for almost all models of different brands of printers at low prices. Printer ink can be obscenely expensive to buy at the local department store or elsewhere. Because you are buying online and not a store they can keep their overheads down and pass these savings onto you, the customer. They offer the ink refill sets I mentioned, and even have a step by step instruction on their web site complete with illustrations how to replace the ink and use the refill for your empty ink cartridge. I am actually for this. Not only will it be economical for consumers, it will be our own little way to help save the environment – one recycle printer cartridge at a time!

Going Smarter with RecyclingPosted by admin on March 25th, 2010

People are feeling the effects of their carelessness towards Mother Nature nowadays. Climate changes, extreme and abnormal weather conditions, landslides, floods and natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are happening left and right with alarming frequency. Caring for Mother Earth has been pushed to the top priority by a lot of countries and recycling has taken a new form – we have to thank concerned citizens going mainstream to touch base with more people for this. Recycling is now “going green” and being “eco-friendly”. But recycling is segregating recyclable and non-recyclable items. We should do more than separating an empty plastic bottle.

We should also do something about the food and leaves we throw in our trash. Just remember, with the rate people are throwing their trash, landfills will be full to the brim with all the things we have been throwing away. So what do we do with all the leftover food? If you cannot give it to people who can still eat it (provided it’s not spoiled), even the peelings of your food preparation can be taken and made into a compost pile.

Are we going back to basics? I think we should. The food that we eat may seem luscious and big but we do not know how much pesticides or artificial fertilizers it has received. With your own garden composter, you can be sure of the food you are giving to the plants that you will eventually eat. Now, that is recycling to its fullest, don’t you think? We don’t even have to it the hard way as there are now compost bins who do all the hard work for us, we just need to put our garbage there and they  rotate daily and come out with soil-like compost for us to use on our plants.

Maintaining a Worm Farm is also ideal if you are not crazy about the smell composting material would bring. This is how a Worm Factory looks like, you can get one like this in Outdora.com:

You just need to fill the worm composter with worms, fill it in with food leftovers and other organic material and your worms will do your work for you! They keep the compost odor-free in a recycled plastic bin and speeds up making your nutrient-rich fertilizer. You don’t even have to touch it afterwards. Notice there is a faucet or spout at the bottom of your worm farm bin? Just open it and lay it on your land waiting to be fertilized.

Now once you have warmed up to the idea of composting, why not take it one step further and try a composting toilet for your home. Did you know that waste from the toilet is 90% water? Imagine how many liters of water is flushed and wasted down the toilet per household and multiply it by the number of houses all over the world and you have got a huge problem on wasting water. Why not conserve water too?

These composting toilets evaporate water and break down the solid wastes to salts. These salts can also be used to fertilize the ground. Do not worry about maintenance. They are very easy to install and sanitary!