Eco Touch Biodegradable carpet and upholstery cleaner
Eco Touch provide a range of biodegradable, environmentally friendly products to keep your car clean. The good thing is that they can also be used around the home. Their stated aim is to provide car care products that don’t harm the planet or the user whilst cleaning just as well, if not better, than the conventional products.
The Eco Touch Carpet + Upholstery cleaner is non-toxic, phosphate free and biodegradable. The ingredients list includes water, plant based surfactants (coconut), soy solvent, citric acid and potash. There is also a preservative accounting for 0.05%. All this means it is safe to use without having to wear gloves.
The Eco Touch biodegradable cleaner is useful for removing wine (not in the car of course), coffee and other liquid stains at home and in the car. More details about this and the other Eco Touch products at the Eco Touch website.
Seventh Generation 100% Recycled Paper Towel
Seventh Generation is a socially and environmentally responsible company based in Vermont. It is led by Jeffrey Hollender, an author of several books about social responsibility in business and similar topics. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Greenpeace USA.
What does all this mean? Well it helps to show Seventh Generation don’t just pay lip service to these causes and actually care about producing socially responsible products rather than just profitable ones. They are also diligent about including details of all ingredients in their cleaning products. Very important for people with allergies.
The Seventh Generation 100% recycled paper towel has a minimum 80% post-consumer waste, is hypo-allergenic, unscented, no added dyes and not whitened with chemicals containing chlorine. there is also a non-whitened version. Another feature that makes sense is the Right-Size half-sheets so you don’t waste any with the smaller jobs. Just use what you need.
A useful fact on the website is that if every household in the US replaced one roll of 120ct virgin-fibre paper towel with a 100% recycled roll then it was save 1,000,000 trees. More details at the Seventh Generation website.
Botanical Interests certified organic vegetable seeds
If you prefer to eat organic produce and wish to do your bit for the environment and your budget, the Botanical Interests range of certified organic vegetable seeds are perfect for you. Botanical Interests was started back in 1977 by husband and wife team, Curtis and Judy Jones in Colorado and has grown into a nationwide supplier of quality organic seeds.
The range of certified organic vegetable seeds is huge and includes multiple varieties of all the usual vegetables plus a few extras. Arugula, beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, corn and cucumber. That’s just the ones starting A through C and there is over 90 different organic vegetable seeds in the product range as listed on their website.
Vegetables aren’t the only seeds they produce, so visit the Botanical Interests website for more details.
Organix adult dog food – chicken, brown rice and flax
Caster & Pollux Pet Works produce a range of organic pet food for dogs and cats. Some may see organic pet food as an unnecessary extravagance, however, if you eat organic food as a way to reduce the toxins in your diet, shouldn’t you do the same for your pets?
The Organix adult canine food is an award winning product that offers one of the highest meat protein based pet foods in the US market. It is made from the same certified organic free range chickens that you eat. Other ingredients include organic brown rice, organic flaxseed, organic barley and organic peas. Importantly, it doesn’t contain ethoxyquin.
Caster & Pollux also take social responsibility seriously. Disasters cause have for people and often the pets and livestock are left to fend for themselves or receive very little assistance. The company donates products to relief agencies in times of need. An example is the donation of 20,000lbs of food to help relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina.
Further details about the Organix organic pet food range at the Castor & Pollux website.
Simple Green Biodegradable All Purpose Cleaner
Simple Green, like many other successful products, started life with one purpose and has expanding into a product with many other uses. Long before the term green was popular, Simple Green was formulated to clean the tannic acid from coffee roasting equipment. That was over 30 years ago. Since then it has become a mainstream product and the Simple Green biodegradable all purpose cleaner is just one of the company’s products.
Such is their commitment to the environment, through their LIVE GREEN | LIVE CLEAN program, they donate over 1M gallons of product a year to assist with disaster clean up relief.
The all purpose cleaning concentrate is available in three sizes and can be diluted as necessary. So try and buy the larger size and use a pump pack with the diluted solution. It can replace most cleaners, detergents, degreasers and laundry pre-soaks. There’s no bleach so it is also non-toxic.
See all the uses and suggested dilution ratios at the Simple Green website.
Solio Classic Hybrid solar powered battery charger
This is such a cool idea from Better Energy Systems. The Solio solar powered charger is a portable device (weighs 5.6oz/156g) that can recharge batteries in devices like mobile phones, PDAs, ipods and similar. They also offer a range of adapters/tips for most of the popular brands. This isn’t a device to store away and only use when traveling. Use it to replace your wall charger at the home or the office.
It is designed to fan out and has three solar panels that absorb the sun’s energy and convert it to stored power. For example, a fully charged Solio Classic will charge your typical mobile phone more than twice or give around 20 hours of music on your ipod. An hour of sunshine equates to about 20 minutes of talk time. The internal battery lasts for about a year and is easily replaceable.
The Solio solar powered charger can also be plugged into the wall so when travelling you only need it plus the adapter/tips for each of you devices. Much better than carrying a separate power adapter for each device.
More details about the Classic Hybrid solar powered charger at the Solio website.
Guludo Beach Lodge – Mozambique
There is so much to write about the Guludo Beach Lodge that it will be difficult to pull out just a few facts. It was created by a young English couple who realised tourism could be about helping the local communities work their way out of poverty. From day one they worked with the locals to create and operate the resort.
The resort was designed so as to have a low impact on the environment, help the locals by teaching building skills, generate as little waste as possible and utilise the local materials. They even have an environmental policy that lists 12 rules they must follow.
Whilst fairtrade is usually associated with products, they have applied it to tourism. Actually it is similar. Fair wages, employ locals where possible, safe working environment and helping locals to sell their wares to the visitors.
Finally there is the Nema Foundation that was established by the owners and helps to improve the living standards, health, schooling and more. Five percent of the revenue from the parent company that owns the resort is donated.
You really need to check out even more about this resort at the Guludo Beach Resort website.
Greenworks natural toilet cleaner
Greenworks as a brand was introduced to the market in early 2008 with the aim of providing natural household cleaning products at affordable prices. They are about 20%-25% more expensive, however, as can be expected, this is a reflection of the cost of manufacturing with higher priced materials. One day it might be that natural products are the same price rather than a premium.
The Greenworks natural toilet bowl cleaner comes in a recyclable container and it made from natural plant based materials including a coconut based cleaning agent, citric acid and essential lemon old. It is 99.99% natural with the colorant being the non-natural part. It is really necessary though? The cleaner is suitable for both plumbing and septic systems.
This natural toilet cleaner has been approved by the EPA to carry the Design For The Environment certification logo.
More details about this natural cleaner and more in the range at the Greenworks website.
Vans Cojo eco-friendly shoes
The Vans range of eco-friendly shoes in the surf lineup covers slip-ons and lace-ups in low, half cab and full styles. All of them feature natural based raw materials such as hemp and bamboo and use water based glues and inks.
The Cojo comes in three colours and one of them features the checkerboard pattern that is synonymous with Vans. Materials include chrome-free suede and hemp, bamboo charcoal lining, hemp infused gum rubber outer soles and they are also natural crepe wrapped. Plus, all water based glues and inks.
Click to checkout the full range of Vans shoes.
