The New York Times recently ran an interesting piece; Trashing the Fridge. The article (not surprisingly) focuses on individuals who have decided to save energy by dumping their fridge. Folks in the piece note that “The refrigerator is unnecessary, as long as one is careful about shopping choices and food storage.”

One of the families covered in this article get around fridge use by keeping a small freezer in the basement along with a cooler upstairs. They keep the cooler cold with “Two-liter soda bottles full of frozen water, which are rotated to the freezer when they melt.” This family’s fridge …read more

Right now we’re a few days into the Moonpads Reusable Menstrual Pads Giveaway. Let’s take a closer look at the prize.

Moonpads is an Etsy shop run by Annie Rose Shapero. Annie has been making her Moonpads since 2003 and they’re carried both at her own web shop and in stores across the country.
Facts about Moonpads:
Moonpads come in four sizes – a pantyliner, a regular absorbency, extra absorbent, and a long pad.
AN ORGANIC DEAL: The pads come in 100% organic cotton but just because they’re organic, you won’t pay more. Annie notes,
“All the pads in my Etsy shop are currently …read more

Send the kids packing tree hugging families; this tip is adult friendly. There’s a new recycling center in town just in time to make you feel a-ok about your um, less ordinary Valentine’s Day gifts.

Adult Toy Recycling is offering full recycling of all sex toy items, including used, not so used, broken, and otherwise handled sex toys. They’ll even recycle the batteries for you. The process is simple. You send in your toys by mail, and the company takes care of the rest.

Here’s the deal; just because you believe in green living doesn’t mean you need to move into a tree, co-op housing, or an off-grid home. You don’t have to wear peace buttons and amber oil, grow dreads, or smoke the green stuff.
I think there’s a collection of people who think that green means a specific fashion or lifestyle is required, or that if they live green, people will assume they’re into this kind of stuff. The truth is that anyone can or cannot live green. Trust me, I lived in hippie Humboldt land, and not everyone was all that green. …read more

All expenses in the world have leverage and many expenses are choice orientated. Not trying because you think it’ll be too expensive is not a great excuse to ignore green living. If you need help getting over this issue, we discuss it all the time here:

Organic Food Costs Rise – 11 Ways to Save Money on Organic Food
How Green Living Saves You Money: Napkin Example
Why Does Being Green Cost So Much?
Raising Green Kids In A Commercial Culture
Kids & Shopping – How Kids Can Be Smart Consumers
As a parent, do you understand the impact of the need for stuff?

If you’re …read more

So what if it is?
Frankly I’m tired of this excuse. Yeah it might be a crock, but it’s a lame excuse to use to avoid green living.
Green living is so much more than the global warming issue. True green living supports local economy, fair employment, resource and nature preservation, healthy bodies, and much more. Green living will ensure we don’t live in a concrete jungle void of trees and allows us to learn how to keep dangerous toxins out of our homes and kids.
To flip with global warming. Don’t believe, believe, do what you like, but it’s really a moot …read more

With the new year almost upon us, many folks are thinking, “Hey, this will be the year I try to live a little greener.” Others will say, “What a waste of time.” There are hundreds of excuse why someone can’t or won’t go green. That said, I’ve decided we’ll have an anti-green weekend before 2009 arrives. This weekend we’ll look at five reasons why you really shouldn’t bother with green living.
This weekend, I’ll post six of the most common excuses I’ve heard over the years. Starting with…
I’m just one person so it’s not like I’ll make that big a difference:
Actually, …read more

I saw Peggy had done some extreme green wedding tips; and not to be outdone, I thought, now what can I do that’s more extreme. Actually, I’m kidding.
BUT I have been wanting to do a little something about sex here at Tree Hugging Family – seriously, there’s a lot of waste involved in sex. Here’s the deal. This is still a family blog; read whole family blog. So instead of showing pictures of things like greener sexy undies, and getting all crazy in-depth here, I’m sending you away.
Just in case you’ve missed it, I wanted to point out that Treehugger …read more

This week, we’re going to take an in-depth look at greener tampon and sanitary napkin options. We’ve looked at this before when Tree Hugging Family went extreme green – but more in passing. Luckily, for you, I’ve used many of the greener feminine products out there, so I’ll post some reviews. At the end of this week, I’ll compile a handy round-up post of everything we’re going to cover this week.

Today we’re going to kick things off with the eco negatives of conventional female products.
Landfill issues: Of course even just one woman creates enough tampon and maxi-pad waste over her …read more

Have you ever stopped to think about all those vaults and coffins being placed in the ground? They are unnatural and expensive, yet these burial traditions, along with cremation, seem to be what most of us choose without much consideration. It’s what we are used to.
Natural burials with biodegradable coffins and no embalming have been popular in Britain for many years, and now green cemeteries are popping up in states like New York and California, among others. For more details, see this CNN article.
The Green Burial Council maintains a list of approved providers who will facilitate green burials …read more