I love Green Halloween and I also love ChicoBags, so I’m happy to announce that they’ve partnered up again this year for the 2nd Annual Trick-Or-Treat Bag Design Contest. The first annual contest was a big success last year and I’m hoping that many of you will come out for this year’s event.

What’s this contest about?:
ChicoBags, maker of yes, all things reusable bags, and Green Halloween, a non-profit, grassroots movement that was created by Celebrate Green author Corey Colwell-Lipson, in order to promote sustainable Halloween traditions teamed up to bring this contest to kids.
Children ages 1-13 are encouraged to enter …read more

Sorry about getting this winner up so late in the day – server issues. In any case, we had a fair amount of entries for our INK + WIT giveaway; although not so many as usual so your odds are fantastic.

The winner, in case it slipped your mind is going to get a fab prize package from INK + WIT – a spooky set of 10 “Halloween Crow”postcards AND a sweet limited edition “Pommebirds”print.
And the randomly drawn winner is…

Is there anything more boring than talking about trash bags? Not much I’d wager, but consider how many you use. Dozens, maybe even hundreds per year? Plastic trash bags pose some major threats to the environment – most are made of new plastic which of course takes non-renewable resources to make plus they’re just going to sit, full of trash, in the landfill forever.

You can try:
Making less trash to start with. This is not an easy task, but any family, with a little work can do it. Take a green home trash audit then make some decisions to grind up …read more

My eight year old Cedar is actually a fan of healthy food. Like most kids he likes to splurge, but most of the time he chooses to eat healthy. Example: Yesterday we were at the store and I said, “What should we have for dinner?” Cedar says, “Can we have steamed carrots, steamed broccoli, and organic french fries with ketchup?” I kid you not. This is a kid who’ll ask for sliced red bell peppers and applesauce for breakfast.
Am I just lucky? Maybe. I’ve gone with no force feeding since Cedar was born and he was raised vegetarian. It likely …read more

Most likely, not all the toys your kids get this year are going to be perfectly green. First of all, for holidays, you should do the following:

Encourage family and friends to purchase green toys for you child. Of course, you need to do the same.
Make sure that handmade, safe, green toys continue to be an option for your child.
Buy less or give the gift of time over simply giving products to kids.

Not all the tips above work all the time though. Some family members can be a hard sell, and will continue to give your child toys that aren’t so …read more

See this lovely tree:

Nice right? Tall, well shaped, watching over what could be a blank field. Well, my pal Scott over at Health and Men has a sad story up about this tree today. One you should head over to read. Scott usually blogs about health and music, but today this story put him in a mood, so he veered off topic to cover it. And I’m glad he did. It’s a great, thoughtful post, that will make you think. Also, I like this post because if issues like one tree can’t affect someone, somewhere, well, just where does that …read more

Cindy at Organic Picks wrote a post called The courage not to progress. While this may sound strange, she’s making sense.
Progress shouldn’t really mean getting a bigger house just because you can. Here’s a quote from Cindy:
Perhaps countering conventional belief that more material possession equates happiness isn’t supposed to be a cake walk. You get rattled, you feel discouraged, and sometimes you even feel like a loser.
It’s true. Having friends who are always buying new things and living the consumerist American dream can be a bit depressing. Even if you agree with living a more simplified life, how do you …read more

As another way of celebrating our first anniversary, Jennifer and I are compiling our fave posts of the past year. As many of you longtime readers know, I joined Tree Hugging Family in February. So, while I haven’t been here the entire year, I’ve at least been a Tree Hugging Family reader for that long.
It’s been a wonderful experience.  I have the dedicated community here to thank for that. And, of course, my fun green co-blogger Jennifer who got this blog off to such a great start and keeps it going that way.
Here are my 12 favorite posts of the …read more

My jaw dropped a bit when I read that headline on an ad for citi.
And it seems the ad is based on a real person. She likes to shop and she doesn’t cook. So, heck, why not convert your entire kitchen (including oven) into a walk-in closet? Well, she did save room for a few dishes and one drawer for take-out menus.
It saddens me to think there are people like this who eat out constantly and buy so much that they feel a solution is converting the kitchen into storage for bags, shoes and sweaters.
I wonder how much Styrofoam is …read more

I believe direct mail is hypocritical when sent by groups raising money and awareness for environmental issues.
So what if the paper is recycled or harvested from sustainable sources. Direct mail still uses many resources.
Leonardo DiCaprio has been criticized recently for sending out Polar Bear S.O.S. campaign packages to the public.
You know I love the polar bears, right? I’ve written about them endlessly here. But would I send out direct mail packages to people who are probably just going to toss them in the trash?
We need to get smarter with how we communicate. There are so many other ways to raise …read more