MOST of us can’t afford hybrids. They sound good and all, but they’re not a killer reality for many families who one, have a strict budget, and two, need more space than the most affordable hybrids allow.

Instead…

• Make your own ride as efficient as possible. If you drive a serious gas guzzler but you drive less than other folks you’re still gonna come out ahead. Make a goal to drive less, combine trips, and bus it or bike or (gasp) even walk more.
• Empty out the trunk. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that simply removing excess weight from your car can green your ride. For example, when you lose 100 pounds of gear your MPG improves by 2% – which adds up.
• SLOW DOWN! How super fast do you really need to get to the store anyhow?
• Keep your car properly maintained. Things like old oil filters, badly inflated tires, and other basic maintenance blunders will make your car less efficient and thus less eco-friendly.
• Carpool whenever possible.
• Buy cheap gas – which sounds bad but actually the higher the octane, the worse it is for the planet. Aromatics, otherwise known as harmful pollutants, are added to high octane gasoline.
• Use cruse control on the freeway.
• No matter the car you purchase, make sure it’s got a longer life rating that average. Long lasting = greener.

And of course, keep on saving up for your dream hybrid

Actually, getting toxic chemicals out of your child’s life entirely is going to take some doing. You’ve got car emissions, non-organic foods, plastic toys and more to contend with. You shouldn’t also have to worry about your home cleaning and bath and body care products. However, a smart green parent should worry – A LOT.

Although most parents in the U.S. consider home cleaners pretty safe, most are anything but safe. In fact more the American Association of Poison Control Centers notes that 1.25 million kids younger than six years of age are unintentionally poisoned in the home each year by things you’d expect (pain relievers and cough and cold medicines) but also lots of stuff you’d not suspect such as cosmetics, personal bath care products, and basic home cleaners. Furthermore, Studies by the Environmental Working Group conducted research that shows that nearly 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants can be found in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. That is insane.

Million Baby Crawl, a new campaign launched and sponsored by Seventh Generation hopes to get some of these toxic chemicals out of your child’s life for good though. It’s about time too. Congress passed that nation’s chemical regulatory law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TCSA) 33 YEARS AGO and as of right now, the EPA has managed to test only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemical compounds developed for products used in the home. Way to go congress.

Additionally, the EPA has zero authority to gather information to evaluate a chemical’s risk because product manufacturers are not required by law to give that info to the EPA or to even prove a chemical’s safety as a condition of use. We aren’t doing very well at all when it comes to protecting our children – at least not from a whole country standpoint.

Join the campaign!

Seventh Generation and supporters of the Million Baby Crawl think that chemical manufacturers should be required by law to conduct safety testing before a chemical is used in products. As a parent, I’m sure you agree. You can help support the effort by doing the following…

• Visit Million Baby Crawl and create a crawler that represents why you want chemical reform. The Million Baby Crawl will help to present the Kids Safe Chemical Act to Washington by collecting signatures from Americans who support toxic chemical reform.
• Post about the Million Baby Crawl at your own blog.
• Follow the Million Baby Crawl discussion on Twitter #mbcrawl.

Until chemical laws are passed you still have a choice though. DON’T clean with conventional toxic cleaners. Make homemade green cleaners or buy safe green cleaners.

Kids’ Kitchen 40 Fun and Healthy Recipes to Make and Share written by Fiona Bird and illustrated by Roberta Arenson is a cook kids cooking deck with 40 cards (6″x8″ ) that share healthy ideas about easy recipes that kids can make.

This deck is child-friendly and colorful plus all forty recipes in this cute deck are based around the five main food groups, and offer a focus on healthy eating.  Food and vitamin facts are included, along with plenty of veggie and fruit filled recipes, which is nice (it’s not packed with meat).

The cool names like Picnic Kabobs, Apple Volcanoes, and Mean Green Guacamole will get kids on board with healthy cooking too. Ages 8 and up

Bonus material included at Barefoot Books website includes handy instructions about how to make your own pint sized chef hat – I’d used recycled paper.

Visit Kids’ Kitchen 40 Fun and Healthy Recipes to Make and Share to see more images from this cooking deck.

ecosystem is a newer line of earth friendly planners and journals (or books as they call them) that are easily personalized. Ecosystem was further designed to empower environmentally aware product owners. Each book has a unique book ID number, which you can use to track a book’s origins, learn how they are environmentally-friendly, and to find out exactly how to recycle each book.

How it works:

1. You head to ecosystem and choose a book type – ecosystem Advisor, ecosystem Architect, ecosystem Artist, or ecosystem Author.
2. You choose a cover style.
3. You choose a size.
4. You choose the color. Current colors available include the ones shown below.
5. You customize your book with a variety of insets from calendars to grids to lists and more.
6. You get to see a picture of the finished product and if it’s perfect you purchase it.

All ecosystem books are made with 100% post consumer waste paper and the following environmental savings are achieved by ecosystem products.

ecosystem is great option if you like to create your own perfect planner or journal.

[images via ecosystem]

BPA has long been known to be a problem. Plenty of studies over the years have linked BPA to birth defects, low birth weights, cancer, early puberty and other health problems in rats even as the FDA continues to state that BPA is perfectly safe for families. The problem is that there hasn’t been enough long-term testing on BPA, and we can’t honestly know that it’s safe.

What we do know based on studies is that BPA leeches out of many a baby bottle that contains it; especially once you heat those bottles up (say in the dishwasher). The best choice is to avoid BPA until we clearly know the effect it has on our own bodies and our kids bodies. With that in mind, here are some BPA-free baby bottles you can choose…

• Momo
• Born Free
• Green to Grow
• Mam
• Evenflo
• Dr. Browns
• Thinkbaby
• Lifefactory
• Weil Baby
• Nature Pure

[image via Momo]

Well, first of all you’ve likely noticed the new header and font style here at THF. However, it’s not the only change going on here at Tree Hugging Family this October.

Just so that there’s no crazy surprises, (I hate those) I wanted to let my readers here know that I’ll be leaving Tree Hugging Family at the end of the month.

After helping to plan and launch this blog with b5media and being here since summer 2007, this was not an easy decision to make. I’ll miss this blog and everyone who visits a lot – leaving is just the right decision at this time. I’ll be hanging around until Halloween, then there’s going to be a new blogger coming in to take over. Trust me you’ll like the blogger.

In any case, I’ll save my formal goodbyes for my last day, October 31st, but I hate when I go to a blog and am totally surprised with a “Hey today I’m outta here” post – I didn’t want to do that here.

For now (for fun) let’s take a look back at ten of my fave THF posts. Not THE ten fave mind you, that would be difficult to narrow down, but ten I really enjoyed.

1. Eco Tips from Kids
2. Go organic without losing your mind
3. Plan for 365 days of green this Earth Day
4. Eco-friendly ways to reward kids
5. Some eco-numbers to consider
6. Seven Evil Ways I Harm the Planet
7. How Kids Can Make A Difference: Saving the Planet from A to Z
8. Six great reasons not to go green
9. Tree Hugging Baby Names
10. The boy loves me more than toilet paper tubes! (the only round-up to make the list, but all the tube posts are funny IMO).

We’ll finish out the month with more green tips, so stay tuned.

Beautiful Sweets Organic Bakery is one of my favorite online cookie shops, because one, they’re super green, two, they’ll ship fresh cookies all over the U.S. and three, they have awesome designs.

If you’re planning a scary Halloween party Beautiful Sweets cookies are perfect for the occasion – you could even wrap them and hand them out to kids you know for trick-or-treat. Take a look at these amazing Halloween designs…

• Halloween
• Pumpkin Fun – which your kids get to color with special food coloring pens!
  
• Autumn Collection
• Scarecrow
• Eyes
• Monster Faces

Beautiful Sweets bakes their cookies up with all organic ingredients from small sustainable family farms and organic coops that support living wages. They use beautiful, eco-friendly recyclable gift packaging that includes post-consumer recycled boxes and organic cotton ribbon. They also bake batches fresh right before they ship them and guarantee that their cookies will arrive well protected and unbroken.

Visit Beautiful Sweets Organic Bakery to learn more.

Nanchen makes the most adorable little soft and cuddly dolls with natural materials, and in my opinion, the tiny Pumpkin Rattle Doll below is the perfect Halloween treat for babies who are still too young this year for candy treats.

Nanchen dolls are manufactured mainly with organic cotton and stuffed with Bioland pure new wool. All dolls are the perfect size and shape for your baby to hold and have sweet expressions painted on their tiny faces. The pumpkin above has a slight rattling sound. Nanchen only uses raw materials stemming from permanently controlled bio-cultivation and products conform to European safety standard EN71. If pumpkins aren’t your favorite veggie there’s also a totally cute Carrot Rattle Doll to adore and even a fun Banana Rattle Doll.

Available at the Wooden Wagon.

Installing a programmable thermostat in your home is a simple way to save energy and money. If you get an ENERGY STAR qualified programmable thermostat and use it properly your household will save about $180 a year on energy bills. That, along with all the other energy saving steps you take can add up.

Also, a good programmable thermostat saves you time. ENERGY STAR qualified programmable thermostats come with four pre-programmed settings that regulate your home’s temperature in both summer and winter and even when your family is asleep or away. This means a programmable thermostat automatically help to reduce heating and cooling in your home according to your families schedule.

Visit the ENERGY STAR programmable thermostat page to learn about choosing the right programmable thermostat how to make sure that your thermostat is properly installed, and how to properly set and use your thermostat.

Project Green Search is an interesting theory I suppose. The campaign was created by Greenloop, and the goal is to find the next green “it girl” which according to Project Green Search means…

The woman who wants to take a stand, get noticed, and align her career endeavors with her personal beliefs, to be an advocate for the environment, animal welfare, fair trade, and human rights. She’s a model, spokesperson, host, brand ambassador and all around green model citizen, for progressive, sustainable, ethical companies, from fashion & beauty to cars & computers.

Voting on contestants started today, and the winner is going to get…

• A contract with a top tier modeling & talent agency to provide representation for work in print, runway, film/video and television.
• A professional photography session with fashion photographer Courtney Dailey, complete with organic make-up and sustainable designer clothing.
• A 20 piece Eco-Fashion wardrobe.
• A natural and organic beauty shopping spree at Future Natural.
• A Josie Maran Cosmetics gift basket.
• Features, articles and covers in publications including Coco Eco Magazine, Organic Spa Magazine, Peppermint Magazine, E The Environmental Magazine, A Distinctive Style Magazine, Chiffon Magazine, Electrifying Times, Route 66 Pulse, and more tear sheets to build a portfolio.
• Guidance and introductions by LOHAS to sustainable beauty, fashion and other companies.
• A one year stint as the face of Project Green Search.

Holy. In any case, I’m not sure I’m totally on board with contests like this (all those “best looking green people” articles make me a little gagish) because um looks don’t affect actions. BUT that said, the point of this contest is also to find someone walking the green talk. Someone who will advocate for green because they mean it, not because they want to be a modeling star. Which is why I voted for Corey Colwell-Lipson.

Of course you can vote for whoever you like, but I think after you peek at a few of the other entries you’ll vote for Corey anyhow. Many of the girls entered are writing a lot about modeling and using “green terms” in their entry essay, but Corey is actually green, and better yet one of the coolest green mamas out there – that’s right a mama (we all want a mama to win right?) Corey wrote Celebrate Green with her mom and is the founder of Green Halloween – all things we like here at THF.

You can vote for Corey by clicking here, scrolling down to her full name, Corey Colwell-Lipson and giving her some star love. Browse the other contestants too if you like, then come back and let me know who you voted for and why.