My green criteria is as follows and is mainly useful to you if you want to read the green product reviews I’ve done.

Criteria I use for all green products:

• Is it safe?
• Is it useful – Do I think this project will add something positive to my own life or another person’s life. Will it make my life easier, happier, or more fun. OR will I gain some long-term knowledge from the product if the product is a book or movie.
• Is the packaging eco-friendly? Is it excessive? Is it recyclable? Is it refillable?
• If there’s a product website is it easy or too hard to manage?
• Price – is it affordable for the average consumer? Is it worth the price?
• Availability – is it super hard to find the product in stores or online?
• Does the product seem well made – i.e. will it hold up?
• Is the product better overall than it’s conventional non-green peers. I.e I LOVE Preserve products but their razor do not work as well (IMO) as eco-baddie Gillette Razors. In this case it would be tough for me to recommend the product on green merits alone.
• Are they plain and simply greenwashing or are they committing any sins of greenwashing.

Company criteria I use for all green products:

• Company background – how ethical is the company as a whole. For example, Clorox Green Works may be safe, but the company as a whole makes terribly polluting and toxic products and to me that does not make Clorox a green company, no matter how many green novelty products they make.
• Does the company test on animals? If they say no do they carry the Leaping Bunny symbol.
• Does the company have other green policies in place. I.e. using renewable energy, having a paperless office, etc.
• Does the company disclose all info about their products AND make it easy for consumers to find that info.

Additional criteria for edibles:

• Does it taste good? To who? Kids, adults, everyone?
• Ingredients – Are they toxic? Will the ingredients harm me or the planet? Are the ingredients organic, local, natural, free from icky stuff I wouldn’t let my son near?  Can I pronounce all the ingredients?
• Are all ingredients listed on the packaging and website?
• Is it nutritionally viable? I.e. I’ll review organic tea, candy, or dried fruit, but if it’d be better to eat a plain old piece of organic fruit or drink whole organic fruit juice I consider that too.
• Is it organic, natural, Fair Trade? If so is it certified?
• Is it a food item you actually need or is it just a treat? Note, products do not get rated lower for simply being just a treat, because we all need treats, but if they’re marketing themselves as a need vs. treat it irks me.

Additional criteria for clothing:

• What’s it made of? Is the material eco-friendly?
• Does it wash well on cold, can you hang it to dry or does it require dry cleaning?
• Do the sizes seem reasonable?
• Is it comfortable?

Additional criteria for green cleaning products:

• Ingredients – Are they toxic? Will the ingredients harm me or the planet?
• Does the product clean better than a homemade green cleaner?
• Is the product biodegradable?
• Does the company post all ingredients on the label and at their website? AND are they easy to find?
• Does the company offer Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) on their products and can you find them without much fuss?
• Does the product say stuff like… “Poison” or “Danger.” Federal law mandates that these terms indicate the highest possible level of hazard. “Caution” or “Warning,” both mean a product carries a moderate hazard. “Wear gloves” – “Only use in a well ventilated area” and other likewise terms are big baddies.

Additionally I consider if products are…

• Ammonia free
• Chlorine free
• Plant based
• Certified organic
• Solvent free
• Phosphate free
• Chemical free
• Fragrance free or naturally scented with say essential oils
• Dye and artificial color free

Additional criteria for green beauty and body care products:

• Ingredients – Are they toxic? Will the ingredients harm me or the planet?
• Are the ingredients organic, local, natural, free from icky stuff.
• Are they certified if ingredients are claiming organic?
• Can I pronounce all the ingredients?
• What is their Skin Deep rating?
• Are all ingredients listed on the packaging and website?
• Does it work – does it work better than conventional versions?
• Could I easily make a greener version of the product myself, at home?

Additional criteria for green books:

• Is the book printed on recycled content paper?
• Do they offer an ebook version?
• Is it informed and useful or just bunk?
• Who is the info meant for – green newbies, experienced tree huggers, kids, etc. and does it hit that target audience?

My rating system:

All the green product I review are rated on a five tree system. Five trees being the best and zero trees being the worst. To give you an idea, I consider a three fair, a four good, and a five excellent. Anything under a three needs some serious work. I rate all products with this same criteria shown above and scoring system regardless of if I bought and paid for the product or if I got it free from the company.

Whew right? Keep in mind that I have a TON of criteria for a few reasons. One, why bother reviewing something if I’m going to do a half-ass job; that does no one any good. Two, I use these products, as does my son and I don’t want my own family using questionable products. Three, it gets old seeing products reviewed with lack of criteria. Many green reviews I read seem totally bogus, like the person scored a free product and gave the product a great review based on that. Lame. I’ve seriously read blogs where every single product gets a shining review, and seriously, that’s just in bad form and not very reliable.

Use the list above to compile your own list of criteria. It’ll help you to make smarter green decisions as a green consumer.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Take a look at the following list and see if there’s a review you missed.

GREEN CLOTHING REVIEWS:

• Mine Organics – great tees
• Revenge Is… – cool tees made from recycled bottles.
• Barley & Birch Organic Clothing for tiny tree huggers.

GREEN REUSABLE BAG REVIEWS:

• Recycled cotton reusable grocery bags
• Organic Cotton Eco-Bag
• ChicoBags, a Fun Solution

GREEN WATER BOTTLE REVIEWS:

• Klean Kanteen Water Bottle
• SIGG Water Bottle

GREEN BEAUTY & BATH PRODUCT REVIEWS:

• Sparklehearts Sweet Hearts Sparkly Body Lotion
• Pure & Natural bath soap
  
• Manor Hall Soap Company’s Facial Cleansing Grains – best grains ever!
• Manor Hall Soap Company’s Almost Sunset Soap – I LOVE this stuff!
• Lavender & Rose Facial Toner & Natural Complexion Bar in Honey & Rose
• Manor Hall Soap Company Liquid Hand Soap
• Manor Hall Facial Soaps
• Verikira Naturals Cinnamon & Clove Shower Steamer

GREEN HEALTH-MINDED PRODUCT REVIEWS:

• Natracare Tampons & Pads
• Seventh Generation Chlorine-Free Ultra-thin Pads with Wings
• Luna Pads & Glad Rags – reusable menstrual pads.
• CleanWell Hand Sanitizer
• Moonpads Reusable Menstrual Pads

GREEN CLEANING PRODUCT REVIEWS:

• Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwasher Gel
• Biokleen All Temperature Laundry Liquid
• Method Dish Soap — Go Naked & Cucumber
• Seventh Generation Dishwasher Powder
• Biokleen Automatic Dish Powder
• Ecover Automatic Dishwasher Tablets
• Sun & Earth Liquid Hand Soap
• Sun & Earth Automatic Dishwasher Detergent

GREEN HOME & GARDEN PRODUCT REVIEWS:

• Block Oil – natural mineral oil designed to protect wood and bamboo butcher blocks, salad bowls, cutting boards and utensils.
• Nature’s Avenger Organic Herbicide
• CVS/pharmacy Earth Essentials Aromatic Room Mists
• Plum Creek Mercantile Reusable Cloth Snack Bags – one of my fave products I’ve reviewed here.

GREEN BOOK REVIEWS:

• My new favorite tree book of all time
• The Carbon Free Home
• boho Magazine – not a book, but reading material anyhow.
• Green Christmas
• Celebrate Green

EDIBLE GREEN REVIEWS:

• Organic Chocolate Bar – Chocolove 61% Cocoa
• Archer Farms Organic Chocolate Chip Petite Cookies – Yum
• PURE Bars

GREEN PET PRODUCT REVIEWS:

• Feline Pine Cat Litter Review
• Organix by Castor & Pollux – green kitty food.

Wow, that’s a lot, and oddly, I’m feeling like I missed some. We may have mislabeled a couple of reviews and thus they’re hidden somewhere on this site. In any case, above are all products we’ve tried and given our honest opinions about. Hopefully some of these reviews will help you choose green products that will make your life easier.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Responding to a reader email, Melanie writes:

“It bugs me too that so much green advice seems to boil down to “spend a lot of money, buy all this ‘green’ stuff”. ‘Green’ is not a lifestyle choice. It’s not a sort of fashion that is only available to the rich. The greenest people on earth are the poorest. They don’t cause as much pollution, carbon emissions etc as we do because they can’t afford to. It’s we in the affluent countries who are causing the problems. And the solution isn’t to buy a lot of green junk, but to buy less junk.”

Read her full post.

I agree we all need to buy less stuff, “green” or not. So, that’s why I get concerned that some readers may get the wrong message by our recent increase in product reviews and product suggestions, or even contests that promote green products.

One reason Jennifer and I decided to post on green products more frequently is because that’s what many of you said you wanted in our recent poll. We don’t do it because we think you should buy more stuff. Read Jennifer’s recent post on this topic: If you’re so against having stuff…

The products we talk about are hopefully those that many of you might consider over other options that aren’t so eco-friendly. For example, if you’re buying toys anyway, look at the green options we’re showing you. Few green products are so great that you should start buying them if you aren’t already buying a similar non-green option. That would be like buying a hybrid car instead of walking to work.

I’d also like to say that we don’t pick products to promote for our own interests. We don’t get paid by companies for product reviews, suggestions or contests. The most we get is sometimes a free product to sample for a review. Free or not, it never affects our honest review of an item. We’re paid by b5media, and they are paid by the ads in the sidebar. It’s pretty simple.

What do you think of our recent mix of product reviews/suggestions/contests?

Images via stock.xchng.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Here’s what we had going on this week:

CONTESTS! Lots o’ contests – in fact a dozen – like a nice box of donuts.

• A smashingly great Earth Day project for kids
• PVC-free Shower Curtain Liner
• How to reduce your carbon footprint – bunny style
• A story about my insane child – Sometimes Recycling is an Emergency!

Two product reviews – which reminds me I have another to do…

1. Greening Your Pet: Feline Pine Cat Litter Review
2. Seventh Generation Automatic Dishwasher Gel

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Jennifer & Peggy are totally green obsessed – no joke

Except for that we didn’t care that it was World Health Day – go figure. Actually we did care we were just busy.

Who knew people liked to talk about dryer sheets so much? We’re now think of changing the name of this blog to “dryer sheet hugging family” – what do you think?

Peggy did an entire series on green dry cleaning:

• Dangers of Traditional Dry Cleaning and Safe Alternatives
• Dry Cleaning Alternatives
• “Green” Cleaners to Be Leery Of

While I did a super long, but worth the read post on Homemade Beauty Products – Safety 101

The sweetest little Leatherback Turtle – who believe me, I might hug.

Homemade Healthy Hair Care – Hair Masques

Plantable paper

Real life dramatic photos of wildlife! Ok, not so dramatic but super cute – which is what you get when Peggy takes her camera out.

Whew, don’t forget to subscribe by RSS or sign up in the sidebar to have this blog emailed to you – although we do like it when you visit directly and leave us nice comments. Then we don’t just talk to each other all the day long

Everyone have a great week and don’t forget to let us know what your plans for Earth Day are.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

The EVO rating system works like this…

They consider “What it’s made from, how it’s produced, the distance it travels to reach the consumer, and what type of energy is used to power it.” Next to each product you’ll find 1 to 5 little leaves.

The more green leaves EVO gives the product, the greener it is. EVO products must have a minimum of one Green Attribute to be featured.

Below are some examples of what EVO calls Green Attributes.

• Natural Fibers
• Energy Star
• Solar
• Pure Beeswax
• Eco Packaging
• Bamboo
• Sustainable Wood

EVO also has a great little grow a tree quiz on their homepage that you can take. When you start the quiz your tree is leaf free. As you answer questions your tree grows leaves according to how green you live. It’s pretty fun. Additionally, and here’s the best part, if you register at EVO they will plant a real live tree. To do this EVO partnered with Trees For The Future. In honor of their website launch, they are committing to planting 100,000 trees. Nice. I already registered so that’s one tree planted. How many of you can sign up?

Oh, one note, it’s hard to find where to sign up but I found it — it’s in the top right hand corner of the site. In spite of this design flaw this is one handy site. In fact, later I’ll show some cool stuff I found there.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family