When I was in college, we once covered all walls and ceilings in our dorm living room with black plastic trash bags. It was a spooky cave. And I built a Kleenex tissue box castle at the end of the year. Ouch, I wasn’t so green then. Please check after the list for previous posts related to the green college shopping list.

Green Dorm Shopping List

•Cloth Napkins

•Power Strips (so electronics can be easily unplugged while not in use)

•Reusable Shopping Bags (recommend three)

•Safe Reusable Water Bottles

•Recycled Paper

•Real Dishes and Silverware (not plastic)

•Eco Beauty Products (check out Pretty by Nature for ideas)

•Organic Towels and Sheets

•A Bedspread or Quilt from Home

•Whole Foods (instead of cheap junk food with lots of packaging)

•Recycling Bins

•Homemade or otherwise Green Cleaning Supplies and Detergent (like Ecover)

•CFLs for Lamps or Other Fixtures

•PVC-free Shower Curtain Liner

•Beeswax or Soy Candles

UPDATED (thanks for the reminders Diana and Katherine):

• Bicycle

• Leftover Containers

Tree Hugging Family Posts Related to Shopping List:

25 Safe, Non-toxic, Homemade Cleaning Supplies

One Small Step: Use Cloth Napkins

Reusable Bag Feature Round Up (Links to our MANY reusable bag posts)

Green Product Review: SIGG Water Bottle

Green Product Review: Klean Kanteen Water Bottle

PVC-free Shower Curtain Liner

Say “No thanks” to plastic forks in take-out

Green Wedding Candles (or dorm!)

If you’re a college student or college parent, did you include any of these items in your shopping? 

Image via stock.xchng

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

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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

And I needed to replace my shower curtain liner. After learning more about the dangers of PVC, I had been avoiding buying a new liner. I didn’t want to inhale that great (toxic) new liner smell. Then I remembered that Target had promised to reduce PVC in their packaging and products like shower curtains.

Fingers greatly crossed, I found an EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) shower curtain liner at Target. It’s completely PVC free, and so is the packaging. It’s utterly odorless and much more healthy than PVC.

Little things like this make me happy! Target isn’t perfect, but I’m glad they took this step.

Have you found PVC-free shower curtain liners at other locations?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family