Chemicals Commonly Found in Household Products

Drink Your Way to Better Health? Organic Beer and Wine

Whether you're getting married and looking for the best wine for your celebration or planning a quiet barbecue get-together with friends in your backyard and in need of a good beer, you may want to consider organic options for their health and environmental benefits. And like eating organic food...

Go Native in Your Garden This Summer

Do you find yourself drawn to the bright colors, fragrant blooms, and interesting flower shapes as you walk down the aisles of your local greenhouse or garden center? We've all got different reasons for choosing the plants we do for our gardens.

What are native plants? They are those...

The Importance of Ecotourism

Ecotourism is increasing in popularity across the world, but has significant practical value in developing countries where the needs of impoverished communities may conflict directly with the need to capitalise on the growing tourism industry. In many cases developers move in and designate...

Problems With E-Waste and What You Can Do About It

What is e-waste? Quite simply e-waste is all of those old electronics that we've got that have become outdated and we don't want them anymore. As you can imagine, if you stop to think about it for a minute, technology is progressing at a very rapid pace. This is having a horrible effect on our...

Certified Organic Pet Foods are the Only Organic Pet Foods That are Regulated by the USDA

The pet food market is flooded with all kinds of organic claims. However, only a few of these claims have been substantiated by a third party. Only USDA certified organic pet foods provide the assurance of strict regulation, verification, and legal enforcement to support their status as truly...

What is Solar Power and How Does it Work? A Step-By-Step Guide - Part 2

Having discussed the basic definition of solar power in Part 1 of this series, we'll now move on to discuss the various types of systems used to produce solar power, beginning with grid-tied systems.

Grid-Tied - A Definition

A grid-tied solar power system (also referred to as grid-...

Organic Produce - Organics Outshine Convention

In the 20th Century farming was revolutionized by the introduction of synthetic chemicals in the form of non-organic pesticides, insecticides and herbicides and the widespread systematic use of antibiotics and growth hormones in livestock.

Agriculture became a corporate business and farms...

Green Architecture Benchmarking For Social Issues

As broadly defined, sustainability addresses three primary dimensions: environmental, social or human, and economic. The environmental aspects of green building have received most of the focus as the movement has unfolded, perhaps because they are easier to quantify and may include materials or...

Urban Ore (The Ikea of Garbage)

Imagine a gigantic Ikea, 3 acres in size, except everything inside has been diverted from a landfill. Down one aisle, hundreds of solid wood doors; down another aisle, porcelain toilet bowls. Deep bins filled with forks of every size, bowls and kitchenware from the 1950’s to the 1990...

SCRAP

According to a recent “Waste Characterization Study” done by San Francisco’s Department of the Environment, nearly 63 percent of the city’s 500,000 tons of annually collected garbage is actually either compostable or recyclable. Included in this percentage are a large...

Grub

The Rubulad space in South Williamsburg might be better known for its raucous all-night extravaganzas, but two Sunday evenings a month, a more low-key, though no less open-minded gathering takes over. Run by folks from a variety of local groups such as the Toyshop collective, Time's Up and the...

Four Course Vegan

Private dining clubs, typically held in the chef's lofts or apartments, have been in vogue in New York for the past few years as a way to create a more intimate dining experience, where the only steps between the raw ingredients and your plate are the chefs preparing and (often) serving you the...

My Car, Your Car, Zip Car

The Arrival of the Zipcar vehicle sharing service has been a long awaited addition to Brooklyn’s transportation alternatives. Car sharing services like Zipcar allow members to live without a vehicle, but still have access to one when they...

Faux Meat: A Vegan Faux (Food) Pas?

Chicken parmesan. Philly cheesesteak. Barbeque buffalo wings. While the mere mention of these three classic meat meals is enough to tantalize the tastebuds of any meat lover, they have found an unexpected home in the culinary culture of New York City: the dining tables of vegan/vegetarian...

NYC Markets Reviving Tradition Through Sustainable Symbiosis

Robert LaValva, the founder of the New Amsterdam Market, is a self-proclaimed New Netherlander. "New Netherland," as he uses it, refers to a time when New York City was known as New Amsterdam, the capital of its surrounding territories that collectively composed New Netherland (including...

Rooftop Farms, Brooklyn

Greenpoint, Brooklyn earned its name from the rich, river-front land that made it a natural site for colonial-era farms. Of course, that same location made it a perfect location for heavy industry and these days the name seems like more of a joke as the area is better known for its warehouses...

Southside CSA: Supporting Local Farmers Through Community Shared Agriculture

With more and more New Yorkers clamoring for the freshest greens green can buy, CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pickups are sprouting up around the five boroughs. Southside CSA is one of the trend's...