A couple of good reasons to switch to an eco-friendly, green cleaning service. Conventional cleaning practices utilize . . .

• 8 billion pounds of chemicals that are hazardous to your health and to the environment
• 4.5 billion pounds of janitorial paper products, consuming tens of millions of trees
• 1 billion pounds of tools and equipment, filling 40,000 garbage trucks headed to landfills

Yikes! These statistics are found on the website of EcoMaids, a greener professional cleaning service company. EcoMaids offers residential and commercial cleaning services, but is committed to using healthier cleaning products and more eco-friendly practices in general.

Often, this is one of the first things people do when beginning a more ‘green’ lifestyle. Using biodegradable, environmentally friendly and non-toxic cleaners is a great way to reduce dangerous and unhealthy chemicals in our lives and in our environment. EcoMaids uses the Options for Life non-toxic cleaning product line and offers the products to their customers as well.

In addition to offering a full-line of standard cleaning services, EcoMaids also offers Truly-Green Wash & Fold Laundry service . . . It all appeals to me!

EcoMaids is a relatively new cleaning service franchise with operations in several States (see EcoMaids locations here). Those of us fortunate enough to live in northern New Jersey, have access to the first EcoMaids based in Essex County.

The owner is willing to travel outside Essex . . . I’m going to give them a try!

eat. blog. be merry!
gd meg

We had a chance to put together a Way Basics shelf recently. It really was as easy as they represented – at least it was for Woody the wonder dog and my two daughters Mary and Jessie.

I read about Way Basics and was intrigued. I needed some simple book shelves and figured I’d just go to a garage sale and find something, but it just hadn’t happened yet – didn’t realize how prized these things were! So, I was thrilled when they sent me a sample to play with.

Way Basics use their own zBoard, which is made from post-consumer recycled paper into extremely light yet strong boards. They’re ‘keep it simple’ philosophy includes basic designs and colors all sustainably sourced with low-impact materials. I was drawn to the whole ‘no tools’ message . . . and so was Wayne. You can buy pre-designed packages or get creative in a number of ways.

With a cradle-to-grave thoughtfulness, these versatile cubes are also recyclable, so when their time comes, they go back into the cycle of sustainable life. Of course, I’m no where near ready to put mine in the recycling bin!

For all I can tell, this company really lives and works the values they represent, being members of the Sustainable Furnishings Council, they have taken many steps to ensure a low-impact office as well as sustainable manufacturing practices. And if that isn’t good enough, they also work to give back by offering contributions to folks who may have serious needs for furniture, such as natural disaster victims or women and children rebuilding their lives from domestic violence. Read more about this ‘way’ great company and their concepts.

Prices are very reasonable starting with the basic cube @ $20. But they have an awesome sale going on so visit waybasics.com to get your sustainable shelving now! I’m going to purchase more to go with my lonely little cube.

eat. blog. be merry!
gd meg

As I review more and more ‘green’ products these days, I’m kind of baffled that there isn’t more of a standardized rating system. I googled ‘green product standards’ and I found the Green Seal of course, which is great for paper products and cleaners.  The EPA even has a database for information on environmental products and services – if you go there and you can figure out what the standards are and actually find product lists, please let me know! It’s a little confusing.

What about standards for all the great stuff we find on sites like AlternativeConsumer.com, FeelGoodStyle.com and of course TheGreenDivas.com? What about clothing manufacturing, which by the way is traditionally a pretty harsh industry on the environment? What about other textile products, great sustainably-designed kitchen gadgets, and what about all those awesome accessories - eco-bags/purses, belts, jewelry, shoes!?!

I found one promising standard system . . .
BuyGreen.com seems to have a rating system that works. It is a flexible system and offers an opportunity to become more educated about certain types of products and their inherent characteristics in terms of their basic product life cycle. It also seems to work well across a diverse range of products from clothing, to toys and yes, accessories! They even offer office products.

The four main categories are designed to rate a product from ‘cradle to grave’ and represent a product’s basic lifecycle. The categories used are: source material, manufacturing, use, and disposal. Every product offered on their website uses a rating box, which has all four of these categories represented by an icon. If the product meets or exceeds that categories requirements, it will be displayed in color. If not, it is there, but in grey.

There is also a number rating for overall green attributes 1 – not so many: 100 – lots of good green attributes.

You can see an example of this in the image in this post. Note that this hemp blouse has a fairly good rating. The ‘use’ icon is not highlighted. Not really sure what that is about exactly. But, if you want to learn more, you can go to their informative standards page and understand what their rationale is.

I’ve seen some very rudimentary attempts to rate products, but this one is by far the most detailed and perhaps most useful one I’ve come across. Go BuyGreen.com!

eat. blog. be merry!
GD Meg

‘Stop that rhyming and I mean it! Anybody want a peanut?’ For all you Princess Bride freaks, you’ll know exactly where that came from . . . sorry, got carried away while creating the headline and couldn’t help myself.

The Green Divas will be chatting with Sara Snow, Ms. Green Lifestyle herself. Having hosted a couple of shows on Discovery Network and being a green lifestyle columnist for treehugger.com, Sara now has her own book, Sara Snow’s Fresh Living: The Essential Room-by-Room guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home.

The book is a wonderfully easy and quick guide to simple things you can do to go green at home. It literally goes room-by-room and then ventures out beyond the four walls with some great advice.

Sara will offer listeners some ideas of ways to get started ‘going green’ at home or ways to go a deeper shade of green.

So, please tune in, click on, listen up . . .

This Thursday, April 2, 2009
7 – 8pm EST
HomeGrownRadioNJ.org

Don’t forget you can IM us with questions for Sara during the interview! See the HomeGrownRadioNJ.org website for the various IM services available.

Until then,

eat. blog. be merry!
GD Meg