Cross-posted on BlogHer

After reading Denise’s BlogHer post last week that the gift of maternal health is the perfect Mother’s Day gift, I thought “this really is perfect!” I blogged it and suggested that not only is it a great cause, but it is also a great consumerism/stuff-free gift, something that I feel, in our consumerism-driven society, is so important, but so often forgotten.

I had plans (and still have plans) to donate in my mom’s honor for Mother’s Day. I knew it wouldn’t be a surprise to her since she faithfully reads my blog, but what I wasn’t expecting was that she would beat me to the punch and make a donation in my honor first! My mom chose to honor me for Mother’s Day with a gift to Help Afghan Women Deliver Healthy Babies Safely, a cause that I would’ve chosen myself. My mom said that she thought I would “appreciate that much more than flowers or anything else” and, aside from perhaps a massage (*wink*), she is right. I am happy my mom chose to donate as a gift to me and I hope she will be happy when she receives that email saying I’ve donated as a Mother’s Day gift to her as well.

Speaking of honoring women on Mother’s Day, Jen Lemen suggests honoring a woman you admire by making a donation in her name and then telling her about the ways she’s inspired you. She wrote a wonderful “primer to help you make a perfect match between that woman who inspires you and an organization that’s changing the world.”

Aside from Mother’s Day being the perfect opportunity to donate to Global Giving, Britt Bravo recently asked, “Will You Donate Your Economic Stimulus Check?” Britt said, “FinancialAidPodcast suggests paying down your debt, putting it in a savings account, or donating to a charitable organization.” BlogHer Community Manager Denise left a comment suggesting people use their economic stimulus checks to make a donation to Global Giving. Another wonderful idea.

Smtwngrl at Writing: My Life recently came up with a very creative way to raise money for Global Giving. She originally vowed to donate $0.10 for each comment she received between May 5 and May 9 to one of the Blogher-supported organizations (for a maximum donation of $100). However, after realizing that her original goal may have been a little too lofty, she upped the ante, “In addition to my $25 Mother’s Day donation in my mother’s name, for every unique commenter each day this week (May 5th through May 9th) I’ll donate $1 (up to $100) toward the maternal health cause that receives the most votes.” What are you waiting for? Head on over there and get the comment love a flowing. You still have three days to get those comments in and spread the word.

In addition to the original five worthy maternal health causes (see below), Lisa Stone announced earlier today that BlogHers Act and Global Giving have added the Myanmar relief effort to provide emergency relief to thousands and thousands of people devastated by Cyclone Nargis. The storm has killed over 22,000 people, thousands more are presumed dead, and the million who’s lives have been spared are without shelter and with only a few days food supply. Lisa encouraged everyone to donate and blog this.

She also announced that BlogHer and Global Giving will be matching your donation. “Whichever of the now six projects recommended via the BlogHers Act fundraising widget receives the most donations between now and the end of the week will get a $1,000 donation from BlogHer, which Global Giving has agreed to match. The other five worthy projects will also get a donation of $200 each from BlogHer.”

Karoli at Odd Time Signatures answered Lisa’s call to action and donated to Global Giving again, this time to the Myanmar people, blogged it and encourages others to “please dig deep” and “consider rounding up your loose change around the house, under the couch, hidden in old handbags, wallets and drawers.”

I think it’s important to note that no amount is too small. Every little bit adds up and can help the people, including mothers and children, in Myanmar, as well as other maternal health projects around the world. We’re at $3415 donated so far. How much more can we raise between now and Mother’s Day? How will you help?

More about each of the BlogHers Act/Global Giving projects:

Provide Emergency Relief - Myanmar Cyclone Victims: Donate as little as $10 to support urgent disaster relief efforts by helping provide food, clean water, and supplies for those affected by the cyclone, which has killed thousands and caused extensive flooding and damage.

Maternal Health Projects:

* Mother and Child Clinic in Nepal: $10 - 2 days’ operating costs for the Clinic OR a year’s worth of care for 5 women and children

* Help Afghan Women Deliver Healthy Babies Safely: $25 - 20 women will have improved quality of life through reproductive healthcare and education

* Ensure Healthcare for 40,000+ Displaced Darfurians: $25 - Trains 2 Traditional Birthing Attendants (includes 3 training sessions and training materials)

* Empower Women to End HIV/AIDS Stigma, South Africa: $50 - 2 women living with HIV/AIDS can receive counseling

* Noon Meal Improves Girls’ Learning in Burkina Faso: $15 - Provides a noon meal for 50 students for one day.

Take Action Now:

1) Grab a button or donation widget to place on your blog.

2) Share this information with your readers by blogging about maternal health, the Myanmar relief effort, or the individual project you’re supporting.

3) If you blog it, leave your link at the bottom of this post, so others can read your thoughts on these issues. (And so we can feature you on BlogHer.com and in our newsletters.)

4) Donate to save women’s lives, today.

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When you ask your mom what she wants for Mother’s Day, is she the type that selflessly states, “Oh, nothing, dear. I already have everything I need.”? If so, good!

I know what you’re thinking. “If my mom won’t tell me what she wants, how can I possibly get something that will make her happy?” Oh, but you can and it’s easy peasy!

What if I said you could buy her a present that honors her for the wonderful mother that she is, as well as helps save the lives of other mothers? Oh, and it’s green and eco-friendly too. Too good to be true? Guess again. :)

Earlier this week, Denise wrote at BlogHer about giving the gift of Maternal Health for Mother’s Day. And I thought to myself - it’s perfect (oh, and also - I’m so blogging this)!

For those of you who haven’t yet heard, BlogHers Act has teamed up with Global Giving in an effort to save as many women’s lives as possible between now and Mother’s Day. There are several worthwhile causes to support:

* Mother and Child Clinic in Nepal: $10 - 2 days’ operating costs for the Clinic OR a year’s worth of care for 5 women and children

* Help Afghan Women Deliver Healthy Babies Safely: $25 - 20 women will have improved quality of life through reproductive healthcare and education

* Ensure Healthcare for 40,000+ Displaced Darfurians: $25 - Trains 2 Traditional Birthing Attendants (includes 3 training sessions and training materials)

* Empower Women to End HIV/AIDS Stigma, South Africa: $50 - 2 women living with HIV/AIDS can receive counseling

* Noon Meal Improves Girls’ Learning in Burkina Faso: $15 - Provides a noon meal for 50 students for one day.

Once you’ve selected the cause you’d like to contribute to, enter the amount you want to give, click on the “give now” button and you will have the option of checking a box that says “Make this donation in honor of someone or send as a gift?.” You can then select if you’d like to send an e-card (hint, hint - save the trees!) or a paper card. Fill out the rest of the information and you’re done. :)

No frenzied trips to the store, no scouring the Internet, no commercialism, no “stuff,” and no worries. Just a wonderful gift to honor your mom and a chance at life for mothers on the other side of the world. You can’t go wrong with that. :)

And if you haven’t yet entered, please don’t miss out on my Earth-Mother’s Day huge green giveaway. You can enter to win until Mother’s Day.

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This evening as Jody and Ava were out running an errand for me, I attempted to cook dinner while balancing a miserable Julian (due to his four canine teeth coming in at the same time) on my hip. After much fussing (on Julian’s part, not mine), I took a break from cooking, sat down on the couch, flipped on the TV and, hoping to make the poor boy feel a bit better, nursed him.

In skipping through the channels it became clear to me why I rarely watch TV (with the exception of The Office, LOST and occasionally Oprah). There was nothing on. I stopped on the local public access channel long enough to hear someone talking about global warming. My interest was piqued so I lingered.

It turns out it was a woman reading Michael Pollan’s recent New York Times article “Why Bother?” For those of you unfamiliar with Pollan, he is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food - neither of which I have read yet, but I’ve heard great things about both.

“Why Bother?” is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m nowhere near the point of throwing in the towel with regard to the things I do to help the environment, but after reading an article like ‘Enjoy life while you can’ - Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam and watching a YouTube video (which has since been taken down) about Monsanto, you might start to get a little jaded and wonder if all of your efforts are in vain. At least that’s where I’ve been at.

Pollan’s article “Why Bother?” was exactly what I needed to hear (and then read in full on the web since I missed the first half of it on TV) to help lift me out of my funk and I highly recommend you read the whole thing. Here’s just a bit of it.

If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change, markets for all manner of green products and alternative technologies will prosper and expand. Consciousness will be raised, perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others — from other people, other corporations, even other countries.

Pollan goes on to suggest “find one thing to do in your life that doesn’t involve spending or voting, that may or may not virally rock the world but is real and particular (as well as symbolic) and that, come what may, will offer its own rewards. Maybe you decide to give up meat, an act that would reduce your carbon footprint by as much as a quarter. Or … for one day a week, abstain completely from economic activity: no shopping, no driving, no electronics.”

He also discusses how doing something as basic as planting a garden to grow even a little of your own food could make a big difference. This is another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. As the price of food goes higher and higher and we worry more and more about where our food comes from, organic vs. conventional (pesticide-laden), genetically-modified organisms, carbon emissions and climate change, it makes sense to me to try to grow some of our own food.

Pollan says, “It’s estimated that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible.” Yikes.

I don’t have a lot of experience in gardening, but I did help my mom in our family garden as a child and, three years ago, some friends and I had our own plot in a community garden. As I embark on growing my own garden for the first time this year, I’m thankful for my friends like Julie of Chez Artz and Green Artz, Melissa at Nature Deva, Heather at A Mama’s Blog, and Woman With A Hatchet, who all have more gardening experience than me (and will hopefully help me out if I need it - hint, hint). I’m planting a small garden not only for the food it will provide to me and my family and to reduce our carbon footprint, but for the experience it will provide us all. Someday in the hopefully not too distant future (like next few years) once we move into a different house with a larger (and sunnier) yard, I’d love to have a much bigger garden. I’d like to know that if push came to shove and we needed to grow some of our own food, that I could do it. I am concerned that that day might not be too far off and Pollan agrees. “If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these (growing our own food) are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need.”

But Pollan doesn’t end his article on a downer. Rather he is hopeful and his message is uplifting.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

So, why bother? Because the future of humankind depends on it. Even if by some stroke of luck climate change doesn’t affect us during our lifetime (wishful thinking), I would hate to leave this huge burden and mess for our children to clean up. After all, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” - Native American Proverb

I think Pollan answers the question of “why bother?” best when he says,

Going personally green is a bet, nothing more or less, though it’s one we probably all should make, even if the odds of it paying off aren’t great. Sometimes you have to act as if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove that it will.

Here, here. That is why I will keep on bothering. And I hope you will too.

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Earth Day is tomorrow, April 22. Founded in 1970, Earth Day is a time to promote environmental awareness around the world.

We’re getting a jump start on our Earth celebration today and heading over to Jody’s work (Google) for lunch; then they are busing employees and their families to some local ponds to plant cottonwood seedlings and listen to educational information about the ponds. I love the idea of getting the kids excited about and involved in celebrating Earth Day while they are still young.

What about you? What are your plans for celebrating Mother Earth? Why not get the whole family involved this year? Here are some ideas to get you started. Choose one or two for Earth Day, then select another couple more to work on in the coming year:

• Plan a meal made only of local foods or make a meat-free meal - Use this as an opportunity to talk with your kids about where your food comes from and/or why eating a meatless meal is better for the Earth
• Plant a tree, a bush, a garden or even some herbs or flowers in a pot
• Spend some time outside - on a hike, a walk, at the park - enjoying each other’s company, appreciating nature, and picking up any garbage you see
• Designate an “Earth Hour” every week where you turn off your lights in the evening for one hour to save electricity
• Encourage your kids to round up some of their toys or clothing they’ve outgrown and donate them to a local charity
• Visit a local charity or thrift store to see how items you no longer use can benefit others
• Visit a local recycling center to see where all of the bottles, cans, newspapers, etc. go
• Print out an Earth Day coloring/activities book for your children and work on it together
• Take a trip to the library and check out some books related to nature - endangered species, water, plants and flowers, etc. - or books specifically about Earth Day
• Talk with your kids about water consumption and how turning off the water while brushing teeth helps conserve it. Encourage all family members to take shorter showers or consider filling up baths with a little less water.
• Change your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs to conserve energy and encourage the kids to turn off lights/TV when they aren’t in use

This is the only Earth we’ve got, let’s give her a li’l love. For more information about Earth Day, visit Earth Day 2008.

Be sure to check back here tomorrow on Earth Day for my big Earth-Mother’s Day giveaway!

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At the beginning of the month I wrote about joining the Buy Nothing challenge sponsored by Crunchy Chicken for the month of April. The rules are simple, buy only necessities to live - basically food and gas - for the month.

It really hasn’t been all that hard for me to keep from spending, since I don’t buy much outside of food as it is. There are a few things I’ve been wanting to buy, like new sun hats for the kids and a jacket for Ava, but I’m holding off for now though I may look at the consignment shops, since buying used items if you really need them is allowed.

The part I’ve found particularly challenging is staying away from takeout food, which we generally have once or twice a week. While Crunchy Chicken says going out to eat is OK, depending on where you go, etc., takeout food, because of the amount of waste produced, is off limits. It’s been a challenge for me to cook dinner every night (and I can often be found complaining about it on Twitter), but with the exception of one meal out at the start of the challenge and one trip to Taco Bell (I know, I know and I confessed it) last week, I’m proud of myself at how well I’ve done.

Not only is this challenge keeping us from producing unnecessary waste, it’s saving us money, which I’m really appreciating.

There’s still time to join in for the last two weeks of the month. Head on over to Crunchy Chicken and sign up. Or if you are feeling really adventurous, check out her Extreme Eco Throwdown challenge for the month of May. You might notice even I haven’t signed up yet. I’m still procrastinating trying to figure out what I want to commit to. ;)

Edited to add: I just remembered that I am going to spend some money this weekend. My friends and I are having a moms’ night out tomorrow (woot!) and Sunday is my anniversary (7 years), so Jody and I will probably take the kids out to eat to celebrate that day. So I’m not perfect, but I’m trying. ;)

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After researching and writing my recent BlogHer/Global Giving project posts about Afghan women and the people of Darfur and then reading Her Bad Mother’s post about women and children in Nepal and Denise’s post about the HIV/AIDS stigma in South Africa, I began racking my brain for a way that I could make a contribution to the GlobalGiving projects other than just blogging about them. I love to raise awareness for issues, but I often lack the funds to make monetary donations.

Buy a shirt, donate to GlobalGiving
Since I can’t donate money already earmarked for living expenses, I had to find another way. After giving it some thought, I decided to donate a percentage of all sales from my two online stores
* Attached At The Hip
* Cute As A Bug
for the duration of the BlogHer campaign - from April 7 through Mother’s Day, May 11. Have you been eying a shirt from one of my stores for a while? Maybe the popular I make milk. What’s your superpower tee for yourself or a friend or an I’m going to change the world shirt for your little tree-hugger? Now is a great time to make that purchase and help support a good cause too!

Will you join me?
I’m asking those of you with online stores, Etsy shops, etc. to consider doing the same thing. Or, if you run BlogHerAds on your site, consider donating a portion of your commission from April. You could even auction something off on your blog and raise money that way. If you’d like to participate and donate a portion of your sales to one of the GlobalGiving causes to improve maternal mortality and save women and children’s lives, please leave a link to your store (or blog if you will donate part of your BlogHerAds commission) in the comments. I will keep track of the links and post about the participating bloggers/stores later in the month.

Thank you! :)

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The Centers for Disease Control recently came out with some bad news for nearly all Americans who use sunscreen. A recent study shows one of the commonly used ingredients in most sunscreens (for adults, children as well as babies), a chemical called oxybenzone, has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage. In fact according to the study, 97% of Americans are contaminated with this chemical. Another study has showed oxybenzone is linked to low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Also worth noting is “oxybenzone is also a penetration enhancer, a chemical that helps other chemicals penetrate the skin.”

No FDA regulations
The last time the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the safety of oxybenzone was in the 1970s. It republished its evaluation in 1978, and announced plans to develop comprehensive standards for sunscreen safety and effectiveness. However, it’s been 30 years now and the Agency has yet to issue final regulations. “Instead, it encourages manufacturers to follow draft guidelines that the Agency has delayed finalizing at the behest of the sunscreen industry. As a result, sunscreen manufacturers in the U.S. are free to market products containing ingredients like oxybenzone that have not been proven safe for people.”

No special safety standards for children
What really frustrates me is that many sunscreens are marketed specifically for babies or children, and one might expect that because of this they are somehow “safer,” yet they contain the same chemicals as those sunscreens made for adults. There are no special safety standards for babies/children’s products.

Additional cautions must be employed when considering the effects of oxybenzone on children. The surface area of a child’s skin relative to body weight is greater than adults. As a result, the potential dose of a chemical following dermal exposure is likely to be about 1.4 times greater in children than in adults (SCCNFP 2001). In addition, children are less able than adults to detoxify and excrete chemicals, and children’s developing organ systems are more vulnerable to damage from chemical exposures, and more sensitive to low levels of hormonally active compounds (NAS 1993; Janjua 2004). Children also have more years of future life in which to develop disease triggered by early exposure to chemicals (NAS 1993). Despite these well-documented concerns regarding children’s sensitivity to harmful substances, no special protections exist regarding ingredients in personal care products marketed for babies and children.

What does this all mean? Is YOUR child’s sunscreen safe?
If you haven’t yet familiarized yourself with the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database web site, I highly suggest you do so. Products from skin care to baby care, from make up to hair care and oral care (and more) are ranked on their hazard level.

Skin Deep lists 607 skincare products containing oxybenzone. Please check the list to find out if yours or your children’s is on it. Again, I’m frustrated and disturbed that one of the worst sunscreens on the list is one specifically for babies - Walgreens Baby Sunblock.

So what IS safe?
Here is a link to a list of the sunscreen best bets for kids.
I was relieved to find the brand and type we have been using since Ava was about 9 months old - *California Baby SPF 30+ Sunscreen Lotion Everyday/Year Round - is on the list (the California Baby Sunblock Stick is also on the list and might be easier to apply. I’ll be looking into getting some of that, especially since we’re nearly out of the lotion.). I’m thankful that many of the mommies I know (which is where I got the recommendation for California Baby in the first place) do their homework when it comes to safe baby/child skincare products.
*You can purchase California Baby sunscreen and other products at health food stores like Whole Foods and Vitamin Cottage and apparently Target carries it too, or order directly from the California Baby website.

Avoid these ingredients:

• Oxybenzone - In sunlight, can produce allergy- and cancer-causing chemicals
• DMDM Hydantoin - Allergen and irritant that can form cancer-causing contaminants
• Triethanolamine - Allergen and irritant that can form cancer-causing contaminants

Safe Sun Tips

• Minimize sun exposure between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. when the greatest amount of ultraviolet light exists.
• Wear Hats. Each inch of hat brim can lower your lifetime risk of skin cancer by 10%. A hat brim of four inches or greater is recommended.
• Wear protective eyewear. Sunglasses with UV-blocking filters are very important.

Final thoughts
It’s frustrating when the groups that are supposed to be looking out for our health and that of our children let us down, but it’s things like these that reaffirm my belief of questioning authority. The best piece of advice I have is to arm yourself with information and trust your instincts. If dousing yourself or your child in chemicals doesn’t feel right to you, don’t do it. Find another way. In this information age where so much is available to us at the click of a mouse, it can be easy to find healthier and safer alternatives. Knowledge is power.

For more information, please check out: Is Your Sunscreen Safe?

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This week’s green tip is to take 20 minutes and watch The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. With Earth Day just around the corner, I think it’s important to take a look at all the stuff we have in our lives and the stuff we might want to buy in the future and become aware of exactly where it comes from, what’s in it and who/what is affected by it’s production. Warning: This video will make you think.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

After hearing about it for ages, I finally took the opportunity to watch it a couple days ago and I’m really glad I did. It’s a video I think EVERYONE should watch (yes, that means you and you too!) and reflect on the next time we go to make a purchase.

What are you waiting for? Go watch it. :) Then come back here and tell me what you think about it.

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You may or may not have read that yesterday Lisa Stone announced that BlogHer has teamed up with Global Giving in an effort to save as many women’s lives as possible between now and Mother’s Day. There are several worthwhile causes to support, and myself and others will be blogging about them all month on BlogHer. One of the projects is helping Afghan women safely birth healthy babies.

In the country of Afghanistan a woman dies of pregnancy-related causes every 27 minutes of every day. That’s 53 women every day and nearly 20,000 women per year or 1,900 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. According to the World Health Organization, in 2000 Afghanistan had the seventh worst maternal mortality rate in the world.

In the province of Badakhshan, “a woman faces almost 600 times the risk of dying in childbirth than do her counterparts living in North America. Of the thousands of infants left motherless, 75 percent will perish either during, or soon after, delivery.”

One of the reasons for the abysmal mortality rate is gender discrimination. In Afghanistan men are seen as superior to women and sons are preferred over daughters. This translates into high rates of female illiteracy and malnutrition. Because of the preference towards sons, daughters are often married off early, while they are still children themselves. “More than 40 percent of Badakshani women are married before the age of 15 and often long before their immature bodies can cope with both the demands of sex and the rigors of childbirth. Girls under the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s.”

The terrain of the country is also a problem. Eighty percent of the population live in rural areas which translates into remote and rugged terrain, where roads are poor or don’t exist at all. According to the Population Reference Bureau, only 14% of births in Afghanistan are attended by skilled personnel.

Because many women are without access to basic reproductive education, let alone modern methods of family planning, they are unable to choose when and how many children they have. The contraceptive use among married women, ages 15-49, is just 10%.

This Global Giving project for Afghan women can make a real difference. Creating Hope International and the Afghan Institute of Learning offer “lifesaving health services and medical interventions to pregnant women and babies through three rural clinics in Afghanistan, including on-site baby delivery for high-risk cases. CHI/AIL also educate women about their reproductive health so that they can make healthy choices during pregnancy and delivery.”

I think it’s important to note that the project is sensitive to Afghan culture and works with the community leaders before any programs are implemented. According to Global Giving:

AIL uses a culturally sensitive approach in providing health education and health services to Afghan women and children. They provide education and services in local settings that are safer and easier for women to access. They use mobile clinics to reach patients who cannot safely travel to the nearest health clinics. They employ female health providers because of a cultural preference in Afghanistan that women receive health care from other women. AIL works with community leaders and local men before implementing new and historical controversial programs, and begins new programs only at the request of communities.

As a result of this project 12,000 Afghan women will receive pre- and post-natal care, midwifery, family planning services, education on women’s reproductive health, delivery kits for home delivery, and assessment and intervention for high-risk pregnancies.

To learn a bit more about the Afghan women’s project and the role AIL is playing in education, take a look at this video of a birth attendant training class outside of Kabul: Afghanistan: New Births, New Hope.

A donation of $25 means 20 women will have improved quality of life through reproductive health care and education. For $50, 40 women will have healthier babies because of reproductive health care and education. And for a donation of $85, one woman will be trained as a community health worker and will assist 9,000 women annually. It’s amazing how such a small amount from us can make such a huge impact in the lives of people half-way around the world.

Take action:
Now I pass the torch on to you. Please consider donating, adding a button or a widget (check out my right sidebar) to your blog and/or blogging about this project to help spread the word. If you do any of those things, be sure to leave a comment (and a link to your post if you blog it) below. Together we can make a big difference in the lives of so many women and children.

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I’ve gotten a bit lax in my green tips the past few weeks, but I’m armed with tips galore and will be bringing them to you weekly once again.

These days we can look up just about anything and everything online. Does anyone even use their phone books anymore for anything other than a child booster seat? ;)

Did you know you can opt out by removing your name from thee pesky phone book delivery lists? It’s quick and easy and saves a tree!

Click the button below to sign the Yellow Pages Paperless Petition and Official Opt-Out Registry (includes Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States):

Locally here in CO, I’ve heard you can also call these numbers to get your name off the list. Not sure if this applies elsewhere in the US:
DEX: 877.2 GET DEX
Yellow Book: 800.929.3556

What do you do with all of the phone books you’ve collected over the years? Recycle them, of course! Check with Earth911 to find the phone book recycling center nearest you.

Just a reminder, Earth Day is April 22 this year. I will be doing a special Earth Day post/giveaway prior to the big day, so keep an eye out for it. :)

Have any green tips you’ve recently learned? Please email them to me and I may include your tip with a link to your site or blog in a future post. :)

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