Comments on: be green, be smart, be tarte!

By: Ri

Ri — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 22:49:10 +0000

Instead of reiterating all the great tips everyone’s already contributed, here’s a few:

Since I’m home a lot instead of cranking up the AC during summer, I just dress lighter.

We cook enough for a few days at a time and buy larger packages of things to reduce on waste.

We’re also trying to switch to healthier personal and household products so we don’t wash loads of chemicals down the drain.

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:41:24 +0000

I found this from a recycling site:Americans use 4 million plastic bottles every hour, but only 25% of plastic bottles are recycled.
To me this is staggering, and I try to avoid plastic water bottles at any cost.
I also use textbookrecycling.com for my daughter’s used textbooks to save money, and the Earth’s resources.
I go to the Goodwill to get used books or the library instead of buying new ones.

By: Hillary

Hillary — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:37:35 +0000

Dont use plastic water bottles, use reusable bags when shopping, dont use styrofoam if at all possible, use cloths instead of paper towels. Walk or ride a bike to your destination, if its too far, try carpooling. Use minimal electricity and water.

By: Val

Val — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:01:54 +0000

FREECYCLE.COM — give away things you no longer want/need to someone happy to get them for free! I’ve gotten some drums, lumber, and even unopened perfume from freecycling locals!

I reuse fast food containers for starting seeds.

HAIR — yes, your hair — can of course either be donated, or, if it isn’t long or lustrous enough, GIVEN to ART SCHOOLS, as Textiles students love incorporating hair into their projects. Just make sure it’s clean :p.

By: pam

pam — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:43:51 +0000

P.S. on my Cool Guy at work…He burns wood to heat his home and hasn’t used gas in years!!

By: Abbe

Abbe — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:26:03 +0000

-I use my old medicine bottles to hold seeds that I have left over from last season. They’re perfect because they don’t let air or moisture in the bottles.

-Any type of tubs that I have (from body products, old cat litter tubs, etc) and use them as planters.

-I take egg cartons from people before they throw them away to plant herbs in. You can plant the entire thing (carton included) into the ground.

-I use old yogurt cups to start my plants inside before planting our crops in the garden.

-I keep containers from cosmetics and body care items to use for travel or when I have bits of lipstick left, I melt them into the containers to make my own lip balm.

-Keep all of your old newspapers, magazines and food bags (like chip bags) to make beads out of them. Just do a google search and you’ll be able to find TONS of instructions for how to make them.

-Keep old clothing to make jewelry, scarves, bags, headbands, etc out of them instead of throwing them away.

-Don’t throw clothing away! Try to set up a “trading party” with your friends and/or family or donate to the Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc…

-Keep bottle caps to make jewelry and arts & crafts projects.

By: Kelli

Kelli — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 19:24:58 +0000

Even though I live in the city, I started a small compost bucket on my outdoor porch. I’m hoping by the end of the summer, I’ll have fertilizer for a nice planter box

By: pam

pam — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:26:29 +0000

In celebration of Earth Day, I would like to tell you about I cool guy I work with and hopefully you will celebrate him! He believes garbage belongs nowhere on this planet. His family lives and breathes green. As many people do, he , his wife and children use refillable water bottles and reuseable grocery bags. They recycle plastic, glass, aluminum, ect. Everything else goes in their compost pile. Here in our office, he collects anything that can be recycled (ink and toner cartridges ) and hand deliveres them to recycling centers. I find the most amaz ing thing he does is this…He has the local restaurants save for him their used, dirty cooking oil which he then filters and uses to run his family cars , motorcycle and lawnmower. Would you belive he hasn’t purchased gasoline in over 5 years!!!! His wife and daughter are big fans of Tarte, not only because of how great your products are but they truly appreciate your Green philosophy.

By: April C

April C — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:46:47 +0000

1. In most places, you can’t recycle anything with food stains on it. That’s why you can’t recycle used pizza boxes. Where I live, we’re asked to rinse out any plastic containers before recycling them. Putting things in the recycling that have food stains on them when your local recycling plant can’t handle them causes a lot of problems. Don’t sabotage the recycling program!

You can yell at Starbucks for not offering recycling all you want, but the fact is you probably can’t recycle those coffee cups anyway! The best way to minimize the environmental impact of your coffee is to bring in a reusable mug (and, of course, get “organically grown” coffee). Go a step further and bring Tupperware (or any reusable containers) to restaurants if you know you’re going to take leftovers home (most restaurants appreciate not having to give you Styrofoam).

You can also suggest to your local cafe to use compostable/biodegradable plates/utensils/napkins/cups. That will make things a little greener.

2. You can’t recycle plastic bags or Styrofoam in regular single-stream recycling. I don’t care if it has the recycle triangle symbol on it. You can’t put it in regular recycling.

3. Reusing is better than recycling. No contest. It takes energy to recycle (electricity and water to run the recycling plant, etc), especially plastics. Obviously, reusing does not take extra energy.

Happy earth day

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 15:31:45 +0000

I never use disposable plastic bottles anymore. I have accumulated quite a collection of reusable bottles. They are really big too so not only am I helping the earth, I am staying hydrated. I love to repurpose pretty glass bottles and jars as storage or decor. Aluminum cans always go in the recycling bin, and of course, I LOVE Tarte products!