Another Great Green Sweepstakes!

Thanks to everyone who signed up yesterday for the 1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac sweepstakes!

If you're feeling generous, we hope you'll share news of our contest with your friends and relations...

Remember that your 1GreenProduct.com email subscription not only gives you a chance to win the Eureka envirovac, but also automatically enters you into any future 1GreenProduct.com sweepstakes as long as you continue to be an email subscriber in good standing.

Of course, you'll also get news and reviews about lots of great eco-friendly products.

Feeling lucky and looking to win more Green products? Why not hop over to one of our favorite other Green blogs - Green Your Decor - to enter the Eco-Creative WayBasics giveaway?

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Home / Technology - Eureka envirovac + First 1GreenProduct.com Sweepstakes!

Efficiency - it's a beautiful word.

According to Dictionary.com, efficiency is both:

1) the ability to accomplish a job with minimum expenditure of time and effort

and

2) the ratio of the work done by a machine in comparison to the energy supplied to that machine

Measured against both definitions, the Eureka envirovac™ scores high marks.

In our tests, this vacuum did a great job. Using the machine's hardwood floor setting, we quickly sucked up dust and debris from our floor, then turned to the hoses and attachments to polish off dust bunnies from the window blinds and corners. The machine seems well-made -- easy to maneuver, not particularly noisy. It does the job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.

(Oh the 25-foot long cord also came in handy. We didn't have to unplug the machine once to vacuum the entire apartment...which gives you an idea of the size of the apartment.)

That's all well and good. But is the envirovac really green? Yep.

According to Eureka, the envirovac's 8-amp motor uses 1/3 less energy than a standard upright vac's 12-amp motor. That makes sense, as near as we can recall from our study of fractions.

The good folks at Eureka have also figured out how to fit the envirovac into a smaller package. The packaging that remains is made of 100% recycled, unbleached cardboard.

Even if you're trying to be green, the world outside your door is still polluting like mad. Fortunately, the envirovac has a washable and reusable HEPA filter designed to trap 99.97% of dust, allergens and other small particles.

Less effort, less energy, less indoor pollution - all of which should help you breathe easy. Here’s looking at you, Mr. Efficiency…

Where to buy:
Eureka has an exclusive distribution with Wal-Mart for the envirovac. You can buy the envirovac online or in stores for an MSRP of just $72.22.

Based on its efficiency and good value, we feel the Eureka envirovac deserves a strong 1GreenProduct.com recommendation.

How to win:

We're delighted to announced the first ever 1GreenProduct.com Sweepstakes. Thanks to the generosity of Eureka, we can offer you the chance to win a free envirovac vacuum cleaner.

As we promised last week, entering the sweepstakes is simple. There's no purchase necessary. Just sign up for a 1Greenproduct.com email subscription using the sign-up box in the upper right hand corner of the screen (underneath the rabbit photo) or by using this link. You must subscribe by 11:59 p.m. EDT on AUGUST 10, 2008 in order to enter the sweepstakes. (Apologies that sweepstakes ending was originally listed as October 10. The actual ending date is August 10.) We will then choose one (1) winner using an Internet-based random number generator at Random.org.

By the way, we don't have a formal privacy policy at this point, but we can promise we will never sell your email address or send any spam. The email address is used solely to deliver 1GreenProduct.com updates whenever we post a new story. Generally, you can expect to receive between 3-5 updates per week depending on how energetic we feel and how many cool Green products come our way.

We hope to run quite a few more Green product giveaways in the future and the good news is that if you sign up for the email subscription list just once, you'll automatically be entered into all future sweepstakes as long as you continue to be an email subscriber in good standing.

Already a 1GreenProduct.com email subscriber? Then you're automatically entered to win. Although of course you're under no obligation to accept this or any prize if you're name is chosen.

Unfortunately, for legal or logistical reasons, we apparently have to limit the sweepstakes to residents of the 50 United States and D.C. who are 18 years of age or older. Apologies to all of our overseas and/or youthful readers...

Looking for a way to improve your odds of winning? If you have your own blog, you can write a post about the 1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes. Include a link to this post and then send us an email with the URL of your blog posting. (Please send us an email from the same email address you used to sign up for the 1GreenProduct.com email subscription so that we can match you against our subscriber list.)

Please feel free to comment on this post - either about the Eureka envirovac or about the Sweepstakes itself - but note that comments will not provide any additional entries into this Sweepstakes.

This is our first 1GreenProduct.com Sweepstakes, so please excuse any hiccups. Also please don't try to 'stuff' the entry box. You can only subscribe once and you can only get a maximum of one additional entry for writing a post about us. To read the complete list of Sweepstakes rules, follow this link.

Thanks for playing. We hope that reading 1GreenProduct.com is its own reward, but we also like to think that giving away great Green products like this Eureka envirovac to our loyal readers helps sweeten the deal.

Good luck! We hope you (yes, you) are a winner.

Update - This sweepstakes has been featured on Online-Sweepstakes.com, SweepsGoat and Sweepstakes Advantage.

Health / Beauty - Eco Lips Organic Lip Balm

Life works in mysterious ways.

I made it all through the New York winter without any lip problems only to develop mysteriously chapped lips in the middle of June.

Go figure.

That's why I was so excited to discover Eco Lips Organic Lip Balms. This company rocks our green world.

Every Eco Lips lip balm contains at least 70% organic ingredients, but most have a much higher percentage. Like the new 99% organic, kid-friendly Pure & Simple balms. All the ingredients in the Pure & Simple balms are actually edible.

We admire the fact that Eco Lips has created such a fantastically diverse and exciting line of products. Vegans can happily spread on the 70% organic Bee Free balm based on organic oils, vegetable wax and organic shea butter.

Glamour girls can pucker up for Eco Tints - naturally glistening moisturizers that use 90% certified organic ingredients including sunflower seed oil, beeswax, castor seed oil and even organic aloe vera. The shimmer in the Eco Tints comes from natural earth minerals like mica.

As for the 98% organic Medicinal Eco Lips balm contains organic tee tree oil, lysine, organic calendula and organic lemon balm. It cured my chapped lips in about 24 hours.

My decidedly non-organic old lip ointment tasted unpleasantly of medicine and carried several warnings. If the balm was accidentally swallowed, I was supposed to call a poison control center. In retrospect, I don't know what I was thinking when I smeared that stuff on my lips.

Now I'm an Eco Lips convert. The products taste great, they work well and they're made mostly (in some cases nearly completely) from organic ingredients.

If you're reading this site, you probably already know why organic agriculture is a good thing, but in case you'd like a refresher course, Eco Lips has a nice overview of why organic is likely better for you and certainly better for the planet.

Eco Lips also points out the risks of buying products with 'natural' ingredients. As used on cosmetic labels, natural can mean pretty much anything. (Paula Begoun also has a nice explanation of the way the term 'natural' can be stretched.) On the other hand, products that carry the USDA Organic seal incorporate ingredients from farmers who meet a range of criteria, including the elimination of synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides and GMOs.

NPR has a great overview of what 'organic' and 'natural' mean in different contexts. Note that organic claims have to be accredited or certified by a third-party, whereas natural claims do not require such certification. Or as NPR says, "The USDA defines [natural] only in regard to meat and poultry, so what it means on granola bars is anyone's guess."

Back to Eco Lips - besides using lots of edible, safe and organic ingredients, Eco Lips also gets points for making its products in the USA (handcrafted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa), mounting solar panels on its factory, not testing its products on animals and donating 1% of its profits to environmental organizations.

Fun fact - you can tell Eco Lips is a 21st Century company from the way it has adopted Internet traditions like user beta-testing. The Eco Lips Beta-Balm webpage lets consumers order products fresh from the Eco Lips R&D laboratory. Give Eco Lips feedback on these beta products and you could help influence the success or direction of a new lip balm launch.

Need one more reason to support Eco Lips? Well, you may have heard about a little water in Cedar Rapids in June. The bad news is that the Eco Lips factory was swamped. The good news is that Eco Lips employees were able to move valuable raw materials and equipment to higher ground before the deluge. Still, this dislocation will obviously be a challenge for Eco Lips. To help Cedar Rapids recover and help a great green company survive, we encourage all our readers to support Eco Lips.

Besides, based on our experience using Eco Lips products, your lips will thank you.

Where to buy:
You can order your balms ($1.99 - $4.99) directly through the Eco Lips website or at Whole Foods and many other fine retail stores coast to coast.

News Flash - 1GreenProduct.com's First Sweepstakes Starts Next Week!

You deserve a prize.

Yes, we're talking to you.

Why? Because you care about the planet. Because you're educating yourself on the Greenest products that do the least damage to our environment.

Most days, your prize is a hearty virtual handshake and "Keep up the good work!" exhortation from your friends at 1GreenProduct.com.

But starting next week, you'll have the chance to win real, tangible, get-your-hands-on-'em prizes.

And best of all, we're talking about prizes for Green products, like the ones we feature on this site.

How can you win these prizes? We'll post the complete sweepstakes rules next week, but basically all you have to do is sign up for a free email subscription to 1GreenProduct.com using the sign-up box in the upper right hand side of the homepage, underneath the rabbit picture.

Alternatively, you can sign up for an email subscription just by clicking this link.

[Note - Unfortunately, for the time being, we will only be able to give prizes to email subscribers who are residents of the 50 United States or D.C. Apologies to our international readers, but apparently there are legal and logistical hurdles that currently prevent us from offering prizes to our 1GreenProduct.com fans in Vancouver, Perth, Hamburg, Cape Town, Bangkok and points elsewhere.]

Please also note that you have to sign up for the email subscription list to enter the sweepstakes. We'd love for you to subscribe to 1GreenProduct.com via RSS, but RSS subscriptions don't give us any data from which to pull a sweepstakes winner.

Sound good? Here's where it gets even better: By signing up just once for the email subscription list, you'll automatically be entered not just into the drawing for the product we're giving away next week, but for all the subsequent product sweepstakes that we plan to conduct on 1GreenProduct.com. We can tell you right now that we should have at least two giveaways in August.

Feel free to wait until we announce our first sweepstakes prize on Monday, or get a headstart and sign up for the email subscription today. If you're feeling generous, share news of our site and our upcoming giveaways with your friends and family.

We can't promise a free lunch, but a free Green product from 1GreenProduct.com could be in your future starting next week.

Thanks for reading and hope you have a great Green Thursday!

(Update - If you're already subscribed to our email updates, that means you're automatically entered in our upcoming sweepstakes. Of course, no one is ever under any obligation to accept a prize they win. Although we can't imagine who would want to look a gift horse in the mouth...)

Home - Solar Gard window film

One of the best ways to keep your home cool in the summertime - and save energy at the same time - is simply to block solar radiation from entering your home.

You could keep the curtains drawn all the time, but that might seem a little...reclusive to your neighbors.

A better solution could be to try Solar Gard® - a barely visible window film that claims to block up to 79% of solar energy and 99% of ultraviolet light. By blocking solar energy, Solar Gard keeps your home cooler in the summer time, reducing the need for you to run that notorious energy hog - the air-conditioner.

How much energy could you save each year? Results vary depending on many factors (the number of windows in your home, exterior landscaping, etc.) but a Solar Gard representative says that in states like Arizona or California where an ordinary home might have to run the A/C 200 to 250 days per year, a building equipped with Solar Gard might only have to use the air-conditioning on 180 days, perhaps for fewer hours each day.

Since UV light fades fabrics (not to mention damaging your skin) and since Solar Gard blocks almost all UV radiation, the window film can help preserve the color and quality of your furniture (and your skin).

Incidentally, if you like to use a computer near a window, Solar Gard promises to cut down on glare, making it easy for you to use sunlight as your worklight without incurring eye strain.

Public figures are taking notice of Solar Gard's potential. Last year, the Clinton Climate Initiative began partnering with Solar Gard to retrofit and help lower the energy consumption of public buildings.

Where to buy:
Find a dealer on the Solar Gard website who can assess your home, choose the right film for the job and professionally install it.

Travel - Conrad Chicago, Ireland Greenbox, Brooklyn Nu Hotel and Greensboro Proximity Hotel

As you may have read, 1GreenProduct.com recently downshifted from a daily to thrice weekly publishing schedule (Monday, Wednesday and Friday).

We did this in order to have a little more time for our secondary activities like eating and sleeping.

And yet, from time to time, just to keep our readers on their collective toes, we've decided to offer supplementary Green Travel content on occasional Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Why pick Tuesdays and Thursdays? Well, not only are those the only free days on our weekly publishing schedule, but the writer in us also likes the alliteration of Travel Tuesdays or Travel Thursdays...

We know that travel often entails some amount of environmental pollution, but we believe that many people do have a practically irrepressible human urge to travel and that the best solution would be not to suppress that urge, but to mitigate the ecological damage by choosing places and properties that do their part to protect the environment.

We hope that our readers who want to learn about eco-friendly products will also enjoy finding out about Green hotels and eco-friendly destinations like the Ireland's newly designated "Greenbox" region pictured above.

With such introductory fanfare out of the way, we present the first ever edition of 1GreenProduct.com's Green travel roundup:

- We just got back from a trip to Chicago and found ourselves might impressed not only with the vaunted friendliness of the locals, but also with the profusion of trees and flowers blooming around town, particularly on Michigan Avenue. It turns out that Chicago is doing its best to live up to its official motto of "city in a garden".

In 2004, Chicago opened the fantastic 24.5-acre Millennium Park right in the heart of the city. Convinced that green roofs offer numerous environmental benefits including better air quality, energy conservation and stormwater runoff reduction, Chicago now claims to have more green roof space (295,000 square feet and growing) than any other city in North America. Even City Hall has a rooftop garden containing more than 20,000 plants!

A beautiful bike path along Lake Michigan encourages many Chicagoans to bike to work (at least when the weather is not arctic), and the city is doing plenty to encourage this trend by creating an extensive network of bike lanes and trails. By 2015, Chicago hopes to "make bicycling an integral part of daily life in Chicago." According to the city, there are already more than 10,500 city-owned bike racks in Chicago, more than in any other U.S. city. Chicago also is home to a spiffy new McDonald's Cycle Center with 24-hour secure bicycle parking, showers, lockers and bicycle rental and repair services.

We had the pleasure of staying at the Conrad Chicago while we were in town. The hotel is redesigning its lobby to incorporate energy-efficient LED backlighting and detailing. Within the hotel itself, much of the lighting has already been switched over from incandescent to CFL or LED, typically reducing lighting energy needs by nearly 70%. The hotel says that it actively recycles paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and light bulbs. In the kitchen, the Conrad Chicago says it's working to reduce the carbon footprint of its ingredients while incorporating local and organic ingredients where possible. And in a move that might please our friends over at Tomato Casual, the Conrad Chicago apparently hosts an employee tomato garden on its rooftop!

- From Chicago, we head south to Greensboro, North Carolina to bring you news of the Proximity Hotel that opened last November. From its solar hot water heaters to its innovative Otis Gen2 elevator that captures energy and feeds it back into the building's electrical grid, the Proximity is shooting for Gold or Platinum LEED status. You can read the whole list of Proxmity's eco-practices yourself, but some of our favorites include the use of recycled building materials (i.e. reinforced steel containing 90% post consumer recycled content), the water-saving Kohler plumbing fixtures, the low-VOC paints and carpeting, and guest room shelves built from walnut SkyBlend, which Proximity describes as "particleboard made from 100% post-industrial recycled wood pulp with no added formaldehyde."

If you're headed to Greensboro or nearby Winston-Salem, we'd strongly encourage you to look into staying at the Proximity Hotel. Rates for August seem to average less than $200 through Proximity's website and reviews on TripAdvisor are mostly outstanding.

- Ireland is already known as the Emerald Isle thanks to its enchanting, verdant landscape. I recently received notice from Tourism Ireland about a pristine corner of northwestern Ireland n newly labeled the Greenbox. Encompassing six counties (Fermanagh, Leitrim, West Cavan, North Sligo, South Donegal and Northwest Monaghan), the Greenbox is chock full of beautiful natural attractions. For example, the Benbulben rock formation in Sligo apparently has the only arctic alpine orchard in the world left over from the last Ice Age.

While visiting the Greenbox, you can take a hot bath in sustainably-harvested seaweed at SOAK (the seaweed is recycled into fertilizer once you've finished bathing) or practice your Side Camel Pose and enjoy organic food at the Clare Island yoga retreat. Looking for something a bit more upscale? The 4-star Brooklodge & Wells Spa offers mud baths, an on-property organic pub serving organic brews and the only certified organic restaurant in Ireland, The Strawberry Tree.

For more ideas on great green Ireland trips, check out Eco Escapes: Ireland by Catherine Mack. Nearly half of Mack's suggestions are apparently located in the Greenbox. You can also contact Tourism Ireland directly at 1-800-223-6470 or visit them online.

- Finally, we have to mention a new hotel in Brooklyn (our hometown). How new is this place? It's so new that they had to name it the Nu Hotel! (Insert rimshot.)

Other than being cool by virtue of its Brooklyn-ness, we like the Nu for its clean design, the fact that it apparently has hammocks in some rooms and its eco-friendly characteristics including the use of organic bedding materials.

Nu's media reps say the hotel's custom furnishings have been built from FSC-certified sustainably-harvested teak wood. We like the fact that Nu chose to use sustainable, renewable and biodegradable cork flooring. From what we hear, harvesting the cork bark from cork oak trees doesn't even hurt the tree. Oh and cork also happens to have sound-dampening qualities, which should help keep the peace since we hear that Brooklynites (and their visitors) can get pretty wild...

Room rates at the Nu average around $250 night - more pricey than Greensboro maybe, but still plenty reasonable for NYC. At prices like these, we would be tempted to say, "Out with the old and in with the Nu," but we already used up our daily rimshot.

Drink - Bliss Tea

Sexy and cute.

Not exactly words that you would usually associate with canned tea.

But unlike Bliss Tea, most canned teas aren't designed in Los Angeles and made in California.

The slim 8.4-ounce cans of Bliss Tea wouldn't look out of place in an awards show goodie bag or inside a hip club on Sunset Boulevard.

Almost all the ingredients in Bliss Tea are listed as being organic. Of course, the teas themselves are organic. (They're listed as 'Chinese teas' on the can, but Bliss Tea says it sources all its tea from organic certified farms in the U.S.) Other organic ingredients include honey and sugar cane (in both the Green and White flavors) and mango (just in the White flavor).

Personally, we both found both teas to be delicious and refreshing. With just 22 calories in a can of Green tea and 38 in the White tea, you can drink these all summer without worrying about affecting your swimsuit figure.

Bliss Tea says it chose the aluminum packaging for eco-reasons. This makes sense - far more aluminum than plastic is recycled in the U.S. and the lightness of aluminum makes transporting the product a bit less resource intensive.

In this case, the green choice is also the best aesthetic choice. Not only do drinks usually taste better out of aluminum than plastic, but the coldness of the aluminum can feels darn good on a hot July day.

Bliss Tea also touts the added bonus of drinking a beverage loaded with catechins, antioxidant and antiviral compounds found in tea leaves.

We don't really see any drawbacks to drinking Bliss Tea. Purist tea drinkers may object to the addition of any sweeteners, but I thought the flavoring worked well, especially paired with light fizz in the sparkling White tea variety.

Bliss Tea apparently has plans to introduce new flavors and work for wider product distribution outside its California base. Next on the menu - a Mint variety. An organic drink with health benefits that freshens my breath too? Sounds like a winner.

Where to buy:
In Los Angeles, you can find Bliss Tea at Erewhon Natural Foods and should be coming soon to other stores near you. If we can find an e-commerce way to buy Bliss Tea, we'll be sure to post an update here.

Beauty / Bath - LaLicious body products

Beauty products usually don't come with "Please, no tasting!" warnings, but one sniff of a LaLicious scrub, rub or oil and you'll understand why the admonishment is required.

Every product we tried really did smell good enough to eat or drink.

Javaholics will swoon over the aroma of the Coffee Bean Sugar Soufflé Scrub. Pure sugar bean crystals and specks of coffee bean exfoliate dead skin cells while almond oil brings the moisture back.

Meanwhile, anyone who ever licked a bowl of cake batter will have to be restrained from burying their nose into a tub of the LaLicious Vanilla Body Butter. Based on Shea Butter and enriched with aloe, the product delivers a super shot of hydration without any greasy drawbacks. (And let us repeat, you'll probably want to lick your paws like a cat after spreading the body butter on your skin. Just try to emember, these products are for external use only!)

I have to admit that I'm not much of a body oil person. It's just so ... oily. But the guava body oil does smell delish. It made me recall a trip to the tropics and gave me a hankering for glass of fresh guava juice. (A hankering that alas went unfulfilled...)

From a Green standpoint, you'll be pleased to learn that all the made-in-the-USA LaLicious body products are now free of Parabens and Sulfates.

Parabens are chemical preservatives that can apparently mimic the human hormone estrogen with unfortunate results.

As for sulfates, in high concentrations, some of them (i.e. ammonium lauryl sulfate, typically used as a foaming agent in body washes and shampoos) may irritate the skin or eyes.

LaLicious also claims that none of its products have been tested on animals. (Although judging from the FAQ on the LaLicious website, it seems that plenty of canines enjoy sampling the sugar scrubs on their own. LaLicious recommends closing the scrubs tightly to prevent any impromptu dog taste tests.)

Like the idea of being oiled, scrubbed and buttered, but really just want to get clean? Stay tuned - LaLicious plans to introduce a new line of body soaps later this summer.

Where to buy:
Use the "Find Us" page on the LaLicious website to find a spa, beauty store or boutique near you that carries LaLicious products.

Kitchen - Palmolive eco+ gel dishwasher detergent

We human beings have a way of coming up with ideas that seem clever at the time and later turn out to have been a huge mistake. (New Coke, the SUV and bottled water all seem like pretty good examples of this phenomenon.)

Such is the case with phosphates, variants on phosphoric acid that were used in laundry detergents for decades and are still used in many dishwasher detergents.

Grist does a great job of explaining how phosphates in laundry detergents led to 'massive algal blooms in waterways' - which in turn led to legislation and regulation that forced laundry detergent manufacturers to remove phosphates from their U.S. products by the mid-1990s.

But apparently dishwasher detergent makers never got the message. As a result, dishwasher detergents have up to 8.7% phosphate concentrations, at least in some states like Michigan.

Other states like Washington have taken matters into their own hands by mandating that dishwasher detergent makers cleanse their products of phosphates sold in the state by mid-2010.

But Colgate-Palmolive's gotten a jump on its mass-market competitors with its new Palmolive® eco+™ gel that's already phosphate-free.

Palmolive eco+ gel comes in three varieties - Lemon Splash, Citrus Apple Splash and Lavendar Splash. (That's a whole lot of splashing.) All of the varieties are labeled as having 0% sodium tripolyphosphate.

Now a crowd of green bloggers (like Tree Hugging Family) have jumped on eco+ for the fact that it contains chlorine bleach. They claim that chlorine is toxic and that therefore eco+ shouldn't claim green status.

I hear what they are saying, but I think your perspective on this issue probably depends on whether you are a dishwasher is half-full or half-empty kind of person. (Although we all know that we should only run the dishwasher when it's full to conserve water...)

Personally, I feel that Palmolive eco+ detergent is in fact greener than its mass-market counterparts and thus does deserve some eco-cred.

On the other hand, I certainly prefer to buy gentler products that have not been plastered with huge CAUTION labels warning to avoid contact with mouth, eyes and skin, and to call a physician immediately if the product is ingested.

I'm not convinced that chlorine is actually so horrible for the environment once it's sufficiently diluted. After all, we swim in chlorinated pools and we add chlorine regularly to our drinking water supplies in order to kill off pathogens and make the water safe for drinking.

On the other hand, further digging online does reveal health concerns about chlorine in tap water and suggestions that people who drink a lot of chlorinated tap water use carbon filters to remove trihalomethanes, compounds created as byproducts of the chlorine disinfection process.

So...I suppose that all things considered, the best solution would be to find a dishwasher detergent that had neither phosphates nor chlorine bleach. Seventh Generation makes such a product, but it has gotten very mixed reviews on Amazon.

One good alternative that comes to mind is Dapple powder, which contains neither chlorine nor phosphates. I've used Dapple with good results at home, though I do rinse my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.

But if you can't find Dapple at your local store or if you really prefer a dishwasher gel, I think that picking a phosphate-free detergent like eco+ is a valid lite-green option.

Where to buy:
Palmolive says you can find eco+ dishwashing gel nationwide at mass merchandisers, drug stores and grocery stores.

(Note - Some links updated and formatting corrected 7/23/08 2:17 p.m. EDT)

Kitchen / Outdoor - Perf Go Green Recycled Plastic Bags

The annoying thing about repetition is that it can make even the most sensible advice seem trite.

Such is the sad fate of the environmentalist creed: "Take only photographs; leave only footprints."

It's pretty much impossible to live by that saying, but it's a good aspiration. It's certainly much better than the current human reality of take lots of natural resources, leave 500 billion plastic bags lying around (according to AlterNet).

That's why 1GreenProduct.com will try to identify and share alternatives to traditional bags that may take centuries to decompose.

A few weeks ago, we brought you a review of biodegradable, compostable BioBags.

Today we present Perf Go Green biodegradable plastic bags.

Available in 13-gallon and 30-gallon sizes (as well as drop cloth, kitty litter and doggie duty versions), Perf Go Green claims several shades of greenness:

- First, the bags themselves are apparently made from recycled plastic. That's great since every product that incorporates recycled plastic helps keep plastics out of landfills and creates a market that encourages more recycling.

- Second, Perf Go Green claims that its bags totally biodegrade within 2 years in a landfill environment. Apparently when the bags are exposed to oxygen, moisture and microrganisms, they decompose into simple natural materials. (The bags were apparently tested according to this standard.)

- Third, the Perf Go Green bags supposedly leave zero toxins behind after they biodegrade. A Perf Go Green representative says the bags break down into carbon dioxide, water and biomass.

FYI, Perf Go Green bags come in a box made of 100% recycled paperboard. The box works like a tissue dispenser. The adhesive strip on the bottom of the box secures the dispenser to the inside of your trash can. I suppose that could save some valuable kitchen shelf space...

We weren't able to sit in a landfill for two years and wait to see if the bags really decompose. But we can vouch first-hand for the strength of Perf Go Green. We used a highly unscientific 'pull test' and discovered that these bags seem capable of hauling some serious trash. Hopefully they'll be just as good at having a breakdown a couple years later.

Where to buy:
Both the 13-gallon (MSRP $4.80) and 30-gallon ($7.35 MSRP) Perf Go Green bags contain a dozen bags per box. Buy them online at Amazon.com or Drugstore.com. 

Outdoors / Home - LightCap200

I've got to admit that I love solar products. But solar promises don't always match up to solar hype.

That's why it's so exciting to find a smart solar product that works even better than I had expected.

The LightCap200 from SolLight turns standard water bottles into solar-powered lanterns.

Weighing just 2.6 ounces, the LightCap fits any bottle with a 2-inch wide mouth, including those from Nalgene®, Camelbak® and GSI®.

The LightCap200 uses four SuperBright™ LEDs housed in a reflective-lens system intended to magnify their brilliance. SolLight says the LEDs should last for 50,000 hours. The lights and all electronics are sealed within the cap so that they won't come in contact with whatever you've got sloshing around in your water bottle.

I've got to admit that I don't actually have one of the water bottles that the LightCap200 has been designed to fit. So I did an improvised test by just placing the LightCap200 on top of a tall glass of water.

The LightCap200 performed splendidly in the test conditions, filling the glass with a beautiful white glow. It didn't exactly make the room blindingly bright, but it definitely gave off enough light to read by (provided that the book is held quite close to the bottle/glass).

I loved the versatility and toughness of the product. A built in retaining ring on the camp lets you suspend your bottle lantern from a tree limb or hook to cast light from a higher vantage point. (Obviously I couldn't try this feature for myself since the lid wouldn't screw onto a drinking glass.)

You can also use the LightCap as a flashlight if you like simply by cupping the lid in the palm of your hand.

The LightCap200 has a sealed push-button on/off switch -- but it also has a built in light sensor that automatically turns off the LightCap200 whenever there's enough light for charging. If you leave the switch on, the LightCap will automatically turn on when the sun goes down and turn itself off at sunrise. (Although with a maximum charge of 6-8 hours, the LightCap will probably fade to black before the end of most nights...)

The friendly instructions for the LightCap200 explain that the cap is guaranteed against failure due to manufacturer defects for 'one earth year' (that's about 1.63 Venusian years, fyi). I love the informality of the warranty. If the cap breaks, you don't have to hunt for your receipt. You can just send back the defective cap and SolLight says they'll send you a free replacement.

Friendly manufacturer + cool Green solar product = a strong 1GreenProduct.com recommendation.

(By the way, if you test your LightCap200 indoors like I did, fully charge it and then remember the room must be dark for the LightCap200 to shine. I thought the product was broken until I remembered to switch off the light and - bingo! - the LightCap200 came on instantaneously. It was a real d'oh! moment.)

Where to buy:

Order your LightCap200 ($19.95) online at SolLight's website or find a store near you using Sollight's Dealers page. [Note that not all dealers carry every Sollight product, so you might want to call before making a trip to the store to make sure the dealer has the LightCap200 on hand.]

Home - Purex Natural Elements Laundry Detergent

I believe that most people want to live Greener, but we don't want to sacrifice our standards of living. That's why it's always nice to see a new product that's affordable, eco-friendly and performs just as well as conventional products.

Case in point - Purex® Natural Elements Laundry Detergent. What do we like? How about:

- 100% natural cleaning ingredients, such as surfactants based on palm and coconuts.
- Natural fragrance extracts (used in combination to create luscious scents like Apple & Melon)
- Ultra Concentrate formula that lets you wash a full load of laundry with half the liquid of a traditional detergent. Less product = less waste
- Biodegradable formula derived from sustainable and renewable resources
- Hypoallergenic and free of dyes
- Bottle that is not only recyclable (#2 HDPE), but also made from at least 25% post-consumer materials

So does it work? We didn't have any crazy dirty socks in our three loads of test laundry, but Purex Natural Elements certainly seemed to do a fine job of cleaning our usual load of washables. Clothes came out smelling fresh and looking refreshed -- no small feat in our building's industrial strength washers and dryers.

We love companies that price their Green products gently. Purex Natural Elements won't bust your budget. The 50-ounce bottle (good for 32 loads) has a MSRP of just $3.49, while the 100-ounce bottle (64 loads, natch) carries a $6.99 MSRP. (If you're willing to provide your e-mail address and receive an electronic newsletter, Purex will even give you a coupon to cut the cost further.)

Note - Just want to give a shout out to The Budget Ecoist, where I first heard about Purex Natural Elements and got inspired to do a little testing of my own...

Where to buy:
You can find Purex Natural Elements Laundry Detergent at Wal-Mart and other grocery and mass retailers coast-to-coast.

Fashion - Lela Designs

[Note - As of this week, 1GreenProduct.com will adopt a new schedule of publishing reviews on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We may occasionally supplement this regular schedule with Tuesday or Thursday reports if we come across an exciting product that we feel deserves your immediate attention. Although we had originally intended to publish every weekday, a daily schedule proved a bit too demanding for this one-man show. We hope that the quality and in-depth nature of our reviews compensates for this newly abbreviated schedule.  Thank you for your continued support and readership. Now -- on with the review! - Aaron Dalton, 1GreenProduct.com]

We admire Lela Designs for choosing to make its "eco-luxury" line of lifestyle clothing using environmentally-friendly fabrics like bamboo, organic cotton and recycled PET soda bottles.

Not only are these fabrics good for the planet, we can also testify first-hand (at least about bamboo and organic cotton) that they feel great on the skin.

We also love the fact that Lela donates a portion of each sale to Camfed (The Campaign for Female Eduation), one of our favorite nonprofits, dedicated to fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls.

85% of Lela's Fall 2008 designs incorporate eco-friendly or certified organic cotton fabrics. Many of these feminine, sophisticated and sporty designs are very flattering to athletic figures. (Some of the top golfers in the LPGA wear Lela Designs outfits on the course.)

Manufactured in Canada, Lela Designs clothing seems to be high quality with cute details like fair trade sterling silver zip pulls and rhinestone buttons. The crystal LELA logo adds a touch of glam. We had a chance to look at the 94% organic cotton Bahati Polo firsthand and found the fit and finish to both be impressive.

Kudos to Lela Designs for creating a sexy yet functional collection of green clothing. We do wish that the prices (tops $70-120, bottoms $90-130, jackets $110-250) were a bit more affordable, but then again, it's better from both a style and environmental perspective to have a few beautiful pieces of clothing rather than an overstuffed closet.

Where to buy:
Visit this Store Locator webpage for information on stores in Canada and the U.S. that carry Lela Designs clothing. Prefer to buy online? Lela Designs is scheduled to launch the e-commerce portion of its website tomorrow. 

1GreenProduct.com added to Alltop!

We're honored, flabbergasted and generally gobsmacked to announce that 1GreenProduct.com has just been added to Alltop's Green page.

What? You're not already familiar with Alltop? Here's what they have to say for themselves:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — “aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, Muslim, celebrity gossip, military, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs.

You can think of an Alltop site as a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points—they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed.

Of course, you already knew that we existed. When the Alltop crowds come pouring in, you can take pride in knowing that you were ahead of the game. But remember to be welcoming, because there's plenty of Green space for everyone to comment.

Meanwhile, this is probably a good time to announce to make a stealthy announcement that 1GreenProduct.com will soon be running start running contests to give away some of the great Green products that we feature on our site.

No purchase will be necessary to participate in these contests. All you'll have to do is sign up for an e-mail subscription to 1GreenProduct.com. All active members of the mailing list will be eligible to win the contest giveaways. Stay tuned for complete rules and the first giveaway, which we hope to organize within the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, thanks for reading. And if you have any suggestions for improvement, comments, compliments, effusive praise or just want to give us a shout out, please use the 'Send us a message!' link on the right side of the page. We'd love to hear from you.

Home - Wicks n’ More Elite Essentials Candles

One thing is clear - candlelight casts a beautiful light.

But not all candles are equally eco-friendly.

In fact, according to the National Candle Association, Paraffin is "by far the most frequently used candle wax on a worldwide basis today."

Paraffin wax comes from petroleum. More specifically, the online Encyclopedia Britannica explains that paraffin wax is "obtained from petroleum by dewaxing light lubricating oil stocks."

If you don't like the idea of burning petroleum-derivative candles in your bedroom, consider the recently introduced line of Elite Essentials candles from Wicks n' More.

Made with 100% sustainable and renewable Palm Oil wax, Elite Essentials candles are available in six different essential oil-infused varieties:

• Citrus and Thyme
• Lavender Balsam
• Wild Mint and Orange
• Kaffir Lime and Tangerine
• Lemon Verbena
• and Peppermint Eucalyptus

Elite Essentials candles also have 100% cotton wicks and are made in the U.S.A. A portion of the purchase price from every Elite Essentials candle goes to Sustainable Harvest International - an organization that works to prevent deforestation in Central America.

Wikipedia has an extensive overview on palm oil, which is not only used in food products, but also in soaps and recently as a biofuel feedstock. From Wicks n' More's perspective, palm oil is a great renewable and sustainable resource. The company says it's possible to extract three times more palm oil than soy oil (another ingredient sometimes used in candle making) on a per-acre basis.

On the other hand, as Wikipedia points out, the rapid growth of palm oil plantations has created great concern in some quarters that rainforests are being cut down to plant more palm trees and that biodiversity is thus lost in the process.

One encouraging sign is that major food and personal care companies like Unilever are apparently trying to ensure that their palm oil comes from sustainable sources.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Elite Essentials candles look great. The off-white color of the candles showcases the crystalline texture of palm wax. Once you blow out the candle after letting it burn a little while, you'll see what looks like a little pile of crystals where the melted wax had pooled. The candles burn basically smoke-free with a steady, strong flame and a gentle scent. (Some people might wish for a bit stronger scent, while others will appreciate the subtlety.)

Note - After a couple weeks of intermittent testing, we had a slight 'meltdown' two nights ago. I don't have a heck of a lot of experience with large candles, so I'll rely on other candle afficionados to tell me if this is normal, but as the Elite Essentials candle burns down in the middle, it leaves a circular 'wall' of wax along the periphery. Well, that wall cracked a bit and spilled a little river of wax onto the plate we were using as a makeshift candleholder. No big deal. We cleaned up the wax pretty easily and then broke away the wall yesterday morning so that the candle once more has a flat surface on top. Other candle neophytes should be aware of this issue. And perhaps candle experts can tell me if I should have been breaking down the wall little by little after each burning? (Let me know if this verbal description is unclear and I'll try to post some explanatory photos...)

Update 8/1 - This article is now cited as a source in Wikipedia!

Where to buy:
You can only purchase the Wicks n' More Elite Essential candles online at www.shopnaturalcandles.com. Prices start at just $3.99.

If you like to smell or feel candles before purchasing them, you could consider the Wicks n' More Reserve Collection Naturals. Sold in gift & boutique stores nationwide, the Reserve Collection uses the same palm wax as Elite Essentials. A portion of the sales price from the Reserve Collection also goes to support Sustainable Harvest.

Home / Office / Lamps - Berkeley Lamp II

We've been a big fan of 2-in-1 products ever since those great Doublemint gum commercials of the 80s. (Double pleasure and double fun!? What's not to like?)

But 2-in-1 products can also make good Green choices. After all, you use less resources getting one lamp that performs two functions rather than getting two separate lamps.

That's part of the reasoning behind the Berkeley Lamp II, which uses two bulbs - an upper bulb for ambient lighting and a lower bulb for task lighting.

From an eco-friendly perspective, it's great that both bulbs are ENERGY STAR approved fluorescent bulbs that should last 10-times longer than incandescent bulbs according to the manufacturer, Full Spectrum Solutions.

The two bulbs can be turned on and off independently. They can also be dimmed independently, so you can have the ambient light on at full force while the task light is set at the lowest (20%) setting. (You also have a choice of different color temperatures for your bulbs - Daylight or Sunset.

The fact is that even at the lowest setting the lamp is plenty bright. (Maybe too bright - we wished that it could have dimmed even further...) At the brightest setting, you'll have incredible illumination. In fact, the ambient light made our overhead light fixture pretty much superfluous. Depending on the size of your room, one Berkeley Lamp II could eliminate the need for any other lamps.

By the way, the light isn't just bright - it's also clear. This may seem like an odd description, but it really does seem like it's easier to read