Travel - Buttermilk Falls Inn, Blue Ridge Destination Center, HomeAway.com, Hotel Rosa Alpina, Hotel SO, Earthsong, Callaway Gardens, Aerial Trams

In the summer, New York City (1GreenProduct's home base) can be a summer festival, but the heat and crowds can also get a bit overwhelming.

That's why it was so nice to get away for a couple of days last week to the historic Buttermilk Falls Inn, located about two hours north of the city along the Hudson River.

What makes Buttermilk Falls Inn a great destination for eco-minded travelers looking for a little rest and relaxation?

1. The organic kitchen garden and the organic eggs from the resident heritage breed chickens. This organic bounty goes into delicious and beautiful breakfast dishes such as scrambled eggs with cheese and broccoli or raspberry pancakes. As Local Harvest says, "The best organic food is what's grown closest to you." It's hard to get more local than an organic garden on the property.

2. A new spa that uses solar and geothermal systems to heat the mineral pool, sauna and steam room. The spa also features natural and organic skincare lines such as Dr. Alkaitis, Spa Technologies and Jurlique in its treatments.

3. The Inn's 70 acres of bucolic riverfront property provide plenty of room for hiking and strolling. You can borrow bikes to ride on gravel trails or the lightly trafficked local roads. You can play a bit of tennis or take stale bread down to the pond and feed the ducks, swans and one very aggressive goose.

4. Technically, you don't need a car. It's possible to reach the Inn via a 2-hour train ride on Metro North from Grand Central station. You get off at the Poughkeepsie station (last stop on the Hudson Line) and then take a $20 cab ride to the Inn. Note that the inn only serves breakfast, so you'll want to bring some of your own food and perhaps ask for one of the suites with its own kitchen, like the spacious and comfortable Gindelle Suite where we spent our time.

(Tip - If you do take the train up to Buttermilk Falls Inn, sit on the left side going north and the right side on the way back to NYC. You'll enjoy beautiful views of the Hudson River most of the way.)

Service was unfailingly polite and cordial at the Inn. Since travelers with cars will often head off during the day to explore nearby destinations like Hyde Park, you may have the property mostly to yourself if you decide to lazily explore the grounds and gardens.

Room rates range from $225 - $450 per night, although you can sometimes find discounted rates and special promotions.

Here's some more Green travel news we've uncovered recently -

• North Carolina - Travelers to the Blue Ridge Parkway can enjoy the new LEED quality Destination Center providing information and orientations services inside a building with active/passive heating and cooling, radiant floor heating and a green roof.

• Instead of staying at an eco-friendly hotel, why not consider an eco-friendly vacation rental? Sites like HomeAway.com can get you the keys to a villa in Spain that uses solar power for lighting and reuses pool water to irrigate the garden. Or how about an organic Italian farm with free range animals, olive groves and of course solar panels to heat water and make some of the electricity? Another Spanish mountainside home gets its energy from both solar panels and wind turbines, while giving visitors a panoramic view of the Mediterranean.

• According to a PR representative for Hotel Rosa Alpina in the Italian Dolomite mountains, the hotel (part of the Relais and Chateaux group) will soon start getting its power from a brand new water-driven power plant. The hydropower plant will apparently produce enough energy to power the entire town of San Cassiano. Nightly rates at Rosa Alpina range from approximately $440 - $540, depending on the season.

• Travelers to Christchurch, New Zealand are "so" lucky to have the option of staying at Hotel SO, a property that uses recycled paper throughout the hotel, 100% biodegradable vegetable-based soaps and shampoos, non-hazardous water-based cleaning products. Want to explore the city? Hotel SO has bicycles available to tool around town. Back in the rooms, water-saving showers and fluorescent or LED lights help you save energy and water. Amazingly, all these eco benefits come wrapped in what looks (from the website) like a gorgeous modern package with flat-screen televisions, wireless Internet and a touch-screen virtual concierge. Even better, rates start as low as ~$63 per night for a double room.

• Looking for more remote and wild (but still luxurious) New Zealand lodgings? You can also check out the Earthsong Lodge, about 30 minutes by air from Auckland on Great Barrier Island. The walls at Earthsong are built from the leftover stems of harvested wheat grain using straw bale construction methods. New Zealand Rimu timber used in window and door joinery were recovered and recycled from a demolished factory. Solar panels and low energy appliances reduce Earthsong's dependence on fossil fuels. The lodge even has its own aerobic treatment plant to clean waste water to the point where it is used to irrigate the resort's organic gardens. Read all about Earthsong's environmental program here. Since Earthsong is located on a rather secluded island, its room rates include airport transfers, cocktails, dinner and breakfast. Still, those nightly rates are rather steep with the least expensive option a bit less than $700 per night for a double room.
  

• Callaway Gardens, a 13,000 acre resort in Pine Mountain Georgia (about 80 miles southwest of Atlanta) recently opened a new LEED certified Lodge and Spa. The resort claims to have eliminated the waste of 200,000 disposable plastic bottles by using refillable shampoo and conditioner dispensers. Housekeeping chemicals are certified 'green' by GreenSeal. All conventional lightbulbs have been replaced with energy-efficient CFL bulbs. Native plantings reduce the need for irrigation, and Callaway Gardens has gone a step further in water conservation by even installing waterless urinals. We encountered a hiccup in the reservations system when we tried to check on sample nightly rates, but Callaway Gardens is advertising special "Back to School" packages through the end of September with rates starting as low as $169 per night.

• If you're heading to St. Lucia, Costa Rica, Dominica or Jamaica and looking for a way to explore a rain forest canopy without the heart-thumping zipline experience, consider a ride on a Rain Forest Aerial Tram. The slower pace of the tram allows for an unhurried ride (up to 90 minutes in the case of the Dominica tram), giving you a chance to examine the beautiful flora and fauna instead of having everything rush by in a green blur.
  

FYI, 1GreenProduct.com will be visiting Europe next month to personally check out some of the green travel attractions in Belgium, France, the Czech Republic and Austria. Stay tuned for our reviews!

And if you come across any green hotels or destinations in your own travels, please drop us a line and we'll try to include your suggestions in a future post.

Reminder -- You still have a few days left to sign up for the 1GreenProduct.com email list and thereby enter the 1GreenProduct.com Green Works Dishwashing Liquid Sweepstakes.

Technology - Eco-Libris

Let's say you love books (I do), but you also love trees (me too).

This presents a conundrum, because books are generally made out of trees. Even worse, most books are not made from recycled paper, but from virgin paper.

Deforestation is obviously a huge global problem. If you want scary stats, just browse Wikipedia, where you can learn that between 1990 and 2005, Nigeria lost 79% of its old growth forests.

How much does your reading habit contribute to the problem? Eco-Libris says that 20 million trees are cut down annually in the U.S. to make books.

If you're feeling guilty about your stack of bestsellers, you have a few options:

1) Increase your use of the library. Sharing books lowers the total number of books in circulation. Not great perhaps for authors or the publishing industry, but less wasteful and better for the environment.

2) Use BookSwim, a Netflix-like service that sends you a certain number of books per month through the mail. You pay a flat monthly fee with no late charges. Basically, BookSwim has all the ecological benefits of the library -- with the added advantage of saving you time and gasoline (presuming that you would otherwise drive to the library). Read our complete BookSwim review from June 13.

3) Switch from paper to an e-book reader like the new Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader. No paper required - plus you can carry dozens of books without needing a wheelbarrow.

4) Plant some trees to offset the ones cut down to give you reading material. This is where Eco-Libris steps back into the picture. Just as some airlines are giving you the option of planting trees to offset the carbon emissions from your flight, Eco-Libris has partnered with various tree-planting organizations (Sustainable Harvest International, RIPPLE Africa and the Alliance for International Reforestation) to fight deforestation.

The cost per tree seems pretty reasonable - you can sponsor the planting of 10 trees for just $10. Economies of scale let you plant 500 trees for just $450 -- in case you want to offset a whole library...

Personally, this math seems a little fuzzy to me. I can't imagine that it takes an entire tree to make one book (even a huge book), but maybe the tree-planting offsets the carbon emissions that go into the production and distribution of the book.

If you want to combine the eco-benefits of tree planting with book-sharing, go right ahead. Eco-Libris has partnered with BookMooch, an online used-book exchange. Basically, BookMooch provides a framework for people all over the world to request certain books and to share books they've finished reading with others who might want them.

The advantage of BookMooch (as compared to BookSwim) is that you don't have to pay a monthly membership fee. The disadvantage (as far as I can tell) is that you'll still incur some costs associated with shipping your books to others, plus the site can't guarantee you'll find the book you're looking for.

Still, if you dig swap meets and you have the time to figure out BookMooch's points system, it might be a fun supplement to the library.

And if you do decide to go that right, you'd probably be jazzed to know that for every 10 trees you plant through Eco-Libris, you can get a free BookMooch point (which basically translates into a moochable book).

Like we said, it's a little complicated. But spend some time nosing around the Eco-Libris and the BookMooch websites and we're confident you'll figure it out. After all, if you care about these sorts of issues, you must be pretty book-smart!

Where to buy:
Contribute to reforestation directly through the Eco-Libris website. Sign up for an account at BookMooch to start mooching.

Sweepstakes -- Green Works™ Dishwashing Liquid

Back in May, we had the pleasure of testing Clorox's Green Works™ line of natural cleaning products.

Now Clorox has just introduced a new Green Works product for the kitchen - Green Works Dishwashing Liquid.

Using plant-based ingredients derived from coconuts and olive oil, the Green Works Dishwashing Liquid promises to cut through grease and loosen cooked-on food while being gentle on your dishes and cookware. As always with Green Works products, the product has not been tested on animals and is apparently both non-allergenic and biodegradable.

But does it work? You betcha!

Unlike some puny natural cleaners, we found that Green Works Dishwashing Liquid sudzed up great and worked just as well as the non-Green cleaners we used in our unenlightened youth.

(Apparently "sudzed up" is not technically a real English phrase, but we would like to submit it for inclusion in the language. You know what we mean, right?)

Like the rest of the Green Works product line, Green Works Dishwashing Liquid will carry the logo of the Sierra Club, which carries a certain amount of environmental gravitas.

And if one Green logo isn't enough to prove Green Works' good intentions, the Dishwashing Liquid also is emblazoned with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Design for the Environment" logo.

Although Green Works Dishwashing Liquid is available in five scents (Original, Water Lily, Tangerine, Free & Clear and Simply Lemon), we like the Free & Clear version best, because frankly we think scents and dyes are a bit unnecessary in a dishwashing liquid.

We presume and hope that such scents and dyes would be as natural and environmentally-friendly as possible, but they can't possibly be as eco-friendly as using no dyes or scents at all.

Where to buy:

Green Works products including the Dishwashing Liquid (Update - MSRP $3.59) are apparently available everywhere Clorox products are sold, which means too many places to list here, but probably including your local grocery store.

How to win:

We had so much fun and got so much great feedback on our first Sweepstakes last week, that we're running another one starting today!

Thanks to the generosity of Clorox and its marketing agency, five lucky winners will each get one bottle of the new Green Works Dishwashing Liquid!

How to enter: Just sign up for a 1Greenproduct.com email subscription, then confirm your email address by replying to the verification request sent by FeedBurner

When it ends: 11:59 p.m. EDT on August 19, 2008.

Already a 1GreenProduct.com email subscriber? Congratulations! That means you're automatically entered in this sweepstakes.

Additional chances to win: Active email subscribers can get three (3) additional entries for this sweepstakes by blogging about the 1GreenProduct.com Green Works Dishwashing Liquid Sweepstakes and then emailing us a link to your post.

How we choose a winner: On August 20, we will pick five (5) winners using an Internet-based random number generator at Random.org.

Our promise: We will never sell your email address to marketers or spammers. Your email address is used solely to deliver 1GreenProduct.com news and review. Generally, you can expect to receive between 3-5 email updates per week.

One entry, many great prizes: Remember, as long as you remain an active 1GreenProduct.com email subscriber, you'll automatically be entered into all future sweepstakes. We'll try to run an average of at least one sweepstakes per month.

The fine print: Unfortunately, for legal and/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.

Please play fair. You can only subscribe once to the email list and you can only get a maximum of three additional entries for writing a blog posting about the sweepstakes. To read the complete list of Sweepstakes rules, follow this link.

Good luck! And may the Green Works force be with you.

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

1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes -- We Have a Winner!!

I am delighted to announce that yesterday morning we chose a winner for the 1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes with the help of Random.org.

In the interest of full transparency, I am posting screenshots from Random.org showing the parameters of the selection process and the actual subscriber number (#577) who was chosen.

Subscriber #577 turned out to be Pamela from The Dalles, Oregon. Congratulations to Pamela!! A new Eureka envirovac will shortly be making its way to Pamela's door.

(Incidentally, Pamela happens to be a fantastic photographer, with a number of great nature images on her portfolio site. You can check out some of her work by following this link.)

In addition to congratulating Pamela, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the Sweepstakes.

I was truly amazed and inspired to read so many great comments and see such overwhelming interest in this energy-efficient vacuum cleaner. In the end, we had more than 750 people sign up for the Sweepstakes.

I hope that many of you who did not win will nonetheless remain active subscribers. Your email subscription will deliver news and reviews 3-5 times per week on great green products that you can buy today.

As long as you're an active subscriber, you'll also be automatically entered in future 1GreenProduct.com sweepstakes drawings - like the one we plan to start tomorrow!

Even in weeks when we don't have sweepstakes drawings, we'll still try to obtain coupon codes or discounts to give you the best deals on the eco-friendly products we feature.

We'll also try to bring you news of other Green contests and sweepstakes from around the Internet.

Again, my sincere thanks to all who participated in the Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes.

- Aaron Dalton, 1GreenProduct.com

Fashion - Beleaf organic cotton tote

For way too long I postponed buying a reusable tote to carry my purchases home from the drugstore, grocery store and other markets.

I reasoned that since I reused the plastic bags as trash bags, I was being somewhat eco-sensitive.

(I certainly didn't want to have to go out and buy plastic trash bags for my apartment...)

Then I discovered biodegradable, compostable BioBags made from corn starch.

Once I started using BioBags for my trash, I no longer had any reasonable excuse to keep accepting plastic bags at the markets.

Fortunately, about the same time, I discovered the Beleaf organic cotton tote bag.

What makes Beleaf a great green product?

1) It's made from 100% organic cotton, which is about a jazillion times better for the planet than conventional cotton as described here.

2) It's Stitched with Purpose™. Yes, that's a slogan, but it's also speaks admirably to both the quality and care with which the bag was built. You can tell this bag was built to last and meant to carry some heavy loads. I'm not saying I'd load up the bag with watermelons (for that you'd want a wheelbarrow), but I feel confident lugging home some milk, cereal and other assorted goodies in my Beleaf tote.

3) It's got a beautiful swirly butterfly design applied using water-based inks. Yes, I'm a man who likes to carry a butterfly bag.

4) The wide straps with some reinforced stitching on the shoulder make it comfortable and natural to carry the bag loaded or empty. There's some smart design at work here...

5) 1% of all Beleaf bag sales go to the nonprofit organization 1% for the Planet. Beleaf's donations are funneled to American Forests to protect, restore and enhance healthy forests.

The Beleaf tote is a simple product, but it also happens to be one of our favorite green products we've found so far. Help cut down on the estimated 100 billon bags Americans throw away ever year. Get a reusable organic cotton tote today.

Where to buy:
Purchase the Beleaf tote online ($36) through the Beleaf website.

Spotlight - Urban Garden Casual / Tomato Casual

Even though we're trying to create a valuable Green resource on the 'Net, we recognize we can't fulfill all your Green needs. So every once in a while, we'll turn the Spotlight on other great eco-friendly online resources. This weekend, we turn our attention to Tomato Casual and Urban Garden Casual.

Before starting 1GreenProduct.com, I ran another blog focused on the benefits of eating locally-grown food.

Buy a tomato (or any other produce) in a supermarket and you've got little control over what pesticides or herbicides were sprayed on your food. Grow a tomato at home and you have control over how it's raised.

Buying an organic tomato at the market may be better from a Green standpoint, but you've still got the environmental costs of transporting the tomato from a faraway field to the grocery store. Grow a tomato at home and the food only has to travel from your back garden to your table.

That's why we're delighted to see our good friend Reggie Solomon, creator of Tomato Casual and Urban Garden Casual get some TV exposure on FOX News for all the great advice he gives home gardeners (and aspiring home gardeners) everywhere.

Congratulations, Reggie!

PS - For those of you born without a green thumb, another good eco-friendly food option might be to join a Community Supported Agriculture program that supports a local family farm. You'll get delicious fresh produce and help preserve farmland in your community.

Food - LaLoo's Goat's Milk Ice Cream

It's hot and steamy in New York City around this time of year.

You could probably fry an egg on the sidewalk, but that would be grody to the max.

Besides, that dirty fried egg wouldn't help you beat the heat. It's far better to cool off with something cool and creamy like LaLoo's Goat's Milk Ice Cream.

According to LaLoo's website, goat's milk presents an easier to digest alternative for folks with lactose intolerance who have problems with cow's milk-based products. The company also says that goat's milk has more vitamins A and D (though less folic acid and vitamin B12) than cow's milk. LaLoo's Goat's Milk Ice Cream also contains both natural and added probiotic 'friendly' bacteria such as Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidus culture.

From a Green standpoint, we like the fact that LaLoo's has partnered with the Waterkeeper Alliance this summer to help fund the Alliance's efforts to protect watersheds and waterways from pollution. (Look for the Waterkeeper Alliance logo on pints of LaLoo's Goats Milk Ice Cream sold in NY, Los Angels and San Francisco f you want 25% of your purchase price to go toward Alliance programs.)

LaLoo's PR rep sent us an article from Dairy Goat Journal in which LaLoo's founder Laura Howard is quoted as saying that goats are good for the environment. The article goes on to quote Howard as saying:

"Goats eat the dry brush that causes fires and they eradicate poison oak. They don't decimate the land, they are light on their feet and because they are smaller they are the perfect addition to any biodynamic farm. In fact, goats actually help to aerate the soil where they browse and make it suppler for the natural habitat to grow."

(I would have thought that Howard had made up the word 'suppler' instead of using the term 'more supple', but it turns out that 'suppler' is a real word after all as in, "I wish that I was suppler so that I could touch my toes without bending my knees." Who knew? ... Well, apparently Ms. Howard knew actually.)

The same Dairy Goat Journal notes that LaLoo's Goat's Milk Ice Cream is humane-certified, carbon neutral, GMO-free and all natural. Those are all phrases that get our (zero emission) motor running at 1GreenProduct.com.

Actually, we couldn't find mention of these laudable attributes on Laloo's website or on its packaging. Our advice - ditch the modesty and let Green consumers know all the eco-friendly benefits of choosing LaLoo's ice cream.

One Green selling point that is mentioned on LaLoo's packaging is the fact that LaLoo's goats roam freely on 350 acres of Sonoma hillsides.

We applaud this idea of letting animals roam free over the landscape where they can have all sorts of serendipitous encounters with other photogenic creatures.

You probably want to know how it tastes. Well, I can only describe LaLoo's Deep Chocolate by saying it's like diving into a giant tub of chocolatey goodness. Chocoholics who taste this flavor will stop worrying and learn to love the goat.

As for Vanilla Snowflake, I did feel like a bit more of the goat-y tang came through here, probably because it couldn't hide under a chocolate blanket. Personally, we must (guiltily) admit that we prefer the taste of vanilla ice cream made from cow milk, but for more adventurous palates and those who like goat milk cheeses, this flavor could hit the spot.

The only other flavor at our local market was Mission Fig (we did not indulge), but LaLoo's does make some tasty-sounding concoctions like Rumplemint, Capraccino and Molasses Tipsycake.

ps - LaLoo's may not be the ideal diet food, but it is advertised as naturally low fat. As you can see from this nutritional info, the Deep Chocolate variety has about 19% of your daily recommended saturated fat per serving (4 servings per pint). I don't have a premium brand cow milk ice cream in front of me for comparison purposes, but I believe that a slightly larger serving size of brands like Haagen-Dazs® or Ben & Jerry's will often have more than 50% of your daily recommended saturated fat quotient. So...LaLoo's gets our vote in the 'better for your swimsuit figure' category.

Where to buy:

Use the Store Locator on LaLoo's website to find a retail outlet near you. Not surprisingly, Whole Foods Market carries LaLoo's ice cream, but you'll also find the product in many smaller health food and natural food stores.

Sweepstakes Reminder:

Just a few days left to enter the 1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes. The contest ends Sunday night at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Good luck to all!

Outdoor / Home - Windspire wind turbine

We often try to feature affordable products on 1GreenProduct.com, because we believe that everyone should be able to live Green.

But how much would you be willing to pay to cut your monthly energy bill by up to 50%?

Mariah Power is hoping that $4,995 won't sound too steep. That's the MSRP on the new Windspire ® vertical axis wind turbine now available for purchase.

The Windspire includes a high-efficiency generator, integrated inverter, wireless performance monitor and tilt-up monopole. Installation by an authorized dealer costs around $1000 more.

Ideally you'll want a half-acre of land and 12-mile per hour average winds to get the full 2000 kWh of electricity from the Windspire.

If you're fortunate to have such a property, the Windspire may go a long way toward helping you harness the power of the wind to produce clean energy for your home.

PS - Want to take a gander at a Windspire in action before you buy? If you live near Washington, D.C., you're in luck. Stop by the United States Botanic Garden's sustainability exhibition on the Mall anytime before October 13th. Hey, if it's good enough for our nation's Capitol...

Where to buy:
Email your sales inquiry to Mariah Power. The company will match you with a nearby dealer.

FYI, Mariah Power stands behind the Windspire (metaphorically) with a 5-year warranty.

According to Mariah Power, your purchase of a Windspire may also qualify you for various tax rebates or incentives.

Sweepstakes Reminder:

If you haven't entered the 2008 1GreenProduct.com Eureka envirovac Sweepstakes yet, you still have a few more days to participate before the contest ends.

Find out all about the contest and how to enter by reading the Eureka envirovac post. Good luck!

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?

Thanks again for joining our subscriber list. We hope you like our content. Feel free to send us suggestions anytime of ways that we can improve the site and make it an even more valuable eco-resource.

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 solutio