Tag Archives: recycling

It’s Easy (& Economical) Being Green

Awhile back in Natural Life Magazine, we published a letter from someone who wrote in to say that she couldn’t afford to be green anymore (meaning, in her case, buying organic food and green cleaning products) because she’d lost her job. I hope I was able to dispel that myth for her! While organic food and so-called “green” cleaning products can be more expensive than their conventional counterparts, and installing solar panels on your roof costs a lot of money upfront, there are frugal alternatives and small projects that you can undertake that don’t cost as much. Recycling and re-using cost nothing; mending, swapping, and shopping second-hand are more frugal than buying new clothing; baking soda and vinegar can replace almost any high-priced commercial cleaner; making your home draft-proof can save a lot of energy and money; gardening, canning,  preserving, and baking take time, but they are economical and satisfying. Making your own and doing it yourself are becoming trendy for good reasons!

The little things you do can add up – both in terms of helping the environment and saving money – as some of our readers have told us. (Our readers have been sending us their green and frugal living tips since we started publishing in 1976!) In fact, Natural Life Magazine is full of helpful tips for going green easily and economically and you’ll find some of those articles online. You can navigate the site by using the article indexes that appear near the top of every page; you could begin with the frugal living index and the green living index.

One thing you won’t see in Natural Life Magazine is recommendations about buying green products. We have a strict policy of not endorsing any particular brands or products. (Usually when magazines and websites write about products, they’re doing so in order to attract advertisers, and we don’t believe that’s ethical.) So we explain the issues in a well-researched manner that is not influenced by any particular company, then let you decide how to make decisions to make your home greener and healthier and where to spend your money – or, in many cases, not to spend it at all.

I have written many articles of that sort for the magazine over the years. And now, we’ve updated them in an exciting new book called Natural Life Magazine’s Green & Healthy Homes. This is a unique guide to making your home both green and healthy…while saving money at the same time. It’s available now, directly from us, in both print and the less expensive e-book format.

As far as food goes, one solution to the problem of expensive organic grocery bills (aside from growing your own and buying directly from farmers) is to choose organic when you are purchasing those foods that carry the heaviest burden of pesticides, chemicals, additives and hormones when grown conventionally. Here is just one article that will help stretch your organic spending power, while reducing your family’s exposure to harmful chemicals. There are lots more in back issues of Natural Life Magazine, with some archived on the website.

So if you’re wondering how to get started with green living – or just need to move beyond the expensive, green products trap – spend some time with us!

Green Living Comes to a Television Near You

Have you noticed Al Gore making a cameo appearance on a television show recently? Were you surprised to see a character on a TV drama organizing a group bike ride out of the blue? Did you do a double take when the lead star casually threw her pop can into a recycling bin or took her own mug to the office coffee pot? Did all of that green behavior make you think that sustainability has now become mainstream? Or that television producers are trying to provide a positive example of green behavior?

Both are partially true. But the reality is that advertising revenue has dropped over the past few years and the networks are inserting instances of green behavior into program storylines in order to attract advertisers. It’s a step beyond “product placement” and is known as “behavior placement.” The characters are acting out eco-friendly behavior to create an environment that’s friendly to advertisers’ products – ie. designed to make you want to buy them. Of course, you won’t see anything controversial because advertisers don’t like to be associated with that – so recycling is okay but climate change isn’t. And green living probably won’t become an everyday part of your television fare anytime soon; it is only currently happening during two designated weeks – one in April and one in November.

Here at Natural Life Magazine, we don’t publish articles in order to attract advertisers. That includes refusing to accommodate advertisers that want us to sign a contract promising that their ad won’t be opposite anything they consider negative or controversial. In fact, we have very strict advertising and editorial policies (hence we don’t attract much advertising!). We value the few advertisers who fit our guidelines and who respect our integrity enough to advertise with us, but we’re mostly reader-supported. We have, in the past, published articles about media manipulation and about a related topic, greenwashing.

I do see this green “behavior placement” on television shows as a small step in the right direction if it helps to make sustainable practices more mainstream. However, the next time you turn on the TV or radio, pick up a newspaper or magazine, or visit a website, keep in mind what public relations company Burson-Marsteller says: “Perceptions are real. They color what we see…what we believe…how we behave. They can be managed…to motivate behavior…to create positive business results.”

What’s Stopping People From Going Green?

Although most of us recycle these days and almost three-quarters of us pay our bills online, almost half of Americans have done nothing else to green their lives, according to a new Harris Poll on green living.

In spite of all the information out there about green living, many people (34 percent) told the pollsters that they don’t know don’t know how to go green, and many others don’t believe their greening their lifestyle will make any significant difference on the environment.

Others might not want to change their lifestyles in any major way. For instance, only five percent of survey respondents said they are driving less by combining errands, walking more, etc. and just four percent have reduced their utility use.

Others may not want or be able to spend money to go green (only three percent have replaced incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones and the same number has purchased hybrid cars).

The irony, of course, is that some extra upfront costs can save money down the road. And small actions can make a huge difference. The US Environmental Protection Agency says that if every American household replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a CFL, the United States would save enough energy to light more than three million homes for an entire year.

Other poll results:

  • 49 percent are trying to buy locally-produced food and/or goods.
  • 47 percent are buying green household products.
  • 39 percent are bringing their own reusable bags to stores instead of using paper or plastic.
  • 16 percent are carpooling.

In contrast to the Harris Poll, Natural Life Magazine’s latest survey of our readers found that 90 percent are purchasing green products like CFLs, and 91 percent regularly compost and recycle. Here are more Natural Life results.