Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

By Renton de Alwis

This weekly column published between April 2009 - April 2012 in Sri Lanka's 'Daily News' newspaper  addressed core issues regarding sustainability, critically examining the current concepts, thoughts, strategies and actions adopted by us in the context of both the global and local economy.

Reducing the impact on mother earth of excessive emission of greenhouse gases is identified today as a priority by all nations. Since it is little droplets of water that go to form the wide and mighty oceans, what we as individuals and households do to reduce these emissions will well be what will determine the survival of the planet we live in, in the future. It is true that large industries and the more ‘developed’ nations should take a fair share of the blame for what has gone wrong this far. The discussion on who was more responsible for contributing to global warming and the resultant problems will go on and on. Mitigation measures will be sought at global and national forums. The columnist holds the view that, while all this goes on, it is important for each of us as individuals to seek ways in which we can identify and mitigate ways in which we can reduce greenhouse gases we emit to the atmosphere.

 

It is indeed the elite in any country, who are at the forefront of emission of greenhouse gases through the affluent lifestyles we lead. Thus the responsibility also falls squarely on us to take on mitigation measures. If not for any other reason, we must understand that what we know  as ’green lifestyles’ are also ways in which we can be smart in reducing our expenditure for day to day living. While this can be a motivator, as a bonus, we can also have the superior feeling of being able to care for our environment and the good health of our planet.

 

Today’s column and several hereafter will attempt to share practical tips which can be used by individuals and households in creating green and smart lifestyles. For those who already practice these, let it be a reminder and for those who want to begin its practice, it is hoped that it will serve as a useful guide.

Throwaway society


Most of us, when we recount and discuss the good old days talk about the solid, durable, and long-lasting quality of products of the Germans. I remember buying a shirt in 1983 of a German make that served me well for over two and half decades. I only gave it away recently. Then came the fierce competition for trade supremacy and the Japanese began to produce for the mass market with not much regard for quality of durability. Today we see the same phenomenon continue with most Chinese goods.  We indeed have got to living in times of a throwaway culture. Remember futurologist Alwin Toffler’s 1970 work “The Future Shock” and the concept therein of a ‘throwaway society’, where he discusses the compulsion of the modern citizen of the world to get away from the durability domain to one that is cheaper and less durable.

Enlightened consumerism

One of the key adjustments we can make in our attempt to seek reduction in our consumption is to get away from the throwaway culture and adapt to consuming more durable products. To buy and use only what is essential for our need for ‘comfortable’ living, while inculcating these values in our children will be another sound step. Buying products with minimum packaging and less toxic material will be two other ways of also ensuring that we get into a more enlightened way of leading our lives as consumers. While in a media dominated world this is a tough task, one will need to make a choice for we are here not only focusing on us but of the next and generations to come.

Old and New

In the area of reusing going back to our age old practice of repairing items as much as possible is a great way to ensure that we do justice to the durability of the products we use. Using cloth napkins or towels instead of paper based products, clay ‘Guraletthus’ for storing boiled drinking water, empty jars to hold leftover food, reuse of boxes and other containers.

As a way of establishing good durables and earth-saving habits among the young  is  to encourage them to purchase and use of refillable pens and pencils. Donating extras of your household to people you know or to a charity instead of throwing them away is yet another good practise. Reuse of grocery bags as trash bags or better still one can reduce the need for plastic grocery bags by participating in the programme for the reuse of grocery bags now offered by most of the super- markets. One can also take the same bag to the fruit or vegetable vendor to fill yourself up and refuse the plastic bag they may offer you.

The digital world also offers us opportunities to reduce on the use of paper and seek efficient communication. E-mail and SMS communications used with diligence can ensure that we have hardly any need to print produce documents. Use of methods of digital storage such as external hard drives, thumb drives or CDs in keeping records are sound innovations without resorting to use of the printer. 

Mainstreaming

The role of the traditional ‘Botal Karaya’ or the ‘Patthara Karaya’ who dealt with both collecting old news papers and used bottles and cans is now becoming a dying breed in most areas. This was both a vehicle for ridding oneself of the old products to be recycled and as an employment provider. Today, with unmanageable volumes, garbage recycling is big business and new systems are fast coming into place to replace the old. Composting food scraps, grass and other yard clippings and dead plants to make organic fertiliser is yet another task that can have the participation of the whole family.

These are but some of the efforts we can take on in our quest to transforming what is still a marginalised movement of reducing, reusing and recycling in to a mainstream life style activity among our elite and the rest of the populace. It is then and only then, that Sri Lanka can move towards becoming a carbon-clean destination for ourselves also serving as a sought-after beacon for visitors from all over the world.

Useful Web addresses:

The Recycling Guide – www.recycling-guide.org.uk
Living Green – www.grist.org/kingdom/living-green
Central Environment Authority of Sri Lanka – Special Projects – www.cea.lk/special_pro.php
Wastes - Resource Conservation – www.epa.gov/waste
Everyday is Earthday – An Example of Community Action – www.leftfootrightfoot.com/earthday
Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources – Sri Lanka , Critical Environment Issues – www.environmentmin.gov.lk/issues/htm
Ethical Living magazine - www.ethical-living.org/  

Earth Day and beyond …

This was written on The World Earth Day of 2010 and its message was intended to be valid for many more Earth Days.

Many individuals, organisations and governments the world over carried out activities to focus on what we, as citizens of Mother Earth can do to ensure her good health and very survival. The columnist is of the opinion that there needs be a concerted effort by all citizens of the earth, be they policy makers, strategists, educators, business persons, professionals, social activists or persons on the street, to readjust our own lifestyles, through a better understanding of the issues impacting the good health of Mother Earth. There need be a cultivated attitude and a determined effort to make “Every Day an Earth Day”. For today, all scientific evidence points to the fact that we who live on this planet have no other choice. The only choice before us is to take assertive action now to draw ourselves away from the opulent lifestyles we led in the past and take on more conservatory and sustainable ways of living.

No longer can such action be taken with a focus on cost saving only. Neither can they be for gaining nominations for awards that look good on media releases, promotional web pages and brochures or for other cosmetic reasons.  There needs to be a sea-change in thinking and stronger overall action on the ground that will contribute substantially to reduce our overall carbon footprint. Carbon offsetting must not be made another excuse for creating a share- trading market of it, to serve the needs of the usual greed driven agenda.  As a somewhat sorry but inadequate base, we have the Kyoto Protocol target of taking the CO2 emission levels of our world to that of 1998, by the year 2012. As inadequate as it may be, it is hoped that it will give space and hope for Mother Earth to regain some of its lost health and seek much needed rejuvenation.  

Everyone’s business

The new President of the Maldives (now not in office), soon after taking office in November 2008  announced that he would begin to look for alternative land for the Maldivian nation. He like several other world leaders had called for all nations to act now and fast.  Our own Minister of Environment has called for a mechanism for the developed nations to provide compensation for the damage done so far in placing the smaller island nations at risk. Preventing the effects of global warming from reaching catastrophic proportions has been accepted today to be everyone’s business. President Obama presents a new paradigm away from the conventional dominance of the USA, citing that his country, as powerful as it may be, is but only another nation in a world where there should be no senior or junior partners. Ideas, he stated should be drawn from everywhere to resolve issues and problems. Interestingly, he mentioned little Costa Rica as an example.

Banking on being green

Costa Rica started positioning itself as a green island and a green tourism icon, decades ago and has reaped rich dividends from it this far. New Zealand and its ‘100% Pure’ positioning is also a success story worthy of mention. On the larger canvass, The UK and Norway have signed on and provided millions of dollars to support the Congo Forest Initiative, while the Amazon’s good health was focussed on at the recently concluded Americas Conference.  Logging in the Borneo rainforests and forest fires are issues that are no longer limited to Indonesia, Brunei or Malaysia where it is located, but go far beyond to being issues of global interest. In a more recent initiative, Egypt’s Red Sea resort Sharm-El- Sheikh declared its intent in becoming a carbon clean Tourism Earth Lung. This was an extension of a 2007 Tourism Earth Lung Initiative introduced to the world of tourism, at the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Climate Change and Tourism Conference held in Davos, Switzerland by Sri Lanka.  

Uniquely placed

Sri Lanka, like Costa Rica and a few other nations like her, is in a unique position in working towards and realising the task of being carbon clean, perhaps within a decade. Our island nation has a 50% green cover of its total land area with a near 29% forest cover. It is also home to the world heritage site of the ‘Singharaja’, a virgin rainforest with immense bio-diversity. We have in our midst the likes of Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, the former Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has scientifically established the dire nature of the catastrophe of global warming. Sri Lanka’s Dr.  W.L. Sumathipala of the National Ozone Unit was the winner of the Global Ozone Layer Protection Award for 2008 in recognition of Sri Lanka’s efforts, in following the Montreal Protocol. We have had an environmental movement with its roots extending deep down the saga of our heritage, where the world’s very first wild life sanctuary was declared and established in the 3^rd Century BC during the time of King Devanmpiyatissa.  Sri Lanka though small in size, can indeed qualify to be a little green lung on the face of the earth. Positioning it thus, it can take a leadership position as an Earth Lung and be in the forefront of the movement of working towards being carbon clean and even rally the wide world around towards that cause.

Believing in ourselves

What we need to do is to shun the undesirable feelings of inadequacy some of us have on believing in our nation’s potential. While short-term survival is important and need focus, planning for 2010, without a vision of what we should be in 2020 and 2050 is improbable. Thus, the 2010 plans of a business or a nation must place issues such as eradication of poverty, combating terrorism, mitigating climate change and preparing for an aging population on the front and not the back-burners of the spectrum of decision making. That will not just be bad strategic decision making, but a sure way of performing an act of the Japanese style ‘Hara-kiri’ on the business or the nation. We need today to think beyond the short-term survival agenda. Unlike many other nations that have far less than us on the green palette, but sing its praises loud, most of us begin to question what is wrong, on the fronts of garbage disposal, pollution, illegal logging and the like, without adequately focussing on the positives we have, where we could drive and utilise its might, to negate the negatives.  

Need for Branding

Focussing on our green cover and driving a carbon-clean agenda to protect and enhance it, Sri Lanka has the potential to establish a strong brand identity in the minds of the global citizenry. It can bring us a positioning that will focus on the biological and cultural diversity of our nation and make us stand tall in the crowd. We need to be proud of who and what we are and shun any feeling of doubts we have, in our nation’s potential. We must establish ourselves as leaders in the global green movement and not be mere followers. This Earth Day can be the day that we resolve to make it happen so we can look beyond to being a shinning example championing the cause of preserving the good health of our Mother Earth.  And for now, let each of us begin to practise or continue to practise the simple Reduce - Reuse – Recycle agenda.   

Useful Web addresses:

Earth Day Network – www.earthday.net
Sri Lanka Tourism Earth Lung – www.earthlung.travel
National Ozone Unit of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources -www.noulanka.lk
Munasinghe Institute for (Sustainable) Development - www.mindlanka.org
The Nature Conservancy – www.nature.org
The Wilderness Society – http://earthday.wilderness.org
Earth Day Site for Kids – www.planetpals.com
Mother Nature Network – www.mnn.com
Natural Resources Defense Council – www.nrdc.org
Green Guides – www.thegreenguides.com
US Earth Day Government Website (with conservation tips) – www.earthday.gov

Small is beautiful. Is big better?

(This week the columnist proposes to revisit the growth vs. development debate which first surfaced in the 1960s, and has been placed on the back-burner since. While well-hyped but marginalised attempts are made to address the issue through the UN Millennium Development Goals and Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, the very core of mainstream global economic activity is still  driven by a ‘Big is better’ and ‘Greed is good’ type dominant agenda. The recent G-20 Summit’s action for reviving the troubled global economy had little focus on correcting the fundamental flaws that led to the current crisis. Giving the benefit of the doubt that these fundamentals will be re-examined in the context of the upcoming Copenhagen Round on Climate Change, the column addresses the opportunities that open up for countries in Asia, such as Sri Lanka to strongly contribute to the debate. It is appropriate now more than ever to revisit the Asian philosophies and ideas of the likes of the Buddha and the Mahatma as articulated by E.F. Schumacher on turning our radars on alternative business and lifestyle models. In the wake of the evidence and the limited options mankind has on the global warming front, revisiting the very basic fundamentals may offer the solutions sought by the world at large for its future survival and development).    

Lessons from history

The value we draw from learning history is what we must learn from it.  Sadly though, there is very little learning we do from the annals of history, be it of the world, our own region or country. History tells us how large and vast empires were built by leaders and peoples who sought to conquer others, to meet power and greed driven agenda. We have learnt of how these very empires could not be sustained for too long, faced decay and tumbled. We also learnt of an exception of an empire built by King Asoka of India, which through self-realisation by the emperor himself, was transformed to seeking the way of conquering minds with righteous ideas. Thankfully today, it has left us with a lasting empire of Buddhist thought and practise. The empires built on the thoughts of Christ and of Islam are indeed no exceptions. Many wars were fought with weapons, in the name of religion. But most of it was to do with the organisations or institutions associated with religion and not with the words of wisdom or thought processes. 

Sustainable models
 

What is important about small, self-motivated and sustainable models of governance of people or business is that they are all based on the premise of looking inwards at our own selves and not on using might and muscle. They were all based on sufficient social and economic principles of thriftiness, simplicity and good governance always shunning thoughts of excessive greed.

As we look around at the current state of our world, economies, institutions and organisational models and businesses, we see that they all predominantly portray the exact opposite.  Simple ways have been replaced with tentacle laying empire like networks of financial institutions, outfits for extracting natural resources and rapid movement of  capital funds, all based on the principle of ‘Big is better’ and ‘Fast meets greed’.  At most business schools we are taught of principles of economies of scale and volume discounts. Principles of self-sufficiency, conservation and the greater good often take a back-seat or form the elective list of courses. Info-communication tools that can serve humankind well, to alleviate poverty and better distribute income are used by many for not so useful pursuits of shallow entertainment and/or for the promotion and sustenance of opulent lifestyles of useless consumption.  

Bailouts

We saw what overgrown business conglomerates like American Insurance International (AIG) cost the US public in its recent failure. The US $ 85 billion bailout package is huge by any standard and is indicative of what can go wrong when management gets out of control due to the sheer size of an organisation and the resultant lack of checks and balances. This is also true of the US automotive industry and many of the other oversized financial sector ventures the world over that needed bailouts.  

We have also forgotten the first energy crisis that hit our world in the 1970s when the OPEC embarked on an oil embargo. It was followed by another in 1979, when Iran imposed restrictions in the supply of oil.  On both occasions, after an initial knee-jerk reaction of thinking small, it was ‘back to business as usual’ when the oil prices stabilised. The current crisis associated with climate change and global warming is one where there is no way of going back on to being business as usual.

Two planets

In the words of the International Director of the World Wildlife Fund James Leape, “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing - and increasingly overdrawing - on the ecological capital of other parts of the world …If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles”

Schumacher in his 1973 book ‘Small is Beautiful’ said; "Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it".  In 1973, this was still possible. Today, we have no such luxury of choice. We must raise the winds ourselves.

Useful Web addresses:
The E.F. Schumacher Society - www.smaillisbeautiful.org
On Mahatma Gandhi’s Philosophy of Development - www.mkgandhi.org
Worldwide Fund for Nature (Formerly WWF) - www.worldwildlife.org
Creating a progressive and humanistic lifestyle – www.appropriate-economics.org/introduction.html
A collaborative effort to define the role of the new environmental manager – www.environmentalmanager.org
A Global Student Forum for discussing development issues –  www.mundoproject.org
An Online Community for a Just and Sustainable World – www.wiserearth.org
ODI – Britain’s Leading Independent Think Tank on International and Humanitarian Development Issues – www.odi.org.uk
Empowering People, Enhancing Lives, Innovating for the World’s Poor with Micro-Finance – www.grameenfoundation.org

Back to Basics columns ....

Preamble for the first column of the series

This weekly column published between April 2009 - April 2012 in Sri Lanka's 'Daily News' newspaper  addressed core issues regarding sustainability, critically examining the current concepts, thoughts, strategies and actions adopted by us in the context of both the global and local economy.

This blog will make a collection of selected columns (of the 146 published) with a view to saving trees as publishing them in the real domain would be a venture that would place additional burden on Mother Nature.  

Within some of the earlier columns focus was placed on providing information and useful tips and generating dialogue on mitigating the causes for climate change and global warming.

Readers are kindly invited to engage the columnist to create a healthy dialogue on the issues raised. 

 

I plan to try add an article a day to keep the content of the Blog vibrant.

Creating Sustainable businesses

We are today in the midst of a global economic crisis of unprecedented levels. The prime cause for the current crisis is identified as the scant disregard for the age old value of thriftiness and the driving of corporate businesses on the basis of generating excessive greed. In that context, small was in no way beautiful.

Big was always better. Living beyond ones means became fashionable. Promissory notes, plastic cards and other non existent assets formed the basis of wealth. Smart speculators, financial wizards and middleperson agents ruled the day. Honest hard work, creativity and innovation took a back seat to glitzy reports, elitist networks, pats on each other’s backs and flashy showbiz media events.

Full blow

While Sri Lanka is somewhat insulated from a full blow of the impact of the crisis, it has nevertheless touched us on several key sectors such as apparels, tea, tourism and investment. The domino effect continues to hurt as a result of the globalization and the intense info-communications (ICT) based networking of the world economy. We see badly managed business empires tumbling before our very own eyes.

Within the global business environment, issues such as increasing poverty levels, aging of population, rapid spread of internationalised terrorist activities, degradation of the environment and our natural resource bases and the resultant causes of climate change and global warming are all forcing us, the citizens of mother earth to re-examine the institutions, structures and the value systems that we have been working with, for sometime now.

Business models

Like never before, the sustainability of the socio-economic, cultural and business models we use, come under close scrutiny today.

In that context, it is important for us to define and understand what sustainable development (SD) means, at the national and/or individual business enterprise levels. The Rio Summit on the Global Environment of 1992, the landmark event in the sustainable development agenda, adopted the following definition of SD; “the ability of humanity to ensure that it meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

It also had the post-script that “Sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather, a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional changes are made consistent, with future as well as present needs”.

Resource exploitation

This was then seen by many activists as a definite carving of space, to manoeuvre the exploitation of resources, where the 80:20 equation of who owns and consumes it, goes on regardless.

The dichotomy of the environment and development equation is this very imbalance. Whether it is at the level of the global economy or at the level of local economies, the current predominant model of development is based on the 80:20 equation. At the global level, dealing with natural and other environmental resources happens, with the first world determining, what is good for the world at large.

Elite models

At the local level, the elite play leader with the rest of the populace, determining the shape of the models and the agenda for their development. We often apply inapt models we have ourselves borrowed, from the first world or the predominant culture.

This columnist will venture to take on these core development and business related issues in the context of the various sectors of the economy with the objective of generating well-informed discussion and dialogue.

With each column a few key web addresses relevant to the issue at hand will be presented to enable further exploration of it on the worldwide web of the Internet.

---

Useful web addresses:

World Business Council for Sustainable Development - www.wbcsd.org Business and Sustainable Development -www.iisd.org/business/ Institute for Sustainable Development in Business -www.susdev.co.uk/ Earthscan Publications - www.earthscan.co.uk/ Sufficiency Economy - www.sufficiencyeconomy.org/en/ End Poverty 2015 -www.endpoverty2015.org/

Top Back to Basics Tips

This post, the first in this blog site is a series of references and personal writing on issues to do with individual effort that each of us can take on in mitigating climate change and preserve our natural environment.

1. Educate yourself:

How can you solve the problem if you don't know what the problem is? Luckily, fun, accessible information on green thinking, environmentalism and sustainable living is everywhere these days. Why not start with online sources like our very own guide for How to Go Green. Other websites like Grist, Ideal Bite or Worldchanging also offer great advice and different perspectives. If you prefer the print media, check out magazines likePlenty, Good, or UTNE http://www.utne.com/. And if you're not much of a reader, documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, or BBC's Planet Earth are also a good place to start.

 

2. Transport:

Having got a little reading under your belt, you're probably itching to get started. One of the biggest impacts we have on the planet is a direct result of the way we move ourselves around. Fortunately, for many of us, this is also easy to do something about. You might consider walking, biking or using mass transit, at least a few days a week. Maybe you can convince your boss to let you work from home? Maybe you can carpool with a friend? If nothing else, you should certainly consider fuel consumption as a major factor in your choice of next vehicle. And when it comes to longer trips, flying is notoriously carbon intensive - so let the train take the strain wherever possible. Find a greener route from A to B with How to Green Your Car, and our Cars and Transportation section.

 

3. Energy:

With all the talk of solar panels, fuel cells, building-integrated wind turbines, and flux capacitors, it can be easy to think you need a million bucks to go green at home. Not so. Many of the most effective ways to cut carbon emissions are also the cheapest. Turn lights off when you go out, install energy efficient bulbs and appliances, insulate your home, and keep an eye on consumption. Once you've done all that, why not investigate if you can buy green energy from your local utility? Check out our guides on How to Green Your Heating and How to Green Your Electricity for a more detailed plunge.

 

4. Water:

This is where the folks lots of water around them start switching off, but stay with us, please! Even if you live in areas of abundant rainfall, water is still a major ecological issue. Clean, drinkable water is precious and needs to be used most efficiently. Every drop of tap water we use also requires energy to filter, purify and transport, and that means fossil fuel emissions. And for those of you in dryer areas, you know only too well that water is becoming an ever-scarcer resource. Fortunately it's pretty easy to do something about--install water-saving shower heads and aerators, turn the tap off when you're brushing your teeth, switch to more efficient appliances, or collect rainwater for use in the garden. All this and more can be found in our guide, How to Green Your Water. For those wanting to go a little more hardcore, the Navy Shower, or the"selective flush" are worth a try--if the comments on these posts are anything to go by, you'll be in good company!

 

5. Food:

We've all got to eat, and most of us do it every day. It stands to reason that our collective food choices have a huge impact on the planet, and with the global food industry shipping products further and further around the world, and with farming becoming ever more intensive, this impact is only getting bigger. Fortunately, there is a resistance underway. More and more people are getting interested in sustainable food systems. To bring it back to basics, there are four principles that can help guide you to greener meals: eat local, eat seasonal, eat organic, and finally, eat less meat. For a comprehensive guide to a more sustainable diet, check out How to Green Your Meals and the Food and Health category.

 

6. Waste:

Not so many years ago, waste was THE environmental issue. If you recycled, you were green. If you didn't, you weren't. With so many topics on the environmental agenda these days, things aren't so simple. But waste is still a big deal. Every item thrown away has taken energy and resources to manufacture and transport, and it will take even more energy and resources to process and dispose of, whether through landfill or recycling. So the old adage still rings true: reduce, reuse, recycle. And don't forget to compost! Of course we have a guide on How to Green Your Recycling, and you can find it here. Online resources like Freecycle or Ebay can also help you find a happy home your unwanted goods.

 
7. Threads:

Most folks understand that food, energy, water, and transport are major environmental factors, but what about clothing? Even consumers who always eat organic may happily be wearing garments that were liberally sprayed with noxious chemicals. Cotton is, in fact, one of the most heavily sprayed crops on the planet, so it stands to reason that our choice of clothing can have a major ecological impact. Fortunately, solutions are out there. Organic cotton and other alternative fabrics like hemp, flax or bamboo are becoming increasingly common, as are high-end fashion items from recycled materials. And then, of course, there are the trusty vintage and thrift stores so beloved by students everywhere--style never goes out of fashion. More digging through the racks can be found in our Fashion and Beauty and How to Green Your Wardrobe.

 

8. Personal care:

Ever since The Body Shop first hit the high street in the Eighties, there's been an increased awareness about the impacts of personal care products on both the environment and on our health. Fortunately, there has also been a huge increase in the number of companies providing more sustainable alternatives. Check out our guide to women's personal care and the Fashion and Beauty section, and stay tuned for a guide for the men folk. But remember, less is almost always more when it comes to green living--that hemp-based, yak's milk lip blusher may be the greenest product of its kind on the market, but going 'au natural' takes you one step further! Think twice or even three times of the adverts you see on television and in the published media promoting chemical based, unnatural products.

 

9. Furniture & décor:

Many of us spend staggering amounts of money on furniture during our lifetime. Now most TreeHugger's will be aware that buying tropical hardwoods from Malaysian/Indonesian, Indochinese or Amazonian clear-cuts is a poor way to look after our natural heritage, but what are the alternatives? Fortunately, the industry is responding to concerns about its sourcing practices, and stylish furniture from certified, sustainably harvested and/or recycled and salvaged materials is becoming increasingly common. More details can be found in our furniture guide and in the Design and Architecture category.

 

10. Keep it clean:

Now you've spent all this time putting your house in order with organic clothing and chemical-free furniture, why douse it in chemicals to keep it clean? Many everyday cleaning products are made up of pretty nasty constituents, yet there are natural alternatives that work just as well. Take a look at our How to Green Your Cleaning.
 

Adopted from and references are to : Treehugger.com

Shown in italics are the changes made from the original