I recently read that the average adult uses nine personal care products each day which combined contain about 120 chemicals. If you’d like to reduce the number of chemicals in your life choosing more natural versions of these everyday products is your best route.  

A case in point is shaving. It’s something that most men do on a daily basis and hardly give a second thought but it is worth thinking about if you’re using conventional shaving products.  

Conventional shaving creams usually contain synthetic chemicals that could be carcinogenic, hormone disrupting and at the very least irritating. The synthetic fragrance alone could cause reproductive problems, as do the preservatives (called parabens).  Some studies have also linked these chemicals to liver and kidney tumours. Using warm water to prep your skin for shaving opens your pores, making it easier for these toxins to penetrate your skin and build up in your body over time.

My top pick for a non-toxic eco-friendly shave is shaving soap, along with a shaving brush. Forget the perception that using old fashioned shaving soap takes more time. It takes all of ten seconds to create a thick creamy lather in the soap dish and it’s quick and easy to apply. The rest is the same: Shave. Rinse. Go about your day.

Olivier shaving soap is a great choice. It’s truly natural (made with olive oil, cocoa butter, beeswax and fragrant oil), costs $9.95 and lasts practically forever. Their soaps are hand-made in small batches at their soapery in Ste. Anne de Kent, New Brunswick. 

The chemicals in conventional shaving products aren’t the only un-green aspect of the daily ritual. Half a billion razors and all that packaging get tossed out by Canadians each year. Here are a few things you can do to ensure you’re not adding to the pile:

Choose reusable razors instead of disposable razors and buy good quality blades so they last longer. To extend the life of your blade consider buying an EverBlade, a razor blade stand designed to repel rust and corrosion from the blade. Electric razors are a good alternative too (buy the corded kind) and there is always a straight razor but you’ll need nerves of steel until you get the hang of it.

With Father’s Day just around the corner consider giving one of these eco options as a gift this year. 

Yes, I am one of the two million people who have already purchased an IPad, and I love it! As an early adopter, I sometimes don't know what the benefits of my early techie purchase will be until it gets used for some time. Well, let me tell you, this new IPad has the capability of not only replacing my laptop, but my entire briefcase!

First of all, I have discovered an app that allows for note taking right on the device, it is called Penultimate. Notepad is gone!

I discovered an app that allows me to download files from my desktop called Dropbox (yes, I know, real techies will not be impressed with that find).

MS Word and Excel work fine on the device, Keynote/Powerpoint is still a bit of a challenge.

Only one cord is needed and no big power supply for the laptop, and the battery really does last 10 hours. So the is no need to schlep around a power cord on daylong or overnight meetings.

Bottom line - I have been on the road for a few days now and have not needed to haul out the laptop (I am carrying both to be safe on this trip, but not the next trip).

No laptop, no big cords, ability to download files anywhere anytime via 3G = an early retirement for my briefcase and all of the stuff in it. Imagine if a few people per flight were able to replace the laptop and briefcase combo with just an IPad? A few pounds less flying, perhaps 30 to 40 pounds per flight times hundred of flights per day...do the math.

Perhaps an airline should reward people for coming onboard with only an IPad and no briefcase? Ha...we can dream. 

What’s good for the environment can be great for your wallet, and a clothesline is a perfect example.

Clothes dryers are among the biggest power hogs in your home, consuming about 4500 watts of power – equal to six microwave ovens or 350 compact fluorescent light bulbs.    If your power rate is 10 cents/KWH, a big load in the dryer adds 45 cents to your power bill.  One such load a day uses about $150 worth of power annually.

Then there are emissions.  If your power comes from coal or oil (as most of North America’s does), one big load in the dryer equals 4 kilograms of emissions.  One such load a day for a year adds over a tonne of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

Clotheslines make environmental and economic sense.  Springtime is a great time to get reacquainted with yours, or to install one if you don’t have one.  Here’s a great seven minute video that explains everything about planning and installing your clothesline (except they use a rope where most clotheslines are plastic coated wire). 

In the News:

Nova Scotia has launched a bold plan to produce 40% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 – just a decade from now!!  Strategies include net metering and a community-based feed in tariff.

A change in thinking?  A new poll suggests 72% of Canadians would pay extra for an Earth-friendly house or condo if they could lower energy bills, reap health benefits or reduce their environmental impact.  And a new report suggests Canadian CEOs are more keen on going green than their foreign counterparts.

What’s thinner than our atmosphere but just as critical for life?

Henry Ford once said "If I listen to my customers, they will all have faster horses". Like Henry Ford almost a century ago, products like the Walkman, IPod and minivan would not exist if companies large and small did not take risks and establish new products and services that 'the customer' did not ask for. Although not a new class of vehicle or new way of purchasing or listening to music, the staple free stapler is one of those products that is ripe for the taking.

Check it out at Green Cricket - the staple free stapler! I purchased mine the other day and spent the first few minutes 'stapling' holes in pieces of paper - what a cool device. This device costs less than $10 and does not need staples, which means not having to worry about putting staples in the recycling bin or trying to find staples when it runs out.

Cool features aside, this product is a perfect example of creativity and (pardon the overused cliché), thinking 'outside of the box' (yes, I am sick of that term too, but what the heck, seems appropriate here).

It is this kind of thinking that will take us towards products and services that we will all embrace because they do good for the planet, and guess what, we don't even know they exist yet!

Now if only we can cut down on the amount of paper we use so we don't need the staple free stapler?

I buy a new computer every two years. Because I work on it every day it is somewhat of a necessity. That said, that means there is a trail of slightly used computers in my wake.

They still work well if the user doesn't need the latest and greatest software. However, I don't see the value in having three, four or five computers in our home at any given point in time. So, what to do?

We now limit the number of computers in our home to two - my laptop and the most recent hand-me-down for our family's use. And the rest of the computers?

Yard sales work well, so does http://www.kijiji.com/. I recently sold my four year old Dell for $150 on Kijiji to an enterprising gentleman. He cleans up the computers (hard-drive, operating system, etc) and flips them to recent immigrants for a modest margin of $30 or $50. Works well for me, works well for him and works well for the new computer owner!

However, I have simply delayed the eventual e-waste that the computer will become - someday it will end up somewhere after life, hopefully somewhere of value and safety. Check out the documentary Manufactured Landscapes sometime - wow!

So, what to do?

Perhaps computer companies should take a closer look at at Xerox and printer cartridges? Xerox save millions by leasing photocopiers then taking them back at end of life, recycling many components - smart. By leasing them, they know exactly what photocopiers are where. Many retail outlets now facilitate easy recycling of printer cartridges (the ones that cost more than the printer!) - smart.

Perhaps rather than delaying the e-waste graveyard, computer manufacturers should 'take-back' three or four year old computers, recycle appropriately and hook customers for life.

Thoughts?

Do you run a small business and want to discover new and innovative ways to go greener? If so, please check out the Eureka Exchange, an event being held on Saturday, March 20 at the beautiful Meaford Opera House in Meaford, Ontario (just east of Owen Sound).

The Exchange is patterned after TED talks - a number of short presentations and Q&A. You can also participate online via Xool TV's live HD broadcast. 

Bob McDonald, host of CBCs Quirks and Quarks, will be the MC for the day. The Eureka Exhange features a number of forward thinking speakers as well as an Eco Fair.

How ill you be there?

Please check it out today.

We live in the Great White North (yes, Canada). It gets cold in Canada in the winter. That said, the last few winters have been depressingly mild - for those of us who like to build backyard ice rinks. And who said climate change is happening?!

Anyway, I digress.

Our home was built in 1983 and was heated until last Fall by a combination electric/wood forced air furnace. We replaced the old furnace last Fall with a heat pump (check out a short video on the heat pump here - video taken with a Flip Camera - very cool!).

A few months later we are pleased to report that it was a good call.

We have equal billing with our electric utility, meaning that we pay the same amount every month and it gets adjusted once a year for the new year. This year's adjustment happened this month. What a pleasant surprise (well, not too much of a surprise)! Our equal billing has dropped enough for our next two and a half months of electricity to be free.

Big picture, I figure we will end up saving just over $1,000 per year, granted the payback is around 12 years, but, hey, it also increases the value of our home.

WWF has a great blog Miracle in your pocket by Zoë Caron (co-author of Global Warming for Dummies with Elizabeth May): It seems that iPhone has come out with another application that makes me drool, this one from Skeptical Science (getting skeptical about global warming skepticism).  It allows you to look at the main arguments from the denier camp and shares the real science in an easy, accessible way. They're asking people to download it and give them feedback, so the next version will be even better!

Maybe now my husband will give in and let me buy an iPhone! Maybe if I beg? Say it's for ClimateSphere (of course I might enjoy it a little)? Please, if I can help to save the world?

Every day, landfills across the country receive truckloads of things that are perfectly good but just not needed anymore.  It’s an inglorious end for stuff that still has useful service to offer.

But there’s a better way.  If you’re looking to get rid of perfectly good stuff that’s cluttering up your basement, garage or office, consider freecycling it.  Freecycling is making it available (via the internet) it at no cost to someone in your community who could use it. 

Check out www.freecycle.org; there’s a good chance you’ll find a local on-line group you can join.  If there’s no Freecycle group in your community, you can ‘be the change’ and start one!

You won’t get rich freecycling, but you can unclutter your life and you’ll do a good thing by keeping stuff out of the landfill before its time.  And maybe, you’ll discover that someone’s giving away something YOU want…

(If you prefer, there are plenty of charities across Canada that can use your used goods: http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/charityvillage/donate.asp.)

In the news:

"It's happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections," said University of Manitoba Professor David Barber last week, releasing the results of an extensive new study of Arctic ice disappearance.

Arg!!  Guess where global warming ranked in a Pew Research Center survey asking people to prioritize 21 social and economic issues... 

Mais oui - bilingual signs for your paper towel and soap dispensers are now available for download here.  (Thanks to subscriber Mariet van Groenewoud for the suggestion!)

For many people, climate change is about a few degrees of warming.  But wait – there’s more, much more!