Environmentally Friendly Weed Killer

If you are a frustrated with the never ending battle of getting rid of weeds and unwanted grass that grows in the cracks of your side walk and driveway, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Save your back and knees, you no longer need to pull weeds or use toxic weed killers. 

All you need to do is combine vinegar and salt together and poor it into an empty spray bottle. You may want to heat up the vinegar in your microwave so the salt will dissolve or it will clog your spray nozzle. You will need two days without rain for the best results when spraying.

Green Alternative to Traditional Wood Coffins

Green burials cost less and are earth friendly. Instead of conventional wood and steel coffins, people can bury their loved ones in a more biodegradable cardboard, cartonboard or wicker casket. The definition of a green burial varies, but it generally means either cremation or full-body burial with no embalming fluids and a biodegradable coffin. In addition to the ecological and emotional benefits, green burials can often be friendlier to the pocketbook. Burials that include embalming, steel casket and concrete vaults can cost $10,000 or more, while green burials can be done for less than $2,000.

According to National Geographic, American funerals are responsible for the felling of 30 million board feet of casket wood (some of which comes from tropical hardwoods), 90,000 tons of steel, 1.6 million tons of concrete for burial vaults, and 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid. Even cremation is an enviromental horror story with the incineration process emitting many a noxious substance, including dioxin, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide and climate changing carbon dioxide.

The Indianapolis Star reported in its Sunday editions  that at least two green cemeteries are being planned in Indiana — one near Bloomington and another in Lafayette. Flanner and Buchanan Funeral Centers in Indianapolis are training staff on green services and are considering ways to create green burial sections at some of its existing cemetaries.

The Green Burial Council, a nonprofit group that sets standards for natural burials, says traditional services can be wasteful - using caskets made of steel, copper or old-growth hardwoods.

 

 

Waterless Car Wash

Do you want to kick the bucket and clean your car without messy hoses and buckets? Well, there are waterless plant-based cleaners you can use without using a drop of water. Think about all of the pollutants we can prevent from entering our streams. I can’t find the plant-based cleaners here in Louisville, but you can purchase Lucky Earth Waterless Car Wash and Eco Touch Waterless Car Wash & Polish online.

Eco-Friendly Water Bottles

Water may be essential to survival, but that doesn’t mean the plastic container should survive longer than us. We waste so much energy producing and shipping plastic bottles and now they are saying the water in these convenient bottles contain pollutants. EWG (Environmental Working Group) released a report that reveals the dirty truth about bottled water. 

If you are interested in purchasing one of these nifty bottles, be sure to check out these sites: Klean Kanteen, Nalgene, Sigg and Platypups.




Eco-friendly Boxed Wines

Boxed wines are packaged in a thin layer of aluminum called Tetra Pak. The Tetra Pak boxes are made using less energy, fuel and labor. Boxes hold more wine than a single bottle, weigh less and won’t break if you drop it.