an eco-friendly Thanksgiving

It's not too late to plan an eco-conscious meal for your Thanksgiving holiday.

The always fabulous Domino Magazine is featuring a full menu of healthy, earth friendly recipes for your celebration. We're making the Spicy Citrus-Herb Harvest Turkey for our meal. Doesn't it sound delicious?!

An Eco-Friendly Feast

Technorati Tags: holidays, thanksgiving, domino, ecology, environment, health

Content by Diana E. Lee.

Buy Nothing Day: holiday consumerism

The consumer-oriented focus of the winter holiday season leads to stress, guilt, debt and over consumption. Most of us already have way more "stuff" than we need or want. Why give in to the pressure to make the problem worse? If your values are leading you away from this way of living, there is no better time than right now to end the madness.

More and more people every year are celebrating Buy Nothing Day on the day after Thanksgiving, the most popular shopping day of the year. Some people get a rush out of getting up early in the morning, ads in hand, to get the best deals. I don't, and I consider not needing to shop for gifts a huge relief. You can read more about Buy Nothing Day at this website: Buy Nothing Day.

The very best thing would be to completely opt out of buying things to celebrate the holidays. Instead you could donate to a charity, offer your time and skills, put your crafting urges to use and make a gift or offer something special from your kitchen. But if that won't fly in your circle, consider these options for gifts that express your anti-consumer values. They'll leave you with a clearer conscience and encourage the recipients to adopt greener habits by taking better care of themselves and the planet.

• Reusable shopping & produce bags
• Travel mug for daily coffee junkies
  
• Fair trade coffee
• Fair trade chocolate
• A bamboo plant
• Organic skin care
• A massage
• Yoga classes
• Natural rubber yoga mat
  
• Organic cotton or bamboo clothing
• Beeswax or soy candles
• Organic cotton sheets
• Portable solar charger for cell phone & mp3 player
  

If you're interested in learning about other ways to celebrate the holidays with less consumer focus this year, visit the Simplify the Holidays section of New American Dream's website: Simplify the Holidays.

Content by Diana E. Lee.

safe medication disposal

Earlier this year the U.S. government released new guidelines on how to safely dispose of unneeded prescription medication. Unfortunately, they failed to consider environmental safety in developing their recommendations and their advice directly contradicts that of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Office of National Drug Control Policy's recommendations are intended to keep children and pets from accidentally ingesting unused medication. They suggest you crush pills and either mix them in with used kitty litter in the garbage or, for certain items, flush them down the toilet. Both are bad ideas.

Instead, you should contact the agency responsible for collection of hazardous waste in your city or county and ask them where to take your unused medications. Earth 911's website is a great resource for determining where to dispose of all kinds of waste products in your area: Earth 911.org. You can also visit your city or county's website and look for information about disposal of hazardous household waste.

Alternatively, you can often return unused medication to the pharmacy for safe disposal. Just make sure you ask enough questions to know whether the pharmacy will take care of the medication in a responsible fashion. You might as well throw the pills in the trash yourself if that is what they will do. You want to know they will do something to keep the pills out of the landfills and waterways.

Earth 911 recently featured a three-part series on its blog discussing safe, responsible disposal of medication. It's highly informative and well worth reading, especially if you're wondering why this issue is important. These articles provide more details. But in a nutshell, research has shown there is such an abundance of female hormones in our waterways that fish are being affected. The EPA has said that male fish in the U.S., Japan, the UK and Europe are becoming feminized. Creepy, right? Scientists speculate this is causing similar negative effects on human beings.

• To Flush or Not to Flush
• Don't Recycle Your Identity
• A Pharmaceutical Gender Bender?

Sources:
- Federal Government Issues New Guidelines for Proper Disposal of Prescription Drugs
- Why are Pharmaceuticals Hazardous?
- Tips for Tossing Leftover Meds
- EPA: Assessment of Potential Ecological Effects
- Prescription Drug Disposal

Technorati Tags: policy, ecology, environment, medication, health

Content by Diana E. Lee.