Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
The beauty industry has formed a new industry association to back standards for eco-friendly products.
What does this mean for you, the consumer? It means the industry took a survey last summer and 83 percent of the respondents thought there needed to be some kind of standard for products labeled “natural.” So now 30 major brands and a host of smaller ones are willing to agree on a standard for what can be labeled natural or organic.
Among the initial members of the coalition are companies as different as Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Perfect Organics, and Oh, Oh Organics. All these companies are interested in owning eco-friendly brands now that the consumer is pushing for them.
The Organic and Sustainability Industry Standards (OASIS) seal:
The beauty industry must do this, because Americans use an average of 10 personal care products a day. Most of them end up in the waste stream as we take our baths and showers. In the future, as water becomes more scarce, more an more government entities are going to turn to recycling wastewater.
Thus, toxic chemicals could turn up in our drinking water if they aren’t eliminated from our body products. Not to mention the damage they do to our bodies before we wash them off.
The European standard for product labeling, ECOCERT, stipulates that an organic product contain at least 10 percent certified organic contents. The OASIS standard will demand that products with its seal contain 85 percent certifiable organic content, and this will increase as green chemistry evolves.
Tell us. What is your business doing to be GREEN?
We may feature your business's input right here!
