Night Fire Eco Book Review

We read a lot of green books here at Life Goggles, so sometimes it’s nice to read on with a different slant. Night Fire by Ronnie Greene is subtitled Oil, Posion Air, And Margie Richard’s Fight To Save Her Town.

It’s the story of how a woman who lived close (25 feet away!) to a chemical plant became determined to hold Shell accountable for the environmental poison that she, and her neighbours were exposed to. Margie Richard educated herself and her neighbours in environmental hazards and also legal matters in an effort to get to the truth. A truth that cost her sister, Naomi, her life as she succumbed to a rare lung disease linked to environmental poison.

Written by a prize-winning investigative journalist called Ronnie Greene, the author does a great job of bringing together interviews, documents and news reports into an interesting story. The largely poor African-American neighborhood of Diamond in Norco, Louisiana is brought to life in manner that makes it all the more familiar and real. From the early 1970’s to almost 35 years later, it’s an interesting journey and a shining example of what people, and the human spirit can achieve. It’s also frightening to see what circumstances some people are, perhaps unwittingly, living in.

Available now from Amazon, published by Harper Collins.

South Freo Eco Village – The Painted Fish

When booking my latest trip in Australia I wanted to find and stay at as much eco-friendly accommodation as possible. And the first tip I can share is that using the search term ‘eco accommodation’ + “destination” seems the best way to find the most relevant search returns using a search engine. (I had originally tried to be more specific putting in “B&B’s” as well however, this led to much less relevant search returns).

So I typed in ‘eco accommodation Fremantle’ and up popped The Painted Fish. So I called Shani and Tim and booked to stay 3 nights in the South Beach Eco Village. The accommodation is uniquely “Freo” and the website thepaintedfish.com.au is chock full of information about how Shani and Tim have turned their dream of combining a living gallery and sustainable accommodation. They are currently busy renovating another house in the ‘village’ and were more than happy to spend time chatting with me about their various projects and the choices they have to make in terms of choosing materials and suppliers. They like to use local suppliers wherever possible.

I stayed in The Railway Carriage (yes it really is a converted railway carriage!) which was beautiful, secluded and self-contained. The shower and ‘dunny’ are both outside and if you have never showered al fresco before then try it! The shower itself is one of Tim’s scultpures and is made from copper pipe and shaped into a showering sunflower.

This is high quality budget accommodation and ideal for two people to have a uniquely eco, South Freo experience. Locally run supermarkets selling organic produce are only 10 minutes walk away. In fact everything you could want is within walking distance. The beach is literally a 3 minute walk away! And you can easily get from Perth to South Freo by public transport so no need to take a car. It is simple to catch the train from central Perth using the Transperth Journey Planner and then you can either walk 25 minutes or take the free CAT bus to South Freo.

Skoy Cloth Earth Friendly Product Review

Skoy Cloth is a reusable cleaning cloth made from a blend of cotton and wood-pulp cellulose. 100% biodegradable, the cloth is non-toxic, chlorine free and uses water based colors.

Apparently one cloth can last as long as 15 rolls of paper towels, which in my house means a long time. To clean it you can put it in the dishwasher or the washing machine and it will be fine and dandy. You can even microwave it if you want to kill bacteria (as long as it’s wet first it’ll be OK).

Created by two stay-at-home moms living in Encinitas, California, I met Karen and was bowled over by her enthusiasm for the product. Discovered by her business partner Michelle whilst living in Europe, they’ve worked hard to bring a similar product to the US.

The cloth worked well, it was more sturdy than most paper towels and it’s re-usability makes it very cost effective. It’s very water absorbent, which is obviously a good thing in a cleaning cloth, and was also handy instead of a cleaning sponge.

They cost $4.99 (plus shipping) for a four pack and come in different colors. You can buy them online from Skoy and other online and bricks and mortar retailers.

5 Green Social Bookmarking Sites

We all know of Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Technorati and StumbleUpon which are great social media (or bookmarking) websites, and in fact are the best for green/environment submissions too. But what about sites specifically for green content? With the demise of EcoBlogs.net I thought I would take a look at other options. As they all work pretty much the same way I’m not going to explain how to use them, plus they’re in no particular order.

Hugg is the biggie, owned by Treehugger. It’s not without it’s problems though, downtime and randomly logging out logged in users being it’s main problems. I’m not sure it gets much attention, the copyright is out of date and it gives off an air of being unloved to me.

Sustain (from Newsladder) is a very new site, so at the moment most articles submitted get between 1 and 3 hits/adds/pluses/whatever, but it’s an easy way to get on the front page. The site does have a Google Page Rank (PR) of 4 and doesn’t seem to use “nofollow” if you care about such things.

Care2 is not just a social bookmarking site, but it does position itself as news, video and more for the conscious world. The home page is PR 7 but just links to more info about your site/submission. It’s pretty popular for a green social bookmark site, and seems to have a good community around it.

MindBodyGreen claims it’s the source for the newest and most popular news on better, healthier, greener living. It does have a nice color-coded system to tell you what each submission is about, a blue icon being about Mind, orange about Body and green, er, about Green stuff. You can vote a submission down as well as up. Home page is a PR 4 and links seem to follow directly.

Plant Change is an usually named Australian site that likes to get articles that stimulate environmental debate. Seems to work pretty much like all the others though you can’t vote negatively, just positively. The homepage has a PR of 4 and the links redirect to the relevant website.

What green social bookmarking sites do you use? Or do you prefer to use the big boys, like Digg?

Your Fuel Efficiency Checklist

I like getting press releases and corporate information sent to me, it helps me keep up to date. We get a LOT of it sent to us, and whilst they all are promotional, some are actually useful as well. Like this piece of information – Jiffy Lube have a list of driving tips that will help keep your vehicle’s gas/fuel bill down. Making small modifications to your driving habits can reduce the amount of fuel your vehicle burns and that’s not only good for the planet, but for your wallet too.

• Keep it steady: Use cruise control and overdrive to maintain a consistent speed, and observe the speed limit to keep your vehicle moving at a steady pace, according to The Department of Energy (DOE).

• No more stop and go: Avoid aggressive driving including speeding and rapid acceleration and braking for better fuel efficiency.
• Junk in the trunk: Remove non-critical items from your trunk or truck bed to lighten your load, reducing the amount of fuel you burn. The DOE reports an extra 100 lbs in the trunk reduces a typical car’s fuel economy by 1-2 percent.
• Breathe easy: As the vehicle’s lung, a clogged air filter will reduce the amount of air getting to the engine, thus reducing the engine’s ability to work properly. According to the DOE, replacing your vehicle’s motor oil with the recommended grade and viscosity can improve gas mileage by one to two percent
• Stay pumped: Under-inflated tires result in more rubber hitting the road. The DOE reports keeping a vehicle’s tires inflated to the proper pressure can improve gas mileage by around 3.3 percent.
• Make the grade: Check your vehicle owner’s manual to ensure you’re using the recommended grade of motor oil. According to the DOE, replacing your vehicle’s motor oil with the recommended grade and viscosity can improve gas mileage by one to two percent.
• Get checked: Visit Jiffy Lube for fee Fuel Efficiency Review. Go to http://Locations.JiffyLube.com to find a service center in your area.

Envirosax Reusable Bag Product Review

Whilst we have a reusable bag summary chart on the way, it’s time for look at another reusable bag on review.

Envirosax were founded in Australia in 2004 (now available in the US) and make eco-friendly bags. Made from a lightweight polyester they have reinforced seams in order to carry the weight of two plastic shopping bags,

The most striking feature (besides that it rolls up really small) is the sheer number of cool designs they come in. The picture is of the one I’ve got, Mikado #5, however they have many designs in the Graphic Series (Mikado, Retro Graphic, Monochromatic, Flora, Amazonia, and Retro Kitchen). They also have a big Kids range (as in a big range, not a range for big kids…). My favorite being the Dogasaurus.

If you prefer your bags plain, they have the Greengrocer series of bags that are all one color. Finally the Organic series have bags made of Bamboo/linen, just linen or hemp.

At the moment they’re including a free 3-4 minute shower timer with every order. Cool bags, and their brochures are made on recycled paper with soy-based ink – I always like that too. Check them out.

CamelBak Water Bottle Eco Product Review

CamelBak are the originator and apparently the world leader in hands-free hydration, allowing mountain bikers to drink without taking their hands off the handlebars. Always useful I imagine!

They have just released their new 750ml bottles that are made of a material called Tritan (a copolyester polymer), that is 100% BPA and phthalate free, so there is no-leach or residual taste. BPA is Bisphenol-A, an ingredient used in making polycarbonate and is potentially toxic to human health. For more information, Wikipedia can help you. Anyway, we’re very glad this reusable bottle is BPA free.

They’re available in 0.5 litre, 0.75l and 1.0l versions and I tried a lovely tangerine color one. They’re also available in the green shown here, grey, pink and blue, however more important is how they taste.

Which is fine, I couldn’t taste any plastic. When I first got the bottom it smelt of plastic but that’s because it was wrapped in bubble wrap and has a protective plastic wrapper. However once washed there was no after taste, and all was good. As with these type of bottles there are various optional extras, like sleeves, and different caps.

The bottle is available from a number of retailers just go to CamelBak and search for one near you.

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