Home Depot is now recycling your compact fluorescent bulbs for you

CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs are a great way to help save energy. But if you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you know that there’s been some worry about getting rid of them since they have small amounts of mercury (which our greenkeepers say is a neurotoxic heavy metal and not good to have in the environment). Well worry no longer. Home Depot announced this week that they want your bulbs so they can trash them responsibly (dubbed their National CFL Bulb Recycling Initiative). That means you can turn them in to any Home Depot spot and they’ll take them off your hands for free. How easy is that?

Check out Home Depot’s site for more info.

Win a new omop kit from PETA!

PETA is a big fan of method for our cruelty-free practices, and they're sponsoring a contest to win one of 5 new brand new omop starter kits.  Each kit includes the omop, a reusable microfiber mopping pad, three compostable sweeper dusters, and a bottle of our non-toxic floor cleaner, as well as one of our stylish "Plastic Bag Rehab" totes.  Head on over to Caringconsumer.com to register to win!

What goes around comes around

method is now using bottles made of 100% recycled plastic!

You’ve heard the term “cradle to grave,” right? In marketing-speak, it refers to the importance of getting consumers hooked on your brand while they’re young so they’ll remain loyal to you over the course of their lifetime. And hey, that’s something we aspire to, although not in a creepy way.

Environmentally speaking, however, “cradle to grave” refers to the life cycle of a product, from manufacture (“cradle”) to disposal (“grave”). Putting our bottles and other packaging back into circulation has always been important to us, which is why we encourage all you people against dirty to recycle every scrap of it.

an end to the junk

I don't know a single person who enjoys the afternoon trip to the mailbox, only to find it's full of grocery store coupons and "Don't miss this chance to consolidate your student loans." Junk mail is wasteful and, usually, pretty annoying. So, as I was checking my inbox this morning, I was especially happy to read my daily Ideal Bite:

GreenDime is a company who will go through the effort to call and email and write and call again, on your behalf, to keep your address off the junk mail lists. For a dime a day, GreenDime will stop the junk mail flowing into your mailbox, AND plant a tree! According to their estimates, 100 million trees are chopped down every year for junk mail sent in America.

I know I'm not alone in thanking this company for helping us make our lives full of a little LESS waste. Do you know of other companies with similar mantras? Let's hear 'em!

celebrity gossip goes green

It is pretty easy to see that some of the most popular blogs out there are celebrity gossip blogs.  There is Prez Hilton, Socialite Life, Defamer, and our office favorite Pop Sugar just to name a few. Everyday thousands of people partake in the guilty pleasure of being voyeurs into the lives of celebrities. 

But there is a new site out there that takes the time to call out celebrities that are using their status to promote environmental and social issues. "Ecorazzi exists to highlight the people making this effort for the environment."  So if you are into celebrity gossip and would like to see who is doing what to help our planet, check it out.  They even give links to celebrities who have started eco-websites.

filling the gap

My sensors have been in hibernation for a bit, but when a close friend suggested I take a look at what Gap is doing in Lesotho, I perked up. I spent two years in Lesotho – it’s a tiny, beautiful, mountainous country landlocked inside South Africa. I’m still in love with the place and miss it more as each day passes. I heard that they recently found a 600 carat diamond in one of Lesotho’s mines, but the only exciting thing about that was a co-worker mentioning that he heard about Lesotho in the news! This Gap thing, though…I’m in!

a date with the garbage man

Whoever thought walking through a building full of trash wasn't fun, is dead wrong!! method employees, this week, were treated to a tour of the San Francisco Recycling Center. We were privy to an insider's look at what really happens to those blue garbage cans...

I should note that this recycling center in San Fran is one of a kind! It manages to recycle 90% of the material that comes through its doors! That's thanks to conscious consumers who throw their recyclables into proper receptacles, a city that cared enough to invest in an easy-to-use 3 bin system for garbage, ALL recyclables, and compost and a recycling center with the technology and manpower to devote to the daunting task of sifting through 20,000 tons of material/hour!!!!

Good-ness that's gracious of you!

I seem to be on a kick right now for charitable giving. So, I was pretty excited to find this new magazine out, called Good Magazine. Similar to the idea behind the search engine GoodSearch, which we wrote about recently, this magazine will donate your one-year subscription fee of $20 to an organization of your choosing. You'll get six issues of a hip magazine dedicated to (in their own words) "stimulating the culture of good by creating dialogue around things that matter". Good hopes to sign-up 50,000 subscribers, and donate 1 million dollars!! Ambitious and right up my alley!

an AIDS story to smile about

Scrolling through my RSS reader the other day, I came across a bit of AIDS-related news that put a smile on my face. Sounds strange, I know.

It turns out 5 nations (France, Britain, Norway, Brazil and Chile) plan to raise $300 million to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis next year, through the implementation of an airfare tax. In all, the money will pay for the treatment of 100,000 children with AIDS, 100,000 people who have developed drug-resistance to former AIDS treatments, 150,000 children with tuberculosis and 28 million with malaria. Hopefully drug companies will be coaxed into providing these treatments at reduced prices. Bill Clinton's foundation has been asked to work on these negotiations.

While certainly not the end-all, I think this is a great way to provide sustainable funding for diseases that disporpotionately affect children in the developing world. Chalk one up for the fight against dirty!

:Read

searching for something meaningful?

How many times a day do you do an online search? If you're like me, it's a ton! Here's a trickier question...how many times a day do you donate money to a worthy cause? I bet it's not as many times as you use a search engine. But it can be.

A new search engine called GoodSearch powered by Yahoo will donate money to a charity, school, or organization of YOUR choosing every time you use it. Their unique mission is to give back a minimum of 50% of the revenues generated. They estimate that each search generates about $0.01. While that may not seem like much, if a charity has enough supporters using GoodSearch, it can look something like this:

Charity or School Size	Number of Supporters	Average Searches Per Day	Estimated Revenue/Year
Small	100	2	$730
Medium	1,000	2	$7,300
Large	10,000	2	$73,000

And, considering search engines generated something to the tune of $6 billion in advertising last year, the potential for giving is enormous.

You can choose from thousands of organizations to donate to or you can add your own charity (non-profits only). You can give to your child's school or the Elephant Sanctuary. Give to a different organization every time you search. It's up to you. The best part - it's completely free to use.