Remember when we talked about the Cape Wind project off the cost of Cape Cod? The idea has spread south a little, so don’t be surprised if a portion of New York City’s energy is supplied by wind before too long.

Within three years, there should be five wind towers standing in the west side of New York Harbor. The nearby city of Bayonne, New Jersey, also plans to install a turbine to power its sewage-pumping station, and a few more may spring up near several hospitals in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Read more…

Oh, the joys of summer! Hot weather. Sweaty feet. Smelly shoes. And it is so hard to get foot funk out of shoes!

I was thrilled when Naturally Fresh Deodorant Crystal sent me some samples to test out. The Naturally Fresh Foot Spray not only keeps your feet from getting stinky, but you can spray it in your shoes to fight the funk.  It’s easy to use, and works well.  It’s kept my feet dry and fresh on some of the hottest days this summer. Read more…

Please welcome today’s guest poster, Dana Livingston.

You can look anywhere these days and see and feel the world depreciating. The climate is gradually changing and the survival rates of our world’s plants and animals are steadily declining. Now more than ever there is a strong push to transition into a more eco-friendly and sustainable way of living. These days, it’s go green or nothing; people are renovating their homes with more eco-friendly materials, finding renewable sources of energy to power their homes and businesses, and companies are manufacturing vehicles that leave less of a carbon footprint on the atmosphere. The list of ways in which we are overhauling our daily lifestyles is endless. Even the political and economic agendas of several different countries are being adjusted to include ways of saving the natural world from ourselves. These changes include everything, even what kind of coffee you drink. But what does it even mean, eco-friendly coffee? And can switching to “green” coffee really make a difference to the well-being of our planet? Read more…

Folks, thanks so much for participating in last week’s Earth Divas contest. I’m really glad I asked you all to include the link to the bag you liked best. I could have sworn I had scrolled through all of them, but you found so many cute bags I didn’t even see! That is not the point right now, however. The point is that one of you gets a free bag from Earth Divas! And that one of you is… [superfluous fake drum roll, please]… Jennifer Y.!

Jennifer picked this hand-embroidered shoulder bag, but we won’t hold her to that if she’s changed her mind. Jennifer, we’ll be contacting you for your mailing info shortly, after which your bag of choice will be on its way!

I’d like to extend a quick thank you again to Earth Divas for making this contest possible, and to all of you for participating. Oh, and thanks also to the Random Number Generator. We couldn’t keep things all fair and legit without you!

Courtney and I are on the road this week, checking out what’s old in New England and leaving an acute shortage of lobster and local beer in our wake. We had the extreme pleasure of getting dragged all over the greater Boston area for the past four days by fellow Greenist NPW (who also let us crash on her floor for the duration.) Bonus points were scored on Monday when we met up with Howling Hill for lunch and some sightseeing, making it an even four Greenists tromping around the north end of Beantown. For an afternoon at least, Boston was green-blogger central.

During our journey over the past week, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to contemplate some of the impacts of traveling and the stark differences between the city we came from, Atlanta, and the places we’ve been traveling through: Read more…

We’ve written before about the wondrous powers of baking soda here at The Greenists, but here’s another cheap, easy-to-find substance with all kinds of uses: hydrogen peroxide. When I was a kid, my mom used hydrogen peroxide to bubble away the germs after I skinned my knee or got into a rambunctious fight with my brother that ended up bloody. Little did I know that hydrogen peroxide can be used for all sorts of things around the house, even when one is too old to be roughhousing with her brother anymore.

Why buy expensive products when you can get the same job done with a $2 bottle of hydrogen peroxide that you can find at any grocery or drugstore? It’s cheap, it’s effective, and it involves less packaging — win/win/win. Read more…

Tiny Choices takes a good hard look at ways water gets wasted.

The Good Human discusses toxic cleaning products.

Crunchy Chicken bikes.

Lady and the Blog talks about Global Girlfriend.

Inhabitat reports on the plastic bag monsters invading San Francisco!

What’s going on with you?

The lovely people at SallyeAnder Soaps sent me a package with a whole bunch of great-smelling products to review. Their bar soaps come hand-wrapped in cute little paper bags which are biodegradable. Based in New York, the owners founded the company because they needed to find a way to prevent their son from allergy attacks caused by bath products. Their soap recipes are all natural, so much so that they guarantee that all their products are actually edible.

Now, yes, the Almond Goat Milk Soap smells really awesome, but I don’t recommend having it for dinner. BUT YOU COULD IF YOU WANTED!

Other flavors they sent me included Lavender Moon, which “relieves skin problems like acne, fungal problems, burns, dandruff, dermatitis, eczema, inflammation, and helps improve circulation”, and their Milk and Mint, which helps “reduce excessive hair growth, fatigue, and headaches”. They also sent along their Hogwash! Soap which comes with the bold claim that it is enriched with cornmeal which provides enzyme rich stain removal properties. I have not tried removing any stains with it but it works great as an exfoliant in the shower!

The last product I tested out was their all-natural bug repellent called No-Bite-Me. Once again it is edible and DEET-free, which, I’ll admit, made me a little skeptical about how well it would work. I put some on right before going out to a bonfire party and I came back with zero mosquito bites. Um, AMAZING. I am usually like a candy store for biting insects.  When I was at the beach last week I got bit by a green head fly and it worked just as well when I dabbed a bit on the bite. The itchy pain was totally gone! I will be ordering many jars of this for our annual canoe trip.

I’ll also be trying numerous other scented soaps- particularly the Blue Vanilla Chai, Pumpkin Spice, Candy Cane, and Gingerbread. Can you tell someone is ready for summer to be over? But at $6.95 these local, all-natural soaps are a steal.