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BANG FOR THE BITE
If 10,000 Biters gift a Zola Goods energy-saving Starter Kit, in a year our giftees will avert up to 219 households' overall annual CO2 output.
COCKTAIL FACT
Harry Houdini's exposés of self-proclaimed mediums and psychics cost him the friendship of Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed Houdini himself was a medium.
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home › tip library › Change Kits
Wanna find a gift that'll cast an eco-spell?
The Bite
Allakhazam! With new going green starter kits, getting your impossible-to-buy-for friends presents to get them started making small changes that add up is easier than pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and, unlike sawing some lady in half, it's totally cruelty-free.The Benefits
- Conjuring up smiles. Give a gift set that rates high on the coolness and usefulness scales.
- Nonillusory eco-friendliness. Planting trees and making your own pet supplies (just a couple actions prompted by these kits) will help create more oxygen and less packaging waste.
- Padding wallets like magic. Items like CFLs and reusable bottles will save your giftee major cash over time (one pick boasts energy savings of $275 per year).
Personally Speaking
Just don't order the Starter Kit for Change months in advance of when you want to gift it - one of us got one last September, and the seedling almost didn't make it to Xmas alive.Wanna Try?
- Starter Kit for Change - includes a tree seedling, recycled journal and pencil, fair-trade hot cocoa, and other stuff ($40).
- Ideal Bite Biter for Life Kit - our own fab (if we do say so ourselves) reusable bottle, mug, tote, plus more, all in one set ($99).
- Zola Goods Starter Kit - save energy and water with a low-energy bulb, low-flow showerhead, power strip, and dryer balls ($98).
- Eco-Me Dog Kit - gets you started (with containers, treat mixes, shampoo powder, and instructions) on making your own DIY grooming products. Also: Cat Kit ($28).
- Green Office Green Student Kits - outfits kids with supplies such as recycled folders and sustainable-wood pencils; three versions based on grade ($17-$30).
Aug 14,2008
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All editorial suggestions in this tip are the result of testing and a preference for the tip topic. No advertiser has paid to have its company referenced in the tip. For more information, please read our Editorial Policy.
Mama Don’t Preach
Other than "you really shouldn't wear those Crocs," I am of the camp: People don't want to be told what to do. So it is with a whole lotta restraint that I say nothing when my aunt in Florida serves Styrofoam plates at family gatherings, or my roommates buy the cheapest (non-eco) dish soap, or when a recent travel buddy asked for extra towels at a hotel where we were staying for one night. But this gives me an idea to make my own change kits, personalized to all the people I love (or in the case of roommies, sorta like). I'll stitch up reusable totes from my personal fabric stash and fill with things like recyclable plates for my aunt, home soaps (I see regift for sure, but the thought counts, right?) for the flatmates, and travel stuff for friend. Nuff said.
-Senior Editor Theresa...off to not mouth off...
Biter Comments...
Nice kit ideas. However, as much as I love my friends, I just don't see myself spending $40 or more on a gift for them. Even the Dog/Cat kit of $28 is out of my budget for a friend. It might be cheaper for me to make my own eco-friendly kits...
I have never heard of "dryer balls" (as in "Zola's"...) What do they do? Left to my own devises, I would assume that they keep the clothing separated in the dryer so they dry more quickly. But that's just me! What do they really do?
Dryer balls replace softener sheets. They reduce drying time & static. They're reuseable. We got ours at LTD Commodities pretty cheap. I go along with DeAna & make up my own gifts/kits. They're a lot cheaper than the examples. Ideal Bite kit for $99+$10 shipping- I don't think I'll bite :).
I agree, it's nice when I get a gift but I know that it has meaning behind it and a message (if not rude). So good idea. It's better to come across sweet then lecturing.
Disagree on the crocs. I love them.
For Christmas, I once received a goat from my aunt..from the Heiffer Foundation (or something similar). Last year, my boyfriend and I donated to a Russian Adoption agency for his grandmother's gift. This Christmas I'll be giving "virtual" gifts as well, they actually help people around the world. You should do a post on those if you haven't already. It would be nice to see a list of all the option and who they benfit!
No preaching here...just providing some REAL info.
10 billion animals are killed each year in the US alone for food.
Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars. - 2006 UN Report warning.
Even Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth did not mention that consuming meat and dairy is worse for the environment than all emissions from the automotive industry.
1) Factory farms produce massive amounts of dust and other contamination that pollutes our air. A study in Texas found that animal feedlots in the state produce more than 14 million pounds of particulate dust every year and that the dust ‘contains biologically active organisms such as bacteria, mold, and fungi from the feces and the feed’.
2) According to the nonprofit group Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of rainforest were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms.
3) According to a 2006 UN report, the livestock sector causes more greenhouse gases worldwide than the entire transportation sector.
4) Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.
5) According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the run-off from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. The EPA reports that chicken, hog, and cattle excrement have polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.
6) It takes 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat. One average meat eater could consume that pound of meat during a meal, while 16 people could have been fed on the grain it takes to produce that pound of meat.
7) The meat industry causes more water pollution in the US than all other industries combined because the animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population–86,000 lbs per second. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 12,000 people.
Every 2 seconds, a child starves to death somewhere in the world. Countries such as Ethiopia and some Central American countries use their farmland to supply the United States with cheap burgers instead of growing healthful grain foods for their own starving people.
9) The livestock population of the US consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed more than 5 times its human population. 90% of all corn and 80% of all grains and beans grown in the US are used to feed livestock animals.
10) 75 percent of U.S. topsoil has been lost to date, 85 percent of that loss is due to livestock rearing. Meat is murder on the environment A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.
Ideal Bite is not out of an animal.
Phillip what does that have to do with the conversation at hand?
I love my crocs - but I only wear my scrubs (so 5 days a week) - and my feet always thank me for them
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Nice ideas you got there. I might start my own kits this Christmas. Thanks!
Motorcycle Fairings
Yeah youre right, its not the cost, but the usefulness of the gift you are giving to that person.
PHOTO ALBUMS
Posted by: Maureen Meyer | August 14, 2008 at 08:44 AM