February 17, 2008
Have any of you seen those new ads by Tampax and Always, the ones where they promote an initiative to give menstrual products to young girls in Africa? Well, I don’t know about you, but the first thing I thought when I saw that was, “Um, nice try, Procter & Gamble, but you’re kinda missing the bigger picture.” I mean, it’s great that they want to help girls out with this difficult time of the month and make sure they stay in school, but is the best way to do that with bleached wads of cotton and disposable plastic? It made me fret, I must say.
But then, my crunchiest friend dropped me a note saying she saw the same ads and decided to do more than just fret about it — she actually started an initiative of her own called Goods 4 Girls (you can see the little poster for it in my sidebar to the right, just click on the image and it’ll take you there). It helps get new cloth menstrual pads, whether handmade or store-bought, to young women in Uganda, who can then reuse them rather than throw them out. It’s such an amazing idea, and I truly admire Deanna for putting so much effort into get it up and running.
So as part of my monthly green giving, I’m going to donate some reusable cloth pads to Goods 4 Girls — and you should, too!
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Posted by gettinggreen
February 17, 2008
A lot of people hate wallpaper, and I can understand why. It’s a pain in the butt to apply, it can start to peel, bubble and warp over time, and stripping it down when you get sick of it takes an entire day’s worth of steaming and scraping, steaming and scraping.
But I don’t care — I want it. I’ve already committed to buying low-VOC paints, but there are so many cute little rooms in my new house, I’m bent on doing at least one of them up with wallpaper. The one above, which I noticed over at AT, is a hand-painted version from de Gournay, but I’m not sure how eco-friendly it is (plus it probably costs a million bucks per meter).
After some online poking around, I’ve determined that getting recycled wallpaper is not going to be easy, unless I order these weird 3D modular tiles, which are a bit too ’60s, even for a retro-lover like me, or go to the UK for something like this (much prettier and there are some funky recycled flax paper options, but they mostly do wall decals).
Another idea might be to go with something like these animal cutouts made from leftover wallpaper samples, or I could just do a half-and-half brand like Graham & Brown, which at least has some eco-friendly business practices and insists that 50% of their paper is recycled.
Of course, then there’s the issue of the glue, which could be a major problem, seeing as my Coccoina probably won’t cut it.
Ach! Anyone got any tips?
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1 | Tagged: glue, recycled paper, wallpaper, low-VOC paint, home decor | 
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Posted by gettinggreen
