Not all of us live in fabulous solar-powered eco-dwellings. Many of us live in cruddy, old apartments and have mean landlords who look like they tie women to railroad tracks in silent movies. It can be hard to be a green renter. One of the common misconceptions about renting is that an apartment dweller is […]

Packing peanuts are the oil sludge of packing materials. If you have some lying around, reusing packing peanuts is always preferable to throwing them out, but if you’ve banished eco-unfriendly packing materials, there are plenty of alternatives that either make use of waste or provide a usable material for the recipient. 1. Newspaper: Balled up, […]

There are plenty of major environmental changes you can make when you have an unlimited budget – like installing solar panels, buying a hybrid car, or putting all new windows in your home. But not all the big impacts come from big spending. Make a few small, inexpensive changes – some of which are even […]

If you’ve been dragging your feet about making better environmental choices because it seems like too much effort, then maybe you just need a little more motivation – like factoring in all the money you can save when you cut your energy use. Here are three ways to use less energy and free up funds […]

So you’ve already installed eco-friendly lightbulbs, added a filtering pitcher to your refrigerator in place of bottled water and picked out an energy-efficient heat system. Now it’s time to add the finishing green touches to your environmentally conscious home with sustainable decorating techniques. Good news: It’s easier than you may think to make choices that […]

If the brilliant late-1980s TV show “MacGyver” has taught us anything, it’s that you can repel a gang of thugs, break out of prison, and build a functioning spacecraft with little more than a paper clip, a C battery, some twist ties and an empty tube of toothpaste. Yes, OK, fine, MacGyver was fiction, but […]

Cinder blocks await their final destination at a construction site. The process of making concrete creates a whole lot of carbon dioxide, but one company wants to change that by trapping and injecting CO2 emissions into the concrete itself. What’s the most abundant man-made material in the world? Spend too much time scrolling through posts […]

Recycling was shaken up by China’s trash ban. On January 1, China stopped taking 24 types of waste and recyclable items like plastic and paper from overseas. China was the biggest buyer of New Zealand’s waste and recyclables. The change meant councils had to find other overseas buyers for recyclable waste, but that came with a whole new set of recycling guidelines […]

Friday was a good day for recycling. The first commercial airline hit the skies fuelled by repurposed waste carbon, Canada started turning old fire hoses into hammocks for zoo animals and Jacinda Ardern opened an Auckland building mostly made from salvaged material. But, when at home Kiwi’s still can’t get their recycling bins right. Kiwis […]

Now that straws are out of the picture, it’s time to set our sights on the next wasteful item we could all live without. To-go coffee cups have my vote! They’re unnecessary, often unrecyclable, and produced in staggering amounts. (Starbucks alone serves about 8,000 per minute.) This fall, let’s all vow to either take a […]