Who: Earthlust; San Francisco, CA

What: Black Flower Stainless Steel Water Bottle

Where: Earthlust – $18 (Subscribers to The Find get 15% off through 12/31)

Why We Love It: Tis’ the season to trade in your single-use water bottles for a totally chic, totally durable reusable stainless steel water bottle from Earthlust. The bottles are made of a double-walled food grade stainless steel that is 100% PVC and BPA-free.  Even the caps are BPA-free, so you can be sure that this bottle is safe to use time and time again.

The bottles are coated with a non-toxic paint featuring gorgeous nature-inspired designs, most of which are limited edition. The problem is, with so many great designs to choose from, it is hard to choose just one! Click to continue »

Who: Jorre Van Ast for Royal VKB; The Netherlands

What: Jar Tops

Where: Abodeon – $24

Why: This is such an incredibly brilliant idea and we are not the only ones to think so. The Jar Cap concept has won the Woon Award for best interior product , the Dutch Design award and is on now part of the permanent collection at the MoMa, NY. But accolades aside, this is just a great product.

Taking the fact that 75% of jar caps on the same size, Jorre Van Ast saw a great opportunity to reclaim those jars from the recycling bin and to give them new purpose. Now you can transform that tapenade jar into the perfect size sugar shaker or that giant sized honey jar from the farmer’s market into a kitschy juice pitcher. Click to continue »

So, you know those SIGG water bottles that were considered a great alternative to BPA leaching plastic water bottles? Well, in case you haven’t heard,  SIGG recently, rather finally, disclosed that their epoxy resin liners contain BPA although their tests have shown that there is no evidence of leaching.  What is most disturbing is that they have known since 2006 that their ‘propriety’ epoxy resin liner contained trace amounts of BPA which is why in 2008 they quietly introduced their new BPA-free EcoCare Liners without recalling the old ones (Note: we purchased 4 SIGG water bottles last year from the SIGG  booth at the Natural Products Expo and there was surprisingly no mention of the two different liners. Turns out, all of the 4 had the BPA liners, nice).  Click to continue »

Who: 3greenmoms;  Potomac, MD

What: LunchSkins Reusable Snack & Sandwich Bags

Where: 3greenmoms.com – $8.95  for the sandwich bag & $7.85 for the snack bag; ReusableBags.com – $8.95 for the sandwich bag & $7.95  for the snack bag w/discounts for orders of 2 or more.

Why We Love ‘Em: Finally a stylish, feel-good replacement for that old tattered zip lock bag that has been reused a hundred times and leaves your lunch vulnerable to the dreaded office lunch snatcher. Would they be so brazen to steal the pb&j tucked discreetly in the shark tote with your name on it? Hmmm…

While they can’t perform miracles, these bags will definitely help curb your ‘trash footprint.’ Unlike some of the other reusable sandwich bags,  LunchSkins are made with a high quality, moisture-proof German fabric (it feels almost like a sail cloth) used worldwide in the food industry so it can handle more than just dry goods without leaking and hot items without melting. Best of all, the durable fabric makes these baggies machine washable! Click to continue »

SIGG has partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute to support the Drop of Hope campaign with their limited edition “Drop of Hope” reusable water bottle. The stainless steel water bottles are on sale at mySIGG.com for $24.99 with a portion of the proceeds going directly to support the “Drop of Hope: Water for the World” campaign.

Drop of Hope was launched in 2007  to bring attention to the clean water crisis that affects millions of  people worldwide and to raise money to provide clean drinking water to those in need. One of the main objectives of the campaign was to reduce overall consumption by decreasing “disposable water bottle use by approximately 800,000 bottles by replacing them with only 5,000 completely recyclable stainless steel bottles.” Our bottled water addiction burns nearly 47 million gallons of oil a year and for every 1 liter bottle made nearly 3 liters of water are wasted in the process.

Your purchase will help support the campaign by keeping water bottles out of landfills, raising awareness and for every Drop of Hope bottle sold $5 will be donated to initiatives to bring clean drinking water to schoolchildren in Africa.

Who: Blue Avocado, Austin, TX

What: gro-pak Cool Kit

Where: blueavocado.com, $49.99, available in blueberry, raspberry or lime

Why: Trips to the grocery store typically involve packing up a stack of reusable bags, salvaged plastic produce bags and a pair of reisenthal totes to avoid the excessive bag waste at check out, but now it might just involve one, single gro-pack, the ultimate in reusable bags. It is a grocery shopping system perfect for the shopper on the go and an absolute dream come true for o.c.d. ecoist like myself.

Every item with its’ own place: an insulated bag for your ‘chil’ or hot items (this will keep things hot or cold for up to 3 hours, so if anything unexpected comes up, you are still good to go), 2 netted bags for produce, and 2 multi-use bags for everything else. Then, when you are all unpacked, the bags all roll up nice and neat into one little package ready for their next outing. Each bag is made of 50% recycled plastic and is capable of holding up to 20lbs of groceries (the netted bags hold up to 10lbs, and an added bonus, since they are netted you can wash all your produce at once). Estimated total plastic bag savings per trip? 13, or upgrade to the Full Kit and save 16 bags/trip. Now you’ve got an even better answer to the question of paper or plastic. Click to continue »

Starbucks Canada Celebrated Earth Day with a free mug of Pike’s Roast if you brought your own.  Not so in the US, but perhaps their thinking is that everyday is Earth Day. Whenever you bring your own reusable mug to Starbuck’s, you’ll receive 10¢ off of your purchase (they’ll estimate the size for you). Which means my venti latte is a mere $3.47…..

And here are just a few reasons why you should……

1) Single water bottles are contributing to our waste dilemma. About 1/5 of those produced don’t get recycled, and those that do get recycled still require significant amounts of energy to be repurposed. Even with companies like Poland Springs introducing new designs that used less plastic in their water bottles, they still use plastic to bottle a resource that is readily available in most U.S. homes.

2) Bottling water is incredibly inefficient. The resources, both raw materials and oil, used in the production, packaging, transporting and recycling of water bottles is criminal. The Pacific Institute estimated that in 2006, 17 million barrels of oil were used to produce water bottles to satisfy the US demand (this does not include the energy involved in transporting a heavy commodity like water), creating 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide (and this does not include that created disposal in a landfill or recycling center) and, this one is shocking, it took 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water!!! That is just crazy. Particularly where so much of the world’s population does not even have access to clean drinking water, but I digress……

3) Plastics can be harmful to your health. It is recommended to not reuse single use water bottles as toxic chemicals known as BPA’s can be leached from the plastic.

4) The standards for contaminants are as strict if not stricter than those for bottled water, so you are not necessarily getting a ‘purer’ product. In addition, some of that bottled water you are buying is actually filled from a tap.

5) It is cheaper! Forgo the $1.29 bottle of water and just fill up from the tap. You’ll be paid back on your investment in a stainless steel or BPA-free water bottle in no time. This from the New York Times: “If you choose to get your recommended eight glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 annually. The same amount of tap water would cost about 49 cents.”

6) Many claim they use single use water bottles because they are more convenient, but I would argue that my Sigg water bottle is far more convenient. Last minute road trip? Instead of going to the store to pick up a water bottle, I simply grab my water bottle from the cupboard and fill it up with ice cold water from the fridge and I am good to go. And I can refill at the next stop.

7) There are so many cute water bottles out there to choose from!! Check out REI’s inventory of BPA free water bottles or Klean Kanteen’s, EarthLust, Enviro and Siggs lines of stainless steel water bottles. Just got a sneak peek of the 2009 line of Siggs waterbottles, and they are gloooorious!!

If you don’t bring your own bags on shopping trips, here are a few reasons why you should:

1. It took 1.6 billions gallons to make the 380 billion plastic bags used in the US in 2007 alone, and that is just the oil that goes into the raw material of the plastic bags–not the transportation. And paper bags aren’t much better.

2. A mere 5.2% of plastic bags were recycled in 2007. Those that actually made it to the trash and aren’t floating around streets, parks and sewers could take up to 1000 years to decompose in a landfill. (San Francisco spends $8 million a year cleaning up plastic bags)

3. Most grocery baggers send you home with 50% more bags than you need to haul your groceries. I once had a bagger double bag a carton of eggs for me!! Whole Foods has gone so far as to post signs explaining why they refuse to double bag groceries. So, at the very least, bag your own groceries to cut down on waste.

4. It is more convenient. You might think it is a hassle to bring your own bags to the grocery store, but I actually find it is much more convenient to tote two canvas bags full of groceries than 20 plastic bags that cut the circulation off at your elbows……

5. Everyone else is doing it

6. And there are so many great bags to choose from!! Envirosak makes a great bag that is discreet enough to fit right in your purse or man-purse. I always keep mine in my purse as you never know when a purchase might just jump out at you…….for groceries I opt for the Reisnethel Tote ($32 at Garnet Hill)-it is super sturdy and can hold a ton of weight and is, oh, so chic–my most highly complimented accessory-have even had teenage boys ask me where I got it! And I saw that they came out with a mini-tote–adorable!!

Who: Marie-Louise Gustafsson – Design House

What: Carrie Bike Basket

Where: Design House – $60

Why: I have complete basket envy over this adorable basket. Highly stylish, ornate and yet oh so quaint. The basket would be the perfect companion for the Manhattan Cruiser I have been pining for, sadly it would look completely out of place on my beat up mountain bike….. But can’t you just picture yourself riding down the boardwalk, sundress flowing behind you with your beach towel and a great read tucked in your basket?

And so where is the ‘green’? This basket allows you to run some extra errands that might otherwise require a motor vehicle and your bike runs on alternative energy……yours.

Available in black, green or white as a carrying basket or as a bike basket, both with handy straps all from  the incredibly creative mind of Marie-Louise Gustafsson (who also came up with the rather odd yet quite clever Mobile Bathtub) for Design House Stockholm .