My house is actually full of candles in beautiful glass jars. I’ve always loved candlelight. But after reading about how toxic some candles can be (here and here and here), I’ve decided to switch to soy, non-toxic, clean burning candles.

There are a variety of candles that fit the bill out there, but the ones I’ve ordered are called Pure Malie Candles. Out of all the reviews online, these candles seemed to have the most positive feedback. And they come in delightful scents, too: Pikake, Plumeria, Coconut Vanilla, Koke’e, Organic Mango Nectar.

The candles are made from clean-burning waxes and are petroleum-free with 100% cotton wicks.

I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new Coconut Vanilla candle and will definitely let you know how it works out!

I wish you could smell things through the internet. Their website is quite pretty though and I can almost taste/smell the fruit in the banner!

That’s right — interesting little tidbit I’ve just run across. Though it might not be news to you regular Apple fans, in an effort to save paper and be more environmentally friendly, the Apple Store actually offers to email you your receipt instead of automatically and mindlessly printing it out and stuffing it in the bag like many other stores.

I’m not personally on a crusade against paper receipts, but only because it really hadn’t dawned on me exactly how many of my receipts that I actually just crumple up and throw to the bottom of my purse.

Apple, as a whole, is not doing so well on the big green scale (according to Greenpeace), but hey – this is a start, right?

I know, I know — the title makes it sound a little alarmist. Like your garbage can will become a ticking time bomb or the garbage bags will transform into monsters at the curb… but that’s definitely not what I mean. (But that would make oatmeal pretty cool, wouldn’t it?)

The Daily Green has posted an article discussing 12 Surprising Uses for Leftover Oatmeal — and it really is surprising!

My favourites include:

• Odor absorbtion – put a container in your fridge! Line your ashtrays (yes, really – ha!)
• 1 cup of milk, 2 cups of uncooked oatmeal and a tablespoon of honey in a luke warm bath apparently works to moisturize and rejuvenate your skin! (And you’d look like my breakfast.)
• Non-toxic crafting clay!

Check out the website for more cool oatmeal uses.

Alright, this might be the coolest DIY I’ve ever stumbled upon!

How to make eco-graffiti — no spray paint, markers, or nasty toxic chemicals, just… moss! I have a few friends who are guerrilla gardeners here in Ottawa and I’m definitely going to recommend to them that they try this out.

The moss continues to grow and changes patterns — it really is living art. How creative is that? Living and breathing art!

I, for one, could definitely see decorating the back of my house in a giant green piece of art. It’d really be something to see it move and grow over the summer. Maybe next year!

How-to: How to make moss graffiti

After writing up yesterday’s Stewardship Ontario post, I did a bit more digging and found that there’s more to know!

As an enhancement to the Stewardship Ontario program, many cities around Ontario have signed up to the Take It Back! Directory — a handy source of information for residents looking to get rid of unwanted items.

The directory connects Ottawa residents to local businesses and organizations that reuse, recycle, or safely dispose of the unwanted material. Almost 600 partner retailers are now accepting 130 different household waste products that don’t belong in the Blue or Black recycling boxes. Take it Back! partners divert household waste from going to landfill each year. That’s the equivalent weight of almost 300 mid-sized cars.

“Take it Back! retailers and charitable organizations each year stop over 500 tonnes of material from going to our municipal landfill through their take back efforts. The Take it Back! initiatives of local businesses and charities within my Ward and across the City are saving landfill space through their combined environmental efforts” – Councillor Georges Bédard.

On the Take It Back list of drop off locations for the Ottawa area are these phenomenal eco-friendly places looking to help out. Here are some of my personal favourites:

Topia Greenstop (1621 Woodward Dr.) – Here you can drop off all kinds of things like rechargeable batteries and appliances. Give them a call today and find out where and when to drop off your not-quite-garbage. (1-613-722-0660)

Twenty-Twelve Electronics Recycling (14 Bexley Place) – Owner Nancy Coulter took back 12 tons of e-waste in 2006! Call ahead though, and let them know you’re bringing things to them so they can make room! (1-613-596-031)

For further help with the Take It Back program, check out the City’s website here!

Growing up, my family wasn’t too concerned with the environment — I mean, it’s not that we had a hate for it or anything, we were just… indifferent, I suppose.

In talking to my mom about it yesterday, she said that the reason we weren’t a more eco-friendly family was because of financial reasons rather than moral ones. We lived in a very small town. The grocery store was accordingly small — the type where broccoli only came in one variety — broccoli… nevermind organic. We were lucky to have a choice between 2 or maybe 3 varieties of apples, though still no organic ones.

Thinking about this kind of amazes me though, as the town was a farming town.

Now here’s what Gwyneth Paltrow’s upbringing was like — nearly the opposite of mine (not that I thought my childhood would be at all similar to Gwyneth Paltrow’s, heh).

“My mom has always been conscious of the environment and health issues. When I was growing up, we would go to farmers’ markets and even had wheatgrass in the kitchen. She started a curbside recycling program in Santa Monica, CA, in the seventies, and each week I drove with her to the recycling center.

Keep reading Gwyneth Paltrow on her super-eco-friendly childhood:

I love the idea of making planters out of really unconventional things.  One look at my apartment, and you’ll see that unconventional is how I roll — bookends made from giant rocks, bean bag chairs made from old sleeping bags and packing peanuts. In fact, my queen size bed is made from a converted Coleman’s camping air mattress with an added base and sides built to keep it from sliding. It really makes moving easy and when I do go camping, I can bring my own bed with me no problem!

I love DIY projects like this. How cool is it to have your favourite plants sprouting out of a reclaimed dresser? Especially if you can find some discarded dressers that have neat-o hardware/handles as they look that much classier.  Sticking living things in giant blocks of plastic is somehow just wrong. Or hey, maybe you don’t care about planting things in plastic planters, but you’d like something a little less… ugly. This DIY is for you.

Now, on with the show!

Lighting an office overnight wastes enough energy to boil 1000 cups of tea. One THOUSAND cups of tea!

Here’s a myth for you – and I’ve definitely heard this one before — Turning fluorescent lights on and off uses more energy than leaving them on. Wait a second… really? No! In fact, turning a fluorescent light off and on uses 500 times less energy than leaving it on for 15 minutes.

Just turning off lights when leaving a room or corridor, or when you leave at the end of the day can reduce lighting costs by 15%.

Did you know that energy saving light bulbs use only a quarter of the energy of normal light bulbs and last up to eight times longer? But here’s a helpful hint, now that I’m on this topic… if you break an energy saving light bulb, throw it out right away! And open a window and get out of the room too!

Now, I’m certainly not advocating against these bulbs, but I do want you to know — they’re filled with mercury gas. Yep, that’s right. And mercury gas is quite toxic! How do I know all this? Ask the broken bulb in the bottom of my outdoor garbage can. Yuck!

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When I think of hazardous waste, I think of a big, yellow bucket with a radioactive symbol on the front. And that radiative bucket makes me think of Ninja Turtles. And Ninja Turtles are awesome. So here’s my conclusion:

Hazardous waste = Radiation, Radiation = Ninja Turtles, Ninja Turtles = Awesome

Therefore: Hazardous waste = Awesome.

But for some reason I have this nagging feeling that my conclusions are miscalculated, or at the very least misguided.

So here it is, the simple facts of hazardous and industrial waste. **

What is industrial waste?

Material – for example, certain chemicals or even very hot water—left over from a manufacturing process. It can be harmful sometimes and may pollute the water and the environment if not treated and/or disposed of properly.

How are these types of wastes generated?

• Hazardous wastes are primarily generated by industrial and manufacturing processes; however they can also be generated from the commercial and institutional sectors, and from households. Hazardous wastes include a broad range of materials such as manufacturing residues (e.g. waste acids, contaminated sludges and complex chemicals), biomedical wastes from hospitals, spent photo finishing chemicals, waste pesticides, PCBs, motor oil, unused cleaning products from homes and discarded batteries.
• Most materials are consumed during use. Some hazardous materials, however, may no longer be required, such as laboratory chemicals, some may have reached the end of their lifespan, such as batteries and used oil, and some may have been found to be a health or environmental concern, such as leaded paint and asbestos. These hazardous materials, and sometimes their containers, become waste and must be disposed of safely.

Types of Waste

Toxic Waste – waste that can produce injury if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
Chemical Waste – waste of a chemical nature that can cause harm.

How to Get Rid of Hazardous and Industrial Waste Safely

There is a hierarchy of options when choosing a disposal option for material that is waste at a particular site:

1. Re-use or return If the material can’t be re-used at the facility where it is waste, it may be useful at a nearby federal facility. Alternatively, the manufacturer may accept return of unused product.
2. Recycle Can the waste be returned to the manufacturers for recycle?
3. Reject Waste may be properly disposed of at provincially licensed landfills or by licensed haulers at licensed waste facilities.

**I apologize — there are no Ninja Turtles in this story. In fact, it’s entirely likely that a turtle exposed to this kind of sludge would painfully and oh-so-alarmingly… melt.

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This recipe comes to BambiGoesGreen via @Brian_STEY from his site Save The Earth Ya’ll. The recipe itself can be found inRobert K. Henderson’s book “The Neighborhood Forager.”

I haven’t tried these yet myself, but I’m making plans as we speak to make up a batch of these tonight! I’m terrified… and curious!

The following excerpt from @Brian_STEY’s site was too funny not to quote directly and far too informative to leave out:

Please step away from the pump-action trigger on that bottle of weed killer. Hey, what are you doing with a bottle of toxic weed killer anyway? Don’t you know that stuff does more harm than good? Instead of looking at those dandelions as noxious weeds that must be poisoned, pulled, or otherwise decimated, experience a paradigm shift and appreciate the dandelion for the delicious, medicinal puffs of sunshine they really are. Yes, you read that correctly—Delicious!

Up until very recently, dandelions sat on a pedestal. Instead of being dead-set on their annihilation (like most of us are today), people actually cultivated them for food, medicine, beverage ingredients and dietary supplements.

Luckily all those things that made dandelions so great in the past still exist today, and there is a movement sweeping the globe once again touting dandelions for their beneficial qualities. Dandelions are chockfull with vitamins, potassium, minerals and antioxidants. In fact, they are one of the most nutrient-rich greens you can eat. Much better than anything you’d find in the supermarket today. They also have many medicinal qualities and have been used as a blood detoxifier (great for the liver) and for treating digestive disorders, arthritis and eczema.

So what part of the dandelion is edible? The entire plant… roots, stems, leaves and blossoms (not sure I’d eat the puffy white seed heads after they flower, though). The best time for harvesting dandelions greens for eating is in the early spring before the plants begin to flower. After the plant flowers it gets bitter, but a simple blanching will take care of that. The leaves have a great spicy taste kind of like arugula and can be eaten as a salad or put on sandwiches instead of lettuce. They can also be sautéed or steamed like any other green.

The blossoms are best harvested in the morning just as they open. They, too, are great on salads, but being southern, we love them FRIED! You can also make a great wine out of the blossoms. Some people say it is like sippin’ sunshine!

Please note: DO NOT eat dandelions that come from chemically treated yards, or ones that are growing close to the road.

RECIPE: Fried Dandelion Blossoms