Going Green

Ahoy Green Spring Cleaning, Bon Voyage Pirate Chemicals

By: Kellee K. Sikes

Labels full of biodegradable, eco-anything, green, natural, and organic words splash out with salty phrases like non-toxic, non-pollutant, non-hazardous, no ammonia, no chlorine, and no phosphates in an ocean of new green cleaning products. If that is not enough to induce label reading seasickness, bring on a slew of certification seals—

Rainbarrels Brighten Gray Days

by Terry Winkelmann

Harvest season is typically considered late summer and fall, when the crops hang heavy on the vines and farms swell with berrylicious bounty.

But Spring is the best time for another kind of harvesting: Rain.

BY: TERRY WINKELMAN

 There's nothing like a fresh coat of paint to transform a room from night to day, and in just a day's time. Unfortunately, few home improvement projects can produce as quick a headache or leave as annoying an odor.

By Kellee K. Sikes  

Greening a party for your closest friends or even stretching to a couple hundred wedded-bliss guests – no problem, right? What if the guest list was a few thousand Mardi Gras revelers or a stadium full of sports fans?

Shake it like a Polaroid Picture or Electric Slide on down the page for tips (and reasons why) regular and super-sized parties jump to a green groove.

Kellee K. Sikes

Know the facts – don’t be an environmental boob when it comes to buying a new TV or discarding an old television tube.

T’was five nights before Christmas, and all through the house

Creatures were stirring and rockin’ out.

Santa’s cool def jam blared on the non-digital TV,

As lights twinkled on our LED-lit, ecologically-forested, Christmas tree.

I am/was wrapping presents with recycled paper all a-glee,

Amazed by the next commercial announcing an ‘Eco TV.’

By Terry Winkelmann

When my partner and I opened Home Eco three years ago, the word “green” wasn’t at all established yet, at least around these parts. I reread my business plan recently, and in describing our idea for this strange new business, I used the word “green” only twice—and once was to describe the color of paint planned for the walls!

Trying to enunciate our vision for the store, we used terms like “low-impact living,” “sustainable lifestyle” and “planet-preferred products.” In one sense, it’s taken four decades for the environmental movement to catch on in the mass marketplace. In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring” and drew our first attention to the growing use of chemicals in pesticides and their unintended effects on life.

Look out, cosmetics aisle; there are new, healthier, greener choices in town

BY KELLEE K. SIKES

BY TERRY WINKELMANN

I’ve been thinking lately about drive. What drives us to change? We’re at the point today, where after 30 or 40 years of debate, people seem to finally get it. The world we’ve created is damaging the world we were given. And metaphors aside, it’s truly only one world—not three, not two, just one. And since the industrial revolution, at least, we’ve been hell bent on trashing it.

BY KELLEE K. SIKES

Is green a new economy fact or marketing spin fiction? Believe it or not, dear consumer, the power to decide is up to you.

Yes you, as in you and me and every consumer exchanging money for goods and services. No granola crunch here. As a fair trade capitalist and business strategist, I would not suggest you become a Freegan (even if it was on Oprah) or start a zero consumption lifestyle. If even 50 percent of us dropped out, 100 percent would face devastating results.