Holiday Shopping Guide: Green Your Holiday!

All of November I will be blogging about green businesses, products and services in an effort to help consumers green their holidays.

Please stay tuned!

More Veganmania! Better Late than Never

Well, we had such a great time at the first annual Veganmania I just had to keep sharing. Actually, I just received some pictures of the event that I wanted to share with you. Our wonderful new friend Robert Chesrow shared them with us, and now I'm sharing them with you.

That's the thing about Veganmania...all the great relationships we made.

You can see our eco Vampire shirt and people signing up to order, since we ran out again! This is a hard one to keep in stock. There's also a great picture of our table, all of our organic cotton shirts out on display.

And of course we always make new friends with our pink eco baby tee. Once they can talk, most of the little girls want pink. We may have to make them in toddler sizes.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to Chicago Veganmania. We will definitely be there next year!

eco Vampire tip #4

So here is our very own eco Vampire, Kimberly "Fang" at the Twilight Convention earlier this month, greening the Vampires.

"Oh, it's all so simple," she says. Being an eco Vampire is easy, saves energy, saves money, and helps the environment too!

Tip #4: Change your light bulbs! LED lights, or Light-emitting Diode lights, can use up to 75% less energy! WOW. That's a big deal.

So here's the cool thing. They are everywhere! Commonly used commercially since the 1960's, LED's have improved and are moving into the home. You can even get your holiday lights LED! That's great for energy and money savings when you want to keep those lights on to brighten up your winter nights.

You can find LED bulbs online. If you are looking for a store in Chicago, our friends at The Green Depot on Pulaski can help you out. They have lots of great stuff for your home.

It's so simple being an eco Vampire isn't it? Read our previous tips, and stay tuned for more!

eco Vampire: Tip #3

Sometimes things seem so simple! But our busy lives make us forget some of the simplest things! That's why RECYCLE ME is happy to share our eco Vampire tips this month to help you reduce your impact on the environment, particularly your impact via vampiring electronics.

Yes, I said it, vampiring electronics, or those electronic items you leave plugged in and even when they are off, they are slowly sucking out electricity! Our own eco Vampire, Kimberly "Fang" has put together some tips she personally uses in her life:

Tip #3: When leaving home for more than 4 hours, raise the thermostat 5 to 10 degrees in summer and lower it 5 to 10 degrees in winter. Do the same at night before going to bed.

I know Mrs. Fang has completely changed her electric bill. She's an inspiration! And, Mrs. Fang personally designed RECYCLE ME's eco Vampire shirt. She says, "there's more than one way to be an eco Vampire!"

Stay tuned for another simple, yet life changing tip!

Chicago VeganMania!

RECYCLE ME attended the first annual Chicago VeganMania this weekend and it was a really great event. Very well put together by John Beske and Marla Rose (pictured).

I did not have a chance to walk around and check everything out because there were so many people there I had to stay behind the booth most of the time. I did sneak out to Ethic Planets table and bought some great hemp shoes.

But I did meet a lot of great people from behind my table. And we were next to the lovely Shelia and Gary of The Designer Comb, and I bought yet another comb, this one for a present. Can't get enough of those combs!

So I'm linking to another blog, Montie's blog, because she already has picture up! And she gives a great synopsis of the event. Make your plans for next year....great food, music, speakers, artists, products. It's just a great time!

NWSL Alumni Shirt Update

RECYCLE ME has designed a special alumni shirt for Northwestern School of Law. It will be featured in the Advocate, the law school's annual publication.

UPDATE: We've changed the order and ship dates to match the mailing of the Advocate so the readers will have a chance to order this environmentally responsible shirt!

Order now through November 30th. The alumni shirt will ship on December 14th.

eco Vampire at Twilight Convention: tip #2

RECYCLE ME made it to the Twilight Convention this weekend and met hundreds of movie fans, sharing with them our love of organic cotton and "eco" Vampires. Our own eco Vampire, Kimberly "Fang" talked with Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune and was quoted in today's LIVE section (the last quote of the article).

All this month RECYCLE ME will be sharing tips on how to be an eco Vampire, that is someone who is environmentally aware, and reduces their carbon footprint through wise energy use, like unplugging vampiring electronics (see last tip below)!

Today's Tip: become and eco Vampire by washing your clothes in cold water.

To put in perspective how wasteful hot water is, washing your clothes in hot instead of cold for a year, uses more electricity than leaving the refrigerator door open 24 hours a day for a year!

Twilight Book Fans: eco Vampire was inspired by Edward, and his clan's concern for hunting only over-populated species, making sure they didn't over hunt any one species.

What is an eco Vampire?

It's October and the Halloween season is upon us. A time when Vampires become a bit more popular. This year we should all aim to be eco Vampires. But what is an eco Vampire? Well, let's back track just a bit to learn more about "vampiring" first.

You may not know it but you are a Vampire right now. Your electronics are vampiring, or slowly sucking electricity out of the grid, even when turned off, as long as the item is plugged in. Many people think that once electronics (computers, DVD and CD players, microwaves, washers, dryers, cell phones, PDA's, etc.) are turned off that's the end of their power consumption. “About 40% of electricity being used to power your home electronics is being used to power your home electronics when they are in standby mode.”

This weekend RECYCLE ME is at the Twilight Convention at the Westin Hotel in Rosemont educating all those Vampire Fans about becoming eco Vampires.

How do you become an eco Vampire?

Today's Tip: put your home electronics on a power strip and unplug it every night! This could save you up to 10% off your electric bill.

Stay Tunned! We will be posting tips all month on how to be an eco Vampire.