We had the pleasure of being invited to a screening of Dirt! the movie. I highly
recommend this movie to absolutely everyone. It's an important and influential documentary about dirt and the role it plays
in our entire ecosystem. It really gives you a new perspective on the planet while being creative and interesting.
However I'm not writing about it here to do a review (it has plenty of
raves already) but I am writing to share a story in it that was very impactful and is symbolic of what we do at Eco Nuts.
I think everyone can take it to heart.
in Dirt!, Dr. Wangari Maathai, environmentalist activist who became the first African woman to
win the Nobel Peace Prize, tells the story of the hummingbird:
Head on over to our Facebook Fan Page Forum for all the details! Good Luck
To Celebrate our 300+ fan milestone on Facebook AND the release of two brand new products our Multi-surface cleaning
spray AND our Clean-All powder, We’re hosting a Giveaway on Facebook! How do you enter? You can enter more than
once! Each way listed below gets you extra entries.
Required
Entry: Comment on our Facebook WALL on why you love our company or any of our products, or which product you
can’t wait to try.
For
Extra entries, go on over to the discussions tab on our facebook
page to our Giveaway thread and leave a separate comment
for every entry for the following:
Follow
us on Twitter and Tweet about this giveaway (2 Entries) @EcoNuts
is doing an EcoTASTIC #giveaway for their FB fans! http://bit.ly/cANQat
Link this giveaway on Facebook and tell all your friends about it!
(1 Entry)
Write a short blog review of your favorite Eco Nuts product and link to it on our wall
(3 entries)
Buy one of our products from us or from any of our retailers (5 entries)
The Winner Receives:
Winner’s Choice of:
Cleaning Combo: Our new Clean-All powder AND Multi Surface Cleaning
Spray. These two products work GREAT on their own, but for extra-tough cleaning, use them together ! Safe to use around
pets and children.
OR Laundry Combo: A Trial size
of Eco Nuts Organic Laundry Soap Paired with a small size of Eco Nuts laundry Liquid
OR
Body Combo: Eco Nuts Coffee Body Butter with a Lip Balm (Winner’s Choice of Flavor)
Winner will be randomly selected. We will notify the winner via FB message
I wanted to highlight
a few charities we like that are all doing different things to help with the oil spill and all have different ways of getting
involved. At the bottom are two charities that are especially great to involve kids in.
The Institute of Marine Mammal Studies
The Institute in Gulfport is ground zero for injured marine mammals, and is equipped with surgery,
necropsy, and exam rooms, freezers full of frozen fish for food, x-ray, and ultrasound machines and has eight large pools
for handling sea turtles, manatees, and dolphins. They are a nonprofit and the cost of completely rehabilitating a single
dolphin can be anywhere from $50,000 - $100,000.
We shampoo because hair collects oil. Why should millions of pounds of absorbant, natural, renewable
hair, fur, fleece clippings go to waste every day?
That's right! ask your salon and pet groomers
to simply collect the hair clippings and send them in! the hair and fur is made with rejected nylon stockings into booms that
soak up oil. The oil can later be squeezed out of the booms, with the remaining oil-soaked booms to be used to grow mushrooms
and worms.
ALL salons, groomers, alpaca and llama fleece farmers, hairy individuals,
& pet owners can sign up to donate hair, fur, fleece, feathers, nylons and funding
ABC is another one of the big charities that is a member of a small task
force in Washington, D.C. that is comprised of a select number of national conservation organizations and representatives
of the Department of Defense, Department of Interior, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This task
force helps steer available resources to areas the data show to be of high value, such as those where threatened or endangered
species are known to be present, or where a high number of breeding/staging birds occur at different times of the year.
They are a hub of information
and education for the media and public about the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon incident and is playing a part in evaluating
the long term fallout of the spill and will be making suggestions to our policymakers in DC.
A successful nationwide campaign that involves kids in fundraising and education,
and this year they will be focusing on the Louisiana coastal marshes, involving kids directly in marsh restoration.
Defenders
is going to court to demand an end to the federal government’s cavalier disregard for the disastrous impact that offshore
drilling and exploration can have on sea turtles and other imperiled species. They are a BBB accredited charity. They have
efforts on the ground, in Washington DC, and in the courts. They also have a great adopt and animal program with
funds going directly to help. If you have children, their animal adoption program is a great way to get them involved in conservation
of endangered species.
I especially have a soft spot for sea turtles. Herpetology was one of my majors. There are 5 sea turtle species in the
gulf of mexico: Kemp's ridley, leatherback (the largest sea turtles in the world) , green sea turtles, loggerhead, and hawksbill.
A Kemp's ridley mama turtle laying eggs (photo from nps.gov)
All these specials
are either endangered or threatened, and for Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, this spill is right in their sole breeding ground,
and along the coast from lousiana to florida is where the 8,000 adults left of this species forage for food. Nesting season
runs from now until mid-July.
This is a loggerhead turtle - with the awesome latin name of Caretta caretta (photo from Wikipedia)
Right now scientists are still analyzing the fallout and what the spill means for the species (and many
others).
This is really heartbreaking. We read and hear about it every day in the news. As a former wildlife
rehabilitator myself, I understand the challenges and costs associated with taking in injured and orphaned wildlife. But nursing
oil-soaked birds, turtles, dolphins and other marine creatures - en masse takes a lot and what they're really going to need
is financial support and supplies. That's why we decided to donate 10% of our profits.
If you want to
donate to the oil spill, but also need laundry detergent, there's no need to have to choose between the two. Simply buy
Eco Nuts (or any of our other fine products) and we'll do the donating for you :)
Next entry, I'm going
to highlight a few charities we like that deal directly with the spill and the wildlife. Stay tuned!
- Mona
Heres a baby leatherback sea turtle, who will hopefully one day grow to be 1,700 lbs (photo from fws.gov)
The festival season has begun. Last weekend we were at Earthfest in San Diego.
It was wonderful to meet Heather of
the Real Diaper Association. They are a nonprofit organization and an excellent resource for all you cloth-diapering moms out there.
Earth
day almost snuck up on us this year. Luckily for us, every day is Earth Day at Eco Nuts :) The great thing about Eco Nuts
Laundry detergent is that it's truly one of the best things you can do for the planet. Every box is one less huge plastic
bottle that will go into a landfill. Our liquid comes in Aluminum which is easy to recycle and helps to support jobs and communities
in the US.
A bit about plastic detergent bottle recycling:
Not all plastic can be
recycled, and the rules for which plastics can be recycled are laregly determined by your local recycling plant. Typically
a plastic is not recycled into the same type of plastic and products made from recycled plastics are often not recyclable.
When compared to other materials like glass and metal, plastics require more processing to be recycled.
Nationally,
less than 6 percent of all waste plastic gets recycled, compared with recycling rates of 50 percent for paper, 37 percent
for metals and 22 percent for glass
Plastics with dyes and fillers in them cannot be recycled
Plastics are numbered on the bottom (look for the number inside the little recycling triangle)
Plastics
that are labeled #1 (PET or PETE) are the most commonly recycled plastic and can be picked up through most curbside programs.
These are recycled into new containers, Polar Fleece, furniture, carpet, etc. This is the type of plastic we are temporarily
using for our spa products before we phase into all paper and recycled glass containers.
Most detergent bottles
are either#2 (HDPE) or #3 (PVC) plastics
While #2 is readily accepted by most curbsite recycling prgrams,
some only allow those bottles with necks. It is readily recyclable. If the bottle utilizes a dye or filler (as most
detergent bottles do, whether it be white, blue, or orange) it is not recyclable and will be thrown out at the plant during
sorting. About 7% of #2 plastics are recycled.
#3 PVC plastic is not so readily recyclable, and because
it contains chlorine, its manufacture releases highly dangeous chmicals into the air.
For some advanced
reading on other types of plastics, and recycling, here's a few pages:
