Eco-friendly toys for kids!It's an irony most parents have experienced at least once: They buy their kids the latest and greatest bells-and-whistles toy, only to find them playing for hours with … the cardboard box the toy came in. What's so great about cardboard? For one thing, it requires no batteries. And another thing: Using toys made of cardboard is good for the environment and is a great way to teach your kids to be more socially responsible and ecologically aware at a young age! And just one more perk of using cardboard toys: It leaves plenty of room for kids' imaginations. So in honor of the humble box, we've rounded up 7 amazing, eco-friendly cardboard toys your kids are sure to love.







Space Shuttle
1. Space Shuttle
This Shuttle Imagination will take your child on a new adventure every day. Besides, who doesn't want to be an astronaut when they grow up?
Buy this cardboard space shuttle


Storage and Play Boxes
2. Storage and Play Boxes
These storage boxes double as seats and can also be used for educational play - teaching your little one

by Alexandra Pauline - January 23, 2012

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Your Big Day The Green Way

Planning a wedding is a costly, emotional and time consuming undertaking - often leaving little room for the idea of sustainability. I mean, this is the one day where the entire focus is on you, right? And with so much going on, it might not even cross your mind to think about the environment… But if you're planning a wedding, going Green doesn't have to mean more work and more money. In fact, by making your wedding a more sustainable event, not only will you make your big day even more memorable, you can save some serious cash!

Go Partially Paperless

While there's still something special about sending printed invitations for your actual wedding, save money and paper by sending digital invites for your save-the-date, engagement party, rehearsal dinner and shower. Websites like Paperlesspost.com, Evite.com and Punchbowl.com have some elegantly festive Fab & Fru options so you can get the job

There are so many ways to reuse these bags!
By Adam Verwymeren, Networx

The scourge of landfills and the enemy of environmentalists, plastic bags have been much maligned in recent years. Starting in 2007, cities around the country have voted to ban or curb the use of these non-compostable carriers in favor of paper or plant-based alternatives. For instance, the San Jose, CA plumbing and sewer system was plagued with an overabundance of trash in its storm sewers, and issued a plastic bag ban in January of 2011.

But while their eco-impact might be pretty harsh, you can at least make a plastic bag serve a second purpose before it ends up in a landfill. There are, of course, the obvious uses: lining a trash bin, cleaning up after a dog or reusing them as bags at the grocery store. But here are some other great, innovative ways to re-use plastic bags.

Soccer Ball: As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. In Africa, kids looking to kick a ball around will often reach for plastic bags. Wrapped and packed

Pakist­an needs to shift to enviro­nment-friend­ly energy.

Pakistan must adopt other technologies for generating power from renewable energy sources, such as municipal waste and landfill methane geothermal recovery, anaerobic biomass gasification, biological fuels, fuel cells and ocean waves.

It is no secret that Pakistan is in the grip of a serious energy crisis that is affecting all sectors of the economy and various segments of society. Luckily Pakistan is also blessed with many resources but the government has not focused on alternative energy to the extent that it should, so far.

For years, the matter of balancing Pakistan's supply against the demand for electricity has remained a largely unresolved matter. And it is a separate issue that Pakistan faces a significant challenge in revamping its distribution network as well.

A lot of problems arise out of the fact that Pakistan's energy infrastructure is neither well developed nor well managed. The

or setting your goals for the new year, I want to encourage you to try to find ways that you can go green with your family and help save the environment.

Every year I make a list of green changes that I would like to make over the coming year, and I thought I'd put together a little list for you, if you are interested in moving your family in a more eco-friendly direction, but maybe not quite sure where to start.

These are simple and easy changes you can make over the next year that can have a big impact on the planet. You can definitely start small with vowing to make just one or two of these changes this year, or maybe you're already doing a few of these, and would like to try to do the rest of them over the course of the year. Here are 7 resolutions for going green with your family this year:


Non-Toxic Cleaning
1. Non-Toxic Cleaning
One of the very first changes I made on my journey towards more green living was to switch to homemade and non-toxic cleaners for my home, so it's one of the first

bleachIf you're a clean freak, there's nothing more alluring than a bucket of bleach.

It whitens your whites, sanitizes your sinks and obliterates mold and mildew like friggin' Optimus Prime.

The stuff is amazing.

Crappy Chlorine

But those fluffy white towels and disinfected counters have a downside: one sniff and you might faint. Besides making you light-headed, that heavenly bleach scent is a sign you're dealing with a serious toxin. Chlorine bleach is a known respiratory irritant that can give off a toxic gas when it's mixed with other common household products. Fun fact? It was actually the first poison gas to be used as a weapon during World War I.

And you're wiping down your counters with this stuff?

What's in Your Tub?

These days, the biggest problem with chlorine is that its byproducts pollute our water supply and our bodies. Dioxins - a set of chemical chlorine byproducts - are considered the most carcinogenic little dudes known to science. Dirty dioxins

People have dubbed Andrew Hyde an "extreme minimalist" but he prefers to call himself a "vagabond." In August 2010, he sold his apartment and most of his belongings and hit the road, blogging about his adventures along the way. Since then, he's travelled to 32 countries, worked at a friend's dude ranch, and spent the warmer months living in a tent. He's also survived comfortably owning only what he considers essential items ranging from 15-39 possessions at a time.

Related link: German Grandmother Lives Money-Free: And Has Never Been Happier

"I had pretty typical goals out of college," Hyde tells Yahoo! Shine. "I wanted to pay off my debts and get a good job." Hyde worked as a web designer and programmer also sold a startup company. He had achieved what most people would call success when he began feeling bored and restless. Always frugal (one of his posts is about how to live on $36 a month for food), he realized he was unsatisfied striving toward a consumer-based model of

by Green Diva Meg

WHY SHOULD WE CARE… ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS IN OUR BEAUTY AND SKINCARE PRODUCTS?

1. The average woman uses 12 personal care products daily(The average man uses 6 personal care products daily)

2. EACH PRODUCT CONTAINS A DOZEN OR MORE CHEMICALS many of which are toxic!

3. The Average woman exposes herself to over 167 chemicals on her body and face during her daily beauty regimine!

4. Over 80,000 chemicals used in personal care products in the US ONLY 200 OF THEM ARE TESTED FOR SAFETY!

Ok, if these aren't enough for you, there are a lot more where these came from! I've become a big fan of Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep, which offers a well-organized cosmetic database to help understand what we should be looking for or avoiding. It also offers an extensive product rating system that helps us clearly understand just how pure and natural or toxic any given product is.