I would be hard pressed to end my talk about disposable coffee cups without spending a few minutes on fair trade certification. While fair trade is a relatively new idea (certification that is, not the concept of trading fairly … I hope) it is a concept that is gaining momentum and, I hope, will become a strong player in 21st century commerce.

As past pieces that I have written have pointed out, knowing the implications of your purchasing habits is extremely important and also, extremely tough to research completely. You may have thought nothing of drinking out of plastic water bottles before reading what I had learned, not because you were OK with the practices you were a part of, but because you didn’t know.

And the reason you didn’t know is not because you don’t

The sun in shining, the birds are chirping (at least here at Care2), yet my sense of organization remains in hibernation mode. So, in honor of today, the official first day of spring, I will dedicate myself to a weekend of cleaning–a fresh start for a new season. If you care to join, here are some great tips to help you get started.

Getting Rid of Clutter
Why Clutter Happens
Feng Shui Your Clutter
Clear Your Clutter in 6 Steps

Recipes for DIY Natural Cleaners
Make a Non-Toxic Cleaning Kit
Porcelain Stain-Be-Gone Soft Scrub
Non-Toxic Oven Cleaner
Counter Cleaners

Detoxing Your Home
Simple Ways to Detox Your Home
Top 10 Swaps for Detoxing Your Kitchen
Clean Your Upholstery the Non-toxic Way

Organizing Your Closet
7 Ways to Organize Your Closet, the Eco-Way
Healthy Green Closet

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … Hy-Bird! The race to fly a “green” plane around the world is on, and French company Lisa Airplanes says its zero-carbon Hy-Bird aircraft will make the trip as early as the summer of 2009.

The Hy-Bird—which looks kind of like an airborne high-heeled shoe—is made of lightweight carbon fibre and weighs in at just 1.1 tons. The tail and wings—20 metres or 65 feet tip to tip—are outfitted with photovoltaic cells to supply energy for takeoff and onboard power supply. A hydrogen fuel cell (hence the name, “Hy-Bird”) provides power while the craft is in flight.

“It is solely powered by an electric engine,” Lisa President Erick Herzberger explains. “It will be the first

A funny thing happened when I stopped using plastic shopping bags: I started saving money on purses. I started collecting cute reusable totes that make me so happy that I kind of just stopped using regular purses, which means I stopped buying them. And although my reusable tote budget increased, the price differential proved beneficial to the bottom line.

Although it would have been a good strategy, I didn’t start using reusable shopping bags to quell my eco-naughty purse-shopping habit–my inspiration came in the form of factoids such as this: between 500 billion and one trillion plastic grocery bags are consumed worldwide each year. Or, that 100,000 birds die annually from encounters with plastic bags, not to mention the estimated 100,000 whales, turtles, and other marine

While fashion designer Anya Hindmarch’s “I’m not a plastic bag” tote made disposable plastic bags “so last season,” a group of Colombian women are bringing them back in style—by recycling them. The women travel door-to-door through their village of Los Limites to collect plastic bags, cut them into strips, and crochet them into more durable purses and beach bags, called mochilas. And they are doing it all for an endangered monkey.

Weighing in at less than a pound, the cotton-top tamarin, or titi, may be small, but the species is running out of space. Deforestation for fuel, cattle grazing, and slash-and-burn agriculture is pushing the primates into smaller and smaller portions of northwestern Colombia’s dry forests, the only place this

Got a pile of old, ripped jeans in need of recycling? You might have heard about home insulation made from denim, but don’t know how to donate.

Well Bonded Logic makes insulation out of old denim, proof of which is that Newsweek profile of Adrian Grenier. The tree-hugging “Entourage” star is caught posing suggestively in front of his recycled jeans wall at his eco home in Brooklyn. Hot.

Most of the fabric Bonded Logic uses comes from factory floors, but some does come from jeans-wearing consumers, as well. Send yours to Green Jeans Insulation, at this address:

Fair Indigo Denim Drive
c/o Green Jeans Insulation Inc.
1109 W. Milwaukee St.
Stoughton, WI 53589

Once you’ve got the old things off your hands, consider replacing them with sustainable, organic ones.

Taking everyday objects and turning them into chic pieces of functional design takes wonderful form in reestore’s “Annie the shopping trolley” chair (yes, it’s British).

Taking carts that were landfill bound due to missing wheels or bent legs, designer Max McMurdo works his magic and “poof!” they are pieces you’d love to own. Reestore attempts to “avoid traditional eco materials in favor of contemporary finishes, fabrics, and, above all, style.” Job well done.

It's dark. You turn on a light. It’s cold. You turn on the heat. Need to cook dinner? Turn on the stove. Don’t want to miss your favorite show? Turn on the TV. Piles of laundry? Throw them in the washer and dryer. Can’t be late to work? Set your alarm. Have to stay connected? Charge your phone and your laptop.

Power. It’s become so central to every way we solve problems that we don’t even recognize that we’re using it until it goes out. In fact, electricity is so magically simple that it’s easy to mistakenly assume that the seemingly clean electricity that enters our home is just that–clean.

Years ago, before electricity was commonplace, many homes were heated by a coal burning fireplace. The soot and smog that hung over cities was a constant