This time of year is all about the kiddies. And having fun. With so many eco-friendly, safe, engaging gift items for the wee ones now available – scoring a cool, worthwhile present is easy as 1, 2, 3.
We’ve gathered a few of our favs from Planet Happy Toys – one of the best conscious consumer shopping sites dedicated to the discerning mini me crowd. Choose from their well curated selection of Fair Trade, phthalate-free toys, games, musical instruments, dollhouses, decor & furniture, and lots more … shop by age, interest, country of origin or brand – it makes shopping for playful tots and toddlers a pleasure.
Pictured above:
Related: more green holiday gift ideas from The Alternative Consumer
Achmad Kurt is a German expat who’s been living in Indonesia for over 20 years. His company, All From Boats, specializes in creating one-of-a-kind rustic furniture from the reclaimed and salvaged wood of old fishing vessels.
Kurt buys decommissioned boats from local South Pacific fishermen and uses the raw material from the exotically painted boats to create colorful pieces of rustic furniture.
Kurt’s furniture is hand crafted and made entirely from old boat timber, generally hard woods such as ulin, teak and intaran. The wood is 100% reclaimed and obtained from old trawlers (typically, these boats are 40 to 60 years old) that plied their trade in the exotic waters of Indonesia, Bali, Java, Lombok, Sulawesi and Kalimantan.
All From Boats practices Fair Trade. Kurt has made agreements with local fishermen – when a fishing trawler becomes too expensive to repair, or is about to be disassembled and burned as cooking fuel, he buys the boat – providing the fisherman with weeks of income.
There’s a lot to like about this revolutionary green cleaning product line called bio+green crystals. I just tried their Glass & Window Cleaner, and it does an AMAZING job of cleaning glass and mirrors. No streaks. No funky smells. Just sparkling clean and green. I used it on mirrors in my bedroom and bathroom; glass cocktail table and glass-top desk; and my car windows. WOW, great stuff.
- Manufactured by NBGS (National Bio Green Sciences) it’s the world’s first line of crystalline, vitamin-based household cleaning agents — made in the USA, and safe for people, pets and planet. The Glass & Window Cleaner contains plant derived surfactants and absolutely nothing nasty — there are no: phosphates, petrochemicals sodium lauryl sulfate and VOCs.
All you do is drop a water soluble sachet of cleaning crystals into a 32 ounce spray bottle, fill it with water and you’re good to go. Whenever you need a refill, simply buy a sachet refill and repeat the process.
- From an ecological perspective, it’s great because the company isn’t shipping heavy products (no bottles filled with water) from manufacturing to market, the sachets take up less shelf space, and they’re lightweight and easy for us to carry home and tuck into the cleaning supply cabinet. Just be sure to recycle the outside plastic package. (No doubt, someday that little piece of plastic will be made from a biodegradable material.)
- Did you know that according to a 2007 study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, exposure to cleaning products accounts for 15 percent of all asthma cases? The line is endorsed by Doctor Kenneth Bock, a pioneer in children’s health advocacy, and one of the founders of 4-A Healing Foundation, which assists families with children affected by Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies. A portion of Bio+Green profits are donated to the foundation.
- Non-toxic, eco-friendly, hypo-allergenic and effective … With 7 different products available today, we’ll be keeping an eye on this company’s future developments.
Learn more about NJ-based company founder and father of 6 children, Nikolaos (Nik) Renieris, and find more info & pricing @ biogreencrystals.com.
full disclosure: I received one bio-plastic spray bottle and one packet of Glass & Window Cleaner for the purposes of this no -strings-attached Tried and True Green Product Review. It retails for $5.99/per packet.
RSS
