This Great Green Giveaway is generously sponsored by EarthEasy.com.

We’re giving away a set of Vers Audio earbuds – the perfect, eco-friendly partner to your portable music player.

In this day of disposable plastic electronics, these high-quality, handcrafted wood earphones stand apart. Not only do these earbuds make music sound great, but also they’re made from sustainably harvested US cherry or walnut. They feature an in-ear passive noise cancellation design that blocks 90% of the surrounding sound, assuring an ideal listening experience in any environment. More good green cred – the earphones come in a felt-lined recycled metal carrying case.

Winner has their choice of either cherry or walnut earbuds.

Note: The manufacturer, Vers Audio, plants 100 trees for every tree they use.

Entering is easy: do one or more of the following, and receive an entry for each comment you leave:

• Sign up for eartheasy’s monthly newsletter, full of sustainable-living tips, exclusive offers and discounts
• Like Eartheasy on facebook.com/Eartheasy
• Follow Eartheasy on twitter.com/#!/eartheasy

Optional ways to enter:

• Sign up for our free monthly enewsletter for insider eco tips, news & deals
• Tweet about the giveaway (no more than once per day), be sure to refer to @altCon
• Subscribe to our RSS feed, and like Alternative Consumer on Facebook.

For prize notification be sure to add the following to your email address book: m at AlternativeConsumer.com.

Open to residents in USA and Canada. Retail prize value: $39.99 + free shipping. Contest ends Monday, February 13th, 2012 11:59pm PT. Winner will be selected in our Random Drawing, and notified by email on Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Winner has 24 hours to claim their prize, or the offer is null and void. Winner’s first name will be included in this post.

As always, we will not share your email or contact info with anyone. Good luck!

Though we live in a disposable consumer society where convenience, price and ease of use often trump other, more earth-friendly, considerations, there are changes afoot. Schick is now making one of our common everyday products – the razor – in a greener fashion.

Yesterday Schick introduced its new Schick Xtreme3 Eco disposable razor. The new razor uses 100 percent recycled plastic in the production of its handle and 100 percent post-consumer paper in its packaging. Manufactured and shipped out of the company’s 99.9 percent landfill-free facility in Milford, CT, Schick estimates they’ll be saving over 103,000 pounds of virgin plastic material and 15,500 pounds of virgin paper from going into landfills each year by using recycled materials in the new razor. (more…)

Remember how high the initial demand was for hybrid vehicles? Now the growing demand for pure electric vehicles (EVs), is making things even more hectic. It’s a good thing the number of electric car charging stations is rising too.

Nationwide there are currently twice as many charging stations (roughly 4,500) as there are E-85 ethanol stations, with the government finalizing a proposal to expand the number to nearly 14,000 in the near future. (more…)

Designer Aurelie Tu created her company, CraftedSystems, to celebrate modern handcrafted design and manufacturing. Her wool felted home decor items aren’t produced by a few highly skilled artisans, or a soulless automated manufacturing process – she partners with a Portland, Oregon YWCA women’s shelter to manufacture her products.

Tu combines award-winning design, innovative weaving techniques and an enriching collective manufacturing process to create compelling, modern, home decor products. CraftedSystems’ collections include a colorful selection of felt vessels, table pieces, lights, floor and wall systems.

The company’s pieces are uniquely woven from 100% natural wool felt and assembled by hand. The wool raw material creates naturally textured surfaces with varying degrees of dimension and lift. Each piece juxtaposes geometric modern design with a warm, hand-crafted quality.

Related: more green home decor solutions from The Alternative Consumer

• Busted!! Mozambican Rhino Poachers Get 25 Years in South Africa Court – bbc
• Importation and ownership of these critters should be totally illegal… Escaped Pet Pythons Putting Squeeze on Everglades Wildlife – enn/mongabay.com
• Separation anxiety…Spider’s Detachable Penis Finishes Without Him – livescience
• As the invasive Asian carp threatens fisheries and ecosystems this seems like a ‘no-brainer’… Separate Great Lakes From the Mississippi River? – msnbc
• Consumers can prove them wrong. Oil Industry Sees No Threat From Electric Cars – reuters
• Just add some caffeine to it and call it ‘Energy Juice’… Reclaimed Wastewater for Drinking – Safe But Still a Tough Sell – natgeo

Related: more eco news on The Alternative Consumer

rhino photo via shutterstock.com

This sounds interesting and fun – save the date: Monday, February 6, 2012. Public lecture begins at 7pm. The Explorers Club, 46 East 70th Street, NYC 10021.

What would happen if the world’s greatest source of oxygen became depleted and eventually disappeared? You’re probably thinking, great, another news story about deforestation. What is widely unknown is that the world’s greatest source of oxygen is plankton, not terrestrial trees.  This common misconception can easily be remedied: The crew of the Tara Oceans schooner will be presenting a public lecture on their recent research concerning the health of the world’s oceans. The 15-member crew crisscrossed the high seas for the past two and half years while on their latest global scientific cruise.

An impressive one hundred eighteen feet in length, the Tara Ocean has sailed both arctic and tropical waters and will docked in the East River (Battery Park, North Cove Marina) from February 5 to 11.

The team conducts their research mainly through the study of plankton and the relationship between plankton abundance and the health of the oceans. The lecture will include presentations not only from the head scientist of the ship, Eric Karsenti, but also from other crew members as well as prominent leaders of the Tara Foundation for Marine Research USA.
The program will focus on the wide scale oceanic issues that directly affect the health of our planet as a whole.

In addition, Explorers Club Member Mara G. Haseltine, an artist and environmentalist, will unveil La Boheme: A Portrait of Today’s Oceans in Peril, her latest sculpture based on her discoveries on board Tara Oceans. (more…)

Rather than buy a dozen roses for your sweetheart, here’s a bouquet of treats, all made from ethically-derived precious metals … give a heartfelt, sustainable and stylish keepsake …

From top, left to right:

Love Is on the Inside Engraved Ring
14K rose gold and sterling silver, 2mm-8mm widths, $195-$325
Jesse Chamberlain of Jesse Danger, Salem, MA

Three Pair Hoop Set
14K rose gold, $68
Kristin Mulholland of Kristin Noel Designs, Atascadero, CA

Braille Love Wedding/Commitment Band
10K rose gold, $385
Nicole Zahour, Rye, NY

Round Wedding/Commitment Band
18K rose gold, $ varies with width
Benjamin Manning of Utopian Creations, Kensington Park, SA, Australia (more…)

Are Cheetos vegan? Just asking… If you’re having an alternative Super Bowl event and you want to toss around some pigskin that isn’t really pigskin, this is the ball for you. This Fair Trade football is an excellent backyard ball. It sports an all-weather, high-grip surface, is official size & weight; and it’s totally vegan.

Both eco and Fair Trade certified, this football is union-made by adult workers who received a fair wage. And no animals were harmed in its manufacture.

Best if all – all after-tax profits go to children’s charities.

$39 @ amazon.com

eco cred: This eco-certified football sports PU microfiber and 70% eco-certified rubber. PU microfiber is a synthetic fiber that produces an excellent leathery feel and causes no harm to people or planet. The rubber is derived from third-party certified sustainably managed forests in India and Sri Lanka.

related: more sporting goods on The Alternative Consumer

I’m old enough to remember when most street food vendors sold their chow out of carts with limited menus consisting primarily of fetid delicacies like over-boiled hotdogs aged to perfection in a caldron of used bath water, or pretzels coated with enough salt to cause instantaneous cardiac arrest. Well, how times have changed. Today’s street food movement/fad is lead by state-of-the-art food trucks selling all manner of morsels: from delicious crepes to countless varieties of burgers, tacos and confections.

Many food trucks use only locally grown produce, meats and breads and are run by individuals that revel in the independence and creativity that their mobile restaurants afford them. One shining and successful outfit is L.A.’s Green Truck, which has been doing their ‘green’ thing for a few years now. Their menu is totally (more…)