Salon.com > The Good Life

What’s really in your shampoo

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:13:00 +0000

There are two types of ingredients in shampoo. One type cleans your hair. The other type strokes your emotions. I'm holding a bottle of Pantene Pro V, one of the world's most popular shampoos. Of the 22 ingredients in this bottle of shampoo, three clean hair. The rest are in the bottle not for the hair, but for the psychology of the person using the shampoo. At least two-thirds of this bottle, by volume, was put there just to make me feel good.

The world spends around $230 billion on beauty products every year. Of this figure, $40 billion go to shampoo purchases. North Americans blow almost $11 billion on shampoo and conditioner each year. So most soap manufacturers aren't willing to rely on a product that merely works. The bigger job is convincing the consumer that their soap is adding value to the consumer's life. So shampoo bottles include extra concoctions aimed at convincing the man or woman in the shower that the soap is more "luxurious" or "effective." Because beautiful hair doesn't just happen.

Have you got the greasies? One shampoo ingredient is all you need: detergent. Detergents are chemicals designed to bond to both water and grease. When the shampooer massages shampoo into the scalp, the detergent adheres to the grease. The detergent attaches to the rinse water and leaves, taking the grease (sebum) with it.

Burger and fries to go

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:52:00 +0000

Hey, you, environmentalist: Want the greenest wheels going but find yourself lacking $109,000 for a Tesla Roadster? Despair not! There's a vehicular option that makes a Prius seem like a gas guzzler and can save you major bucks, too. (Here's the only catch: This option may not be strictly legal under the federal Clean Air Act. But more on that later.)

The vehicle in question is a grease car, a ride capable of lowering your motoring greenhouse gas emissions by 78 to 87 percent over regular gasoline. A grease car is a diesel car, truck or Jeep that runs on waste vegetable oil from your local greasy spoon or fine-dining establishment. A grease car also significantly reduces a bevy of environmental badness -- asthma-triggering particulate matter, smog-forming carbon monoxide, likely carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and the sulfur emissions that lead to acid rain. The only environmental downside is a small increase in smog-forming nitrogen oxide.

My family car is an SUB and I love it

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:40:00 +0000

The apocalypse seems inevitable when you're stuck in summer traffic. Sitting in a long line of idling cars, shimmering in waves of heat rising off the pavement, you think about how every year it gets hotter, and the traffic gets worse and pumps tons more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. You pull yourself up by the steering wheel to see ahead. Your thighs stick with sweat to the driver's seat. You are beyond frustration and feel an existential loathing closer to panic. You are part of the global warming problem. And now you're going to be late for work.

Three years ago, I opted out. Since then I've been commuting four miles to my Washington, D.C., office by bicycle just about every day, rain or shine, in an effort to help save the environment and myself along with it. Of course, there are obvious limitations to a bicycle. What about when you need to pick up groceries for a family of four? And unless your kid is Peter Pan, he can't just fly over traffic to get to school. Wouldn't it be great to commute and run those entire errands by bike?

Put a stake in it

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:25:00 +0000

There are insomniacs in our homes that work late at night and run up the electricity bill. They are not the classically overworked American who pops melatonin or Tylenol PM. They are microwave ovens, computers and TVs. They are half of our appliances, electronic equipment and associated chargers that suck down power even when they're turned off, in sleep or standby mode. A typical house hosts around 50 such insomniacs, and though individual devices use minuscule amounts of electricity, in the aggregate they're an astonishing and pricey burden.

This "vampire energy loss" represents between 5 and 8 percent of a single family home's total electricity use per year, according to the Department of Energy. On average, that's the equivalent of one month's electricity bill. Taken across the United States, this adds up to at least 68 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually; that's the equivalent output of 37 typical electricity-generating power plants, costing consumers more than $7 billion. This wasted energy sends more than 97 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; on a global scale, standby energy accounts for 1 percent of the world's carbon emissions, according to Alan Meier of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, based in California.

Not-so-green jeans

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:28:00 +0000

More than any other article of clothing, bluejeans connect us to the storied myth of America. Created for ranchers and loggers in the 19th century, bluejeans still symbolize hard work and freedom, even if we don't wear them for anything that resembles physical labor. Popularized by icons like James Dean and Bruce Springsteen, jean styles, from bell-bottomed to acid-washed, reflect the zeitgeist of our times. Today, there's a new jean in town -- organic.

Just over a year ago, Levi Strauss & Co., the top jeans retailer in America, launched Eco jeans, made with 100 percent organic cotton, in a variety of styles. Jeans in the company's Red Tab line sell for $68 (only about $20 more than typical Red Tabs), aiming to fulfill a mission to "democratize organic," according to E.J. Bernacki of Levi's. Gap is considering its own line of organic jeans, and Patagonia and a number of high-end fashionista brands, such as James Jeans, Del Forte and Seven, also make jeans from organic cotton. Levi's, for its part, explains that the move to organic was a simple response to consumer demand. Retail sales of organic cotton increased 238 percent between 2005 and 2007, and sales are expected to reach more than $2 billion by the end of this year, according to Organic Exchange, a nonprofit trade association.

How to get better gas mileage

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:28:00 +0000

Drink less, give up sweets -- the clean calendar of a new year inspires many earnest vows of self-improvement. With oil flirting with $100 a barrel, and $3 gas looking like the new normal, perhaps instead of resolving to curb your gluttony in 2008, you should pledge to train your car to be a fuel sipper. "Every time you get into your car and turn on your ignition you can save money," says Bradlee Fons of Pewaukee, Wis., who teaches seminars on efficient driving. "It helps the country with national security and oil dependence, and it helps the world with global warming."

The most efficient way to save gas, as any "one-less-car" transportation activist will attest, is to leave your car in the garage. Walk, ride your bike, take the bus or train, or carpool whenever you can. When you're in the market for a car, choose the most fuel-efficient model. That should get easier to do in the coming years as automakers comply with the just-passed law to move America's fleet from an average fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon to 35 by 2020, a 40 percent increase. It means there should be more fuel-efficient models of all vehicle types from compact to minivan to choose from soon.

Stop junk mail for good

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:05:00 +0000

You'd think that with all the spam floating around the Internet these days, good old-fashioned junk mail, the kind that clogs your home's mailbox and the nation's landfills, might be a thing of the past.

Alas, that is not to be. The amount of direct mail that catalog companies, Internet purveyors, and coupon captains send out each year continues to climb, up from 90.5 billion pieces in 2003 to a whopping 103.5 billion pieces in 2007, according to the U.S. Postal Service. "It's a colossal waste," says Kristi Chester Vance, communications director of ForestEthics, a group that has worked to reduce the environmental impact of the catalog industry.

In fact, the annual greenhouse-gas emissions from the production of junk mail are equal to those of 3.5 million cars. (That figure doesn't include emissions from transporting and disposing of the stuff.) Beyond that, each year junk mail production in the U.S. consumes more than 96.7 billion gallons of water and more than 100 million trees, ForestEthics estimates. Most of those, says Chester Vance, come from carbon-dioxide-sequestering, biologically diverse old-growth forests, rather than from sustainably managed tree farms. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, only about a third of all junk mail is recycled. "All that for a response rate of less than 3 percent," Chester Vance notes, referring to the fact that fewer than 3 percent of people -- often even fewer -- respond to the solicitations.

Go green this holiday season

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:29:00 +0000

We all know people who love to complain the holidays are no more than a display of idol worship at the altar of consumerism. Yet most of us like to give gifts -- it's the giving that fills us with love and cheer. And I bet even the grinches among your family and friends won't mind a thoughtful present made in the U.S. from recycled goods or sustainable materials. Here's an offering of Earth-friendly gifts.

Messenger bags

Alchemy Goods turns old bike tire tubes and seat belt straps into hip messenger bags. Eli Reich, a former mechanical engineer, started the company in 2003 after his messenger bag was stolen and he noticed a bunch of old bike tubes collecting dust in his apartment. He now collects old tire tubes from bike shops along the West Coast. Waterproof and stylish, his bags come in three sizes. The Messenger ($148) is good for bike commuting or trips to the gym, the Urban ($138), a bit smaller, is better for carrying laptops, and the Haversack ($88) is a good unisex purse, big enough for a book and your lunch, and it has a handy front-zippered pocket for a wallet or iPod. (Memo to my friends and family: I really want one.) Look for a new line of men's wallets ($32), made from recycled billboard banners and, of course, old bike tires.

Does organic wine taste bad?

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:11:00 +0000

Ever since Wal-Mart began stocking organic food, it's clear a lot of consumers now believe that produce and milk produced without pesticides or hormones taste just as good as, if not better than, their conventional brethren. Logic would say that this also goes for "organic wine," which I see cropping up more and more often at health food stores and markets. But in this case the label doesn't tell the whole story.

Wine labeled organic means that at least 95 percent of the grapes used were never sprayed with pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Such chemical purity is ensured by 40-foot buffer zones from farms that spray specific chemicals, loads of paperwork and on-site visits from third-party certifiers. Organic grapes then go to a certified organic winery that doesn't use chemical cleansers or add any preservatives like sulfur dioxide, an antioxidant that gives wine a significant life span.

Green investing 101

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:49:00 +0000

My great-grandmother Pearl, a shrewd woman, managed to save 20 percent of every paycheck that her husband Leo, a plumber, brought home each week. The checks, at least in the 1920s, were $5, but by the time they retired, they had saved enough to own a small shopping center. When she died last month at the age of 100, she left behind her recipe for meatballs (lots of ketchup), inspiration for the art of perfect housekeeping, and tens of thousands of dollars for her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

So, for the first time, I've started to think about investing. In search of a firm that could help me invest in companies that aren't raping and pillaging the planet, I found Trillium Asset Management Corp. One of the oldest socially responsible firms in the country, they directed me toward the $50 million Green Century Balanced Fund, a mutual fund that invests in environmentally responsible companies.

Shopping for a clean washing machine

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 12:44:00 +0000

When I do the laundry at my house, the washing machine downstairs clanks and spins with such ferocity it sounds like a helicopter is hovering in my basement. The 1994 Roper model was here when I moved into the house last year, and I'm grateful for the hours it's saved me at the Laundromat. But compared with newer machines, my Roper hemorrhages water and electricity. Besides, I'm not sure it's been doing such a great job of getting my clothes clean. With winter here and my energy bills about to sprint upward, it's time to consider buying a new washer.

At the nearby Sears, shiny home appliances lined the rows with the promise of a Christmas season full of gleaming towels. Several featured a big blue tag, emblazoned with a star. These are Energy Star-certified machines. "These machines save more than water and power. They save you time because the washer spins quicker," said David, a veteran Sears salesman who, behind earnest glasses and a mustache, rattled off facts and figures. "Everything's good about these as far as the environment goes. They're less of a drain on our natural resources."

Public bathroom dilemma: Paper or air?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:15:00 +0000

On a recent Saturday visit to the local mall, several simultaneously flushing toilets and the piped-in sounds of Kenny G were the soundtrack to my latest environmental dilemma. There I was in the public restroom, my hands dripping from a trip to the sink, momentarily paralyzed by a perennial environmental quandary: Should I dry my hands with a paper towel or use the air hand dryer? A sign emblazoned on the dryer professed: "Dryers help protect the environment. They save trees from being used for paper towels. They eliminate paper towel waste." But then the dryer also sucks down electricity. What would Al Gore do?

I realize this may sound ridiculous. What is one or two paper towels or 30 seconds of hot air compared to the emissions belched from cars stacked on I-84? But consider the following: So far this year Americans have used 1.8 million tons of paper towels and tissue, according to the American Forest & Paper Association, an industry group. There are approximately 3 million hand dryers installed in the country and most run for 30 seconds around 100 times a day, according to World Dryer Corp., one of the country's leading manufacturers. That's 5.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity used every day -- enough power to run an estimated 197,000 homes a day.

Bamboo shoots and trees

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:24:00 +0000

Bamboo has arrived. American consumers have embraced the veritable grass with a passion not seen since the first hippie rolled a joint. In the past five years, bamboo products have become a multibillion-dollar industry. Last year, imports into the U.S. exceeded $2.6 billion, with bamboo flooring alone seeing a 50 percent increase from 2005. Aside from flooring and fencing, bamboo is increasingly used to make everything from surfboards and bike frames to designer clothing. This diverse array of products is united by a singular message: Bamboo is good for the Earth.

Bamboo has achieved its green reputation for sound reasons. As one of the world's fastest growing plants, it grows up to 1 foot per day and can be harvested in an average five years, as opposed to the 40 to 120 years it takes to grow most trees. Regenerated from rhizomes, small stems attached to roots in the ground, bamboo doesn't need to be replanted after being hewn. Such quick growth means it can sequester more carbon from the air than a slower growing species like, say, a rose bush. Furthermore, it's cheap -- or at least, it can be. Costco and Home Depot both sell bamboo flooring for less than $2 a square foot.

Who needs a Prius anyway?

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:02:00 +0000

More than a cloth grocery bag or a Nalgene bottle, today's accessory for any hotblooded environmentalist is a hybrid car. For anyone who can afford the $22,000 price tag, a Toyota Prius and other hybrids announce to the world that you are someone who cares about melting glaciers and the fate of polar bears. People have always bought cars as a status symbol. Where would the sports car be without the midlife crisis?

So if you want to pay more than $20,000 to reduce your carbon footprint, brag about your part in reducing dependence on foreign oil, and garner esteem from friends at the natural-foods store, go right ahead. Just don't be too smug. If hybrids are driving a revolution, it's a televised road trip to marketing heaven.

Hybrids aren't necessarily the most environmentally friendly car on the market, says Jim Kliesch of Greenercars.org. The Web site, sponsored by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, rates cars based on tailpipe emissions, gas usage and factory emissions associated with manufacturing. While the Prius and Honda's former hybrid, the Insight, get reported averages of 40 miles per gallon, they're far from the 60 mpg promised on the sticker for city driving. The disconnect is due to an outdated Environmental Protection Agency calculation for fuel economy estimates that fails to include air conditioning, cold-weather driving and high freeway speeds. In October, the EPA implemented its new calculation method for 2008 models. It now claims the Prius gets 45 mpg on the highway.