Swaptree.com will plant one tree for each swap on Earth Day

As I mentioned on my guest post on Twilight Earth on Friday, I'm not particularly keen on buying things to celebrate Earth Day, but swapping things on Earth Day - well that's downright earth friendly. And if that swap comes along with the planting of tree, that's even better.

Swaptree.com, the site that allows users to swap books, dvd's, cd's and video games for free is working with The Nature Conservancy’s ‘Plant a Billion Trees’ program and will be planting a tree for every trade completed on Swaptree on Earth Day.

While currently several thousand trades happen every day on Swaptree, their goal on Earth Day is to do 10,000 trades and therefore plant 10,000 trees. While the average Swaptree user, given its emphasis on recycling and sharing, lowers their yearly carbon footprint by 180 pounds and saves trees from being turned into new books, with this initiative they hope to offset literally several thousand tons of CO2.

If you've been meaning to check out Swaptree but haven't done it yet, Wednesday is the day to do it. I've written about this earth friendly site several times before, but you know what, I have yet to complete a trade. I signed up for an account and someone tried to trade with me last summer when I was on vacation, but by the time I got home the trade had expired or been recinded or something. I think maybe I'll see what I can trade tomorrow on Earth Day.

BarterQuest: New Site Helps You Trade Your Stuff

Come on. Confess. There is a gift or two that you got for Christmas that you are never going to use, and you don't know where it was bought so you have no way to return it. I have the solution for you. Instead of allowing a perfectly useful item sit around and collect dust until you eventually donate it to Goodwill, trade it for something you do want on BarterQuest.

BarterQuest is a trading platform designed for the individual. Goods, services, and the use of real estate can be traded, from anyone to anyone, anywhere in the world. It will be the first trading site to fully exploit the advantages of the Internet and allow people like yourself to realize the possibilities of getting stuff for stuff, of excluding the middle man, of avoiding the need for money to get what you want. Anyone who has anything that may be of value to anyone else can be a successful user of our site.

The site is still in beta, but there are already many people putting up items for trade. I did a little test with an item. I have a classic brown leather Coach bag that I picked up a yard sale once for $5 that I didn't need, but it was a $5 Coach bag in  good condition so I snagged it. Consumerism rearing it's ugly head. It just sits in my closet. 

I typed in Coach and I was sent to page where I could see who had Coach bags and who wanted Coach bags. I clicked on the tab for those wanted Coach bags and found a couple of things that I could possibly receive if I traded my bag  - an 80GB iPod, Tiffany earrings, or tattoo services. Not too shabby. 

BarterQuest has the ability to help people who need or want items find what they are looking for without having to purchase them new from the store. It keeps goods that already exist from going unused and keeps goods from being created unnecessarily. It's a good idea. 

I did a search for some reviews from people who have used the site, and I was unable to find any. I can imagine that with any other site where you are getting items from individuals there is always the chance of the other person not keeping up his end of the bargain or items getting "lost in the mail." Not too many of the traders are rated yet, but I'm sure as the site is around longer that will change.

If you've got a holiday gift that you aren't going to use, check out BarterQuest and see if someone else wants it and has something you could use. It's better than perfectly good items going to waste.

Image from the BarterQuest website

Some of My Favorite Green(ish) Blogs

I'm taking a couple of days off and doing some fun stuff with my boys the next couple of days. So instead of actually thinking about something and then posting (I feel like some of my posts have been rather thought intensive lately), I'm going to point you to some of the blogs that I like to read daily. Here's a list of blogs that I have in my RSS feeder.

5 Minutes for Going Green
Green Bean Dreams
It's the Little Thinks
Tomato Casual

and one non-green blog for good measure
Inky Girl: Daily Diversions for Writers

Go ahead and check these out while I'm checked out for the next few days. Just promise me you'll come back on Monday morning.

Useful Green Stuff: Creation Care Magazine

I'm a Christian. And I know a lot of my readers are too because many of you are my friends. But I also know it because when people make comments on this blog, I follow their names to their own blogs if they have them. And I've discovered a few of you who I don't know personally are also Christians.

I also know that there are probably others who read this blog of another faith or no faith. I haven't made this a "Christian environmentalism blog" and I don't intend to. It's an environmentalism blog that happens to be written by a Christian.

But today, I'm talking about a Christian magazine - Creation Care. I just received my second issue in the mail yesterday, and I wanted to mention the publication to my readers because I think you should know about it.

It's published by the Evangelical Environmental Network. It's not a hit you over the head with specific doctrine type magazine. There is a definite message - God created the world and we are to take care of it. But aside from that, there are varying view points by a variety of authors.

It's educational. In the last issue, I learned about colony collapse disorder - the disappearing bee problem that's been happening for the last couple of years. I didn't know much about it until I read the article. Reading the article prompted me to have a conversation with the bee keepers/honey sellers at my local farmer's market. I'm now committed to buying local honey. We even did a taste test in my house with store bought honey and the local honey. There was a world of difference. The local honey was delicious. The store bought - not so much.

In this issue (the magazine is published quarterly), there are quite a few articles that focus around the fact that God reveals himself through his creation, through the beauty of nature. The question is raised, are we hampering that revelation through the abuse of creation?

I find the articles and news in this magazine informative, thought provoking and challenging. Right now, I am slowly working my way through the Bible from an environmental perspective and journaling about what I'm finding. This magazine is helping me with that.

The first issue of Creation Care is free if you sign up on the website. Take a look. You might like what you see.

Useful Green Stuff: Wired Magazine's Monthly "What's Inside"

My husband subscribes to Wired  and a couple of month's ago they had a controversial article on what it will really take to fix the carbon problem. I usually don't read Wired because it's mostly a techie magazine (or so I thought), but I read this article and then I proceeded to read the magazine from cover to cover. It's a really great magazine and written in a way that even someone like me can enjoy and understand.

They have a monthly feature called "What's Inside" where they break down the ingredients of common household products. Last month, the product was Easy Off. This month, the product is Just For Men Shampoo-In Hair Color.

"What's Inside" explains what the individual ingredients in the product do in that particular product and what they are used for in other things, too. I'm sorry I can't find last months copy because the Easy Off stuff was really scary. But here are some of Just For Men's ingredients.

Trisodium EDTA - in this product it's used to "suck up copper in tap water, which might otherwise react with the product to create damaging radicals." What else is it used for? According to the article it's used to clean up after radioactive spills.

Ethanolamine - in this product it swells the hair's out layer so it can absorb the dye. But, it was also an ingredient in Easy Off that worked as a solvent.

You can see how information like this might be helpful in choosing whether or not to use a product. Reading an ingredients list on products is often like reading something in a foreign language. Now when my husband's Wired magazine shows up each month, I'm going to be reading it, too, hoping to get some useful information.