Green Product Review - Cynergreen Water Bottles

My kids have lost many water bottles over the years on sports fields so I wasn't willing to buy them expensive stainless steel bottles. But when CynerGreen contacted me and asked if I'd like to review their new line of bottles, I figured it was the perfect chance to get the boys some bottles for their lunch boxes. I was sent two CGKidz 350ml Bottles, and once again, my children became my partners in  product testing whether they wanted to or not.

Here's what CynerGreen has to say about their bottles:

The CGKidz 350ML bottle is our most popular for lunchboxes and backpacks. Great for toddlers and babies as well as a sippy cup.

For adults, it's a great refillable option to toss in any bag to keep drinks cool all day. Sports the fun CG Kidz "green" eco friendly logo.
This bottle is:
BPA Free - Chemical Free
304 Stainless Steel
Comes with Pull Top Drink Cap

Here's what we have to say about the Cynergreen CG Kidz bottles:

• The boys like the look of them. 
  
• I like that the caps stay on while drinking them and don't easily detach. Much less of a chance of them getting lost.
  
• They were the right size for lunch boxes.
  
• Both boys said their water tasted just like water when they got to lunch.

Unfortunately, one of them leaked. When my son brought it home the first day and said it leaked, I thought that perhaps he hadn't screwed the lid on tightly. The next day, I made sure that the lid was screwed on well, but he came home with a wet lunch box again. 

The other bottle - which is exactly the same, does not leak at all. Perhaps we got a faulty screw on lid.

The bottles are still perfectly usable for taking to the sports fields or sticking in the outside pouch of a back pack. But for being inside a lunch box where they get tossed around  a lot and don't always stay upright, the one is not a good choice. 

Photo credit: Cynergreen.com

Happy New Year!

Are you all ready to stop the holiday celebrating? I'm exhausted. But I'm not complaining, really. We've had time with family, lots of good food, dinners with friends, and times of giving and sharing. And it's not done yet. 

If you look over to the right, you'll see a new feature in the sidebar. It's my official "mini-ad" from Mother Nature Network. If you click on it, it will take you directly to my food blog. Things are ramping up at MNN for our official launch in early January. I'll let you know when we head out of beta and into not-beta. What do you call it when you get out of beta? Are you simply "officially launched?"

If you're on Facebook, you can become a fan of MNN. I'm a fan. My friend Katie is a fan. Come on, I know you want to be a fan, too.

This week on MNN, I'm doing three days of do-good, easy New Year's resolutions that you can adopt as your own. Check it out.

Resolution #1

Resolution #2

Resolution #3 (will post link when it goes up later this afternoon)

I'll be silent until Monday the 5th. I wish you all a very happy and healthy new year.

Recycle Your Christmas Cards and Help a Good Cause

Yesterday, I wrote about a company that will accept your old and broken strands of Christmas lights for recycling. Today, I bring you St. Jude's Ranch for Children that has a program that accepts all types of greeting cards, including Christmas cards, for their recycling program.

Now through Feb. 28, 2009, they are accepting donations of cards that will be turned into new cards and sold to raise funds for the ranch that "rescues abused, abandoned and neglected children of all races and faiths from the vicious cycle of child abuse."

The children participate in the recycling program.

The children participate in making the new recycled cards by removing the front and attaching a new back made with recycled paper. The new card is a beautiful, “green” card made by the children and volunteers. The benefits are two-fold: customers receive "green" holiday cards for use and the children receive payment for their work and learn the benefits and importance of "going green".

Unlike yesterday, where I defended my willingness to donate my strands of lights to a for-profit company that would make money from them, there is no need to defend contributing to this program. 

Cards can be sent to:

St. Jude's Ranch for Children
Card Recycling Program
100 St. Jude's Street
Boulder City, NV 89005

For more information on St. Jude Ranch for Childen, please visit their website. There are many other ways that you can contribute to this refuge for children like the Campbells Labels program and the General Mills Box Top program.

Recycling Christmas Lights

Good Morning. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. We've got a few days break until New Year's hits, so I'm back at work. The boys, however, are not back at school. I feel so blessed that I can work from home and accommodate their schedules. I like it when they are off. The morning get ready for school routine is my least favorite thing of any regular day.

If you drove past my house this holiday season, there would have been a lack of cheer going on outside. Our pre-lighted garland that we've had for years bit the dust. My husband and I talked about going out and buying new, but in the end, we decided we'd hold off for this year. We'd wait until the after Christmas sales and then buy some LED lights. We still had a wreath on the door and candles in the windows, and you could see the lighted tree through the windows so we didn't look like complete humbugs.

The biggest problem was the disposal of the old stuff. That was solved  when I found a recycling program for strands of incandescent lights on holidayleds.com. 

When we receive your lights for recycling we will remove them from the package and recycle the box. The lights will be processed and any material that cannot be recycled (i.e. loose bulbs)is discarded. Once we have collected a substantial number of sets we take them to a 3rd party recycling facility located in Jackson, MI. The recycling company puts the lights through a commercial shredder, which chops the lights up into little pieces. The pieces are then further processed and sorted into the various components that make up the lights (pvc, glass, copper.) The materials are separated and transported to a region center for further processing. In some cases, the pvc cannot be recycled.

They will also send you a 15% off coupon for the LED lights they sell on their site. I know that this company is making out on this deal. I'm sure they sell the lights that they are sent to the 3rd party recycling plant. And of course, the coupon is to encourage you to buy from them. But I'm okay with that.

I also like that they ask that your lights be sent without any packing materials (the lights are already broken), in a recyclable box, and in the smallest box possible. All of this makes the least environmental impact when shipping the items

If I want to do things like hang holiday lights outside my home, then I need to be responsible with their disposal. I could collect old strings of light myself from others until I had enough to sell for a profit. But I'm not going to do that. Holidayleds.com will do it so I'm willing to spend a little postage to send the old stuff to them and if they make a few cents on it, so what? Allowing them to make a few cents is much better than throwing them in a landfill.

So, I'll be extricating the old strings of light from the garland and sending it away to be recycled. The garland is still useful, so I'll keep that and put the new LED lights on it next year. 

Yep, it's more work than just tossing the whole thing in the trash and buying new pre-lit garland. Oh well. Sometimes doing the right thing takes a little effort.

Merry Christmas!

A Very Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

God Bless You

I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday. I'll be back after Christmas.

Hey, just a little reminder about Amazon's 25 Days of Free Christmas Music. Today's track is from Aimee Man. Cool.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Recycling Christmas

Last year, I ended up picking through the trash cans after Christmas morning to get all the recyclable materials out. I promised myself that this year I'd be prepared. 

Here are a few last minute tips to think about and prepare for before your holiday opening frenzies.

• Have a bag ready to put wrapping paper in to recycle. Allison from Its The Little Thinks wants to see if she can get her kids to open things neatly so she can reuse the paper. Let us know how that goes, Allison! Me, I'm just going to make sure all paper stays out of the trash.
• Break down clothing boxes immediately and put away to use again. I usually break them down Christmas morning, put them under some heavy books to help flatten them good, then take them down the basement. 
• You know those absolutely horrid, annoying, somebody must really hate parents twisty ties that come on so many toys. The ones that make parents spew foul words out of their mouth on Jesus' birthday while their children impatiently wait one hour for a Barbie to be extricated from its packaging. They make fabulous tomato plant ties. Save them and use them to attach tomato plants or other plants to steaks.
  
• Packing and shipping materials from all that online shopping should be saved to be reused. If you have so much that you can never reuse it all, give it away on freecycle. There's some avid ebay-er who will be happy to take it off your hands.

One last tip. Don't be the recycling Nazi. If you end up having to dig a few things out of the trash because someone else in your family didn't meet your expectations so be it. Better to dig through trash than to be a nag.