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Valentine’s Day is coming up in just under two weeks, but if you are anything like me, you haven’t quite had a chance to finalize your plans. Should you give flowers? Candy? Exchange cards? What about green or eco-friendly Valentine’s gifts? Well, there are many different ideas to choose from and many ways you could go, but let me give you a few of my favorite eco-friendly ideas for Valentine’s Day:

1) If you are going to go the traditional route e.g. chocolates or flowers, go for the organic variety. I highly recommend Equal Exchange when it comes to organic chocolate. They have chocolate bars (which are currently on sale until Feb 14th), organic dried berries and nuts, organic hot cocoa, organic chocolate and coffee gift bags, etc. You can even get free-shipping (UPS ground in the contingent U.S. only) if you enter the code: chocolatelove. Go for the chocolate/coffee gift bag….a great eco-tasty choice!

When it comes to flowers, California Organic Flowers is a nice choice as they have a wide variety of organic flowers, with many great options under $50. If you want to make your own living bouquet, take a look at this video from California Organic Flowers as they provide some helpful tips on doing your own arrangements.

2) Get away for the weekend. If you are one of those people who likes to get away for Valentine’s Day weekend, how about a trip to the new Aria™ Resort & Casino at the CityCenter in Las Vegas? The Aria is LEED® Gold Certified and features smoke-free walkways, floor to ceiling airflow (to help remove smoke from their casino), energy-efficient lighting, bicycle valets and much, much more. While you are there, don’t forget to relax and indulge in the Aria’s spa services including a heated-stone massage or unwind and breathe in the air from their infused salt room.

If you are looking for a tropical rainforest type get-away, one of the ones on the top of my to-do list is the Daintree Eco Lodge & Spa in Australia. This eco-lodge is located in a 30-acre rainforest valley in Daintree National Park. Their guest rooms are ecologically-friendly treehouses and since they only have 15 of them, you’ll want to book early.

3) If you can’t take time away or would rather stay closer to home, you can do a day trip to a local eco-friendly or green spa. Spa Index has a list of eco-friendly spas you can choose from. (Hint: many of the spas on their list offer discounts for first-time customers.)

If a spa day at home is more your cup of tea, check out these at home spa tips and recipes. You can easily turn your Valentine’s Day into a spa day, without even leaving the comfort of home!

4) If you decide to stay in, make a meal for you and your significant other. What’s nice about making a meal at home is that you control what goes in your meal. You can include fresh or locally-grown fruits/vegetables, pick out a great organic or vegan wine and design your meal so it’s just right for you.

For example, you could start off with a tomato bisque soup,  make a simple grilled BLT panini or a Butternut Squash Enchilada for your main dish and end off with some chocolate-dipped strawberries. But, if you are hoping for romantic evening, you might want to add one or more of these aphrodisiacs into your meal.

5) For those of you with kids, a creative eco-friendly idea for Valentine’s Day is to get outdoors. It doesn’t cost much, it’s a nice way to get some fresh air and a wonderful way to get the kids (and family) to fall in love with nature again. If weather permits, you could pack a picnic lunch and enjoy a meal outdoors. If not, then maybe just a walk…look at the trees, do some bird-watching, maybe take some pictures or pick up some beautiful fallen leaves. Whatever you choose to do, reconnecting with nature is a wonderful thing to do on Valentine’s Day!

6) Make your own Valentine’s Day cards/gifts. Rather than going out and spending between $1.00-$5.00 on a Valentine’s Day card, just make one. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have something lying around that they can use to make a Valentine’s Day card. You can take that junk mail you got or an old magazine and cut it up to make a heart-shaped valentine. You can even use the fallen leaves you and your kids collected to make some creative leaf rubbings or press your leaves/flowers onto a votive cup to make a beautiful candle holder.

Well, those are some of my favorite eco-friendly ideas. What are your favorite eco-friendly ideas for Valentine’s Day? If you have a favorite gift, idea or site you think other readers should be aware of, please let me know. Enjoy your eco-friendly Valentine’s Day!

Image by Wayne National Forest (via Flickr)

When it comes to “going green” you’ve probably heard companies use the excuse of cost as a reason for not switching to a more environmentally-friendly method of doing business. This is true of individuals as well, but is this really just an excuse or is it the truth? Is the cost of going green too much for some businesses or individuals to afford?

Let’s take a look at a few examples of some real costs of going green:

Solar Energy: We all know there are costs involved in turning your home or business into a solar-powered one. Of course these costs depend on what kind of solar power you are looking at installing. Are you looking for a solar water heater? Solar panels for your roof? Or are you looking at tapping into solar energy in a more passive way?

As of right now there is a 30% federal tax credit on solar energy systems including solar water heaters and solar panels. Many local utilities also provide incentive programs for individuals or businesses who install solar panels. In Los Angeles, the Department of Water & Power caps their residential incentive program at 75%, but per their website, most customers have received a payment of between 30-50% of their solar system costs.

So let’s say your solar panel installation costs were about $9-10 per Watt to install. With the average installation being approximately 3 Kilowatts (3000 Watts), you are looking at anywhere between $27,000-$30,000 minimum costs.  With the 30% federal tax credit and let’s say only a 30% tax incentive from your local utility, that cost comes down to around $12,000.  Factor in how much you will save on monthly/annual utility bills and installing solar panels becomes a lot less costly than originally thought.

Water Conservation: Water conservation has many facets, you can go all out and get a solar water heater, low-flow or tank-less water systems, replace all the water fixtures in your home with water-efficient ones, etc.  You can also go simple and do things like take showers instead of baths, turn off the water while you brush your teeth, use bath water to water your plants, run the dishwasher only when it’s full, etc.

If you want to take it to the next level you can buy things like this Deluxe Water Green House EcoKit™. For less than $60 you get water-saving tools such as a hand-held massaging showerhead (that uses less water without sacrificing water pressure), leak detection tablets (to help you find any leaks your toilet may have), a swivel aerator for your kitchen (to help save water while washing dishes), toilet tank bag (which can displace 0.8 gallons per flush) and more.

Of course if you are going to go all out, check out this EcoLogic™ toilet. It’ll run you about $300, while other eco-toilets can run anywhere between $100-$2000 a pop. However this one received the EPA’s WaterSense® label for using at least 20% less water than a standard 1.6-gallon toilet, while still maintaining strict flushing performance guidelines. (Which we all know is a good thing to maintain!)

Cutting down on chemicals/toxins: For an individual or family, this can be as simple as getting rid of your toxic cleaning supplies and buying eco-friendly cleaners. Or better yet, making your own cleaning supplies.  Cutting down on our use of chemicals and toxins is a simple way to go green. However, for some businesses, it may not be so simple.

Take for example a dry cleaner. Cost is a real concern for an independent dry cleaner who is looking to turn over a green leaf. Many dry cleaners still use perc machines to dry clean clothes (although I’m not sure why considering the EPA classifies perc as a Toxic Air Contaminant). If they need to purchase a brand new machine, it could cost them upwards of $175,000.

However there are a few options…if a dry cleaner is currently using a hydrocarbon machine, they could potentially convert their machine over to a greener cleaning method, such as GreenEarth® Cleaning, without having to purchase a new machine. Other options include switching over to a CO2 dry cleaning machine or wet cleaning equipment. All are greener choices than using perc, so take a look at this chart and see which you would prefer be used on your clothes.

Another example of someone cutting out chemicals is the Organic Farmer. You’d think it would be simple to switch from growing fruits/vegetables using toxins or pesticides and become an organic farmer, right? Well, did you know in order for the USDA to certify a farm as organic that farm has to submit a list of all substances applied to the land for the previous 3 years? That means it has to be free of all prohibited pesticides for 3 years running in order to be certified as an organic farm.

I also came across this document from the California Certified Organic Farmers about the costs involved with and the importance of Handweeding in Organic Farming.

There are many more examples I could give you, but hopefully you get the idea. Going green doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money. Yes, there are costs involved as you move over to a more eco-friendly building or business. But if you do your homework and research out potential tax credits, your costs may soon balance out.

As a final note, I suggest checking out these smart conservation tips that can save you a lot without costing you a lot! And if you have been considering making energy-efficient changes to your home, please take a moment to figure out what changes best suit you and why now may be the right time to make those green changes.

Image by Edwin Land (via Flickr)

There are many changes you can make in your life in order to better the environment. But did you know your choice of beverage can also impact the environment? Here are a few beverage choices you might want to consider in your quest to drink your way to a better environment:

1) Water: Okay, this is an obvious choice. But should you drink tap or bottled water? To be honest the choice is yours, however I lean more towards tap water (with a filter) than bottled water. A key factor to consider is “Tap water is regulated by the EPA as well as state and local governments, but bottled water is only checked by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Besides, why pay the extra money (pennies vs. dollars) for bottled water, when you can get the same or sometimes better quality water from the tap? Tap water requires less production/distribution and there is no plastic bottle to get rid of/recycle when you are done.

If you do have a concern about the quality of your tap water either at home or on the go, yet don’t want to carry around a water bottle with you, get an iStraw. The iStraw purifies your water as you drink, leaving it 99.9999% safe to drink. And it’s small enough to fit in your purse or pocket.

2) Alcoholic beverages: When you go out to the bar or make drinks for your friends at home, you probably don’t consider which alcohol to use based on which is best for the environment. Do you? Well, it’s something you might want to consider before your next get-together or party.

For example, McCormick Distilling Co. makes an eco-friendly vodka, Vodka 360. The vodka in every bottle is quadruple-distilled through their energy-efficient process. They even profess to utilize every bushel of grain, letting nothing go to waste. They promote using 100% recycled content, the processed paper they use is chlorine-free, their bottles are 85% recycled and their vodka is 4x distilled and 5x filtered.

If you consider yourself more a wine person than a vodka one, I’d suggest taking a look at this list of the “6 Eco-Wines to Try“. I won’t even begin to say I’m a wine connoisseur, so if you know of any other great eco-wines, please add them below in the comments.

For those of you looking for a good organic beer, Wychwood Brewery is the United Kingdom’s #1 producer of organic beers. Green Daily also put out a good list of some of the top organic beers you might enjoy. If you don’t see your favorite organic beer, don’t forget to add it in the comments below so the rest of the us can get in on drinking a better organic beer. But whichever way you go, remember…one good tip in determining whether a beer, wine or other drink of choice is good for the environment is whether or not it is brewed locally. Don’t forget to check out your local brewers, you may just find a new favorite!

3) Coffee or Tea: For you coffee and tea drinkers, let’s take a look at how you can do your part for the environment by drinking your tea or coffee. Like with almost any other beverage these days, coffee and tea can also be found in an organic or environmentally-friendly brand. Some of the best choices come from Rainforest Alliance Certified Farms. The Rainforest Alliance works with farmers and farms throughout the world to ensure their goods are environmentally- and socially-friendly. A few good ones include the Organic Shade Grown Mexico sold by Starbucks or Lipton’s PureLeaf Iced Tea. Huffington Post also recently posted their “Fair Trade and Eco Friendly Coffee, Tea and Cocoa” favorites.

So, do you have a favorite eco-friendly drink? What about one you’d like to try? Either way, please remember when it comes to doing what’s best for the environment, don’t forget to factor in what you are drinking.