Archive for July, 2007

July 12, 2007 | News

Jerry, the creative director over at The Change, was just featured as one of 5 guest writers on the topic of brand strategy over at Treehugger.com. Check out the article!

One of Jerry’s main points (which we love), is that the truth is your best tool - tell people what you’re doing to effect sustainability and levy a positive impact on the world and let that set you apart. Big companies omit information (like toxic runoff, industrial waste and shoddy labor) for a reason. And in general, the typical consumer would rather not know. So if your business’ practices are different, why not share the truth about what sets you apart? Tell your potential consumer base what fair trade means, or why it’s important to seek out organic produce.

If you don’t tell them, who will? Certainly not the traditional companies you’re competing with.

July 11, 2007 | Outdoors, Lifestyle

When you have kids around, or just when you’re concerned about things like, oh, the balance of the ecosystem, there’s a little thing inside you that gets irked by the thought of pesticides. Did you know that you can spray or drop some pure vinegar on your weeds and it’ll kill most of them? You can buy the regular vinegar or the organic - I’ve found them to be virtually indistinguishable (except that the organic is, oh, about 3 times the price).

It works really well for those annoying little shoots that come up in the seams of your sidewalk or driveway. Regular household vinegar is 5% strength, and some of the heartier weeds may need a stronger vinegar. But until you’re ready to distill your own, go ahead and try the white vinegar in your pantry on those pesky weeds. Remember, in a drought you want to do all you can to pamper your plants - and that means zapping weeds before they can zap your plants!

Note: I’m far from being a green thumb, but this is one thing that works for me in my garden.� For more Works for Me tips, head over to Rocks in My Dryer!

July 10, 2007 | Water, Shopping, News

Inhabitat clued us in that the US Congress plans to go carbon neutral by the end of the current term!

�Gristmill filled us in on the demographics at the Live Earth house parties in Austin this weekend. Looks like us broomhuggers are 30-something-plus. I find that odd when it looked like the concerts were geared toward a younger audience… but maybe I’m just not hip enough to get it…

One of Fast Company’s feature articles this month talks about the ins and outs of bottled water. $15 billion? Craziness. It’s definitely worth your time to read.

And to end with, a good buy over at Trade As One. They feature fair trade items, and our favorite are the recycled bags made by coops in Cambodia.

July 5, 2007 | Lifestyle

Here at Broom Huggers we’re all about recycling, reusing, and repurposing. And we’re pretty darn supportive of all those men and women in uniform who make sacrifices for our safety. So when we found out about Cell Phones for Soldiers, we were pretty excited!

Americans will replace an estimated 130 million cell phones this year - so what happens to the old ones? Well, you decide! See, when you turn in your old cell phone to Cell Phones for Soldiers at an authorized drop-off location or send it in using their pre-paid postage, your cell phone is sent to ReCellular, which donates minutes to soldiers to call home. On average, each cell phone is turned into 60 minutes! Do you know what that means to a soldier? A full hour of talk! For something that probably would have been tossed in the trash.

So, support your troops and protect the environment all at once.

July 4, 2007 | Reviews, Outdoors, Shopping, Lifestyle

Lots of areas in the US are experiencing severe drought right now, and many are exercising water restrictions. Here’s a nifty idea to salvage those trees and plants without draining your municipal water supply.

Landscape USA sells Aqua Cones -6 for $12.99. They screw on to the top of 2-liter soda bottles, and you insert the cone into the ground. They give water directly to the roots, where it’s most needed. That way water isn’t wasted on leaves or in places where it will quickly evaporate.

The truly green-minded will save ‘waste’ water from the tap - from washing dishes, or from waiting for the water to warm up.

Bathroom, Vinegar, Cleaning tips

We usually participate in Shannon’s Works for Me Wednesday weekly tip over at Rocks in My Dryer, but in honor of Independence Day, Shannon’s canceled it this week. However, seeing as how Broom Huggers has been out of commission for about a week now for this site transition, and seeing as how we’re all about cleaning tips over here, I’m doing it anyway. It’s okay - it’s only 6:50 AM. By the time the day really starts I’ll be off my computer to celebrate the 4th. I promise. But first… want an easy way to clean your shower curtain?

Remove it from the curtain rings and take it outside. Lay it flat in direct sunlight, and let the sunlight kill the mildew. It’ll do all the work for you! If your shower curtain, uh, needs some extra love (you know what I mean), spray it down with some vinegar outside and then a little lemon juice. Scrub if you like, or let the sun do the work for you.
That’s what works for me. Head over to Shannon’s place next week for more tips.

July 2, 2007 | News

Broom Huggers has a new look! Swank Web Style designed us a great new site, and The Change took care of our awesome logo. We’ve been offline for a while due to problems with our new domain host, but it’s mostly all worked out. Except for the fact that all of our email is lost in cyberspace. I’ll be working on ironing that out today, but until then, if you’ve emailed broomhuggers since Thursday of last week, I apologize, but your email is floating around somewhere in the cyber-equivalent of the land of Oz.