This past weekend I had tons of green fun. I made a trip to the Natick Collection on Saturday to check out the sales (woohoo retail therapy!) and get my copy of Green Chic signed by author Christie Matheson, who was super nice. Later in the evening, I showed up at my friend’s house with a bag of organic blue corn chips and a box of frozen artichoke spinach dip for our Green Chic book club meeting. Nevermind the fact that we spent more time discussing America’s Next Top Model than the book itself… Frankly, I think the book is awesome and really helpful, but there’s not a whole lot to discuss (as another book club member said, it’s mostly common sense). I’m sure I will refer back to it for tips though.

On Sunday, I drove to my parents’ home in Western Mass and took my  mother and grandmoter out to lunch for an early Mother’s Day present. Overall, driving is not very green but I actually used my cruise control for the VERY FIRST TIME, and it was great! It is supposed to save gas (I’m not sure how much, but check out Edmunds.com for more fuel economy tips–they actually did tests!).

When I got back to Boston on Sunday evening, I headed to the Method pop-up store to attend my friend JJ’s talk on eating healthy.  JJ is a chef extraordinaire and she runs a local catering business called Cuisine En Locale. She makes the greatest treats!  Anyway, we mingled, shared some enlightening discussion on eating local and moving away from pre-packaged convenience foods. There was a lively debate on whether BPA in plastic bottles is really something to be worried about. Personally, I’m going to continue drinking from my Nalgenes until there is more definitive research that it causes harm to humans.

In the spirit of loving food that is good for you, we noshed on some local cheeses and homemade pates (catered by Formaggio Kitchen), and drank organic wine (they were serving a merlot from Bonterra Vineyards, which was amazing!). For dessert, JJ brought out two beautiful cakes–green tea chiffon and strawberry cream–which were made by a French-Japanese bakery called Cafe Cafes in Watertown. They were really delicious confections; so light and not too sweet. I’m getting my birthday cake from them next year for sure!  The whole evening was a real treat though. I have been inspired to get out more often to the farmers’ markets this spring. The tricky part is that many of the local markets fall on weekdays during my work hours…I’ll have to find one that I can go to on the weekends!

To be honest, I already own a slew of Method cleaning products, including the spa minerals hand soap sitting pretty in my bathroom; the disposable wipes in grapefruit scent (perfect for cleaning up spills and dust in the car); and the all purpose cleaning spray (also in the grapefruit scent). I know I probably sound like a poster child for enviro-friendly clean freaks, but actually I hate cleaning and household chores. Method somehow makes it more fun and I love that they use only non-toxic ingredients.

Anyway, back to the pop-up store….It’s actually an Ingenious marketing ploy. When I first heard “pop-up shop” I kind of imagined there would be some oversized vending stand/tent made of recycled cardboard and woven bamboo out on the sidewalk where people could just “pop in” for their Method fix. In reality, it’s a much cooler and hipper space than I had imagined. First off, it’s housed indoors in a previously empty storefront. Second, it has a photo booth! And free gum balls! Since it’s not a full retail store, they don’t carry the full line of Method products–just the most popular ones. You can find most of the line at Target.

The sales staff was youthful, friendly and really helpful. To make things easier, they are offering special package deals, but I believe you can purchase the liquid hand soaps separately. I got 5 cleaning products for $20 (it’s a good deal as you also get a complimentary reusable tote to carry your purchases in!). Another option is to select their new line of baby products ($25 for 3, I think). Also, if you bring in your toxic household cleaners, they will dispose of it for you and trade you one of their new line of moisturizing liquid hand soaps.

The store will remain open through April 27th, so go get your Method fix! College students get an extra 10% off, and all purchases come with at least one (or a handful, in my case) $1 off coupon! Also, they only take credit cards (funny, but makes sense cuz they don’t have to worry about having cash on hand for the short time they are open).

I wish Method would stay, but I understand that they need to spread their “people against dirty” mission to folks across the nation. Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a new pop-up shop every 2 weeks in that space though?! For a good explanation on this “pop-up” retail phenomenon, see TrendCentral’s write-up.

“Starting today and running through Thursday, any Stop & Shop customer who purchases $15 worth of select General Mills products in one transaction will receive five reusable bags for free, Stop & Shop said.”

Whole Foods will stop offering plastic bags this coming Tuesday, which is appropriately Earth Day!

Also, Trader Joe’s has done this for awhile now, but shoppers who bring in their own bags can fill out a free raffle entry for a weekly drawing to win $25 worth of groceries.

As for myself, I’ve taken to storing resusable totes in my car so that I’m less likely to forget them once I’m at the grocery store. Like Boston Globe journalist Beth Teitell, I admit to forgetting my totes on more than one occasion, and I also hoard plastic and paper bags in my closets and cupboards, but it’s all about the baby steps…

Personally, whenever I get sturdy plastic takeout containers (like the black ones with clear covers), I do what my frugal grandma has always done–wash them out and reuse them. We never had much Tupperware in our household Plus, if you have guests over and they want to take some food home, you don’t have to worry about getting your Tupperware back!

I know I’m not the first to think of this, so I did some Googling and came up with this NPR story on an Indian cafe in the UK called Thali Cafe which offers “tiffin takeaway towers.” They are like stackable Tupperware, except made of sturdy, insulated stainless steel. You pay upfront for a set (£20) and they give you your first meal free. Every time you come back for another takeout meal, you just bring your tiffin and they charge you £6. How cool is that?! It would be interesting if local restaurant owners banded together (say under the Chamber of Commerce) and decided they would honor this system, so you could bring your tiffin around to any restaurant for takeout service. And maybe with the savings they earn by using less packaging, they can pass a discount onto their loyal tiffin-using customers!

As I sit here at my desk eating peanut butter M&Ms (shells colored in the Easter pastels palette), I think it is only fitting that I share this tidbit of green fuel news…One of my good friends, a supply chain expert, forwarded it to me knowing I’d get a kick out of it!

Green Supply Chain News – Trucks go 4,500 miles on chocolate power
In an effort to draw attention to the practicality of alternative fuels, two British environmentalists have driven a truck fuelled by chocolate some 4,500 miles across Europe and Africa. The truck was powered by using cocoa butter extracted from nearly 9,000llbs (4,082kgs) of rejected chocolate “misshapes,” equal to around 80,000 chocolate bars. According to Ecotec, the sponsor of the road trip, some two million (about 528,000 gallons) of fuel could be created from the waste generated by a single chocolate factory.

Now that’s some delicious fuel (and a lot of M&M rejects)! I remember when they first reported using discarded vegetable oil from fast food fryers as fuel–whatever will they think of next??

Buy tickets here (Zipcar members receive an extra $2 off!). Today is the last day to purchase online, but you can also get tickets at the door.

On Sunday morning, I stopped at my local deli to get a breakfast sandwich. For $2.69, it was a great deal–a fluffy mound of scrambled egg on top of 2 sausage patties and a slice of American cheese, sandwiched between toasty English muffin. Yum. Normally, I get my sandwiches to go, but this time I decided to eat-in.

When it was ready, I found that said sandwich was served on a Styrofoam plate. Hmm…I thought these went out of fashion years ago, along with Styrofoam cups! I even recall McDonald’s switching from their Styrofoam Big Mac containers to cardboard after all the environmental fuss of the ’90s. Then, I realized that the deli also uses Styrofoam takeout containers for their extra-large sandwiches…What’s going on here? Well, I finished my sandwich of course, and reluctantly threw away my non-biodegradable Styrofoam plate.

Later, this got me to thinking–are paper containers really better for the environment than Styrofoam?? I found some interesting arguments on the internet:

For instance, Eco Joe’s lays out some good points on paper vs. Styrofoam cups.

Generation eXe goes one step further by breaking down the environmental cost of using paper vs. Styrofoam vs. plastic.

And last, but not least, Grinning Planet shares tips on creating a green kitchen.

Pretty interesting…I think it is generally agreed upon, that reusuable cups/thermoses are best for the environment–as long as you hand wash, that is. If you use a dishwasher, then that would be a contributing factor to energy use.

As for our office, we use only paper products in the kitchens and we don’t have any dishwashers. We also recycle our waste paper, and plastic/ glass containers. I guess this would be a good time for me to start bringing in my reusable Nalgene bottle to keep at the office.