1/5/13

When you travel around the country, don't forget to choose to stay at an eco-friendly hotel. Starwood Hotel's latest brand, Element Hotels, is the only major hotel brand to have LEED certification -- an internationally recognized certification system to identify eco-friendly buildings -- for all of its hotels. Properties feature low-flow fixtures in the bathrooms, energy-efficient lighting, saline swimming pools, free bikes to borrow and electric car charging stations.

1/4/13

More than 20 billion paper catalogs are mailed every year in the United States. Many often go unread, unrecycled and straight from the mailbox to the trash can. If there are some catalogs you enjoy receiving and browsing, think digital instead. Many major retailers are now offering free downloadable versions of their catalogs to tablet devices like the iPad. You can subscribe to the catalogs just like magazines. When new items are available, it will be updated automatically and ready to browse. It's paperless and one more way technology is helping to green our lives.

1/3/13

According to the Humane Society of the United States, one of the best ways to help wildlife thrive in the cold winter months is to lay off doing any cleanups in your garden. Dead flower stalks, leaves and seed heads are food to birds and other small critters. Dead flowers like black-eyed Susans, marigolds, cosmos, phlox and sunflowers are delicious food to birds -- especially when blankets of snow have covered everything on the ground.