Imagine a Home Depot-like store chock full of nothing but greener goods and you get the retail gist of Green Depot, a brand-new emporium to the green life which opened on the Bowery in New York City. Curious to see the kinds of
things I should be stocking up on to make my household more eco-friendly, I went shopping.
First stop was a dimestore photo-booth-like chamber where you could go in, pull a curtain, and "try on" different energy-efficient light bulbs, one by one to see which ones cast the brightest to moodiest light—as well as which ones emitted a not-so-flattering glare or bluish tint. Very cool!
Next, I hit the shelves of neatly stocked cans of zero VOC paints. But there was no sign telling me, as the latest Consumer Reports lab tests found, that no paint—even those labeled "zero" VOC—is completely without these volatile organic compounds, which give off nasty smells and harmful chemicals. Though, of course, the lower the VOC content, the better for your health. Read the labels for more information.
Then my eye wandered over to the wall of fun and funky-patterned linoleum samples which ranged from bright reds and zen greens to spattered black-and-white designs. Yes, this old standby is made of eco-friendly linseed oil, and looking at all the handsome options made me wish I had considered it when I recently did over my kitchen floor.
I also liked seeing all the tree-saving cork flooring choices on display; cork floors are made from only from the bark. But, again, there were no signs or salespeople telling me how these green flooring options stand up to wear and tear. You can learn more about flooring here.
It was nice to see all these products under one roof. You can get green flooring, cleaners, light bulbs, kilowatt-measuring devices to plug into appliances and many of these eco goods at your local home center—and they're probably cheaper. But this kind of center makes it clear how much we can do to save the planet and make greener choices.
My last stop, and near impluse buy, was the display of shiny stainless-steel water bottles set up pyramid-style at the front of the store. They looked so pretty—silver, pink, deep blue—any color you want, but I wondered what it took to manufacture one of these babies compared to a plastic bottle. Is stainless really any greener? I found the answer at The New York Times.
"Producing one 300-gram stainless-steel bottle requires seven times as much fossil fuel, releases 14 times more greenhouse gasses, demands the extraction of hundreds of times more metal resources and causes hundreds of times more toxic risk to people and ecosystems than making a 32-gram plastic bottle.”
But, say the authors, Daniel Goleman and Gregory Norris, if that one stainless bottle keeps you from buying and tossing 50 or more plastic bottles away over time, the climate is better off.
Bottom line: I'm heading back down to Green Depot to get me one of those cute pink stainless bottles!
A couple of items you'll find at Green Depot, above left, include a greener all-purpose cleaner and the Kill A Watt, a plug-in device that tracks the amount of energy your appliances are gobbling up (to see how well our testers thought it worked, go to Consumer Reports.
PaisleyPup
10:16:35 PM on Tue Apr 28 2009
There is a great variety in stainless steel water bottles. Those by SIGG have a nonreactive resin coating inside, so you never taste metal. But the best ones I've found are available at flylady.net. These are double-walled (in effect, unbreakable metal thermos bottles), and have a 2-step cap. You can screw the cap off altogether and have an opening wide enough to put ice cubes in; put the cap assembly back on and unscrew the smaller, top cap for a perfect drinking opening. These have become my favorite water bottles; I keep one by my bed at night, take one when I exercise, take one or two in the car while I'm driving around doing errands. Great product!