earth day: the occasional environmentalist

Happy Earth Day, friends! (Or Earth Day, Observed, at least.) Since you know I’m all about living the green lifestyle, doing everything I can to curb excess waste and…

Yeah, not so much. You could look pretty hard before finding someone less environmentally-inclined than I am. If I’m honest, I barely recycle. I never carry those reuseable totes for grocery shopping (though I have about 967 of them spilling out of my hall closet). And last night, I put some old medications right in the garbage can. I know, I’m going straight to hell.

But. Every now and then, I see a little something I could do to be better. Nothing drastic, just a little nudge of environmental altruism, without going too far out of my way. And hey, in those rare instances, when I get to pat myself on the back for all the polar bears I’m saving? I’m totally an activist.

Like this PUR water filter. I was drinking bottled and sparkling water by the gallon before this came along. Forget about all the bottles I was sending off to that big black hole they end up in (because, remember, I rarely recycle). That sh!t’s expensive! I’d estimate what I was spending on bottled water, but I’ll just bum myself out. Now, this little guy lives in my fridge (taking up almost no room at all), I’m actually drinking more water, and it tastes exactly like the Smart Water I’m addicted to. Plus, now I get to use all of those cute reuseable bottles I have cluttering up my kitchen.

 

And then there’s my skin. It suffers tremendously from all of this enviro-angst. It’s stressed out, friends. Sun, wind, pollution…to say nothing of the stresses of life. And when my skin is stressed, it shows. But the other day, a miracle arrived from Kiehls, who I always think of as my go-to for eco-friendly skin care (they have all of those natural ingredients, and that bottle-recycling program…it’s practically a national park in there). I’ve been using their new Skin Rescuer for 5 days, and you’ll have to pry it from my cold, red hands. My face looks more, well, awake, and that blotchy redness on my cheeks is almost entirely gone.

The real story about these shoes is that I saw them the other day at Article&, fell in love with them, got annoyed that they didn’t have my size, and went looking for Cri de Coeur‘s website. Where I found my size, thank you, and also found that these are vegan shoes, you guys. But I bought them anyway. Hey, if Stella McCartney can do it, no reason they can’t too. And honestly, they have a lot of cute shoes. I’ll let you know how mine turn out, but these are easily the best vegan shoes I’ve ever seen outside of Stella’s magical vegan workshop. (Also, code GirlieGirlArmy got me 20% off.)

And now, we’re going full-blown do-gooder (if stretching the Earth Day theme just a tad). A friend of a friend emailed to tell me she’d started a company called Activyst, which sells workout bags (quite good ones, by the look of them) made of renewable materials. Also, the proceeds go to fund girls’ sports programs around the world, which in turn helps eliminate poverty, teen pregnancy, hunger, disease, and on and on. So, you know, female empowerment, saving the world…it’s basically rude of you not to buy one. Plus, I kind of dig that there’s a compartment for your yoga mat and a separate one for your smelly sneakers.

So, there it is. While I wouldn’t expect me to be preaching the infinite uses and values of hemp any time soon, it turns out even I can pull off a pale shade of green…at least one day a year.

 What about you? Anything you’re doing to celebrate this non-holiday?

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