Is it just me?  It’s kind of embarrassing to always end up at the grocery store on the 14th looking at cheesy mylar balloons, bad greeting cards with no matching envelope, and half dead roses. Those mylar balloons sure help me feel green,  yeah right… and to boot, buying anything romantic online has never happened in my world.

But going green this Valentines Day, doesn’t mean you have to suck all of the fun out of giving gifts to your sweetie! Why not turn this Hallmark holiday into an opportunity to support ethical and eco-conscious businesses with your dollars while simultaneously showing your special someone just how you feel? From sexy sustainable skivvies to gorgeous green jewelry, check out our Valentine’s Day Eco Gift Guide for everything your main squeeze wants.

You might want to TAKE YOUR BABY’S BREATH AWAY

This breathtaking heart-shaped wreath made of wisps of organic baby’s breath and preserved roses sends all of the right signals with none of the yucky pesticides or overseas shipping.

Go check out more titillating surprises. It’s worth your perusing our friends blog for more Valentines Day eco-gifts for your honey.

So many topics to discuss. Brad Pitt’s biodegrable body lotion, Tiger Woods is now like the rest of us, a real human being. America’s dollar is weaker, China is building huge solar plants in Arizona and India will not buy our bonds, rather they buy more gold. Most of what I just said is not that interesting so lets do some “You Got to be Kidding Me” gift ingredient audits.

I’ve been shopping for holiday gifts and as a cheif responsible blogger at Hart of Green, I have to pull back that veil on “Biodegradable”. What you don’t know will only help you feel more stupid when you find out whats really in these products posing as 100% green.

You got to be kidding me #1…

100% biodegradable body wash? …really? 100?

On the positive side, when I look at all the ingredients in most of these products, I found most are able to break down within 28 days. Not much biodegrades available as ingredients, especially the thing we care about the most, THE SCENT - there are really only three scents to choose from. Hence, why we see so much aloe.

Packaging-wise, most bottles are made of post-consumer recycled plastic

However, all had fragrances and preservatives such as potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, which can form into the carcinogen benzene if it comes in contact with acids. And there’s isoeugenol, also found in the body wash, which is currently listed as a “high hazard” ingredient on the Environmental Working Group’s cosmetic database.

Of course, it’s not as though using this body wash will cause skin cancer, but compare it to something like Dr. Bronner’s soaps, which are made of nothing but glycerin and essential oils - fair-trade, organic ones at that - and it suddenly doesn’t seem so impressive.

You got to be kidding me #2

While most all bottles are recyclable, the pumps are not. Even Brad Pitt’s, Kiehl’s, generally tries to be eco-conscious in their product development and retail, it has yet to offer an in-store refill option.

What’s scary is we should grab a bottle of Jean-Nate and see what’s in that. Remember that stuff? They still sell it.  Even scarier, I bet Brad Pitt and Angelina flood thier bathtub with it.

Furthermore, biodegradable soap is actually not biodegradable when it ends up in a body of water, because it requires soil for it to break down properly.

This is why many “camping friendly” soaps have labels reading “Do all washing, bathing or cleaning at least 200 feet from any water sources.”

So you make the call. More products posturing as green this holiday season on the margins of what is otherwise an unsustainable product. There are two components with biodegradable, the ingredients and the packaging, and neither is as sustainable as something like a bar soap, which is natural, doesn’t require packaging and has a long shelf life.”

There are two categories of green products:

Best in class, which refers to the best of a bad set of products (for example, biodegradable plastic bags, which are better than regular plastic bags but still belong to a category that’s inherently unsustainable); and alternatives to unsustainable products, such as a cleaning solution that uses vinegar instead of ammonia as a base.

Companies that are genuinely trying to change their ways for the sake of the environment should be commended, even if they’re not perfectly green in the end.

But consumers who are serious about reducing their footprint will soon figure out that words like “recyclable,” “biodegradable” and “natural” don’t always translate into sustainable.

How Green is Dry

Time to hold your dry cleaner accountable when they’re using the word ORGANIC.

The truth is, businesses who go green need to stop using false labels that lead to false advertising.

Did you know, chemists define anything organic to be anything containing carbon, and those things aren’t necessarily good for you.

#1
Dry cleaning really isn’t dry – it just means that instead of water being used to clean the clothes, a chemical solvent is used in its place.

#2
Most dry cleaners use perchloroethylene, otherwise known as perc. The EPA has classified this handy little cleaner as a probable cancer-causing chemical.

#3
Many organic dry cleaners use a solvent called DF-2000 (sounds totally organic, right?) to clean clothes instead of perc. A derivative of gasoline, DF-2000 is only slightly less harmful than perc.

#4
Have you noticed that within 1 mile of your home you will probably find “organic” dry cleaners in a one-mile radius?

#5
At the first couple of places I went to, the clerk behind the counter couldn’t even answer my question. A manager was summoned to tell me that, indeed, DF-2000 was used in their facility to clean clothes in a “healthier” way. Another told me that perc was used to clean the clothes in their establishment, and the sign “organic” in the window only meant that they operated in an environmentally responsible way – meaning that they recycle those toxic perc containers, I guess.

#6
According to the clerk in the fourth store, they were actually using a method called wet cleaning, in which water is used to clean the garment, but in a computerized machine that prevents shrinkage and wrinkles. Prices there, however, were a bit steeper.

#7
I went home to do a bit more research, and found out that wet cleaning actually works great for most garments and is actually a much greener alternative to either perc or DF-2000. Another alternative? Carbon dioxide cleaning, which turns CO2 into a liquid to clean clothes.

Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a greener way to dry clean, try finding a dry cleaner that uses a truly greener method here.

Are you ready to STOP BUYING dry clean-only clothes altogether? I’m not. But I am enjoying this continued education of how fake people show up with veneer green labels and expect everyone to honor them when they aren’t authentic. What the hell?

If you think Green gifts are cheesy and expensive, well, keep that skepticism front and center and drop down to the end of this post for some UN-green holiday gifts from our friends at Best Buy.

If you really need to cut the Ho Ho HOLY COW No Cash for Gifts, then let’s find a cool way to say I love you when shopping this holiday season. Nothing says I love you like a pallet for your shoes with a new twist to living Green. As of today, consider yourself an Upcycler.

Upcycling is SO much more fun than recycling. Upcycling is taking something that has outlived its intended usefulness and gets converted into something even more awesome.

One of our favorite things to upcycle here at Hart of Green are shipping pallets!

Israeli designers, Junk+Ion, are absolute masters at upcycling shipping pallets and other everyday items into wonderfully useful pieces of art and furniture, like the DIY shoe rack you see here.

So what else can you do with shipping pallets?

Maybe more than wondering what you could build with salvaged shipping pallets, you could find yourself wondering, “Why would I want to use shipping pallets to make anything?”

One user in this pallet project metafilter says,

“Pallet furniture is actually a big deal right now, as used pallets are an endemic disposal problem throughout the industrialized world. But what’s being talked about is recycling the wood and using that wood to build furniture.”

Just as a reminder, when working with shipping pallets (or any lumber, for that matter)…be sure you are using non-treated wood. Pressure  treated wood has been treated with various chemicals to help it resist weather, rot, and insects.

Arsenic is the monster. Yeah, like the poison.