You know those hot summer days when you can see heat waves rising from the sidewalk, and people say things like “that sun’s hot enough to fry an egg”? Well, there’s more wisdom to that statement than you might think.
Blog
Blog Action Day: What Do Meat Labels Really Mean?
With different labels like “natural,” “organic,” “free-range,” and “grass-fed” competing for your attention, it can be hard to know which type of meat comes with the lowest health risk and carbon footprint.
Buying Local vs. Fair Trade [Infographic]
From organic to fair trade, we’ve got lots of options when we shop. Each requires a different amount of money, time and effort. Here’s a handy visual for keeping it all straight.
How to Build a Chicken Tractor: 4 Plans
Thinking about raising chickens for eggs or meat? A chicken tractor allows you to move the birds’ home around easily, so they’re getting a varied diet, and fertilizing your yard as you’d like.
Non-Toxic Beauty: Do You Know What’s In Your Lipstick?
Don’t sacrifice your health just to look pretty for a few hours! Here are tips for avoiding toxins in your cosmetic routine.
Creative Recycling: 5 Ways To Reuse Old Denim Jeans
It’s a shame when your favorite jeans are too old to be worn anymore. But that doesn’t mean you have to throw them away!!
How To Make Your Own Fruit Jam In 30 Minutes Or Less
This past weekend, I tried my hand at making freezer jam, the lazy-cook’s alternative to canning. It was awesome! Here’s how to do it.
6 DIY Rocket Stove Plans
The clean burning, super-efficient rocket stove is also pretty easy to build. Here are six plans showing you how to do so.
Building with Tires for Energy Efficiency and Disaster Resistance
Scrap tires have been a disposal menace for decades: the EPA notes that “There are at least 275 million scrap tires in stockpiles in the U.S.,” and in 2003 (the last year for which there are figures, I assume), approximately 290 million scrap tires were generated.” Yeah, that’s a lot of tires. State and local governments […]
Suburban Foraging 101: How To Find Free Food
Food is out there – just hanging on vines, dangling from trees, and lying on the ground. And it is going to waste. How can you gather some of this food? Forage.
The Urban Lumberjack – The Accidental Eco-Warrior of the City
Urban lumberjacking is a new term that has been coined to describe a growing core of people who seek lumber in urban situations. Typically the urban lumberjackโs activities include diving into skips (dumpsters) and rubbish bins in an attempt to find the precious wood stored within. The great thing about the army of urban lumberjacks […]
Sustainability 101: Learn How To Fix Your Own Clothes
Losing a button here and there and having a few small rips on your clothes is a small natural disaster that happens to everyone. The trick is to know how to make the fix before it’s no longer fixable!
Propane: The “Dirty Little Secret” of Living Off the Grid
Living off the grid sounds romantic…no more bills from dirty energy companies, self-sufficiency, green power, etc.; however, there is one “dirty little secret” found in most alternative energy homes. Without it, some off-gridders couldn’t cook, refrigerate, heat water, or dry clothes. That dirty little secret is propane. Propane is a “by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining,”. Due to […]
5 Bee-Friendly Plants for Your Garden
Insteading is celebrating National Honey Month, and this felt like a great opportunity to talk about bees! I know, bees can be a little bit scary. They can sting, and they sometimes make the hives in just the wrong part of your garden. But bees are having a tough time of it lately, and our food future depends on those little guys!
How To Make A Rain Chain
Rain chains aren’t just beautiful, but they can help manage water runoff around the home and help mitigate soil erosion from water pouring out of your gutters. In this video, green guru Michelle Kaufmann shows you how simple it is to build a beautiful rain chain.
Three Easy Ways To Preserve Blueberries
Enjoy the harvest as long as you can – berries are a delicious treat all year long and when you save them yourself, you know exactly what is, and isn’t, in the foods you eat
5 Unusual Ways To Use Honey At Home
Learn why the unique way in which bees make honey gives it special healing and preserving qualities.
Want To Create American Jobs? Eat Local Food.
Just days ago, President Obama unveiled the American Jobs Act. Here at Insteading, we’ve got a much cheaper plan: skip the big chain grocery store and shop at a farmers’ market instead.
Sustainability 101: Go Pesticide-Free With Organic Controls
While keeping your backyard free from pests might make your lawn appear more healthy, it can cause the body to become very sick. So what’s the alternative?
Creative Recycling: How To Revive An Old Chair
See how easy it is to transform used or broken chairs into unique pieces of furniture.
Creative Recycling: 6 Ways To Reuse Junk Mail
Recycling waste paper is good, but reusing it can be fun and adds a little time onto the life-cycle of the paper. Here are some of our favorite ways to upcycle junk mail!
Lessons In Self-Sufficiency Learned From Hurricane Irene
Insteading’s Michele Decouteau shares lessons her family learned from riding out Hurricane Irene on their New England homestead.
Dwindling Food Biodiversity
National Geographic shared a shocking infographic highlighting the loss of biodiversity in our food supply. Check it.
Sustainability 101: Wash Your Car Without Wasting Water
If you wash your car at home once a month, it can use up to 6,000 gallons of water a year. Here are 4 ways to keep your ride clean without the waste.
Learning By Doing: 3 Sharing Sites That Offer Unforgettable Experiences
Exploring is fun, but it’s better when you do it with people that know a place intimately and can share their personal knowledge of what makes it awesome.
World Water Week: 10 DIY Conservation Tips
Although Americans have access to some of the cleanest, most prolific water supplies, we waste more than anyone in the world. Let’s change that today!
Why Does Organic Seem Larger Than It Is?
For a long time we have been hearing that “Organic is the fastest growing segment of the food industry.”ย Organic advocates make the claim that Organic could “feed the world” or that it could be “the solution to global warming.” There is definitely enough buzz about Organic to make all of this seem plausible. The popular […]
Sharing News: RelayRides Attracts Big-Name Investors
RelayRides only launches in regions that are home to an adequate number of members, ensuring that the service is viable and that owners successfully connect with borrowers. The new investments will cover RelayRides’ expansion throughout San Francisco and Boston proper.
Could You Make All Your Clothes For An Entire Year?
An artist from Vancouver challenged herself to just such a task, and discovered that sustainable clothing about more than just what you wear.
4 Grow-Your-Own Kits To Jump Start Your Kitchen Garden
Summer is winding down, but that doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to all the deliciousness of organic, locally grown food. Here are four options that make it easy to continue growing food inside the comfort of your own home.
Creative Recycling: 6 Ways To Resue Old Egg Cartons
Although recycling is the most popular of the three R’s, reduce is definitely the most important and reuse is the most overlooked. Here are some surprising ways you can transform a simple egg carton.
Top 4 Peer-To-Peer Carsharing Services
Commerical car sharing services, like Zipcar or Phillycarshare, are perfect solutions for those living in urban areas, but what about those of us living in the suburbs or even rural areas?
How Much Does Your Wine Weigh?
Love wine but hate the environmental impact associated with the heavy glass bottle? Here are some eco-friendly alternatives!
3 Ways To Share or Trade Your Used Clothing
Here are three ways that you can use that unwanted clothing to save money, meet a need, or make a difference in your community!
Grow Your Own: Top 5 Yard-Sharing Websites
If you don’t have your own yard space, but still want to grow your own food, yard-sharing is the solution offered by the collaborative consumption movement.
Sharing Economy 101: Four Degrees of Sharing
Janelle Orsi shares four ways people are taking sharing to new levels, ranging from relatively simple applications of sharing to community-wide sharing initiatives โ and beyond.
5 Successful Reforestation Projects
Between the Arab Spring, the weird weather, and, well, the Casey Anthony trial, you may have missed the fact that 2011 was proclaimed “The International Year of Forests” by the UN General Assembly. This celebration is long overdue: forests not only provide habitat to animals and plants, but also purify air and water, prevent soil […]
The Greenpeace Australia GMO Wheat Action: A Sad Day For Bread. A Sad Day For Science
On July, 14, three Greenpeace activists dressed in hazmat suits scaled a fence, and used weed whips to destroy a GMO wheat experiment in Canberra, Australia. The experiment was being conducted by CSIRO (the USDA equivalent for Australia). The activists posted video of the attack on You Tube. They also posted “explanations” by activists who could […]
Best Fruit Trees for Seattle
At my permaculture design course last weekend the guest speaker was Douglas Bullock, of the well-known Bullock Brothers Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island. Douglas was lecturing on the overall topic of soil, and specifically spoke about nitrogen-fixing plants, sheet mulching, microclimates, and last but not least, orchard design and his personal fruit tree recommendations for […]
Could Growing Your Own Food Land You In Jail?
A Michigan woman has been fined and threatened with jail time for planting a vegetable garden in her yard. This post includes ways you can support her cause.
Off-Grid vs. Grid-Tied Home Solar Systems
It’s still possible to generate your own electricity whether you live in the middle of town, or the middle of nowhere. To decide which is better for you, it’s essential to know the difference between off-grid and grid-tied home solar systems.
4 Sustainable Reasons To Live In A Big City
Why urban density creates the perfect environment for collaborative consumption, and 4 reasons why that’s where you want to be.
10 Existential Threats To Global Agriculture
I tend to be a “glass half full” sort of person, particularly about the prospects of successfully feeding the 9-10 billion people we expect by 2050. My optimism is based on daily contact with the innovative public and private entities who develop technology for agriculture. It is also based on the track record of small […]
Afghan City Builds DIY Internet Out Of Trash
An open-source project brings high-speed internet and an amazing sense of community and self-sufficiency to a village in Afghanistan. But the implications of uninhibited access could rock the developed world as well.
Sustainability 101: Building A Compost Pile
A thriving compost pile can provide plenty of nutrient rich soil for a healthy garden and you can compost anywhere. Building a beautiful compost pile is as much art as science. Rich compost can help any garden, even a container garden, thrive and produce and abundance of healthy food. Compost can provide all the nutrients and […]
How To Make Your Own Rain Barrel
Rain barrels are a great way to deal with drought, but can also be a solution for a garden without traditional access.
Bartering 101: How To Start A Babysitting Co-op
A babysitting co-op can help to ease the financial burdens of a babysitter by allowing parents to barter for services they need.
Beat The Drought: 4 Ways To Recycle Water
Water rationing is common in the more arid regions of the United States during summer months, which can make it difficult to maintain a healthy garden and lawn. Recycle water safely with these practical tips.
How To Throw A Successful Yard Sale
Donating is great, but making money is better! These tips will help you attract customers, get rid of excess stuff, and best of all, make some extra money.
Eco Friendly Tips To Redecorate Your Living Room
These eco-friendly redecorating tip for your living room will save you money and help the environment all at the same time. EPA reported in 2009 that 9.9 million tons of furniture were thrown in the landfills compared to only 2.2 million tons in 1960, that is an increase of 450%! If you compared the increase […]