Planet 100 counts down their top five biggest “Eco-contradictions.” The ideas they find are oxymoronic – and just plain moronic!

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Spring officially arrives tomorrow, which means it’s time roll up your sleeves and scrub. But before you go out and stock up on expensive, harsh chemical cleaners, look in your kitchen. Plenty of items in your cupboard clean up just as well, and won’t fill your house (and sewers) with toxic chemicals. Here are three of our fave multipurpose cleaners.

Baking Soda – If something needs sanitizing, there’s someone out there who will tell you how to do it with baking soda. Commonly used as refrigerator deodorizer, you can add it to cat litter and laundry to neutralize odors. It can also brighten kitchen tiles – just sprinkle it on and scrub with a wet sponge (for extra cleaning power, add kosher salt).

Lemons – The juice from this citrus can get lime scale off metal fixtures; or mix it with baking soda to clean copper, brass, and chrome.

Vinegar – Diluted white vinegar can be used to do windows (wipe with newspapers – no streaks or wasted paper towels), counter tops, and hardwood floors. Add about two tablespoons to each gallon, and a bit more for floors.

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Barenaked Ladies – “Snack Time”

Karen O and the Kids – “Where the Wild Things Are” Motion Picture Soundtrack

“Spongebob Squarepants” Motion Picture Soundtrack (Various Artists)

Dan Zanes – 76 Trombones

Putumayo – World Playgrounds 1 & 2

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Blue Marble Ice Cream shop co-owners Jennie Dundas and Alexis Miesen (photo: bluemarbleicecream.com)

Check out these three super-cool charitable non-profits run by smart women who help empower other smart women:

The Tia Foundation: Dedicated to providing health care strategies (not relief) for residents of rural Mexico. What makes Tia (“aunt” in Spanish) different from other NGOs is that it’s more of a support system. Its founder, Laura Libman, doesn’t believe in creating dependency on an outside source. She practices the “teach a woman to fish” rather than the “give a woman a fish” model. Tia trains women to be medical workers, and promotes sustainable health care. Bueno.

Safe Passage: Guatemala City’s landfill is one of Central America’s largest and most toxic. It houses more than one-third of the nation’s waste including medical syringes, leaking bio-hazardous tanks, and even human and animal corpses. Sadly, a reported 30,000 people live along the dump’s perimeter, salvaging it every day for food and shelter. And a staggering 40 percent of these squatters are single-parent families headed by women. Safe Passage provides free education to children of the men and women who scavenge the landfill. Its programs are designed to raise the self-esteem of these kids by teaching them life skills: work, self-sufficiency, and leadership. Now in its 11th year, Safe Passage serves more than 550 children from two to 19 years old. The goal? To prove that families have the power to raise themselves out of poverty.

Blue Marble Dreams: Ice cream is changing Africa. Last year, Jennie Dundas and Alexis Miesen, co-owners of Brooklyn, New York’s organic Blue Marble Ice Cream shop, were asked to open another location – in Rwanda. They were skeptical at first, knowing that the nation desperately needs more vital necessities (clean water, for one). But after hearing about the dismal plight of many Rwandan women, they knew they had to do something. Odile Gakire Katese (a.k.a. Kiki), the Rwandan woman who proposed the idea said, “Because we struggle most of the time, we find ourselves aggressive toward happiness, love, joy, life. When we have children, we teach them that happiness doesn’t exist. Now we want to reshape life in its simplest and sweetest form.” Not only will Blue Marble Dreams create sustainable employment for local women and enable them to support their families, it’ll also make a lot of little kids happy.

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Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a versatile, inexpensive plastic material. Because of its complex composition, it can be manipulated into a wide variety of applications. PVC can be found in everything from clothes to electric wiring. But there’s a slight problem: Plasticizers that soften PVC  are poisonous and potentially carcinogenic. Love that new car smell? It’s a combination of VOCs (volatile organic compounds from the plasticizers) giving off gasses. Same goes for that new shower curtain. Sam Suds has more dish on this potential household danger.

photo: Thinkstock

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Recently, The Christian Science Monitor reported that Obama still struggles with the vice. We know he’s not superhuman, but there’s something hypocritical about a smoker preaching better public health policy. Does it bother you, or is it just a sign that our fearless leader has faults like the rest of us?

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graphic from madatoms.com

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In the video below, Pasternak waxes poetic about their past with host George Stephanopoulos. “…We went to the Galapagos, we went to Machu Picchu, we sailed the Nile, rode horses in Egypt, paddled the Amazon … and on those trips we shared everything. We shared excitement, we shared a room, we shared a bed”. They also shared insider trading info that landed Martha in the slammer. Oops!

Pasternak misses her friendship with Martha, but not as much as she hopes her book rakes it in.

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Maldon Salt

From Blisstree to you, three things we like, in no particular order:

1. Catalog Choice – Finally! A website that lets you stop unwanted and annoying catalogs from turning up in your mailbox.

2. The Selby – Todd Selby’s photo shoots of fabulous friends in beautiful apartments.

3. Maldon Salt – Delish salt that’s one way we can afford to feel bourgie.

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If you happen to be in the Big Apple this weekend, this event is open to the public all day Saturday and Sunday starting at 10 a.m. ($25 for both days; kids under 12 are free). Can’t confirm that they’ll hold seminars at 4:20 on Burning Man, Woodstock, or Teva sandals, but Keynote speakers are Ed Begley, Jr., Mariel Hemingway, and Bobby Williams. Panel topics include “Eco-Fashion and Style”, “Young People and the Environment”, and “Living Eco-logically”. Stay green, tree-huggers!

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