Stop Five Records

1. Bamboo - good for everything from flooring and furniture to clothing and other fabric. It is sustainable and is grown and harvested without detriment to the environment. It grows incredibly quickly, and, it actually thrives the more it is harvested. Better still is organic bamboo, but that is much more difficult to find.

2. Hemp - another great option for clothing and fabrics. This stuff is relatively cheap, plentiful, and is available as a local product. Hemp foods (bars, oils, protein alternatives) are great source of essential fatty acids, and hemp oil is also used to make fantastic body care products.

3. Organic Cotton - this is being made more readily available, including in Walmart and Cotton Ginny, among many other places. This is a good option, but not the best, as even on Organic farms the working conditions are still often atrocious on cotton farms. That said, organic cotton is a better choice than standard cotton.

4. Paraben free (read 'petroleum-free') Beauty and Body Care Products - that's right, the parabens in your shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion etc are petroleum based. Not only does this make them potentially carcinogenic to you and clearly harmfully to the environment (think of the bottles and bottles of it rinsing down the drain, creating a veritable oil slick), but the use of them is contributing to the ever dwindling supply of fossil fuels (more on this in a future post).

5. Local Products - should hardly be considered an alternative, but, whenever possible, choose local and shop local. This cuts down on the fuel needed to transport these items, cutting down on the pollution caused by the transport. You can also be fairly certain of the working conditions, and you can take pride in supporting the community in which you live. Better still if you shop from responsible, sustainable, organic farmers and vendors.

These are things anyone can choose without much in the way of inconvenience.