Home & Garden Archives - Page 11 of 11

What is the Best Natural Shampoo?

There are plenty of choices in natural shampoos, so you may have to experiment with several brands and products before you find the best one for you. Not all natural shampoos are purely “natural” because it is the artificial additives that make most commercial (and natural) shampoos give hair its shine, create volume, and produce a sudsy lather. Therefore, it is important to know about the common chemical ingredients found even in many “natural” shampoos. It is also important to know what natural ingredients best treat specific hair needs…

Carlo Petrini and the Slow Food Movement

In a nut shell, the slow food movement is the opposite of fast food. In fact, it was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as an initiative to preserve local, cultural cuisine, and thereby combat the unchecked growth of unhealthy fast food. The slow food movement encourages us to return to our roots…

LED vs CFL vs Incandescent vs Fluorescent: Which Shines Cleanest?

The future looks dim for incandescent light bulbs, the world-changing invention introduced by Thomas Edison in 1879. Part of the blame goes to LED bulbs, also known as light-emitting diode light bulbs. However, the cost can sometimes deter buyers, so they turn to CFL bulbs, also known as compact fluorescent lamp bulbs. CFL bulbs also save consumers money and energy but not as much as LED bulbs over the long term. You may be saying, “But LED bulbs are more expensive than CFL bulbs.” That is true, but have you taken into consideration the lifespan and cost of energy? We’ll go over all the features of incandescent vs CFL vs LED light bulbs below…

3 Reasons Homemade Composting Is Awesome

If you have been thinking about making compost but think that it may be too difficult, complicated, or time-consuming, you have come to the right place. We aim to make it clear and simple. While composting can be an exact science, it certainly doesn’t need to be. After all, Mother Nature does composting all the time without the help of human effort. We can join her efforts without making it a big deal. We’re going to discuss composting methods and then show you how to make your own homemade composting bin…

Can You Recycle Envelopes With Window In Them?

We once heard that throwing just a small amount of unrecyclable material would screw up the recycling process and cause the entire portion of recycled material to go to waste. So for a long time, we would spend tedious hours cutting out the plastic windows from envelopes to make sure no non-recyclable materials got into our recycling bin. After a while we got fed up with all the time this process took, thinking – “why should we have to spend hours to make up for the credit card and other advertising companies’ neglect of the environment?” Well, after some research, it looks like some recycling facilities can process those little plastic windows. So are envelopes recyclable after all?…

Paper or Plastic? Tips to Reduce the Use of Plastic Bags

The average grocery store goes through thousands of plastic bags everyday. At home, consumers use hundreds of zip lock and sandwich plastic bags to bag lunches, store food in the refrigerator, etc. All this adds up to an unbelievable amount of plastic waste. In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, the United States goes through 100 billion plastic grocery bags annually!

Best Low Flush Toilet

Think about how many times during a day you go to pee. The average person pees about 9 times each day. That’s 9 toilet flushes, not counting the occasional #2 😉 What does that mean in terms of water used per person per day just for going to the bathroom? If you take a look at your toilet, you may see behind the lid an indication of how many gallons per flush it uses. Toilets from the 1950s and earlier averaged 7 plus gallons per flush. Those from the 1960s were built to use 5.5 gallons, and the new 1980s toilets brought the water used in a single flush down to 3.5 gallons. Today, a new toilet is designed to use no more than 1.6 gallons per flush. Therefore, if you’re using an old toilet you may be flushing as much as 63 (7 gallons per flush times 9 flushes per day) gallons of water per day!

Monitor Lizard (caption: Monitor Lizards)

All About Monitor Lizards

Curious to learn more about monitor lizards? Earth’s Friends is pleased to be your go-to resource for monitor lizards. If you are curious about caring, grooming, or feeding you lizard, we have everything you ever wanted to know and all your questions answered below. Read on to learn more about these quiet creatures including monitor lizard facts…