By Charlotte Ward For generations, flutters of orange wings in the spring and fall have delighted people of all ages in South Carolina as they marvel at the migratory monarch butterfly. But populations are dwindling. According to the Xerces Society, monarch butterfly populations, found east of the Rocky Mountains, used to number in the hundreds […]
Easy Conservation Efforts
The Eco Answer To Those Old Batteries In The Drawer
Anyone else have a big bag of guilt (aka alkaline batteries) that they need to discard in a sustainable fashion in order not to hate themselves? I do try to use rechargeable batteries but when the smoke detector is beeping or the kids are distraught because their toy dinosaur/ minions toothbrush/ bubble machine has stopped […]
A New Upstate Service Will Refill Any Plastic Container On Your Doorstep!
We all need to cut back on the wasteful and environment-harming single-use plastic we buy but making products from scratch can take time and resources. In recent months, I have been using Amend Market, a new Upstate service that parks up outside my house and refills hand soap, multipurpose cleaner, and laundry powder in the […]
8 Easy Eco Ideas for Parents this Earth Day
Find the fun in natureAs we entertain and teach our children at home there are many fun, nature activities and experiments we can do. Encourage your kids to plant something or race around the garden looking for items for a nature scavenger hunt. Check out this cool transpiration experiment and a second one that involves […]
Caring for yourself as you care for the earth
Years ago, I went to a career talk that focused less on work goals and more on self-care.One of the exercises we did that day stuck with me. We were told to illustrate each aspect of our lives (family, fun, work, health etc) as a bucket and draw a line to show how full each […]
33 easy ways to go green in Greenville
As 2020 begins it’s impossible to ignore the impact our lifestyles and consumption as humans are having on the planet we call home. We are on track to have more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050 and global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels were on course to hit a record high […]
Eco-friendly gift buying
Most of us have too much stuff and it doesn’t make us particularly happy. As the holidays come round we struggle to think of things to buy friends and relatives and often don’t know what we ‘need’ ourselves. On Black Friday, and during seasonal sales, grabbing something at the mall or clicking ‘buy now’ on […]
A guide to cloth diapers
According to the EPA, around 20 billion disposable diapers end up in landfills each year in the US alone, causing 3.5 million tons of waste. If you’re considering the switch to cloth diapers, here’s everything you need to know… Confession: I didn’t cloth diaper with my son. As a first-time mother, just keeping a small […]
How to help bees
It’s World Bee Day! Let’s take a moment to appreciate the vital role of bees and other pollinator insects for our eco-systems.Caring for bees is part of the fight against world hunger. Bees allow many plants, including food crops, to reproduce. This contributes directly to food security and preserves biodiversity. Bees are actually very gentle […]
Preserving the Monarch
Every year thousands of monarch butterflies make a migration pitstop at Natural Bridges State Park near Santa Cruz in California. They can be found in the heart of a eucalyptus grove, a short walk down a leafy boardwalk, behind Natural Bridges beach. It is a pleasant spot. The trees are fragrant and provide the monarchs with shelter from the […]