Look good while doing good—it’s a vital basis of the modern green living movement. From fashion and cosmetics to couches and rugs, showing your chic and compassionate side has never been more popular. Thankfully, I can get attached to this trend. Companies are proving that you can have a heart and a sense of personal style at the same time.

One such company is the Riverside Design Group in Pennsylvania. Known for innovatively shaped tabletop creations, Riverside Design Group also has some serious green cred: the company’s building is LEED-certified for energy efficiency; they use lightweight recycled shipping materials to keep their carbon footprint low; and they use recycled glass to make all of their products.

Plates with Purpose's simple designs speaks volumes. Photo Courtesy Plates with Purpose.

To take their commitment to caring one step further, Riverside Design Group created Plates with Purpose (http://plateswithpurpose.com/)—an entire line of plates that raise funds and awareness for local and national nonprofit organizations. Five different artists had their hands in creating the designs for these fabulous plates, and in turn, 12 different groups benefit by receiving 15 percent of each sale. 

A preview of a few other styles available from Plates with Purpose. Photo Courtesy Plates with Purpose.

Available in a square and rectangle shapes, the plates feature images closely connected with the nonprofits they benefit. For example, the “wheat” design is for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the “ladybug” design is for the Mitochondrial Disease Foundation. You can see a full collection of the plates, sizes available, and even purchase a few for yourself, on the Plates with Purpose site. They’re sure to be fun conversational pieces at your next get-together.

 Editor's Note: Natural Home does not recommend, approve or endorse the products/services offered by companies guest bloggers review online. You should use your own judgment and evaluate products and services carefully before deciding to purchase. 

As the weather warms up in Kansas and the advent of graduation signals one last free summer for me, my mind is turning to camping. Since last September I’ve been carrying around a tent, sleeping bag and other camping supplies in the trunk of my car, and now that I finally have some free time I’m itching to spend the night outside, go hiking and simply enjoy nature. 

While getting away for a weekend to the woods might seem relaxing, the benefits for nature are not necessarily reciprocal. Most of us probably camp the traditional way—sleeping bags and tents—but that doesn’t mean we’re minimizing our impact on the environment. While camping may seem like an eco-friendly activity, it’s important to leave no trace of our visit when we’re gone to preserve the land. 

Trash

• Taking care of your trash is one of the most important – and obvious – ways of greening your camping. Be sure to take out everything you bring in. Keep bags around for collecting waste and for recycling.

• Dispose of waste according to your campsite’s rules.

• When hiking, stuff trash in your pockets. If you see any litter left behind by other hikers, be courteous and pick up after them. Just because it’s not your trash doesn’t mean you can’t help out!

Cooking and Dishes

• Bringing disposable paper or Styrofoam plates and utensils may seem the easiest option, but it’s certainly not the most eco-friendly. Instead, bring along reusable dishes and silverware that you can wash.

• When washing dishes, carry them far away from any water sources (about 200 feet), such as streams and lakes. Use biodegradable soap, and scatter the dishwater.

Enjoy nature while preserving it for future generations. When camping, bring recyclable dishes, use LED flashlights and propery dispose of your trash and human waste. Photo By mariachily/Courtesy Flickr 

Flashlights

• If you’re going to bring a flashlight (and most people do), consider investing in a LED flashlight. LED lights can provide up to 600 hours of light from a single set of batteries, and they produce a brighter light than traditional flashlights. You can also buy wind-up LED flashlights. The friction created from winding the light’s lever will power it.

Campfires

• Build your campfires within an existing ring and keep them small.

• If you’re going to fuel your fire with the wood surrounding your campsite, keep in mind that both standing and fallen trees, dead or alive, may be home to animals and insects. It’s always better to collect dead wood than saw off living branches, however.

• Gather wood from a wide area around the campsite so as to lessen your impact.

• If possible, use dry drift wood from rivers and seashores.

• Burn all wood to ash, soak in water (not cover with dirt) and scatter the remains over a large area. 

Waste

If you’re not using a campground with bathroom facilities, it’s important to know how to properly dispose of your body waste. While urine leaves little to no effect on the environment, other types of waste can.

• Catholes: This is the most common and accepted way of disposing of human waste when you’re out camping. For this, be sure to bring a garden trowel with you. Dig a hole 6 to 8 inches deep and 4 to 6 inches wide. Be sure to locate your cathole away from your campsite or any hiking trails, and place it especially far away from water sources as human waste can pollute them. If possible, place your cathole where it will receive the most sunlight, as this well help aid decomposition.

• Toilet paper and Tampons: Use toilet paper sparingly. Bury it deep in your cathole or carry out in a plastic bag. Tampons must be packed in a plastic bag and carried out; they don’t decompose, and animals are likely to dig them up.

For more information, check out Leave No Trace, a program that provides outdoor skills and ethics training.

There are so many places to find unique and eco-friendly holiday gifts and projects that we never have space for all of them in Natural Home. Our November/December issue featured a lot of great ideas, but I thought I would supplement them here with a few of my favorites:

1. Eco-artware.com. This site is just awesome. Take a look at the homepage and you will find beautiful recycled-glass ornaments, a cute clutch made of recycled billboards, classy cufflinks made of vintage typewriter keys (perfect for your favorite editor!) and a Movable Lights Menorah made of stone and beeswax candles. One item I ordered from the site last year was a cuff bracelet made of an old Beatles record. With everything from décor to furniture to pet items, the company’s products are affordable, funky and earth-friendly.

2. You may have seen the Terrakeramik tea pot we featured in the November/December issue, but I wanted to mention this company again here. Their lead-free, natural and oh-so-stylish kitchenware is fired using a special energy-efficient process. The company also uses recycled paper and packing materials, is fueled by renewable energy and uses nontoxic glazes. Some of my favorites include the coffee mugs and the colorful candle holders.

3. There are more and more sustainable clothing outfitters out there with stuff that is green and super trendy and stylish. The nice thing about organic clothing is that, in general, it’s made with higher quality materials, meaning it will last longer and hold up better than other items. Since I can’t decide which company is coolest, I’ll list a couple of my favorites: Loyale, a NYC-based company offers really fabulous pieces in organic cotton and bamboo knits. And another that's a little on the expensive side but worth it for classic dresses and coats is Mon Petit Oiseau, an L.A. company that uses all-sustainable materials, energy-efficient fixtures and light bulbs and has banned bottled water, instead supplying each employee with a reusable water canteen.

4. Making gifts look great for the holidays is always an issue—I want to wrap my gifts but not with wasteful, not to mention often cheap- and generic-looking, discount gift wrap. Paporganics makes really lovely organic, hemp and recycled-content wrapping papers and greeting cards. It’s a little expensive—about $5 for two 24-by-36-inch sheets—but it’s also beautiful in print and texture. As we mentioned in our November/December article “Dreaming of a Greener Holiday,” reusing gift wrap is a great idea and one I really enjoy. Use old magazines and cut out photos, squares of old gift wrap or funny headlines and stories from newsprint to make your gifts a personalized collage. And it’s good in more than one way: I once spent quite a while wrapping a gift for my boyfriend that had magazine cut-outs of all sorts of things he liked. He said it was really cool and I stupidly said “yeah, I didn’t want to spend $4 on wrapping paper.” He said, “Oh, I thought you were putting extra time into my gift but really you’re just cheap!” I guess my point is that reusing old paper is a great idea whether you’re concerned about your gift’s appearance, the environment or just your pocketbook.

5. OK, my last favorite holiday gift item? Of course, a gift subscription to Natural Home magazine! I mean, I don’t just say this so the magazine will reach more people. Just think about it: This gift is totally earth-friendly, being printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper; it keeps coming all year long; and it gives your friends and family easy ways to be good to both the environment and their own home and health. Yeah...it’s a good one.