Happy Halloween!

Bowl of candy? Check. Costume on? Check. Pumpkins carved? Check. Today is All Hallow’s Eve and what better day is there to dress up, go out, and overindulge on sugary sweets? However, take a few precautions before venturing out:

• If you have kids, don’t let them trick-or-treat without supervision.
• Don’t let your child eat candy that doesn’t come in a wrapper.
• Hold a flashlight when outside so drivers can see you.

But Halloween doesn’t have to be all about the sugar rush and crazy costumes. It can also be a very charitable day:

• Make cards of kindness.
• Some children are too ill to go out trick or treating. Make homemade Halloween cards for hospitalized children with life-threatening illnesses and mail to either Love Letters: Random Cards of Kindness (loveletterscares.org) or Hugs and Hope (hugsandhope.org).
• Many dentists’ officers participate in post-Halloween candy buybacks. Donated sweets are sent to organizations such as Operation Gratitude (operationgratitude.com) or Operation Shoebox (operationshoebox.com). Both organizations include the candy in care packages for US soldiers in harm’s way. Find a participating dental office near you at halloweencandybuyback.com.

Saving the Planet One Paper Towel at a Time

    Do you really need to use so many paper towels? One roll will last me at least one month at home. I have a whole shelf of well-used dish rags that started out their life as a nicely embroidered fabric and now are much more useful to me and the planet! Ditch the paper towels and facial tissues. Tea towels and dishcloths work pretty much everywhere you’d use a paper towel, and you can employ newspaper for the truly gnarly messes. As for facial tissue, toilet tissue works just as well at a fraction of the cost and without separate packaging. Why buy something twice?

George Washington Liked Hemp, So Why Shouldn’t You?

    Some eco-smart Canadians created a completely cool substitute for plastic wrap called Abeego. This hemp and cotton fabric is infused with a blend of beeswax, resion, and jojoba oil. It’s flexible and able to stick to itself, and can seal bowls and wrap cheese, sandwiches, and snacks. It even looks good! Check it out for yourself at abeego.com.

Walking Your Talk (I Am a Bag Lady)

• Keep a compact, reusable bag in your purse for those spur-of-the-moment purchases.
• Refuse a plastic bag for five items or less.
• Fit purchases from different stores into the same bag wherever possible. There’s no reason to have eight shopping bags with only one item in each.
• Put your cloth bags back in your car as soon as you’re done unloading groceries. There’s less chance of forgetting them at home that way (and you’ll be one step closer to using them!). Keep them on the front seat, rather than in the trunk. If you see them, you’ll be far less likely to forget them.

Rescued Treasure

    At the El Cerrito Recycling Center, they have a lively reuse center where you can donate things that are still viable for others. I have seen amazing donations like washers and dryers being hauled away by a family who could not otherwise afforded a set. My favorite moment there was the time a donated sitar’s new owner gave a free concert to all us recyclers.

National Forgiveness Day

If you have borne a grudge for someone, forgive them or let it go. You don’t need that negative energy in your life. Remember that forgiveness is not absolution; what happened in the past still happened, but forgiveness can relieve yourself of the burden that has been weighing you down. Now you can heal. Our society is also in need of lessons in forgiveness and a dramatic reminder of this can be found in the film and foundation behind unlikelyfriendsforgive.com. They promote the real power of atonement and the art of forgiving, even after brutal acts of violence.

Recycling Saves the Rainforest

Here are some other things you can do to save the rainforest:

    *Don’t keep tropical birds or reptiles as pets. Let them live in nature.

    *Buy items made of sustainable wood. Hardwood teak and rosewood encourage logging and deforestation.

    *Recycle all your cans. Bauxite is mined from the ground in tropical countries and is the source for aluminum.

    *Buy local, organic food whenever possible. Conventional agriculture is exhausting our forest’s resources.

    *Support any organization that is legitimately working to protect the environment in developing countries and in precious rainforests.