With the holiday weekend upon her, Girlawhirl's packing her bags and heading for a sunny weekend with friends. And she's bringing along all kinds of beach gear, designed to be clean and green, and keep her – and Mother Nature – in top form all weekend…

Girlawhirl's been reading about the not-so-good-for-her chemicals vinyl products release into the air. Turns out that new car smell is actually bad for her. That's because vinyl – or PVC (polyvinyl chloride) – contains poisonous gases such as mercury, phthalates and dioxins that, according to The Center for Health, Environment and Justice, can cause cancer and harm the immune and reproductive systems. So she's trying to trim the vinyl from her life whenever and wherever possible. First stop: the spot of her most frequent vinyl relationship, the shower…

Truth be told, Girlawhirl feels as if she's done the best she can to make her tiny apartment energy efficient and as carbon neutral as possible. Since she has little control over how her landlord maintains her building, she can only work within the confines of her own walls, making sure that she unplugs, turns off and keeps the thermostat at the right spot between too cold and too hot…

There's a new term in town: meat reducers. Sitting somewhere between vegetarians and all-out carnivores, meat reducers are looking for ways to consume less in the way of food that comes from animals. But unlike vegetarians, who are often motivated by a strong desire not to harm animals, meat reducers are motivated by the impact the meat industry has on the environment…

Celebrated on June 5^th every year, World Environment Day was originally started by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Each year there is a theme and call to action for everyone to take a good hard look at the state of the environment and our impact on it. This year the theme is “Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy.” And that's exactly Girlawhirl's goal: to reduce her carbon footprint as much as possible

Truth be told, Girlawhirl is often confused by all the “green” claims she reads on labels and sees on advertisements and in stores. With companies clamoring to out-eco each other, and pledging that a purchase of their products will indeed save the world, she finds her head spinning and her gut questioning what's a true eco-friendly business practice and what's not…

When she heard about a couple of new varieties of tea from Honest Tea, Girlawhirl wasn't sure she'd indulge. Named Jasmine Green Energy Tea and Citrus Green Energy Tea, she thought at first that her longtime go-to bottled iced tea had gone mainstream on her by introducing energy drinks…