From de-cluttering and organizing to deep-cleaning your home, Spring Cleaning is a rite of passage for home owners. Spring comes and goes, and our homes look and smell cleaner than they have all year long.

To make way for Spring and Summer festivities, a good thorough cleaning is in order. There are easy ways to stay green while getting clean.      

De-Clutter is a Must

While de-cluttering your home, don’t throw everything out. There are many individuals who need clothing, furniture and canned foods. While going through your home, keep donation locations and local charities in mind. Sort everything of importance and utilize a “three-box” rule: keep, toss/donate, store. For everything you want to keep, find a new home for (but be careful not to make a “new” clutter hotspot). Donation items can be taken to a local charity as soon as possible. Some Salvation Army locations will pickup the items for you, as long as you schedule a pickup. For all those items you wish to keep and have no room for (or are too sentimental to donate and toss), find a local storage facility center. Companies like Unclebobs.com have over 400 storage facility centers across the U.S.

Sometimes Store Bought Isn’t Always Better

The Queen of Clean, Linda Cobb, has been informing thousands of people everywhere through TV sets, magazines and books how simple and easy cleaning can be without spending thousands on store and name-brand products. In her book, “A Queen For All Seasons,” she outlines the importance of simple household products when it comes to cleaning.

Baking soda is a wonderful deodorizer and mild abrasive. This is great to use in the refrigerator for smells and spills. White vinegar is an all-purpose cleaner. It’s great for whitening clothes, cleaning stains, and getting rid of soap scum and mildew. Club soda works on all sorts of spills while lemon juice is a natural bleach.

Air Freshener

Store-bought air fresheners smell wonderful but they may contain toxic chemicals including formaldehyde and benzene, according to National Geographic’s Green Living. Instead of spending money and putting dangerous chemicals in the air, make your own with easy-to-find and eco-friendly ingredients. Simply combine a few drops of vanilla, almond, lavender or other extract with a cup of water in a spray bottle and spritz away.

Be Conscious of What You Toss

I never knew why, but when I was a young girl my father always told me to never throw batteries away in the trash — and I never did. Still don’t to this day. The only difference is now I understand why I shouldn’t toss them in the trash. They contain metals such as alkaline, zinc, nickel and cadmium. Batteries aren’t the only things that cause harm if disposed of incorrectly.

• Electronics: Old TVs, DVD players, laptops and printers should never be tossed in the dumpster. Instead, take them to an e-waste center.
• CFL light bulbs: They’re great for the environment — sort of. They contain trace amounts of mercury. The mercury can leak if not properly disposed. Take them to your local Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) center, where they can be disposed of properly.
• Smoke detectors: According to The National Association of State Fire Marshals, smoke detectors should be replaced every 10 years. BrightNest.com states that ionization smoke detectors should be mailed back to the manufacturer due to the small amount of radiation they emit. For Photoelectric smoke detectors, any electronics recycling facility will take them.
• Paint: Oil-based paints contain a number of chemicals and should never be thrown in the trash. Take them to a local charity or your local HHW facility.

We are all responsible enough to recycle and know to install energy-efficient light bulbs in our homes and businesses. But how can you step it up when it comes to lowering your carbon footprint even further? Some businesses are tapping deeper into Earth’s natural resources and creating sensible alternatives to irresponsible living.

Public sentiment, cost savings, supportive government kickbacks and the satisfaction gained from attending to the preservation of our atmosphere are at the forefront of these environmentally conscious business designs. There are the benefits to meeting environmental goals of products and services; improved worker health and safety, a decrease in health and disposal costs, reduced liabilities and a continued increase in the availability of environmentally friendly products in the marketplace, explains the EPA.

Soybeans

Famous for the positive nutritional content, soybeans are most commonly used in soups and to make stock and cooking oil. It can be ground into powder to provide protein to otherwise nutritionless foods. It makes for a fine alternative to dairy and can also be consumed as edamame. But this great bean has a little-known secret it’s a renewable energy source. A superhero in its own right, soy can replace harmful chemicals used as a base for products. For example, Franmar Chemical replaces expensive petrochemicals with soy-based products for cleaning in industries such as screen printing, decorative concrete cleaning, paint removal, asbestos and asphalt removal, to name a few.

Vegetable Oil

Soybean oil is vegetable oil but it’s not the only by-product that does a business right. Other types of vegetable oils are used in industries, such as printing, to cut down on the environmental chemical impact of petroleum-based printing inks. While soy ink is used across the globe, other sustainable raw materials are gaining more recognition. A collective goal in the printing industry is to reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) content as regulated by the Clean Air Act Amendments. Companies like Printing For Less take advantage of primarily soy vegetable-based inks because they are gentle on the environment and produce bright, high-quality images on printing materials that include business cards and other marketing collateral.

Recycled Material

Many companies are dedicated to recycling organic material and debris. Some companies, like Recycled Green divert more than 600,000 cubic yards of organic waste each year. Recycled Green delivers landscaping and composting materials. The materials are used for landscaping, construction and highway projects, specifically for landscaping application, green roofs and smart walls, bio-filters and bio-swales, landscape elements designed to remove silt and pollution from surface runoff water, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, bio-retention, the process of removing contaminants from storm-water runoff, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and baseball diamond infield mix.

To gain insight, understand trends and discover actionable ideas for your business sustainable practices, visit a GreenBiz conference or event in 2013. New York, San Francisco and Boston offer opportunities to bring thoughtful leaders and professionals together to share the latest innovations in green business as well as offer a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the global impacts of greenhouse gas and air emissions.

Seventh Generation Earns Rockstar of the New Economy Lifetime Achievement Award
Recognized for Durability and Resilience

On February 07, 2013, in BURLINGTON, VT- Seventh Generation was recognized as a ‘Rockstar of the New Economy’ earning the Lifetime Achievement Award for its durability, resilience, and ability to not just survive, but thrive in an ever-changing marketplace and economy.

In the Fast Company article credited for announcing the honor, Seventh Generation product sales in 2011 alone helped save 77,000 trees, 28 million gallons of water, and enough energy to heat 1,700 U.S. homes for a year. The company also prevented 35,000 pounds of chlorine and 52,000 pounds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from being released into the environment. Between 2010 and 2011 Seventh Generation decreased normalized greenhouse gas emissions by 8%, a change whose impact is equivalent to the removal of 283 cars from the road for a year. All told, since 1999, the company’s product sales have saved nearly 523,000 trees or 1.8 million barrels of petroleum.

Three businesses nationally were recognized as Rockstars

Three businesses nationally were recognized and honored. Solar company Sun Light & Power and America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Flour, shared the honor with Seventh Generation. Operating from 25 to nearly 225 years, these companies have maintained their commitment to pioneer their mission through up and down business cycles. They continued to persevere and create high quality jobs and to improve the quality of life in their communities.

“Rockstars inspire us; they make us think, ‘That’s awesome! I want to do that,'” says Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab, the nonprofit that honored these ‘Rockstars of the New Economy.’ “These Rockstars paved the way for a growing community of green, responsible, and sustainable businesses who define their success not just by their financial growth, but also by their social impact.”

“This is a tremendous way to kick-off our twenty-fifth year in business,” said John Replogle, CEO of Seventh Generation. “We only hope that we can continue to inspire a consumer revolution to nurture the health of the next seven generations, so we can see the environmental impacts of our products on an even larger scale.”

Seventh Generation and other Rockstars are highlighted by Fast Company in their “Rockstars” series, a partnership with the nonprofit B Lab which certifies B Corporations as having met rigorous, transparent standards of social and environmental performance. In past months, B Lab has recognized other Rockstars like Revolution Foods, Better World Books, Happy Family, Guayaki, DIRTT, and Sungevity for their high growth and high impact.

B Lab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. They drive systemic change through several interrelated initiatives by building a community of Certified B Corporations that make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and just good marketing. Then by promoting benefit corporation legislation to create a new corporate form that meets higher standards of purpose, accountability and transparency, they drive capital to high impact investments through use of their Ratings and Analytics platform. This in turn helps companies measure what matters most through use of the B Impact Assessment, and B Lab’s free confidential management tool for measuring a company’s impact on its workers, community, and the environment.

More about Seventh Generation

Seventh Generation is committed to being the most trusted brand of household and personal care products for your living home.  Their products offer solutions for the air, surfaces, fabrics, pets and people within your home — and for the community and environment outside of it. Seventh Generation also offers baby products that are safe for your children and the planet. The company derives its name from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy that states, “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” Every time you use a Seventh Generation product you are making a difference by saving natural resources, reducing pollution, and making the world a better place for this and the next seven generations. For information on Seven Generation cleaning, paper, baby and feminine personal care products, or to find store locations, and explore the company’s website visit www.seventhgeneration.com.