All Your Green Blog

We've added another manufacturer to our product offering! It's exciting to announce that AllYourGreen is introducing Hempy's brand clothing accessories! All of the products are American made, and we've been impressed with their quality.

We're starting with a selection of belts, bifold and trifold wallets (with optional chain), and small purses. If you love them as much as we do, then we'll expand the product selection from there. The great thing about supply and demand is that we can let you decide what should be on the site. Our other hemp products have been a hit, and we think that Hempy's is going to be a fantastic brand to add to the collection.

Here are some examples of what the new products look like! Check them out in our Hemp Products category for more information, and to see the rest of them.

Pretty nice eh?

• Find Hempy's in our Hemp Products page!

Thats right, we've got Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps back in stock! We love their organic castile liquid soaps. I have a bottle in the shower and another in the kitchen. Its great for doing dishes too. In fact there's not much it cannot do. I've even used it for doing laundry when I'm out of detergent. You have to be careful if you try it for laundry a little goes a long way, and you certainly don't need a full cup. Just a couple of squirts does the trick for me.

I'm not only excited about getting such a versatile product back on the site because its a great product. I'm also excited because the team at Dr. Bronner's is as crazy as we are. If you want to see what I'm talking about check out this video:

View all of our Dr. Bronner's soaps here.

Just a quick plug for the home team. TheDailyGreen.com's new list of "10 of the Greenest Colleges in America" includes our hometown of Chico! California State University Chico has been on an environmental and sustainability kick since we were students there. Their Provost even retired to a full time sustainability director position of some sort in the past few years. They're very excited about green building practices and preserving natural wilderness areas. They're a fantastic cultural influence on the area when it comes to environmental perspective.

Also in the list is the University of California, Merced. While I've read Merced is in the top ten most polluted cities, the brand-spankin-new UC there sounds like it could help lead that city in a new, greener direction. Some of our customer service is based out of Merced, so we're proud to see both of these campuses on the list!

• TheDailyGreen.com
• CSU, Chico's Announcement

So, Dan is really our in-house cyclist. He doesn't participate in races or anything, but he is by far the most dedicated bicycle commuter of the three of us. I telecommute when I can, and Dieter, well... he's got that Segway. But as it turns out, cycling to work is even easier than I thought!

And I don't mean it in a sort of "it's so easy, anyone can do it!" way. That's silly, it's riding a bike; there are plenty of cliches already. No, I mean the physical act of riding it requires less effort than I previously believed. And why was I under this misconception? I, like many of you, rode my trusty old mountain bike everywhere.

While great on trails, mountain bikes tend to be heavier, and have larger, softer tires. All that translates into you putting more work into getting it to move when you're on flat pavement trying to get to work. That's bad news if it's a hot summer, and you prefer avoiding being dubbed "Sweat Monster" at work or some such.

There are two fantastic ways to simplify things. First, make sure your tires are fully inflated, and have your bicycle professionally serviced. They're not as complicated as cars, but bike shops have all the best tools and stuff to do the job, and it's usually dirt cheap. If your tires were low, and your chain was getting sticky, this could make a huge difference in your commute.

The other thing you can do is upgrade to a commuter bike. They come in a variety of sizes and styles, of course, and which one you pick is going to be a matter of preference. You can easily spend $650 on one if you're not careful. The one in the picture here is my new beauty, which set me back only $350. That's a full $100 less than the other bike shop was trying to get from me, so shop around.

$350 sound like a lot? Well, you haven't ridden it. It's amazing! The harder, narrower tires (than my mountain bike) give it a smooth coast. It's much lighter, has new bearings, new chain, etc., so it takes so very little work to get going. I find myself going pretty fast, just because I can. If I were to slow down a hair, I wouldn't even break a sweat on it. Also, on the price issue, at about $60 per tank, the car starts sound a lot more expensive, really, really quick. If your environmental motivations aren't as strong as your financial motivations, bicycle commuting is still the best way to go.

You know those little aluminum mini-carabiners on some products? We have them on ChicoBags and our 20 oz. Enviro Products bottles. They're really handy, but they're not the toughest things in the world. They're aluminum, and are generally manufactured separately from the main product; an afterthought almost.

Well, Dan (our head programmer, who writes under the nom de plume of Radfarererrerrer) devised his own solution. He stopped by our locally owned hardware store, and bought a #3-size S-biner, and clipped that bad boy on there instead. It was brilliant! It's easier to use, way tougher, and less prone to malfunction.

Being particularly bright folks around here, a mere few months later, it dawned on us... HEY, we could offer these things to our customers! We figured you probably had a similar success rate with the stock mini-carabiners as we did, so there was an opportunity to help. As it turns out, they make some pretty big ones too, and now we can clip everything from our ChicoBags on belt-loops, to 40 oz. Klean Kanteens to our backpacks. They're one of those things that you start using and think "wow... why didn't I think of this sooner."

We eventually did think of it, though, and here we have them. Getting ChicoBags? The smallest size comes in 2-packs. Handy, no? In the picture, for comparison, you have the ChicoBag and Enviro Products stock mini-carabiners in the upper left. Then you have the ascending sizes of the #1, #2, #3, and #5 S-biners. You can find them all in the Awesome category (till our in-progress top-secret redesign is done, but shhhh).

• #1 S-biner 2 pack
• #2 S-biner
• #3 S-biner
• #4 S-biner