Keep your environmental impact in check by logging on to gocarbonzero.org, carboncounter.org, climatecare.org. These sites estimate your vehicle’s emissions based on make, model, and year and calculate the amount of donations necessary to offset those emissions by supporting tree-planting, for instance, or clean-energy projects like windmill farms.
Buttermilk. Coffee. More alcohol. Even among abstainers, everyone seems to have a favorite remedy for the Holiday hangover. But aside from drinking in moderation (or not drinking at all), what really works? Before you reach for that bottle of ibuprofen, try one of these natural remedies to help lessen next-day headaches, nausea, and dry mouth.
Vitamin B6: One small study has shown that taking vitamin B6 may reduce symptoms by half. Though researchers aren’t sure why, the active ingredient, pyritinol, seems to work as an effective intervention for a nasty hangover.
400 mg at the beginning, middle, and end of the party. Don’t take this remedy frequently. PRolonged use of high doses of vitamin B6 can cause nerve damage
Prickly Pear Cactus Extract: Opuntia ficus-indica, found in the pear extract, can reduce the body’s inflammatory response to alcohol, staving off nausea and dry mouth.
One capsule (1600 IU) five hours before drinking
Gen Gen (also known as pueraria or kudzu root) and JuHua (chrysanthemum flower): Kudzu root generates fluids, reduces thirst and nausea, and alleviates headaches and stiff muscles. Chrysanthemum flower, a common treatment to relieve headaches and irritability, clears toxins and brigthens eyes.
Either in powder tincture, pill form, or as a tea, before bed and the morning after. For the correct amount, contact a licensed herbalist.
Other Methods: Before Drinking
One easy way to feel less the effects of alcohol is to eat a 2 small or one medium bag of potato chips an hour or so before drinking alcohol.
An alternate method is to eat a sandwich (possibly baguette or ciabatta) made with lots of salami and butter (yes, I do realize the taste would be awful, but hey it helps; at the max you can eat one salami sandwich and one with just butter). This way the bread/potato chips will absorb some of the alcohol before it has the chance to get absorbed into your blood stream.
A good way to prevent getting wasted right away is to always drink the same thing, don’t mix alcohols, and if you order/make cocktails make sure to at least drink the same kind. Different alcohols consumed in the same time lapse will cause weariness quicker, splitting headaches and cause major hangovers, and, if you are a woman taking oral contraceptives, and you took your pill 4 hours earlier you are no longer protected (if you regurgitate that is, so be careful with that too).
Another remedy, used primarily by Native Americans was to eat raw almonds before drinking any alcoholic beverage to reduce the chance of suffering from any hangover.
Peanut Butter is also thought to be of somewhat remedy.
Remember to try to have a sports drink (like Gatorade) which will replenish the minerals that the kidneys excreted during your drinking. If you regurgitate due to excessive drinking, let it all out of your system and then have a sports drink to give you back some minerals.
If you had a long night of drinking, water (about 3 glass fulls should be enough) will help rehydrate you. Drinking makes you lose a lot of fluids, going to bed dehydrated will just leave the alcohol in your system at it’s concentrated levels and will cause you to feel their effects later on.
Remember to not take painkillers such as aspirin, ibrofen and the like. If taken in high quantities or on a continuous basis they’ll start to cause problems to your kidneys (such as kidney failure).
Other Methods: After Drinking Recipes
1. Lemon: Pour some lemon juice (of 1 lemon) to a cup of black coffee and drink it, no sugar, no milk.
2. Chicken soup – just as it works with colds, it can also help rid you of your hangover.
3. Honey: take about 2 table spoon fulls every 30 minutes since you wake up till you start feeling better.
4. Apples: Eat some as soon as you wake up, it will somewhat help you feel better.
5. Lastly, and probably most effective is to make a banana and honey milkshake. Take 3 bananas, pour in some milk and honey, blend it all till it’s all nice and smooth and gulp it down, it will help sooth and settle your stomach, calming your nerves and ultimately relieving you of your splitting headache due to a major hangover.
mothernature.com – I use this site regularly for my supplements and beauty care products. They offer a great variety of organic and chemical free items at a very reasonable price. In comparison, I had purchased an ounce of tea tree oil from them for under $8, where on drugstore.com it was listed as 1/2 ounce for over $8.
drugstore.com – Unlike mothernature.com, drugstore.com actually carries a lot of other random elements like Seventh Generation laundry detergent.
gaiam.com – A more expensive resource, but they have fantastic eco-friendly products from sheets to rain water collection.
etsy.com – Not necessarily an organic site, but a shopping site of hand-made products. A fantastic variety of good, most of which are made without any chemical.
greenfeet.com – They have a small inventory of products, but they cover bases that other sites don’t, such as that eco-friendly toilet brush.
lehmans.com – The non-electric catalog. This site lists a lot of Amish products, but is excellent for finding eco-friendly alternatives to everyday appliances, tools, and even traditional toys.
mountainroseherbs.com – If you’re looking for herbs and teas, this is a great resource.
bluecanoe.com – Hosts a variety of organic clothing (mainly women).
environgentle.com – Sells many eco-friendly tees with or without logos. Uni-sex.
I can’t begin to tell you how many people I have convinced to switch over to CFLs (Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs) and how much I am saving on my electric bill as a result of doing the same. However, if you are the one spreading the word about this product, please make certain you are also letting them know how to properly dispose of CFLs when they reach the end of their life. Here is some information that I found useful.
If you’re the sort of person who reads articles like this, you probably think pretty much everyone knows about CFLs by now.
Think again. Despite widespread availability and dramatically lower prices — name brand CFL bulbs go for about two dollars these days — CFL adoption in the United States remains around 6 percent. The rate is much higher in Europe and parts of Asia. Still, in the largest single consumer market in the world, CFL awareness remains in single digits. Contrast this with a recent survey suggesting up to 34 percent of all Americans believe in UFOs.
Mercury in CFLs
It’s not unreasonable to think that even fewer people know CFLs contain mercury. A small amount, sure: the National Electrical Manufacturers Association recently capped 25 watt CFLs at 5 milligrams per bulb. But as adoption rates rise, so does the importance of sending CFLs to a recycler, rather than the landfill.
Herein lies the problem. While retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot have exhibited environmental leadership by bringing CFLs to market, they’ve been far less forthcoming in taking them back. CFLs can last three to five years under normal use, which means the vast majority of bulbs ever sold are still in service. By 2010, however, The U.S. could be looking at 80 to 100 million improperly disposed CFLs annually if people don’t know any better and convenient recycling isn’t available. That would represent an intolerable toxic burden to our current methods of waste disposal.
CFL Recycling Options
A issue of this size won’t be solved by individual action alone. But if each of us take the initiative to identify our local CFL recycling options now, we can start the process of educating friends and family before their efficient new CFLs are ready for disposal. Want to give it a try? Here are a few places to check:
Your Local Garbage Service
Probably the best place to start is with whoever currently picks up your household trash or recyclables. If you pay for this service, you’ll almost certainly find a customer service number on your bill. Give them a call and ask if they offer CFL or mercury recycling. If not, politely suggest they do so. Here’s an opportunity to write a letter, attend a meeting, or take some other activist role in highlighting the importance of proper CFL disposal. The appropriate follow-up will depend on whether your trash service is privately or publicly held.
Municipal Government
Whether or not local trash service is provided by a private contractor, your local municipality (city, county, or parish) is ultimately responsible for waste disposal.
Most phone directories have a “blue pages” directory of local government agencies. Try the listing for sanitation services. While curbside recycling is by no means universal, your area may have designated drop-off locations or periodic CFL collections. Should your local agency not have any CFL-specific provisions, ask about safe disposal of mercury or fluorescent tubes.
Retailers
Unless you bought CFLs from Ikea, one of the first major vendors to offer a free take-back program, you’re probably going to get some blank stares when you ask the manager of your local store about CFL recycling. It’s worth the effort, though: retailers need to know their customers want safe disposal of the good they purchase. If you bought your CFLs from Wal-Mart, consider contacting their corporate headquarters and asking that they establish a company wide CFL return program.
Earth 911
Earth 911 is probably the United States and Canada’s largest online clearinghouse of recycling information. Visit their site and enter “CFL” and your Zip code in the “Find a Recycling Center” field at the top of each page. Alternately, try “mercury” and “fluorescent bulbs.” If there’s something in your region, it will almost certainly be listed. Earth 911 is currently attempting to expand its coverage to Europe, the first step toward an international registry of recycling options.
Commercial Services
There are a variety of for-profit companies which provide CFL and fluorescent bulb disposal by mail. Failing a local option, these firms represent a responsible and environmentally friendly channel for CFL recycling. Lightbulbrecycling.com, for instance, will send you a handy, postage-paid plastic pail which will accommodate about 30 CFLs — more than most homes will use in many years. Just drop your spent CFLs in their well-engineered pail, and call FedEx for pick-up. The downside is that the service is quite expensive: about $120 per shipment. At today’s prices, this almost triples the unit price of your CFL. On the other hand, with the energy you’ll save with each bulb, you’re still ahead of the game. You’ll also know for sure that your CFLs are being recycled in a safe fashion.
What If All Else Fails?
If none of these options are available to you, there’s a backup plan: storage.
As their name suggests, Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs don’t take up much room. Unless they’re broken or otherwise damaged, CFLs will hold their mercury more-or-less indefinitely. Rather than disposing of them with household trash, simply store expended CFLs until recycling is available in your area. A 5-gallon PVC bucket with sealable top can be scrounged from most construction sites or purchased new for less than ten dollars. It should safely contain a couple dozen bulbs. A sturdy cardboard box lined with a heavy plastic garbage bag should also do the trick. Just place your CFL storage container out of harm’s way so it won’t be dropped, crushed, or otherwise disturbed.
Spread the Word
Once you’ve located CFL recycling near to home, let people know. Offer to take other people’s worn-out CFLs when you recycle your own; organize drop-off programs with churches, clubs, and civic groups; and get the word out about the necessity of safe CFL recycling.
Using less than 30 percent of the power required for a conventional bulb, CFLs represent a tremendous opportunity for energy savings. But they also require special handling if we’d like to keep them from becoming an environmental problem of their own. Feel free to reprint this article in any way. Email it to friends. Be part of the solution.
For information on the proper purchase and selection of CFLs, see the Complete Guide to Living with CFLs.
Boric Acid: Mix this with some cocoa powder, flour, or other powdered food (I use sugar) and it helps kill anything with an exoskeleton. Boric acid is a 100% effective method since the acid eats the body of the insect, and they can never become immune to that! It isn’t instant. You just need to put the powder where they walk. Boric acid becomes ineffective over time, so it needs to be re-applied periodically, and water makes it lose potency, so using it outdoors isn’t as effective.
Menthol Scents: Eucalyptus, Peppermint, tea tree, basically anything menthol related will help deter ants. Use a small brush to spread the oil where they are getting in, and be sure to clean up their scent trails beforehand.
Cayenne Pepper: Another scent that ants despise, sprinkle this around where they are getting in as well.
Chalk: Ants supposidly will not cross over a line of chalk. If you are able to outline where they are getting in with chalk, this should help keep them from getting in your home.
