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Diane MacEachern is the founder and CEO of Big Green Purse and the best-selling author of Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World. It’s referred to as “The Big Green Bible”! Diane’s revolutionary message is: The fastest, most effective way to protect the planet is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world -- women. Empowering and enlightening, Big Green Purse offers sensible, time-saving, and immediate strategies for green living that you can incorporate into your life today. Why? Women spend eighty-five cents of every dollar in the marketplace. As Diane explains, when we harness the power of our purse -- either by buying less or buying green -- manufacturers respond: from clothing to cars, to groceries to computers. Want to clean up the air and water, stop global warming, defend yourself against dangerous chemicals, and safeguard forests and other natural areas you love? Big Green Purse explains exactly how each one of us can make a difference -- through smaller changes or more substantial shifts. With easy-to-follow, specific information throughout, this book: * targets twenty-five key commodities where your dollars can have the most impact * provides standards-based guidelines and "thumbs up/thumb down" ratings to help you make the shift to eco-friendly products, companies, and services * highlights eco-cheap strategies to help you save money but still live and shop green * reveals phony "greenwashing" marketing techniques you'll want to avoid * suggests simple and quick environmental lifestyle changes you can make regardless of how much money you spend Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World is Diane's fourth book A successful entrepreneur, award-winning communications strategist, and sought-after public speaker, Diane has launched the only company in the U.S. focused specifically on harnessing women’s enormous consumer clout for the benefit of the environment. Through her books, articles and speeches she motivates women to take actions that will make their money matter. She advises companies on strategies to develop more effective green marketing campaigns. She also helps environmental organizations engage more women as members, activists, and donors. As a nationally syndicated Washington Post Writer's Group newspaper columnist, Diane wrote weekly “Tips for Planet Earth,” answering readers' questions on a wide variety of environmental topics. She has produced numerous award-winning publications for members of Congress, the media and the public at large. Her writings have appeared in MoveOn's best-selling 50 Ways to Love Your Country and The Cousteau Almanac on the Environment, as well as Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Self, Christian Science Monitor, Ladies Home Journal, Reader’s Digest, First for Women, Baltimore Sun, Country Living and many more. Diane lives with her husband and their two children in the energy-efficient home they helped build more than 20 years ago. She received her Master of Science Degree from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan |
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Best Eco Area Rugs
Most carpeting is made from synthetic, petroleum-based materials backed with PVC that outgas harmful chemicals long after the carpet has been installed. A healthier and more eco-friendly alternative? Area rugs made from recycled fabrics, wool, organi...
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Best Organic Makeup
“Organic” makeup is a tricky category. Though the federal government has set strict standards about how to use the organic label for food, it has not set certifications for organic cosmetics. Hence, the cosmetics industry may use words like “or...
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Best Eco Bibs and Burp Cloths
Babies need bibs from the day they’re born until they’re old enough to whip off and use the bib as a napkin! Whether they’re drooling, teething, or just having a food funfest, little ones can make a real mess. There’s nothing like a soft, siz...
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Best Organic Men’s Grooming Products
Guys may not want to fuss, but they still want to look fab! Increasingly, they want to look “natural” too, and that starts with the soaps, lotions and creams they slather on from top to toe. Given the many unnecessary and often dangerous chemical...
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Best Eco-Friendly Pet Toys and Stuff
Your pets may be your closest connection to Nature. Why not help keep them entertained with toys and other goods that offer the most natural entertainment possible?
The best natural toys are also the safest for your pet and the healthiest for ...
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Best Organic Pet Shampoos and Soaps
Your pooch doesn’t have to smell like a dog. Naturally fragrant shampoos, soaps, spritzers, and other skin care products will make your pet a pleasure to, well, pet. And their safe, plant-based ingredients infused with essential oils help mount a n...
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Best Organic and Bamboo Towels
Is there anything better than stepping out of a shower and wrapping yourself in a big, cozy towel? Not when that towel is woven from organic cotton, using low-impact dyes but none of the nasty finishing agents you’ll find on more conventional cotto...
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Best Organic Girls’ Dresses – Toddlers
If you have babies or toddlers, you may be among the millions of parents who have become eager to dress their kids in organic clothes. Though your options aren’t great, they are expanding. Demand for kids’ attire made without fire retardants, ins...
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Best Organic Boys’ Clothes – Toddlers
Boys really put clothes to the test: whether they’re shorts, pants, shirts, or tees: the fabrics need to be durable, the “fashions” flexible. Ideally, boys’ attire should be equally eco-friendly. That means made from organic cotton or hemp, t...
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Best Organic Baby Blankets
Often, blankets made for kids are treated with fire retardants and other chemicals that, given the choice, you really wouldn’t want right next to your baby’s skin. It’s hard to find an alternative in the mall, but online, a whole host of deligh...
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Best Organic and Fair Trade Blankets
Cuddling up under a cozy blanket or throw can be extra special when the cover is made from beautiful organic cotton or hemp. Growing conventional cotton is one of the most pesticide-intensive practices in agriculture. Farmers who grow cotton organica...
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Best Vegan Shoes
It’s hard to keep track of all the eco options cropping up in shoes, sandals, and boots. Some fashions use as much organic fabric as possible. Others focus on incorporating recycled fibers. Still others make “vegan” shoes that contain no leathe...
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Best Big Green Purses
It’s easy to get your hands on a green grocery bag these days. Some stores are giving them away – others charge a mere $.99 for the opportunity to forego paper or plastic. But buying an actual purse that’s environmentally friendly can pose quit...
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Best Eco and Safe Baby Bottles
Debate is growing about whether dangerous chemicals leach from plastic baby bottles into the breast milk or formula they contain. The State of California has banned baby products containing more than trace amounts of plastic-softening phthalates. The...
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Best Eco and Fair Trade Teas
Hot or cold, tea refreshes like no other drink. It’s especially good when brewed from full tea leaves, not the “tea dust” that fills most common tea bags. Plus, when you brew tea leaves in a tea ball or tea strainer, you eliminate the packaging...
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Best Eco and Fair Trade Jewelry
As beautiful as jewelry is, it comes with a big environmental price tag. One gold ring, conservationists say, generates twenty tons of mine waste. Fortunately, enough gold has already been mined to satisfy jewelry industry demand for the next fifty y...
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