Living Green
Beauty Hurts: What’s Lurking in Your Cosmetics
When it comes to beauty, a common phrase is “no pain, no gain” – the huge amounts of money that the average woman pours into the $170 billion per year cosmetics industry (not to mention the insane amounts of time) is all supposed to be worth it in the end. But recent exposes on the dangerous chemicals lurking in cosmetics, whose ingredients [...]
Electronics Recycling
In 2010, the world met a significant, though largely unnoticed, milestone when the five billionth cell phone subscription was purchased. In the US alone, we now have 285 million cell phone users. While cell phones are manufactured to last for at least five years with proper care and maintenance, most users will replace their old cell phone [...]
Discovery High School; Growing Vegetables and Character
In a community struggling with endemic poverty, unequal access to healthy food and environmental blight, Discovery High School’s Living Environment class has become the unlikely vanguard of an urban gardening movement. Started by Steve Ritz, the program’s teacher and enthusiastic Bronx activist, Discovery is creating positive change, one pound [...]
Field Trip to Queens Botanical Garden
Does Spring Fever have you ready to get outside and enjoy the sunshine, smell the flowers and feel the grass between your city toes? Are you itching to get away from the honking taxis, screeching subways and blaring sirens? Some of us here at GCC decided we couldn’t resist the itch any longer, and took a field trip in search of a tonic for our [...]
Parking Around the World
For most people, parking probably isn't the first thing to come to mind when reading about sustainability and transportation. When was the last time you read about parking policies, compared to articles about biking or high-speed rail? But cars are still a major part of our transportation network and progressive parking policies have [...]
Urban Composting
Cities have an abundance of food. Thousands of restaurants, caterers, grocery stores, bodegas and households comprise the network of establishments that thrive on food’s production and consumption in NYC. It is easy to think of each of these places that receives and redistributes food as stops along a path to one final human consumer. However, [...]
Stockholm, Sweden: Swop Art
Ever look around the house and wish to declutter without tossing so many things in the garbage? In Stockholm, Sweden, a store called Swop Art that aims to declutter all that junk and turn it into a zero-waste business. Green City Challenge interviewed Swop Art founder Mariam Nordmark about starting her business. First opened in January [...]
Hammarby Sjöstad (Sweden)
Hammarby Sjöstad is a town part of the Stockholm municipality in Sweden. An idea for the current redevelopment project began in 1990s, to revive the former industrial harbor area and convert into residential use. Since then, the town is currently undergoing the construction process and will be completed by 2017. To summarize the [...]
Cloth Diapers or Disposable?
Diapers are one of those things in life that is absolutely essential. Disposable diapers have obvious benefits. All you do is take the old one off, dump it in the trash and slide the new one on and stick in place. And, let’s be honest here, who really wants to do anything more than that when it comes to changing diapers? Disposable diapers are [...]
How Green is Your Home?
Think about the environmental impact of the products you use in your home. What kind of chemicals are in the soap you use for your sheets? What kind of chemicals did they use in the cotton that go into manufacturing them? Are cotton sheets worth the extra money? Were they made in China or locally made? What kind of plastic are your kids [...]
