Eucalyptus Magazine, November-December 2011

bay area Life Vibrant Health Eco-Living

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Your home: Green & clean straus creamery new vegan eating holiday gift guide

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November + December 2011

Features

16 Righteous Ready-to-Wear

Clothing manufacturers do good By julie mccoy

20 Holiday Gift Guide

The season’s best gifts

By Ann Marie Brown

22 Clean and Green

Your home for the holidays

By Julie Mccoy

Departments 7 Grown Local /Straus Family Creamery 10 Healthful Eating /The Vegan Primer 13 Outdoors /Volunteering in Parks

In Every Issue 3 Publisher’s Note 28 Tidbits /Green Tips 28 Advertisers’ Index

Cover: No Enemy's California Hemp Hoodie photographed by Brooke Duthie. This page: Straus Family Creamery photographed by Lane Johnson.

EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 1

EUCALYPTUS Michaela Marek Publisher and Founder EDITORIAL Editor Ann Marie Brown

®

Contributing Writers Marit Hansen, Stephanie Liou, Rhea Maze, Julie McCoy Copy Editor Erin Yasuda Soto Editorial Intern Rhea Maze

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DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Designer Greg Silva Photo Editor and Photographer Lane Johnson Contributing Photographer Rachael Olmstead Production Manager Diana Russell advertising sales Rebecca Campos, Michaela Marek contact 15559 Union Avenue, Suite 215 Los Gatos, CA 95032 phone 408.335.4778, fax 408.877.7303 email info@eucalyptusmagazine.com Web eucalyptusmagazine.com Twitter twitter.com/eucalyptusmag Facebook facebook.com/eucalyptusmagazine Subscription rate $24.00 per year Advertising rates on request Volume 2, Issue 8 ©2011 by Eucalyptus Magazine, ISSN 2160-4541 (print), ISSN 2160-4576 (online). Eucalyptus is a registered trademark in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All rights reserved. Some parts of this magazine may be reproduced with written permission only. We welcome your ideas, articles, and feedback. Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published materials, Eucalyptus Magazine cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed or facts supplied by its authors. We do not necessarily endorse products and services advertised. Always consult a professional provider for clarification.

Eucalyptus is the winner of the 2010 Apex Awards for Publication Excellence for green publications, and the 2010 Gold MarCom Award for green publications.

2 | November + December 2011

lane johnson

publisher’s note

As I write this note for our November/December issue, my mind drifts back to the traditional Christmases of my childhood in the Czech Republic. My mother and grandmother, like all Czech women, felt the burden of cleaning the entire house and baking multiple varieties of holiday cookies.

When December 24 rolled around, the work ended and the whole family would bond over good food and mulled wine.

We’d enjoy a traditional Czech meal of breaded carp with potato salad, followed by a dessert of braided bread, vanocka with raisins and almonds. The celebration would last well into the evening, followed by a midnight mass at the church.

When I was 16 years old, I received a Christmas present from my boyfriend: a nicely wrapped box filled with animals made from chestnuts, toothpicks, and pinecones. He must have spent hours making all the different creatures: cats, dogs, horses, zebras, and more. Because I was young and naive, the gift did not make me happy. I wanted a real gift, something purchased from a store. To this day, I send apologies to the universe for my foolishness. Today I would love to receive this kind of gift. Anyone can buy gifts, but few people can devote their time to making unique, personal creations.

Whether or not you are Czech, you may feel the need to clean your home for holiday company, and if you want some help, check out our story on local eco-friendly cleaning

companies on page 22. For help with cookie making and decorating, see our Green Tips on page 28. And perhaps our annual Holiday Gift Guide on page 20 will plant some seeds in your mind about nontraditional gifts for your loved ones.

From all of us at Eucalyptus Magazine, we wish you a happy, healthy, and peaceful holiday season.

Michaela Marek Publisher and Founder publisher@eucalyptusmagazine.com

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grown local

dairy innovations

lane johnson

Straus Family Creamery

// by rhea maze

Yellow wildflowers and misty fog frame a dozen cows grazing on the hillside. Each bovine pauses occasionally to chew a mouthful of sweet coastal grasses and, it seems, to take in the tranquil view of Tomales Bay. “A cow’s diet dictates the flavor of its milk,” says Albert Straus, owner and president of the Straus Family Creamery in Marshall, California, on the coastal side of Marin County. The region’s cool climate and ocean air combine to give Straus’ 660 acres of grassland their distinct sweetness.

This flavor is praised by fans of Straus’ products: fresh milk bottled in recycled glass, slow-churned butter, ice cream, yogurt, and full-fat sour cream.

Straus’ cows rotationally graze while the grass is green. When the seasons change and the pastures lose nutrients, the cows are supplemented with a 100 percent organic vegetarian diet. They are not given antibiotics or hormones and are instead treated preventively and homeopathically.

To any observer, it’s obvious the Straus cows are happy and healthy. But they are also innovators. At the first of the day’s two milkings, the cows step through a solarpowered bug zapper as they enter the barn.

At nightfall, they nestle down on insectresistant beds made of rice hulls. The cows’ barns are cleaned twice a day with recycled water. Solids are composted and returned to the land as fertilizer, and liquids are pumped to a covered methane digester that generates the dairy’s electricity needs.

“It all goes back to the land. We reduce waste and recycle as much as we can,” Straus says.

Environmentalism runs in the Straus family. Since 1941, when Bill Straus purchased this dairy, the company’s highest priority has been responsible land stewardship. From the beginning, Bill and his wife Ellen, who co-founded the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, implemented innovative, sustainable farming practices. Bill was the first farmer in the area to use decomposed liquid waste as fertilizer. Their son Albert, who now runs the company, has the same passion for the environment.

Plus, he loves ice cream.

In college, Albert Straus was approached with a request to

Albert Straus of Straus Family Creamery with two friendly organic milk producers.

produce organic milk for ice cream. He started the process by devoting his senior thesis at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to the installation and operation of an organic processing plant.

“Since there was no one doing organic at that time, we had to come up with our own ways of doing things,” Straus says. In 1994, Straus’ EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 7

Straus Creamery

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farm became the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi.

“We’re always looking at ways of doing things better,” Straus says. He is currently designing an electric feeding truck so that “the cows start powering the truck that feeds them, to close the loop… Our goal is net-zero [waste and pollution]. It’s a challenge, but we’re constantly searching and pushing for new technology.”

The Straus Family Creamery continues to be the only California milk producer that runs both an organic dairy and an organic creamery. They were the first dairy in North America to become non-GMO verified—two years after developing their own verification process. “When I found out they had strip tests for GMOs, we started testing and found that a lot of certified organic farms were contaminated. Now we’re doing our own testing for GMOs to make sure [our milk] is clean,” says Straus.

Brie Johnson, the company’s sustainability manager, says, “Since sustainability is a journey rather than a destination, making continuous efforts towards improving is essential.” She uses a set of metrics created by the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association to help her implement new projects, including the latest in “minimum-impact” packaging.

“Communication about [sustainable] practices is increasing, and it is my hope that that more people will share what they are doing and learn from each other,” Johnson says.

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healthful eating

the vegan primer Choosing a vegan lifestyle

At San Jose’s Good Karma Vegan Café, customers enjoy good food and the promise of benefiting their own health and the environment.

“Multiple studies show that leading a vegan lifestyle greatly reduces bad cholesterol and improves good cholesterol,” says Schwartz. “Vegans also have lower fat mass or BMI, which tends to curb your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.”

Berman agrees, adding that vegan diets have been shown to effectively treat obesity. Some research also suggests a vegan diet can help with allergies and chronic health problems such as asthma. But it is also possible for vegans to be nutrient deficient.

“People assume that a vegan diet is very healthy, but you can take a vegan diet and make it very unhealthy,” warns Schwartz.

In particular, many vegans don’t get enough calcium.

Schwartz suggests her patients drink fortified dairy alternatives such as almond, hemp, rice, or soy milk, and take a daily calcium supplement with vitamin D. She also warns that vegans must make efforts to get enough vitamin B12, zinc, iron, and riboflavin.

Since becoming a vegan requires a major lifestyle change, Berman suggests you start slow: Begin by increasing the proportion of vegan meals you eat and non-animal products you buy, then scale up gradually.

10 | November + December 2011

lane johnson

For people living in the San Francisco Bay Area, the word “vegan” is commonly heard. But what exactly does a vegan diet and lifestyle entail and what are its benefits? Here’s a quick guide to going vegan, along with some tips and warnings.

Contrary to popular belief, being a vegan is more than being a stricter vegetarian. “It really is a complete commitment to an ideology that permeates your lifestyle,” says Heather Schwartz, Medical Nutrition Therapist at Stanford Hospital and Clinics. “Being a vegan means the exclusion of any animal products or byproducts, including cosmetics, cleaning supplies, medications, and of course, food.”

Strict vegans also eschew animal-based clothing, toiletries, furniture, and many other types of products. Many vegans are motivated by a desire to benefit their own health, the environment, and/or animal welfare.

Mark Berman, a practicing physician in San Francisco who runs the blog VeganMD, decided to become a vegan 20 years ago while working at a tennis camp.

“I was introduced to the idea that what we eat has huge implications—not only for our health, but for the environment and the lives of billions of animals,” he says. “The more I learned, the more it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Of course, completely avoiding animal products can be difficult. When it comes to items such as wedding cake or tea with honey, for example, Berman sometimes makes exceptions.

“I don’t strive for perfection,” he says. “I just do the best I can and try not to be too neurotic about avoiding every single molecule of animal products.”

While becoming a vegan is not a magical weight loss method or cure for disease, research has shown many health benefits to a vegan diet.

// by stephanie liou

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nurture your nature

lane johnson

Volunteering in parks

// by Marit Hansen

If you are one of the thousands of Bay Area people who enjoy hiking, biking, camping, or just taking a walk at one of our local parks, have you ever wondered what it takes to keep them green and clean? With nearly 45,000 acres of land in 28 parks, Santa Clara County Parks is one of the largest regional park systems in California. In addition to the dedicated ranger and interpretive staff who care for our parks, over 3,000 volunteers donate more than 55,000 hours of labor each year.

Clearing trails and pulling non-native foliage may sound selfless, but it’s also fulfilling. Volunteering is a great way to spend time in our local parks while meeting like-minded people who have an interest in

the welfare of our natural habitat and wildlife. You can volunteer as an individual or you can gather together your officemates, carpool buddies, or social group to spend a day caring for parks.

Jamie Younse, Account Coordinator at Return Path in Sunnyvale, together with 10 co-workers, spent one of her regular workdays outside at Sanborn County Park in the Saratoga hills, trimming trees and providing fire control maintenance. According to Angela Baldonero, the company’s Senior Vice President of People and Client Success, “Caring for the community is an important part of our culture. We give our employees full empowerment to donate their paid time in ways that are meaningful to them.”

Park volunteers don’t have to get their hands dirty. Volunteers are needed to conduct educational and recreational programs.

Docents are needed on an on-going basis to participate in a variety of interpretive programs and help operate visitor centers throughout the parks. Hikers, bikers, and horseback riders help the ranger staff by patrolling the parks and providing visitor information and basic emergency services.

For two years in a row, Glenn Nomi, Program Manager of Green Initiatives at Cisco Systems, and a team of about 75 fellow employees donated their time setting up tables and equipment for Festival in the Park, a health, safety, recreation, and green living fair held at Hellyer County Park. Nomi says, “It’s a good team-building opportunity and it’s great to be outside in such an awesome setting.”

Cisco employees are encouraged to volunteer at least one day of service every year to a qualified charity. Cisco believes that when employees volunteer and give back, they strengthen their connections to the communities they serve.

Volunteering in your local park is perfect for individuals, corporations, school groups, social groups, and scout troops. For additional information visit the Santa Clara County Parks “Volunteer Here” page at www.parkhere.org.

EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 13

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16 | November + December 2011

Righteous Ready-to-Wear

Clothing manufacturers do good By Julie McCoy

dozens of stores in the San Francisco Bay Area sell environmentally friendly clothing, but most consumers know very little about where it comes from or how it is manufactured.

Today’s eco-friendly garments can be made of peace silk, recycled polyester, hemp, bamboo, organic cotton, or recycled “finds” from the local Goodwill store. Your purchase of eco-friendly clothing instead of garments sold by traditional manufacturers may help to support not just green living and a more sustainable earth, but also international social justice.

Amour vert

Left to right: Bamboo knit top and organic cotton skirt, organic cotton voile top and organic cotton skirt, peace silk dress.

courtesy amour vert

Amour vert

With two sewing factories in San Francisco and a cutting factory in Oakland, Amour Vert (French for “love green”) manufactures clothing made from peace silk. In traditional silk manufacturing, silk worms are killed, but with peace silk, the worms are kept alive.

The company was launched by Linda Balti and Christoph Frehsee in April 2010, and Balti says that business is booming.

“We are above projections and expectations… Now more than ever, you’ll see big name brands going for the eco-movement,” she says. “Everyone is doing their part... It’s the future.”

Amour Vert uses only low-impact or vegetable dyes for coloring its silk pieces.

The company also makes clothing out of organic cotton, which is grown without using pesticides or herbicides; and bamboo, which grows in the wild without fertilizers, pesticides, or irrigation.

The French-born Balti divides her time between production and design, which is done by hand. “We sketch everything,” she says. “It’s a very old-fashioned way, but also very efficient. We have a pattern maker in Oakland who integrates the sketch into an actual pattern.”

Her husband Frehsee, who is from Germany, handles the operations side of the business. He earned an MBA from Stanford and is working toward a master’s degree in environment and resources. The company was started after Frehsee and Balti quit their jobs in 2009 and went on a tour around the world. While traveling, Balti read an article about how most clothing is made.

“I was shocked,” she says. “I didn’t know about the pesticides and insecticides. At that point, I didn’t want to buy regular clothing anymore.”

Balti saw a void in the market. Affordable, EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 17

greenlight apparel

environmentally friendly clothing was nearly impossible to find, so she and Frehsee decided to make their own.

Amour Vert’s clothes, which range in price from $20 to $180, are sold at boutiques throughout the country. They can be purchased locally at Gitane in Palo Alto; Pacific Trading Company and Eco Goods in Santa Cruz; and Two Birds, Heritage Row, and Bryan Lee in San Francisco.

Balti says that working in the fashion industry is challenging and fun. “We see so much potential to shake it up a little bit,” 18 | November + December 2011

she says. “We are sustainable and we are beautiful,” she says. “That’s a good mix to talk about.”

greenlight apparel Greenlight Apparel produces running clothing made from recycled polyester and organic cotton. Sonny Aulakh, Greenlight’s founder and CEO, says that runners make ideal customers because people who participate in sports tend to be environmentally conscious. A smaller percentage of Greenlight’s business comes from produc-

ing other types of casual and active wear, including T-shirts, polo shirts, and customized “logo” clothing for corporations.

According to Aulakh, Greenlight manufactures its products in Asia because its cutting-edge textiles originate there. One of the company’s goals is to have its production facilities as close as possible to where its fabric, hardware, and fixtures originate, in order to reduce the environmental impact of shipping.

Aulakh, who is from India, came to the United States at // continued on page 24

courtesy greenlight apparel

A runner takes to the trails in Greenlight Apparel’s tank top made of recycled polyester.

more ecofashion Top: booke duthie; Bottom: courtesy marky designs, photography by Jan Hanus

marky designs Marketa “Marky” Briceno loves to recycle, so it’s not surprising that she runs an environmentally friendly clothing business, Marky Designs, out of her San Jose home.

Briceno buys clothes at Goodwill stores and then makes new clothes by mixing and matching fabrics from her purchases. “I love to sew and put different designs together, using different material,” she says.

The mother of a three-year-old daughter, Briceno makes clothes for the younger set: newborns to five-year-olds. Her girls’ dresses are her most popular sellers, but she also makes children’s T-shirts and sweatshirts. Each piece of clothing is made by hand and one of a kind.

The rewards of her work are in seeing people wear her clothes, while the challenges are trying to be a mother while also running her business, says Briceno. “I’m just trying to grow the business,” she says.

“I’m just trying to grow it little by little, (and) see what happens.”

Briceno, who is from the Czech Republic, credits her 90-year-old grandmother, who was a fashion designer in Prague, for getting her interested in fashion. Her designs are available at YogaSource, Babycoo, and Automobuild in Los Gatos, or online at www. markydesigns.webs.com.

Recycled fashions from Marky Designs

good gear

No Enemy’s “Flower of Life” hemp wrap hoodie

no enemy In 2001, Paul Cheatham founded No Enemy, a Santa Cruz-based company that makes men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing out of hemp and 100 percent organic cotton. No Enemy’s products include shirts, pants, hoodies, and accessories.

Hemp and organic cotton are much more environmentally friendly than other clothing fabrics. No pesticides are used to grow them, and their manufacturing process requires less energy and less contaminating chemicals than other clothing fabrics. No Enemy creates colorful designs on its apparel by using PVC-free inks from Bay Area facilities.

“Hemp is the most comfortable, durable, and environmentally friendly fabric,” says Cheatham. “It’s also more breathable than cotton and handles moisture better than cotton.”

Cheatham, 32, launched No Enemy during his senior year of college. While enrolled in a class titled, “The Sociology of Violence, War, and Peace,” he watched a documentary about a man who was abusive to his wife. He remembered thinking to himself: “This guy is the enemy.”

“I started the company to spread a positive visual image,” Cheatham says. “It wasn’t about clothing; it was the concept of No Enemy and how to capture that concept. That was the whole foundation.”

Connecticut-based Good Gear makes athletic clothing such as running shorts and T-shirts from earth-friendly, breathable bamboo. Owner Torin Lee says, “I like the idea of being a pioneer in the ‘eco-activewear’ movement, as I call it… We are making an innovative, ecofriendly product line. We source raw materials from the best places possible, taking advantage of global markets while partnering with U.S. manufacturers and designers to help other small businesses grow.”

Bamboo is a sustainable resource, Lee says. “The environmental benefits of bamboo clothing are just as important as style and comfort, and they far exceed the eco-utility of synthetic textiles.

Bamboo [is] quick to grow and does not require fertilizers or pesticides. It requires very little water and can survive drought conditions as well as flooding.”

The manufacturing of synthetic fabrics, on the other hand, takes a huge environmental toll. “Just like making sausage, you don’t want to know how the synthetics are made.

They are as far away from being eco-friendly as conceivable,” Lee says.

Bamboo fabric offers advantages for athletes who want lightweight, moisturewicking clothing, Lee says. “We will match our cloth’s performance with any synthetic. And because of its anti-microbial ability, it doesn’t retain odor like many synthetics.”

EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 19

← In a previous life, some of these bags were soda bottles; others were scraps on the cutting room floor. Slainte bags, purses, and totes are handmade in San Francisco from recycled fabrics or eco-friendly cotton. Jet-setters appreciate the bags’ ability to pack flat while pack rats cherish the multiple pockets that keep everything in its place. Pictured here is the “cityblock” moon bag and “alter” coin purse. $12-$89, www.slaintebags.com

eucalyptus

Gift guide by ann Marie Brown

↓ Could any creature on earth be cuter than a sea otter? No, not even a truckload of baby ducks. Give your child cuddly dreams with this fuzzy, two-foot-long sea otter holding a sea star. Your purchase will support the important work of the ocean researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. $30, www.montereybayaquarium.org/store

↑ The buzz is for real: Bees are one of our most important plant pollinators and are responsible for nearly half of the food we eat, but their populations are in decline. You can do your part to help this important little insect: Invite the non-stinging Mason bee to build a hive in your garden by installing a Mason bee house. Made from durable, eco-friendly bamboo, these attractive bee houses should be set in a high spot that gets morning sun. $17, www.gardeners.com

↓ You and your iPhone are practically joined at the ear, so why not

↓ Some say that if you look deeply at a

protect it from clumsy drops on hard surfaces while simultaneously protecting yourself from possible cell phone radiation? Pong Research makes the only cell phone case that is certified by the FCC to redirect radiation away from your head without messing up your wireless signal. The cases come in five sleek colors for the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android. $50, www.pongresearch.com

pinecone, you will see the face of God. A symbol of everlasting life, the pinecone has served throughout the ages as a religious icon for Catholics, Hindus, and Egyptians. Third Eye Pinecones makes beautiful handcrafted pendants from a cross-section of a conifer cone.

Each one-of-a-kind necklace is inlaid with gems, crystals, shells, or fossils. $60-$100, www.thirdeyepinecones.com

↓ If you want to plant a garden, but you’re daunted by the mysteries of assessing your microclimate and knowing what to plant when, the third edition of Golden Gate Gardening by Pam Peirce will clear the ground so you can till the soil. In this 400-page tome, the author provides tips on everything from rooftop gardening to cultivating citrus trees. This new edition includes insights on growing 2011’s hippest vegetables: shell beans, broccoli raab, and Florence fennel. $20, your local bookstore or www.amazon.com

lane Johnson

↑ After water, tea is the number one most-consumed beverage in every country in the world except the United States. If you’re wondering what everybody else knows that we don’t, pour yourself a cup of one of Satori Tea Company’s teas.

Whether you choose Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling or Irish Breakfast, steamy, satisfying depths of taste await. All Satori Teas are organic and fair-trade certified, so you can feel good about your cup. $15-$20 for 6 ounces, www.thesatoriteacompany.com EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 21

Your Home for the Holidays

Clean and Green

The holiday season is upon us, and if you are throwing a party or have invited family and friends to stay at your house, there’s no escaping it: You have to clean. If you can’t find the time or simply don’t want to clean your house yourself, consider hiring a professional cleaning company that uses only eco-friendly products and processes. A number of cleaning companies in the Bay Area will make your home spotless while respecting the environment in the process.

For example, Biosteam Carpet Care of Half Moon Bay not only does carpet cleaning, but also upholstery, tile, and grout cleaning. They use only products that don’t contain any volatile organic compounds (VOCs), chlorine, ammonia, or formaldehyde. Owner Guy Mindle says the company has eco-friendly products that will even remove pet stains, utilizing natural enzymes instead of harsh chemicals.

Additionally, Biosteam implements a low-moisture system that uses less water than other carpet cleaning companies, Mindle says.

Mindle was inspired to open Biosteam with longtime friend and co-worker Salvador Serrano after a bad experience with having his own carpet cleaned. The company showed up late, cost too much, and wasn’t environmentally friendly. It even dumped waste water in his garden, which ended up killing half of his plants.

Biosteam is certified by the Bay Area Green Initiative and serves cities throughout the Peninsula and South Bay. Another eco-friendly carpet cleaning company is Bay Area Green Carpet Cleaning in Campbell, which is part of Green Restoration Inc. The company uses hypoallergenic chemicals that don’t contain any VOCs, according to chief executive officer Alfred Gelacio. “What we do is not going to harm the environment at all,” he says.

22 | November + December 2011

By Julie McCoy Photography by Lane Johnson

MaidPro

Biosteam Carpet Care

Greenforce Clean Team

MaidPro service provider Adriana Gonzalez cleans the home of a client in Los Gatos with green-certified products.

Mark Freiles of San Jose (top) has his carpets cleaned the eco-friendly way by Salvador Serrano of Biosteam Carpet Care.

Greenforce uses biodegradable, non-toxic products to clean the windows of a San Francisco Victorian building.

The Rug Expert, based in Mountain View, cleans “anything you walk on,” including hardwood floors and rugs, while being a good steward of the environment, according to owner Rande Machell.

The company cleans hardwood floors with an electric buffer. The buffer uses surfactant, a substance that, when dissolved in water, allows a product to remove dirt from surfaces. Surfactant is “a mild surface acting agent that is safe for the environment,” Machell says.

“It’s odorless. There are no fumes. It’s a good, safe way to maintain your wood flooring.” At the end of each workday, the Rug Expert also empties its truck in accordance with strict EPA guidelines.

MaidPro in Campbell and Redwood City provides household cleaning services such as dusting, scrubbing, and mopping. Melissa Homer, chief “cleaning officer,” says that for her company, being a good steward of the environment is “systemic. It touches everything we do.” MaidPro uses green certified products from Procter &

Gamble. The company also buys concentrated chemicals for the sake of reduced packaging, then adds water to the concentrate, reducing the cost of transportation.

Additionally, MaidPro uses software called ServiceCEO that schedules employee routes efficiently in an effort to save gasoline.

The software ensures employees are hitting the most customers while doing the least amount of driving. The software also enables the company to reduce its paper usage.

Marvel Maids, Inc., which is based in San Francisco but serves the Peninsula as far south as Los Gatos, uses a citrus-based cleaner rather than harsh bleaches for cleaning kitchens and bathrooms, according to president Steve Collins. Marvel Maids also uses washable, reusable rags instead of paper towels to lessen its impact on the environment.

“We use products that are not harsh on the environment, EUCALYPTUSMAGAZINE.COM | 23

clean and green continued from page 23

righteous clothing continued from page 18

whether it’s the physical environment or the people and pets who live in the environment,” Collins says. He adds that more customers are concerned about the environmental impact of having their homes cleaned.

“We are absolutely seeing a shift in the customer mindset,” Collins says. “Customers [are] asking us if we use environmentally friendly products before they book a service with us. This is due to the fact that more people have become educated to the reality of using harsh chemicals around their children and pets.”

He notes that being a good steward of the environment is in line with his own values and beliefs. “I have a broader view of the environment, which also includes the people within the environment,” he says.

Redwood City-based Emma’s Eco-Clean cleans homes using only Seventh Generation products, Sal Suds liquid cleaner, Murphy’s Oil, castile soap, and baking power, all of which are environmentally friendly, according to general manager Esther Aguirre-Ribeiro. She says her customers often ask for “a specific list of the products we use.” Emma’s Eco-Clean also uses cloth as opposed to paper towels and only a small amount of water to dilute products. For vacuuming, Emma’s Eco-Clean uses Miele, a German-made vacuum with an HEPA filter that traps 99 percent of all allergens.

Greenforce Clean Team, which is based in San Francisco and serves the entire South Bay, uses biodegradable, non-toxic products for its window washing service, according to general manager Josh Kyle. Besides benefiting the customers and the environment, this also benefits the company’s staff, who aren’t exposed to toxic chemicals, Kyle says.

In addition to window washing, Greenforce Clean Team also provides carpet cleaning, air duct cleaning, and general house cleaning. “Cleaning is our universe,” Kyle says.

Any time Greenforce Clean Team travels to a customer’s home for any reason, the company tracks its mileage. At the end of each month, the company makes a donation based on how many miles were driven that month to www.carbonfund.org, a nonprofit that is working on projects to reduce global warming.

age 18. After attending engineering school at Sacramento State University, he landed a job at Cisco that took him to Africa, Asia, and South America. But he didn’t see himself working in technology his whole life, so he enrolled in the MBA program at the University of California at Davis, where he participated in a class project that wound up being the launch of Greenlight.

Aulakh and four other students visited a number of sports apparel manufacturers in South Asia who employed underage children to work in their sweatshops. Many of the children were younger than 8 years old and worked longer than 12 hours a day. In addition to harsh working conditions, the children were exposed to large amounts of insecticides and pesticides. Moved by their plight, the students came up with a business plan, entered it into a competition at the University of California at Berkeley, and won.

They founded Greenlight in 2007 with the goal of ending illegal child labor in the sports apparel industry and offering educational opportunities to children in South Asia, Africa, and South America.

Greenlight donates 10 percent of each sale to humanitarian charities, enabling the company to have an impact on hundreds of underprivileged children. Additionally, with every $50 in sales, Greenlight donates solar lanterns to families in rural areas of Africa and India, who were previously using kerosene lamps to light their homes. Burning kerosene is more toxic to the lungs that cigarette smoking.

At Greenlight’s two factories in India and Vietnam, both of which are certified by Fair Trade USA, workers receive paid vacation days, health insurance, and access to much better working conditions than they would have otherwise, Aulakh says.

Once the clothes are made, they are shipped to the U.S. The company’s sales have grown more than 400 percent since its beginnings in 2008. Aulakh expects business to continue to grow because people are more conscious of their buying decisions and there is a greater demand for recycled polyester.

Aulakh believes that eco-friendly clothing will become the norm.

“Consumers are going to demand it,” he says. “Big retailers are going to start honing in on it.”

24 | November + December 2011

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Avila’s Affordable Cleaning Service Residential/Commercial/Office Non-Toxic Products Free Estimates Denise Avila, Owner (408) 202-0711 dbavila@comcast.net Insured—License #7586212912

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˙

happy holidays

Many of us begin the holiday season resolving to spend less, eat less, and make less of an impact on the environment, yet the frenzy of festivities often compromises our best intentions. Still, keeping the earth in mind at this busy time will make our celebrations even more meaningful. BY rhea maze

it’s a wrap

give time

Get into the true spirit of the holidays by volunteering for an environmental or charitable organization. And give some hours to loved ones, too—spending quality time with family and friends is too often overlooked. When company visits, organize a fun activity like an afternoon hike or bike ride. For your friends, host a cookie exchange party at which guests bring a few dozen homemade holiday cookies. Divide them up and everybody will go home with a variety of treats to share with others.

nature’s aroma Scent your home with whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, a dash of nutmeg, and a bit of orange essential oil in a saucepan of boiling water on the stove. The scent will fill the room for hours.

Want to donate money to a charity this season but don’t know where to start?

Charity rating websites such as www. givewell.org do the research for you, so you can feel good about where your money is going. If you’d rather give goods than money, rummage through your closets for gently used winter clothing and drop it off at your nearest thrift shop or Goodwill store.

smart gift

If every family wrapped just one gift using materials found in their homes, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.

When you wrap gifts, get creative with comics, artwork, or even handkerchiefs. Colorful magazines run through a wide paper shredder make great packing strips.

Sources: www.greenmatters.com, www.sierraclub.org, www.bestgreenhometips.com, www.nature.org

tidbits

Green Tips

think outside the gift

If gift giving is part of your holiday tradition, opt for low-impact intangibles such as gift certificates to a local organic market, theater, music venue, or spa. For the natureinclined, consider a gift certificate for a whale watching tour or natural science museum.

Shun the cheap plastic stuff and get crafty with nature.

Fill a basket or bowl with natural seasonal objects such as pine cones, winter plants, shells, or driftwood. Save ribbons and tie them around vases of leaves, flowers, or herbs. Prune an evergreen tree or shrub in your backyard and use the branches to make your own wreaths.

found dEcor

Listen to Eucalyptus Magazine’s daily green tips on the radio at MIX 106.5 and 94.5 KBAY.

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