TODAY'S TURN: Kill them with kindness

Next time you mail some bad news, you can still come out smelling like roses. Or at least like a Snap Dragon.

Plantable paper from Botanical Paperworks is embedded with wildflower seeds and made of 100% recycled material. When you're done with the paper, you simply drop it in soil, water it and wait for the color.

So you can help the paper return to its roots - literally - while getting your point across.

Don't go for the easy feel-good uses on this one. Anyone can send a wedding invitation or birth announcement on paper laced with wildflower seeds: "The future is blooming, watch our love grow, tending to our garden of joy, blah blah blah blah planting family tree blah."

It takes a rare kind of creativity and class to send hate mail in an environmentally friendly way. Stretch yourself. Exercise the dark side of your imagination and the possibilities blossom like a soggy sunflower.

Customer complaints. Nasty letters to the editor. Office rants about co-worker behavior. Community association grievances against your neighbor's deck. Dear John notes. Anytime you gotta sling some mud, do it with a flowery smile. Ahh, the sweet, sweet circle of life.

Cool alert: Look for the Yummy Cards made with herb seeds.

CLICK HERE TO DO THIS GOOD TURN:
Order some plantable paper from Botanical Paperworks

EARTH DAY TODAY

No soapbox. Day speaks for itself. Now go out and try not to do too much damage.

HOW NOT TO MARKET EARTH DAY TO KIDS.

TODAY'S TURN: Become a chemical Columbo

Are you using enough coconut alcohol ethoxylate when cleaning your house? Or maybe too much?

Who knows what chemical concoctions swirl around in those canisters, casks, jugs, jiggers, buckets and bottles we stuff under the sink. I assume the lab coats do. Maybe.

Even if you can pronounce names on the ingredients list, you're irritated by a cloudy stink of "what the heck is that?" Hydroxyethylcellulose? Linear surfactant? How are you supposed to make safe, well-informed decisions when faced with those Scrabble champs?

Seventh Generation knows this is a problem. So they're offering up a plain-speak Label Reading Guide. It's page after page of cleaning product ingredients, what they're used for, how they can affect you, and how toxic each ingredient is. It's part of their Show What's Inside transparency campaign.

Oh, and you'll be happy to know that coconut alcohol ethoxylate is biodegradable and not too toxic. It's simply used to make the foam more foamier.

Phew.

CLICK HERE TO DO THIS GOOD TURN:
Download a Label Reading Guide from Seventh Generation (PDF, desktop widget or phone app)