Goodlifer: Healthy Habitat

Fall Holiday Decorating: Cheap, Conscious & Seasonal.

With decorations being sold in every craft store, corner mart and shopping website, I cannot help but want to buy orange baskets or all the acorn shaped bells and whistles hanging around out there. Halloween has come to mean buying a costume to wear once, stocking up on candy for trick-or-treaters to argue over, and purchasing pumpkins only to have them rot or be the butt of teenage antics. cont.

NYC’s largest green roof — a post office park.

They’re popping up all over these days, and are a great way to reduce the carbon footprint of any given building. The new green roof atop the Morgan mail processing facility is so vast — at 2.5 acres the largest in NYC — that it deserves to be called a park. This is the U.S. Postal Service’s first green roof, but with all the facilities they operate across the country it is hopefully not the last. cont.

PARK(ing) Day

For one day, a few of those rectangular spaces marked in white, usually reserved for clunkers, were temporarily reclaimed for people. On September 18, as part of an annual event called PARK(ing) Day, artists, activists and citizens in cities around the globe helped transform metered parking spaces into public micro-parks, picnic spots and al fresco work spaces. cont.

My very own edible container garden.

Ever since managing to kill the evergreens in my window boxes, I had planned on replanting them with something perhaps a bit more interesting, if not easier to manage. Although beautiful, flowers just seemed kind of like a waste to me. Since I was going to spend all this time tending to these plants, could I not grow something more useful? cont.

The Edible Garden

Long before E.O. Wilson gave the condition a name, humans — city dwellers in particular — have felt a need to somehow be close to nature. Wilson dubbed it Biophilia and we see it in everything from inner-city community gardens to high-priced condos with water views. To fulfill our need to have nature be part of our lives we build ponds in our yards, keep animals as pets and grow plants and flowers in our gardens. cont.

Veggie Trader

The newly launched online marketplace Veggie Trader is best thought of as a Craigslist for not just vegetables, but also fruits, herbs, nuts, seeds and plants. People with home gardens can create listings to sell produce they are themselves unable to consume to others who may lack the ability to grow food in their own backyards. Simple and brilliant. cont.

D.I.Y. Cleaners: Kitchen

Very few of those who like to cook actually enjoy cleaning their kitchen, but a way to make it a bit more pleasant, and a bit more like cooking, is to make your own cleaning products, using what you already have within arms reach. Also, many conventional cleaning products contain chemicals that should never come in contact with food, some are even outright detrimental to our health. cont.

D.I.Y. Cleaners: Bathroom

Very few people I know actually like to clean their bathroom, but, it’s one of those necessary evils (unless you want to be stuck in bachelorlooville forever). What makes it even worse is that most conventional cleaners are toxic and may do more harm than good. Ever thought about why children these days have so many allergies? cont.

Vertical Gardens

Something I have been truly excited about in the urban landscape lately is the emergence of vertical gardens. Architects and urban planners are realizing the importance of green space, both for aesthetic reasons but also to provide the city with some extra lungs, helping its dwellers breathe easier. cont.

Worm Composting

About one third of all waste generated in New York City is biodegradable and could easily be composted, I imagine those numbers are fairly accurate for any U.S. city. It’s crazy to think that all this organic waste that could be naturally retuned to the eco system sits in a landfill surrounded by plastics and other toxic waste. Technically, this organic waste will biodegrade in time even in a landfill, except there is one component crucial to the breakdown process missing — air. cont.

Get stitch’T

How often have you cursed about those t-shirts gathering in the back of your closet? You know, the ones that have sentimental value and just cannot be disposed of, but will never be worn again. For many, the t-shirt is more than a simple garment. It is a meaningful souvenir from a special time or place — a memory that represents a major accomplishment like running a marathon or playing the finals is a college basketball tournament. cont.

Man-Powered Laundry

Living in New York City, I am among the many with no access to laundry in our buildings, and no time to spend at a laundromat. My laundry is dropped off at the Wash and Fold on the corner and picked up a day or two later. This is something entirely new to me (and quite frankly easy to get used to), and I’ve always been sort of morally troubled by how the whole thing goes against my DIY philosophy. cont.