We searched high and low to find these eleven iPad 2 cases that are both eco-friendly and stylish.

It’s an email machine, e-reader (imagine, a floor without magazine stacks) and app-wonderland, all wrapped into one sleek little case. If you don’t already have an iPad, chances are an iPad 2 is high up on your wish list and a stylish case to put it in would be second. We made that part easy for you with these top eleven picks of stylish and eco-friendly iPad cases.

Nau Pad Stash
Featuring clean lines and a slim profile, Nau’s Pad Stash combines old world style with new world functionality. Die-cut from wool felt, this case has a flip-close front cover, four accessory pockets and doubles as a stand for easy viewing. On the inside, recycled wool felt insulates and protects your iPad from scratching.
$75, Nau

Laser-etched Natural Bamboo Case by Grove
These all-natural bamboo cases are entirely hand-made in Portland, Oregon. The company doesn’t outsource, but creates everything, down to the packaging and website, on-site. Production is kept small-scale and limited and Grove believes in slowing things down in order to maintain the highest quality product. What really makes this one special though, is the wide range of beautiful laser-etched designs available. You can even design your own or, if adornment is just not your cup of tea, get a plain one.
$139-$169, Grove

Rickshaw Sleeve for iPad 2 in Earl Grey Performance Tweed
Made to order in Rickshaw’s San Francisco factory, this case comes with plush, laptop-grade padding and a plush, soft liner that works double duty protecting and cleaning your screen at the same time. Available in four different colors.
$40, Rickshaw Bags

Cork iPad Sleeve
This sleeve made from cork, brings your iPad a little closer to the earth. Cork is naturally water-resistant and durable and its soft, textured surface will protect your laptop from scratches or wear. It will also work kind of like a coaster to keep your iPad in place on slippery surfaces. Handmade in Spain, the Cork Sleeve will develop a unique patina with use.
$39, UncommonGoods

Felt iPad Sleeve by ribandhull
This sleeve features a simple, classic design and a flap with two metal snaps that are fully lined and reinforced (so they don’t cause any damage to your iPad). All of ribandhull’s products are entirely designed and produced in their Warsaw studio from the finest materials. This one is made with vegetable tanned leather and a thick 100% wool, German designer felt, which is water repellent and anti-pilling. More colors are available.
$52, Etsy/ribandhull

DODOcase for iPad 2
The DODOcase exterior gives your iPad the look and feel of a hard-bound book, which not only makes you look smart and book-ish but prevents theft as well. Made from solid core bamboo and black Moroccan cloth and constructed using traditional bookbinding techniques, the cover folds back to be used as a stand. The DODOcase’s magnetic insert also activates the iPad’s auto wake/sleep feature to wake and sleep your iPad instantly. Available in a variety of interior color choices.
$59.95, DODOcase

Michael Roger Landmade Cork iPad 2 Sleeve
This iPad sleeve (which also works for Netbooks) is made with sustainably harvested cork from Spain and features a beautiful, unique pattern (two different kinds are available). A zipper ensures that your iPad stays securely in place.
$69, Michael Roger Bookbinders

Recycled Mink iPad sleeve
This is for you glamor girls out there. This iPad sleeve is handmade to order from a 1960s vintage mink stole. It has beautiful, soft fur on one side and pre-loved black leather, upcycled from old jackets and pants on the other side (for an extra charge, you can get it in wrap-around mink). It’ll surely get your friends talking.
$175, Shannon South/ReMade USA

Kork 2 for iPad 2
This upgraded version of the Kork is lighter and thinner than its predessor and comes with many new features such as Apple Smart Cover integration, tray-mode, natural sound amplifier, and a camera hole. The company calls it “a complete ‘Swiss Army Knife’ for your iPad” and ensures this is the only cover you will ever need.
$49.95, A Produkt

Plaid Doctrine iPad Sleeve
Sewn in the USA from water- and stain-resistant high performance fabric made from recycled bottles, this sleeve features two large front pockets to hold accessories like chargers, headphones, and phones. It’s ultra lightweight, foam-padded, and fully lined in recycled, ripstop nylon. Comes in three different styles of on-trend plaid.
$59, Plaid Doctrine

Voltaic Spark Tablet Case
It may lack in the style department, but this clever case will not only protect but also charge your iPad. Featuring 8 Watts of solar embedded into a streamlined shell made from recycled PET, (which is waterproof, lightweight and UV resistant), the Spark stores over a full iPad charge of clean, green solar energy for you to use anytime. It also charges most other tablets, phones and professional digital cameras. Ten hours of sunlight will fully charge the battery.
$299, Voltaic

Rebecca Mink’s vegan shoe line makes us yearn for spring.

Rebecca Mink’s eponymous vegan shoe line, Mink, is made from sustainable resources such as wood, rubber, cork and organic fabrics and engineered by Marco Gambassi, whose family has been crafting shoes for generations in Italy.

These platform wedges make us lust not only for spring, but for the simple, styled heel – a stand out feature from other wedges we’re seeing.

$187

Editor’s note: We are proud to bring you original columns and feature editorials at EcoSalon on a daily basis. But sometimes, nothing’s more pleasurable than admiring a beautiful, innovative or special sustainable product or idea. Throughout each week, look for “lustables” in the mix here at EcoSalon. And if you have a product you think readers should see, drop us a line at tips@ecosalon.com.

I have to admit, I love cork – and not just because the source (the Cork Oak tree) bears an uncanny resemblance to my last name. I love the texture, color, and possibilities this humble material offers. I love that a porous material with contrasting rich earthy substance and negative space molds into sheets of two-dimensional strength. Here are just a few reasons for you to love cork, too.

Benjamin Hubert designs a heap of gorgeous products to suspend from your ceiling. The Float pendant (a hand turned Portuguese agglomerate cork lamp) is just one of Mr. Hubert’s creations to covet.

The Phillip Jeffries Java Cork Collection is an inspired wallpaper gathering; Ebony Cork with Gold is a dream of natural cork with a gold metallic underlay. This unexpected partnership of earthy and gleam is absolutely stunning. These Balloon Shakers designed by Japanese architect Masayuki Kurokawa (available at Merchant 4) are a translucent and enlightening way to display salt, pepper, and vivid spices.

The Puf Fup by Corque (designed by Ana Mestre) is envisioned to “challenge the creativity of its user” through a cohesive, continuous string of perfect cork spheres that invites sculpting your perfect (wildly comfortable) seat.

When a new crop of shoes comes out, I start blubbering.

The Naya shoe line is completely drool worthy, and it’s also completely sustainable. The brand was “born from the belief that shoes should be beautiful on your feet, soft on your step and gentle on the environment. Because you should never have to choose between what looks good, what feels good and what is good for you and for the earth.”

Hear, hear!

The current Fall collection includes “Origami Rose,” “Tailored Temptation,” “Beautiful Bows,” ”Super Soft Suedes,”  “Rugged Resource” and “Kimono Knot,” each collection a comfortable and trendy take on what’s hot.

Naya’s sustainable points:

• Vegetable-tanned leathers and linings
• Natural or recycled content fabrics
• Water-based cements
• Footbeds containing natural cork
• Outsoles containing natural materials
• Boxes made with 80 percent recycled paper pulp, soy-based inks and water-based glue
• Reusable shoe bags and shoe forms made with recycled PET

Naya means “renewal,” and the only thing they’ve asked in return for giving a lucky EcoSalon winner a $285 Naya gift card towards the purchase of one pair of shoes or boots is that they make a comment on renewing as it pertains to some aspect of their lives.

So leave an inspiring little comment below relating to the theme because if you don’t stick to the rules on this one, you don’t qualify.

(Legalese: contest rules and FTC compliance.)

As Benjamin Franklin said, “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” While Franklin might not have foreseen the attachment future Americans would have to their accessories, the Peasants and Travelers’ cork Doctor’s Bag confirms wine is a gift that keeps on giving.

Peasants and Travelers, a two-year-old accessories label, released the cork version of their venerable Doctor’s Bag design for spring 2010. Owner and designer, Jee Kim, had discovered a swatch of the unexpected material during a trip to Asia. While it intrigued her, she wasn’t sure how she could use it. The sojourn was a break from her steady climb up the ranks of fashion with stops at Gucci, Neiman Marcus, and Banana Republic. But, once she was settled back in San Francisco and working on her new line of bags, she remembered it and decided it would be perfect for crafting a bag.

Made from remnants of wine bottle corks from Portugal that have been smashed down and laminated to retain surface flexibility, Kim says the resulting material, “is waterproof and apparently, floatable.” Although, she doesn’t advise you attempt setting your bag to sail to test it.

Cork has enjoyed a resurgence of late in home interiors and has long been accessible in the shoe industry as wedges, heels, and espadrilles, but what is so unexpected is the luxe and highly refined character it lends the bags.

A good thing gets around fast. It caught the eye of curators at New York’s MoMA who then featured a whole series of cork made accessories by Pelcor, a global cork fashion brand in Portugal, for their “Destination Portugal” exhibit which opened in May.

Our editor-in-chief, Sara Ost, was similarly entranced when she saw the Doctor’s Bag at SF’s Thread show a few weeks ago. Kim offers, “It has a fashion forward look, which you wouldn’t expect. People are so intrigued when they see it in person.” “Its appeal is unisex” says Kim, with men and women coveting its “classic style with a modern interpretation.”

The design is as efficient as it is eye-catching. It’s roomy and travels well, fitting into an overhead storage locker or under the plane seat. It’s part of Peasants and Travelers’ urbane villager line, which includes the paper tote bag, a larger weekender, and an oversized envelope that fits an iPad perfectly.

Nearly every inch of Peasants and Travelers’ bags are composed of reclaimed materials ranging from recycled cork to the repurposed cotton-dress shirt gingham lining “that, unlike nylon linings that rip and tear, gets softer with use”, enthuses Kim. The bags are BPA, phthalate and lead free but their most impressive green credential according to Kim is its longevity – “when you adore something, you won’t want to throw it away.”

Available at 10 locations, including Urban Outfitters.

Put a cork in it! That’s the old school way of bottling wine, one that benefited our environment in a variety of ways. But synthetic corks and screw tops were introduced so that getting to that yummy grape was more convenient, and to prevent the wine from spoiling. Some three percent to 15 percent of all bottles sealed with corks go bad due to a naturally occurring chemical compound called trichloroanisole (TCA).

To save the billion dollar industry, wineries around the globe transitioned to synthetic corks made form plastic and now, user-friendly screw caps.

In 2004, Corbett Canyon, the largest producer of U.S. wines adopted easy-to-use screw seals, mostly to respond to the perception of cork causing tainting. But the synthetics are not limited to cheapo wines. RH Phillips and Whitehall Lane converted, as well as Washington’s Hogue Cellars. And it’s not just the inexpensive ones. Napa’s PlumpJack Winery sealed half of its 2000 Reserve Cab ($100 a bottle) with plastic caps.

The threat to the cork industry pits the European farmer against U.S. corporations like Dow (the maker of Agent Orange, pesticides and PVC plastics) which heads a plastic cork research and development group called Neocork, that is backed by California wine makers and reported investors like Bill Gates.

Why the environment is getting screwed:

The Trees

No trees are cut down to make the cork for stoppers. Instead, bark is stripped every nine years or so with hand-held axes and grows back to fortify a thriving ecosystem. Cork oak trees can yield material for up to 200 years if stripped of bark to maintain their health. The cork oak forests offer considerable shelter to plant and animal species in the Mediterranean, including endangered Barbara deer, the Imperial Iberian eagle and the Iberian lynx. Working the land provides jobs for some 100,000 people in Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, France and Portugal. The regeneration of the trees is also effective in absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, thereby offsetting greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. The cork industry group APCOR estimates the amount of CO2 emissions soaked up in each summer harvest in Portugal equals the emissions of 185,000 cars.

Emissions and Reuse

Cork has emerged as a popular green material for chic flooring and wall covering, fashion bags, pens and mini boards. It is easy to recycle and re-purpose and inexpensive to produce.  Meantime, synthetic alternatives are difficult to recycle and require much more energy to manufacture. Cork has been widely embraced by green designers and artisans for products that are easy to manufacture and install in our homes. Aluminum screw tops are often tossed out. At one UK site, blog visitors recommended these uses: Cookie cutters for dough, donations to schools for arts and crafts projects, or drill a hole in them for crazy jewelry. In other worlds, the upcycling is slow on the uptake.

Wine preservation versus earth preservation

As Grist so aptly points out, the environmental impact of the plastic screw top has less to do with leaching plastics and dangers to the grape than with “overall manufacturing footprints.” From the health of the trees, to the sustainability of the ecosystem and livelihood of tree farmers, plastic bottle tops are barking up the wrong tree, just as all the plastic conveniences that came before the newest darlings of the beverage industry.

Images: TheBusyBrain, Panda, Atlantawineguy, The Nibble, Corkfloor,

Chasing every trend that comes along is hardly an eco pursuit, which is why we prefer the idea of scooping up reinvented and reinterpreted classics that will freshen your look while keeping you in the green. These pieces will stand the test of time and provide a little eco retail therapy, too.

Here are my 10 personal picks for a fashionably sustainable spring:

Frei’s Breakaway Blazer

Is this the best spring suit ever? Versatile with a crisp clean top or a rockin’ graphic t-shirt, this blazer – with its pin-striped lining – is equestrian gone bad ass.
(For spring, just about anything by Frei is amazing.)

Olsen Haus

Blonde cork mixed with any color faux suede you want? Says sexy in an “in your face” eco way.

D.S. & Durga Grapefruit Perfume

I’ve written about this line before and can’t say enough about it. Grapefruit with Jamaican Pirate Seeds should be your go-to scent for day and night. Yum.

Popomomo graphic tee

It’s always great to have a fun t-shirt as part of your wardrobe, and this one from Popomomo is one of my new favorites with the geometric paint graphic.

Nixxi Wrap dress

Wrap dresses look good on everyone, they say, and I’m here to tell you, it’s true. This ruffled number by Nixxi is perfect, hitting just above the knee. It comes in other colors, too, including a rich plum. A year-round dress.

She Bible necklace

Architecturally satisfying and just downright fun to wear, this crocheted bib necklace by She Bible is the designer’s first attempt at making jewelry. Not too shabby, and definitely chic. Looks great laying on top of a simple t-shirt or with a dress that hangs low around the décolletage.

Doucette Duvall’s Lauren Dress

I’m a huge fan of Doucette Duvall and recently met with them in their NYC studio. The Lauren is made from rescued material and comes in a bevvy of solid colors as well as color blocks. I just bought one in a dusty rose and it’s magnificent. (The skirt is very similar minus the strapless top.)

Taxi CDC Trench

Do you have one? You probably should, and this one is the perfect trench – and made from recycled fabrics.

Prairie Underground Denim Street Girdle

I love these so much, not only for the fact that they’re jeggings (jeans and leggings) but that they go high enough to keep your belly (if you have a little one) in. Can be worn covered or featuring the hot gold zipper. Very flattering in black.

Rebe

What’s spring without at least one light piece that can transition into summer? Love this one by Rebe with its beautiful shade of blue and sweet solid top. This dress can also be bought floor length.

It’s not your grandmother’s wine box!

This 3-liter tube contains a premium, rich and structured California Cab – the first release by winemaker Barry Gnekow, who went looking for a way to drink outside the box and to entertain without the waste.

“My goal was to produce the equivalent of a $25 bottle of wine that could be delivered to the consumer at under $10 per bottle,” he says.

At $40 a tube, The FOUR Cabernet scores many eco points. It eliminates expensive traditional glass-and-cork packaging, cutting wine bottle landfill waste by 85%. The vino package is 100% recyclable and the label is produced by windpower. The cardboard tubes weigh 20% less than glass and can be transported using less gas.

And it’s not just the package that defies the throw-away mentality. The wine, itself, also endures until all 24 glasses are poured.

“The great thing is that it holds about four bottles worth and stays fresh up to 4 weeks after opening,” explains James Robinson of WineStyles, a retail wine store and tasting club in San Francisco. “Often with red wine, people toss out what they don’t drink after a day or two, because it goes bad.”

Robinson poured me a taste out of the spout, and I found it to be delicious, medium-bodied, plummy and lightly oaked, even on its last legs, about two weeks opened.

The wine maker also promises to deliver white wine in a tube, including Chardonnays, at some point this year.

True, we are still living in a material world, but cotton grown with pesticides is no longer the fabric of our lives.

The green movement is making huge strides replacing toxins and waste in the marketplace with organic fibers like bamboo and hemp, as well as good old corn starch, throw-away cork and used paper.

The brave, new soldiers of eco industry believe enough is enough when it comes to creating more waste and adding to our grossly overflowing landfills and plastic islands. Bet you do, too!

Instead, the trend has been to meet a growing consumer demand for renewable and reusable resources, seeking out the scraps of industry (glass, cork and plastic bottles) and growing plants without pesticides to make healthy fibers with no trace of petroleum.

Here is a go-to list of the friendliest materials that have our planet covered.

1. Bamboo Fiber

The eco fiber option of choice, bamboo is woven into everything from fashionable dresses like those made by Spun in Seattle and other respected labels, to towels, totes and interior elements such as window treatments. This natural textile is made from the pulp of the bamboo grass and is best in the organic form – pure and unbleached. It is a strong fabric, considered more durable and sustainable than conventional textile fiber.

2. Bamboo Hardwood

Considered a renewable resource, bamboo is a grass that thrives quickly. Oak trees can take 120 years to grow to maturity while bamboo can be harvested in three. it also regenerates without need for replanting, and requires minimal fertilization or pesticides. The jury is still out on whether or not bamboo flooring is as durable as traditional European hardwoods. As Tree Hugger points out, now all bamboo products are alike. Since it  is mostly shipped from China, you have to determine if the product is treated according to environmental standards. Companies like Teragren are careful about adhering to strict environmental specifications.

3. Cork

Got a surface that needs covering? Put a cork on it. Whether molded into mosaics for floors by Mod Walls or adapted as a textile for chic handbags by Shop Cork Design, cork is a renewable resource from the industry’s by-products. It can be waterproofed to extend the life of the surface and also applied to walls as an unexpected modern surface.

4. Plantation Grown Teak

Teak is a deciduous hardwood tree from the highlands of southeast Asia and is considered a sustainable timber for indoor-outdoor furniture, as well as decking. The Maku Chaise, below, is an example of outdoor designs sold by Design Public and other vendors. Teak has a naturally high oil content which makes it both stable and resistant to rotting when exposed to extreme climates. Much of it comes to us from the island of Java. The Dutch started plantations there about 150 years ago. The Indonesian government agency, Perum Perhutani, now manages the plantations, enforcing a strict policy regarding the size and quantity of trees felled each year together with annual replanting.

5. Corn Starch Biocompostables

Corn: it’s what’s for dinner and so much more. These utensils from the Biodegradable Store made of sugar cane fiber, corn and potato starch are the green alternative to petroleum-based plastics and styrofoam materials which take thousands of years to degrade. Thankfully, the new biocompostables are not restricted to the home pantry but are showing up at shopping mall food courts and school events where large crowds gather and consume disposables in bulk. Corn has also been used for library cards in San Francisco and ringtone downloader cards. And don’t forget ethanol, a fuel helping to reduce greenhouse emissions and slow global warming.

6. Hemp

Hemp is grown without pesticides or fertilizers and is rapidly replacing plastic-based materials for clothing and home decor. A member of the Cannabis Sativa plant family (don’t worry, it won’t get you high – other than environmentally!), it yields 250% more fiber than cotton per acre plus 500% more pulp fiber than forest wood. Sold by the yard or already woven into bedding, curtains or fashion garb by brands like Eco Fabrik, hemp dates back to more than 10,000 years ago with a myriad of uses such as paper making, cloth weaving and extracted oils for medicinal products and skincare.

7. Soybean Fabric

Soy fabric is friendly and soft and similar to cashmere or silk in texture. It is found in luxury items, such as these cushy robes from Eco Body wear, and scrumptious baby rompers from Baby Soy USA. Soybean protein fiber is a sustainable and botanical textile fiber made from renewable and biodegradable natural resources – the leftover soybean pulp from tofu and soy milk production. Its 16 amino acids are healthy and nutritional for our skin.

8. Organic Cotton

The Organic Trade Association tells us organic cotton grown by farmers worldwide increased 152 percent during the 2007-2008 crop year. Organic cotton is grown without harmful toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers meaning the farming methods and materials have a low impact on people and the environment. Production replenishes and maintains soil fertility to build biologically diverse agriculture. Genetically engineered seed for organic farming is strictly taboo, and all cotton sold as organic in the United States must meet strict federal regulations covering how the cotton is grown. In terms of products, it is much easier to find now in upscale and everyday clothing and underwear,  stylish bedding like this soft set from Pottery Barn, rugs, bags – you name it.

9. Recycled Glass

Companies like the inventive Vetrazzo are sparing landfills of post-industrial glass scraps, while giving new life to post consumer glass such as Corona Beer bottles which are made into countertops. It all goes into the mix of making a sustainable recycled product that adds great beauty to the environment. The same reusable resource is being molded into jewelry or new tumblers for entertaining. One man’s junk”¦you get the picture.

10. Low VOC Paint and Finishes

You’ve probably heard of VOC’s, the solvents in paint which evaporate easily at room temperature. They smell bad bad and are bad for people and other living things. They contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer as well as  poor indoor air quality. That’s why companies like Benjamin Moore and  YOLO Colorhouse® are offering us alternatives. The scientists and artists at YOLO produce a premium zero-VOC paint with an appealing designer palette of 40 hues for interiors, inspired by the natural world. It seems to be the direction more makers of finishes are going. Let’s follow this path and refuse to buy anything less healthy for our homes.

11. Recycled Polyester

Yes, rPET is the new polyester! PET stands for Poly Ethylene Terephthalate, a plastic resin and a form of polyester. PET is a polymer that is formed by combining two monomers called modified ethylene glycol and Purified Terephthalic Acid. PET is labeled with the #1 code on bottles and containers used to package soft drinks, water, juice, peanut butter, salad dressings and oil, cosmetics and household cleaners. PET is a popular package for food and non-food products because it is inexpensive, lightweight, resalable, shatter-resistant and recyclable. To source the post consumer bottles, they are sterilized and then dried and crushed into tiny chips. The chips are heated in a vat and forced through spinnerets (as with virgin polyester) and then are spun into yarn and dyed without toxic properties. What can you make with the Eco-fi material? Everything from carpets, bags and clothing to wall coverings, furnishings and craft felt.

12. Recycled Paper

Did you know 57 million trees are killed each year to produce the paper catalog companies crank out to market their stuff? The catalog industry floods our mailboxes with over 17 billion catalogs a year in the United States, many produced on paper that comes from endangered forests, including those in the Canadian Boreal forest. But businesses, such as Norm Thompson Outfitters of Portland, Oregon, are setting new standards by using recycled paper for their catalogs. Many other companies are getting on the recycled paper bus, including card and stationary designers such as Papel Vino in Vancouver and Bird Dog Press. Magazine strips are also coiled for trays and meshed into placemats for chic home decor. For every ton of paper that is recycled, 17 trees are spared. You can recycle most paper, including white office paper, newspaper and mixed-color paper, through a local curbside recycling program.

13. Felt

No longer just the craft stuff of school kids, if you’ve got an eye like Josh Jakus (bags and coasters) and Ronel Jordaan (modern stones) there is nothing you can’t glue together with this delightful, ecological textile. Felt can come in many forms, from recycled wool from PET bottles to made the old fashion “wet felting” way by nomadic peoples in Central Asia. The non-woven cloth is made by matting, condensing and pressing organic fibers while they are wet. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to use on construction materials such as a tar paper called roofing felt.

14. Solar Cells

A solar cell is a device that converts light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Assemblies of cells are used to make solar panels and solar modules to produce energy for practical use. Harnessing energy from the sun is a major goal in slowing global warming. Prefabricated solar panel systems for roofing usually range in capacity from 3 to 120 kilowatts. According to Technology Review, solar roofing materials can “cut the cost of household solar installations by doing double duty, generating electricity while protecting buildings from the elements.” Scientists tell us that on a bright, sunny day, the sun shines approximately 1,000 watts of energy per square meter of the planet’s surface. Collecting all of that energy would allow us to easily power our homes and offices for free.

15. Aluminum Bottles

A question that might be posed by Dwight Schrute of The Office is “which water bottle is best?” Many athletes, backpackers and soccer moms who used to quaff from leaky plastic will tell you the Sigg aluminum is best when it comes to bottles free of Bisphenol-A (BPA) found in polycarbonate plastics. Sometimes called Lexan, BPA is an endocrine disruptor that has been shown to affect reproduction and brain development in animal studies. It can leach into foods and liquids and mimics estrogen when absorbed by the human body. Sigg bottles are made from a single piece of aluminum (no leaks) and have a water-based, non-toxic interior coating. The liner’s finish keeps out bacteria and mold and is neutral and resistant to fruit acids and energy drinks.  SIGG bottles have been independently tested to prove they are completely leach-free and are 100 percent recyclable.

16.BPA-Free Plastic

While plastics have been shunned by environmentalists since The Graduate debuted, the new Better Bottle produced by  CamelBak is a move in the right direction. The company switched its 2008 Better Bottle line to Eastman Tritan copolyester, a new BPA- and phthalate-free material. BPA-free bottles started shipping to retailers in January of 2008 and are popular choices for children following required packing lists for summer camps and school field trips. Camelbak also makes stainless steel bottles, which are a close rival of aluminum in popularity and purity. You can buy them at outdoorsy outlets such as REI.

17. Cardboard

Recycling old cardboard to make recycling containers? Sure, that’s what the inventive set, such as Amazing Recycled Products, is doing and much more. Savvy products on the market include coasters, DIY speakers and journals. The two types of cardboard that can be recycled are flat cardboard, which is typically used in cereal and shoe boxes, and corrugated cardboard, which has a ruffled layer between the two flat pieces of cardboard and is often used in packing boxes. Both can usually be recycled through your local curbside recycling program.

18. Reclaimed Rubber

Tired of tires sitting in landfills for indefinite periods of time? So are companies like Rubber Sidewalks, which use shredded tires to compose panels that fit together to form a rubber sidewalk. The rubber is even good for trees, letting the sidewalk raise and bend around the roots. You no longer have to remove entire trees to keep concrete from being torn up and replaced. In 2006, 60 cities from 15 different states tested rubber sidewalks. Residents find the rubber feels good under their feet and sound is reduced, as well. It’s safe and non-toxic. Rubber sidewalks also comes in different colors. While the main motive is to save trees, recycled rubber also reduces the waste from tires each year. In California alone, tires create an estimated 408 million pounds of waste rubber.

19. Rice Hulls

Green Pots are made from rice hulls and break down much quicker than traditional planters. No pollutants are used or produced at any stage of the manufacturing process of the containers and there are no wasted materials because scraps are recycled back into the production process. Consumer rice also enjoys afterlife as durable messenger bags that look pretty and help us conserve.

20. Natural Earth Clay and Plaster

A friendly alternative to cement, gypsum, acrylic and lime plasters, products like American Clay Earth Plaster are pure and breathable, a popular choice in the new construction of walls and remodeling of old buildings. As Countryside Magazine points out, using earth to make walls and houses has been done for thousands of years. Uncle Sam invested in testing Rammed Earth construction from the 20s through the 40s as a practical way to achieve affordable housing. Even Frank Lloyd Wright was said to be a fan of using adobe and other natural earth sources. He drew up plans for a multi-family cooperative but due to the war that project was never fulfilled. The process of making rammed earth involves the mixing of raw material from gravel, sand, silt and clay.

*BONUS MATERIAL

21. Elbow Grease

Susie Homemaker is not staying slim these days by downing diuretics (that was my mother’s trick) but by spinning her salads, washing and wiping dishes by hand, hand washing and line drying clothes, riding her bike to the market, walking to her volunteer meetings and other steps that burn calories while leaving a lighter carbon pump print. The more we use our own body’s energy the less we rely on oil, electricity and other sources that drain the planet. And by the way, the exercise of cutting some of your pretty hair also can help the planet in the mopping up of oil spills in the form of hair mats. Human hair has not caught on as fabric for clothing yet, as far as we can tell from Project Runway.

Native to Southwest Europe and Northern Africa, the cork oak’s bark is not only harvested for wine stoppers and home flooring, it’s also entered the fashion world thanks to companies like Portuguese fashion label Pelcor.

Recently receiving honors for “Most Innovative” at the Pure International Fashion show in London, owner Sandra Correia, Portugal’s Entrepreneur of the Year, has taken cork to new heights.

Because the material is waterproof, washable, hypoallergenic, un-scratchable and stain-proof, shoes, bags, hats and jewelry can be beautifully made and stylishly detailed. Even Madonna seems to have a penchant for Pelcor, having recently tried out an entire cork ensemble: hat,bag, wallet and glasses case.

(The curious want to see her dance in it now).

Cork, a plant fiber, is a growing substitute for leather and doesn’t require a polluting fabrication process thanks to its natural elements and unique cell structure that allows it to retain carbon dioxide.

So one can wear an entire cork outfit and minimize global warming?

To a degree.