Go Green: Ideal Bite's Simple, Sassy Steps

April 18, 2008— -- Earth is home to more than six billion people, co-existing with wildlife and plant life, but how do we take care of our most precious resources for the most precious people in our lives?

One ideal bite at a time.

Three years ago, Heather Stephenson and Jennifer Boulden founded IdealBite.com, a Web site dedicated to helping make our lives a little greener through simple and practical "bite"-size tips.

They believe that even the small steps can make a big difference.

Here are their tips for helping one family with small children get their green on!

"Look for toys that don't incorporate plastic," Stephenson advised. Instead she suggested choosing wood-based toys with environmentally friendly paints.

When your children grow out of those toys, Stephen suggested a toy swap, "because the best thing you can do for the environment, actually, is not buying more stuff."

For everyday rituals, Boulden suggested looking for eco-shampoos and organic beauty products. She also suggested eco-friendly makeup brushes, made out of bamboo and recycled aluminum and with synthetic bristles as opposed to animal bristles or ones that are petroleum-based.

Boulder also encourages women to choose vintage jewelry. "The best thing you can do in terms of eco is not to buy new … People don't think about the fact that when they're wearing new jewelry it is from the Earth, a lot of energy goes into that, a lot of chemicals are used in the mining process," she said.

In your home office be sure to set your printer to the double-sided mode so you can cut your use of paper in half. Stephenson also said junk mail was a major environmental culprit that most Americans tend not to notice. "The average person, this is not going to surprise you, gets 11 pieces of junk mail a week … If everyone in the United States actually went online to sign up to have their junk mail reduced we'd save 100,000 trees," she said.

Another common source of waste the duo identified is so-called "vampire energy" in which your appliances are actually drawing power even when they're not using them. "Ninety percent of the energy a cell phone charger uses is just evaporating into the air while it's just sitting there not plugged into the phone and not charging the phone," Stephenson explained.

If pulling plugs in and out of the wall seems like a nuisance, Stephenson suggested a power strip that has an on/off switch. "So when you're not here in your home office all you have to do is switch off that switch. It's not only going to help the environment, its going to lower your electricity bills for your home," she said.

Click here to visit IdealBite.com.