Kitchen Compost Crock $42.00 (white ceramic model) $75.00 (stainless steel model) at RealGoods.com

Maybe you compost in your yard, but what about your kitchen? An utterly depressing and amazing amount of useful nutrients are thrown out by most people everyday. Your banana peels, veggie peelings, etc could be put to far better uses than simply making more methane gas somewhere in some humongous landfill.

Consider the compost crock as one solution, the Kitchen Compost Crock looks great on your counter and is ideal for holding scraps of food that can eventually make compost for your garden plants. As food prices continue to grow through the roof, a home veggie garden is making more and more sense.

The crock’s interior is glazed so it won’t stain and the filtered lid leaves odors trapped inside. You will need to change the filters every few months, replacement filters are $10.00 for a set of 6. Some users complain of a loose handle on this ceramic model. For a bit more money you can spring for the stainless steel model. Speaking of money, The composting stainless steel crock we reviewed last year seems perhaps a better deal at only 39.00. Check out our previous Great Green Gadgets article here on kitchen composting.

If you house is like ours, we get a ton of junk mail everyday that goes straight to the recycle bin. (actually, its not quite a ton, the average person gets 41 pounds of junk mail a year) Most household waste consists of unsolicited mail and to no one’s surprise most junk mail is discarded unread and unopened. Over 100 million trees are ground up each year to make the paper for junk mail and a lot of junk mail, especially glossy catalogs, are difficult to recycle, as the inks have high concentrations of heavy metals.

Here is some information on free (or even get paid a dollar) ways for you personally to get rid of your junk mail. Some new websites like ProQuo.com and GreenDimes.com will do most of the grunt work for you so it is pretty easy. I signed up with the new site, ProQuo, that makes it easy to get rid of many of the prime culprits, like coupon ads, Credit Cards offers, insurance ads and the like. They also allow you to opt out of catalogs but you have to individually pick which ones you don’t want (and they have an offer to choose to get the catalog if you don’t already get it – which makes me wonder if this is where they hope to get their money from)

They also make it easy to get on the do not call registry (you go to another site) all and all the process was fairly quick and easy (they did require you to give them info like your address and social security number) this made me nervous at first but after investigating them a little, it seemed a legitimate request – you can do it without the social security number but they claim it isn’t as effective. It will take about 3 months to know for sure if this site delivers on its promise. They have some clever videos to promote their site (they must have gotten some serious startup cash to make all these professional promotional videos – but some of them are quite funny. (I liked the medieval junk mail the best)

Another site that looks very promising in stopping junk mail is Green Dimes, I haven’t tried it so I can’t comment too much, but they do offer to pay you a dollar and guarantee results.

If you don’t completely trust these sites with any of your personal information or think they are just out to make a buck off of you some how? I don’t blame you for thinking that way – So here are a couple of sites that give you some useful information on how you can do it all yourself. A wiki on getting rid of junk mail

And a very comprehensive series of articles on the problems of junk mail and how to get rid of it at
ecofuture.com

Are you tired of your kids leaving lights on in the house when you repeatedly tell them to turn them off when they leave a room? Are you tired of wasting electricity by turning the lights on and off according to the sunlight? Perhaps it’s time for the Aube Solar Timer Switch. This handy gadget is easy to install and runs on solar power, so it doesn’t expend any more energy than needed. You can set the timer to allow the lights to go on and off at a certain time of the night and turn off during the day. Because it is solar powered, it will allow the lights to go on and off when programmed in an eco friendly way. This could be a great way to save energy!

$39.99 at Amazon

A blender to take camping or use next to the outdoor grill isn’t on my top ten list of things I wish for, however, some people might be thrilled that you can now mix up smoothies with an energy efficient and portable blender. This battery operated blender be recharged anywhere there is an outlet, blenders aren’t real energy hogs so you probably won’t save too much juice but being able to mix up your drinks off-grid is cause to celebrate. The Rechargeable Blender is lightweight but has a large pitcher for your outdoor gatherings (or during your next power outage)

$59.99 at Eco Geek Living

Looking for an earth friendly way to divide a room? Check out the rollable Bamboo Screen made from eco-friendly bamboo that contains no pesticides or harmful chemicals. Like any good homeowner, you are concerned about what you bring into your house and don’t want something filled with pesticides. This handy screen can partition off part of a room or even hide a computer, wires or something else that you want to keep out of everyone’s eyesight. The earth friendly Bamboo Screen is very sturdy and measures 8 feet in width and 6 feet in height so is perfect for just about every room in your house! Get some privacy in an eco-friendly way with the Bamboo Screen!

$269.00 at Real Goods