[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

A few days ago, I wrote about the Take Back the Filter Campaign, an effort to persuade Clorox, owner of the Brita Products Co. in the U.S., to provide a recycling option for consumers who use their products.

As a part of the campaign, Take Back the Filter’s asking you to send in your old filters, to be used as a visual showcase of sorts towards the effort. So I’m sending in mine to be used for the cause!

I guess this is an odd “gift,” since it’s technically trash — but this lets me highlight the Take Back the Filter campaign again. All Brita filter users — Get involved!

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Update, 11/18/08: Brita’s new filter recycling program will begin Jan. 2009.

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

A little White Coconut Creme tea from Art of Tea — along with a couple honey sticks — goes to Streetsblog LA’s Damien Newton, as a thank you for being a great contributor to the Emerald City blog.

Damien’s guest posts were mostly about HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes, which have been a hot topic of discussion lately, as Metro’s recently accepted federal funding to try out HOT lane programs.

Damien also made a case against the summer gas tax break plan — which both Clinton and McCain backed. Most recently, he interviewed Erik Knutzen of the blog Homegrown Evolution about urban gardening and farming.

Damien happens to be one of those strange people who drinks tea but not coffee :P Art of Tea, which I’ve written about in more detail here, offers very yummy teas and tisanes that’re mostly organic and sometimes fair trade certified — though I wish the company’d be more clear about which teas are certified fair trade and organic and which are not to make my shopping process easier. If they did, I’d shop there more often –

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

There are bicycle people who own like 10 bikes and pick one out for the day the way I pick out shoes. I am not one of these people, because even just having two bikes kinda stressed me out a bit — though they look like cute friends in the pic above –

But I’m really a one bike kind of girl. After I got the chainless Dynamic bicycle to review a few weeks ago, I started having trouble sleeping at night because I was afraid a bike’d get stolen: twice as many bikes = twice the chance for theft. Okay — I didn’t really have trouble sleeping, but theft issues did cross my mind more than usual –

I’m also someone who thinks the bike should just be there for me to serve my needs, as opposed to someone who enjoys looking after the bike, maintaining it, even dusting it. I do those things once in a while, but somewhat grudgingly…. and two bikes meant twice the work.

Anyway — Today I took the cool black-n-white chainless bike down to Bikerowave, the awesome DIY bike shop that helped me put the bike together to begin with — and donated it to the Bikerowave cause. I was going to keep it longer, but honestly, I wasn’t using the second bike — I never even put batteries in the front light that Bikerowave helped me install, opting instead to just take my pink townie out at night. The Dynamic bicycle is a v. cool, quiet ride — I just already had my basket and lights all set up on my townie and I guess I’m a creature of habit –

What Bikerowave will do with the bike: According to Art, one of the inventory people at Bikerowave, “The Bikerowave plans on keeping this bike as part of our “stable” of shop-bikes (ideally we want to have a variety of about 5 or 6) that we’ll keep around to loan-out or rent, etc.” I’m not quite sure who these shop bikes get rented or loaned out to — but hopefully it’ll be used to make good things happen.

Thanks to Dynamic Bicycles for letting me try out the bike, and for agreeing to donated it to Bikerowave.

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Update, 10/17/08: StreetFilms put together a short film about the 3 bike co-ops in the LA area, including Bikerowave.

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.

Today’s giveway’s a copy of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, a new book by Stacy Malkan, cofounder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

Not Just a Pretty Face can get scary at times, but it’s also an encouraging and empowering story — in which most of the heroes are women! I reviewed it here.

Want it? Tell me what in the review made you want to read the book in the comments by Sunday to get into the drawing, which’ll happen Monday. US addresses only.

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

I got behind on the posts — but I’m catching up! The things I’ve given so far this week are (gift 12 was the Wednesday freebie):

Gift 10: A reusable water filter bottle for Tony, blog editor at the LA Times, who’ll hopefully wean himself from the disposable plastic bottled water habit. Don’t worry — He did ask for the bottle, so I’m not shoving an eco-habit down his throat.

Gift 11: A glass of pinot noir at Makai for Desdemona, who on Tuesday successfully finished a long class she was taking.

Gift 13: A gold Nahui Ollin Itsy Bitsy Wrislet for Marina, who has been copyediting my post on Emerald City — and will continue to do so until June 21. The wristlet’s made of recycled candy wrappers — and is a thank you gift for Marina’s thoughtful editing help :)

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

Margo turned 30 and celebrated at the AC Lounge in Venice Friday. Her gift: A Hero Bag — bookbag style — with little gifts inside. Below from left to right: Summer, Margo, me.

We were gonna bike it to the bar, but really didn’t want to after a couple glasses of wine with dinner — so we took a CNG EuroTaxi.

Around midnight we suddenly found the walls irresistible –

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

The DNC sent me a presidential campaign survey — and asked for money.

So I’m sending them $25.

May the best democrat win –

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

Yesterday was my sister’s birthday — and I tried calling her to find that her number no longer works. Hmmm….

Hopefully she’s still living in the same place, because I’ve sent her Three Orange Drop Earrings — one-of-a-kind jewelry created in Brooklyn from reclaimed tins and cans, sterling silver earwires, purchased via my friend Summer’s eco-boutique, BTC Elements.

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

I think I took more classes from David than from any other professor. He taught the most interdisciplinary ones — a composer and writers class where music composers and poets collaborated, a poetics class where everyone from architects to avant garde poets came to talk about creativity and creation, etc.

I’m sending him a couple Sol Tumblers, made in the US from 100% reclaimed Sol bottles and purchased via my friend Summer’s eco-boutique, BTC Elements.

In case you’re thinking all my 29 posts are gonna be about my dissertation committee, rest assured that my committee had just 3 members — and this is the third one who got a gift. Tomorrow comes something new –

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[Part of my challenge to give something away every day for 29 days, again]

Summer’s birthday was on Saturday, but we’re celebrating it tonight!

The gift for a girl who already owns an eco-boutique and everything in it: An eco-friendly pedicure at The Bey’s Garden.

I got an organic facial here a while back, but haven’t ever gotten my nails done. Apparently, the nail polish is water-based! We’ll find out how quickly it dries and how long it holds up –

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