Green bloggers struggle with their own set of strange, unanswerable questions. Would sending in this raggedy bra to the Bosom Buddy Program be a help or an insult? Can I justify going to this green nonprofit’s fundraiser if the only way I can get there is by car? Are these climate change-denying trolls hired to comment for a living by the tea party?

And most importantly: What happens to all those free reusable bags given out at practically every green event?

Longtime readers know that too many reusable bags are a pet peeve of mine — so much so that I actually came down on readers who seem to be stockpiling reusable bags in some sort of black hole instead of actually reusing them! Yet, in the six years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been unable to stop the incessant flow of reusable bags into my life. At first, I gave away these bags one by one on my blog. Then I had to resort to giving them away en masse — a strategy I still employ from time to time.

Doing so, I’m still left wondering — What happens to all the other reusable bags that were given out to attendees who, say, don’t have blogs on which they host weekly giveaways? Where do these bags disappear to?

Well, if reading this is making you go red in the face because you’ve been a reusable bag stockpiler, I’ve got a solution for you. The City of Santa Monica’s just launched a Share A Bag program. The gist: Those with too many reusable bags can drop off their extras at Share A Bag locations, while those without reusable bags can pick some up for free. It’s like those leave a penny / take a penny dealios at cash registers — except with bags instead of coins.

The city’s even put together a handy Google Map with all the Share A Bag locations — which include farmers markets, some government offices, and resale stores — including my favorite consignment store and pre-loved fashion store.

View Share a Bag Program Locations in a larger map

This program’s launched to prep the city for the recently passed plastic bag ban in the city, which starts going into effect this September. Locally, L.A. County’s bag ban for the unincorporated areas of the county went into effect at the beginning of this month, while Long Beach’s will go into effect in August. Nationally, Portland just made news for passing its own bag ban — to go into effect in October.

So tell me: What is the reusable bag situation in your home? Do you have too many? Not enough? And more importantly — Do you feel a strange compulsion to grab a reusable bag if it’s free — even if you don’t actually need one? That last question is the one I really wonder about — because I do think the “It’s free? I’ll take 2!” attitude of our consumer culture can be tough to kick….

Earlier: Styrofoam and the City: The fate of plastic bags and polystyrene in LA

And when it comes to online shopping, there are two eco-beauty stores that exemplify these two options. NuboNau goes with choice one (above), wrapping each of its eco-luxe high-end beauty products in recycled paper and nestling everything in beautiful, recycled honeycomb protective packaging.

In contrast, Soap Hope‘s trying to make ugly the new eco-pretty.

Soap Hope’s one store that’s taking upcycling to the extreme — by celebrating just how ugly it can be. Case in point: The store ships its products in what it calls the “Ugly Box” — made by roughly cutting up and taping up used boxes. Each of these come with a label on top — explaining why the packaging’s ugliness is really eco-smart.

As you may have guessed, the inventory at NuboNau and Soap Hope differ quite a bit, with the former focusing on more high-end, eco-luxe beauty brands like Strange Invisible Perfumes and John Masters Organics, and the latter on more affordable, basic beauty products from companies like Hugo Naturals. Soap Hope also has an additional altruistic goal with a Kiva-like model. The company lends all of its profits, interest free, to a nonprofit that works to empower women — getting back the money a year later.

What type of packaging do you prefer from your eco-beauty online store? I’m more likely to opt for Soap Hope’s method when shopping for myself — but to go with NuboNau’s way when shopping for gifts. Do you think your order should arrive prettily packed — or do you celebrate the ugly of reuse?

Would you pay a grand for a pair of shoes? How about a pair of used shoes? Before you answer, keep in mind these shoes come gently worn with great stories — and attached to a great cause. Buy a pair of these pricy pre-loved shoes, and you’ll be sending a grand to the Rescue Union School District in Northern California, which is facing serious budget cuts.

Shoes to the Rescue is the brainchild of Michele Miller, the principal of Jackson Elementary in El Dorado Hills. According to Sacramento Bee, Michele decided to donate the shoes “hoping they will help close a budget gap she says is estimated at a minimum of $1.4 million.”

If you love shoes — but often have trouble justifying the high cost of new shoes both to your wallet and the environment — buying from Shoes to the Rescue should be a near guilt-free experience. After all, all your money goes to keeping libraries open and supporting personnel at public schools. And the shoes are pre-loved — so you’d be reusing!

Interested in the shoes? You can pick from a wide variety — from boots to sandals to sneakers — which come in sizes between 6 1/2 and 7 1/2. Each pair of shoes will be delivered with a little card with a handwritten story by Michele, recounting the favorite time when she wore that pair of shoes.

It’s unclear how many shoes are up for sale, exactly. Sacramento Bee says 285 pairs, Shoes to the Rescue’s website says 300 pairs, while Michele herself says 350 pairs in the video she made for her fundraising effort. What is clear is the price per pair of shoes: A simple $1,000, regardless of the type of shoe.

Of course, you can always give more than a grand to the cause. Want to give less? Shoes to the Rescue will take donations of any amount! You won’t get to walk in Michele’s shoes, but you’ll give support to Michele’s school district.

Earlier: How to shoe shop green while saving green

Love Groupon and Living Social — but wish more of their hugely discounted deals featured green goods and services? Well, you’re in luck. Many Groupon-esque deal sites have been popping up, and a good handful of them have a green and socially conscious bent. Here are a few to check out:

Gather Green. (Los Angeles) Focuses on eco-friendly companies, especially with an emphasis on health and wellness. Current deal: $99 for a Week’s Worth of Vegan Meals from Gobble Green.

WinWin Living. (Los Angeles) Focuses on eco-friendly companies. Current deal: $40 for $120 of services at Beverly Hills’ leading eco-friendly hair salon, Shades Natural Hair Color Studio.

Green Deals. (National) Focuses on eco-friendly companies approved by Green America. Current deal: Save 30% on 2011 Green America Membership.

neerg. (National) Focuses on eco-friendly products. Current deal: $15 for $30 Worth of Delicious Raw, Organic Foods from Kaia Foods.

Blissmo. (National) Focuses on eco-friendly and fair trade products. Current deal: 50% off Artisanal, Handcrafted Shoulder Bags.

Deals for Deeds. (Washington DC) Focuses on locally-owned companies alongside local social causes. Current deal: $10 for $20 to spend at The Pug, a local bar.

Know of other green deep discount deal sites I’ve missed? Share them in the comments!

Got a big heart and a tiny wallet? Now you can do good with just a buck — by donating it via Philanthroper.

Self-described as a “Groupon for Good”*, Philanthroper’s basic function’s simple: to get people to donate $1 — no more, no less — to a nonprofit group as often as possible. A different nonprofit is featured on Philanthroper each day, letting would-be do-gooders make their $1 donations for their feel-good moment — then watch the tally grow as the day goes on.

Since the donation amount’s so small, more people will be able to afford to contribute — without worrying about whether or not they can spare the $10 to $15 minimum donation usually required when giving directly to nonprofits. Only a penny goes to the transaction service provider mPayy, and Philanthroper takes no cut, instead supporting itself through advertising. That means for a dollar donated, 99 cents goes directly to the nonprofit featured on Philanthroper — with the money delivered within the week.

Ready to give? Head over to Philanthroper. Today’s charity is Getting2Tri, an organization that runs sports training camps for people with disabilities, which has received $123 in donations so far. The first time you give, you’ll need to sign up with mPayy, but you’ll be able to make future donations with just two clicks.

Only give to green-themed nonprofits? Environmental groups like the Solar Electric Light Fund, which brings green energy to impoverished areas of the globe, have been featured on Philanthroper. Sign up for Philanthroper‘s newsletter so you don’t lose the opportunity to donate your dollar to a good cause.

* Although a notice about mPayy and Philanthroper’s partnership sent out by mPayy’s press agency described Philanthroper as “Groupon for good,” Mark Wilson from Philanthroper says the description was made up by “an external, unsponsored, unaffiliated PR agency.” After first suggesting that “‘self-described’ probably isn’t suitable” in an email to me, he now contends I’ve “put words in [his] mouth then ignored clarification.” Thus, the long clarification. Write nice things about Philanthroper at your own risk.

Photo by Packmatt

The average woman reportedly has 22 unworn items in her closet, yet on the blogosphere, minimalist wardrobe projects abound. In fact, eco-closets seem to be shrinking fast! Project 333 takers pared down their wardrobes to 33 items for 3 months, while Six Items or Less challengers whittled their closes down to just six items for an entire month.

Now comes a woman who’s pretty much pared down her closet to just one item — for a year. Kristy Powell, a therapist and pilates teacher in New Haven, Conn., plans to wear just one dress for 365 days, blogging her experience at One Dress Protest.

Of course, one dress projects aren’t entirely new. Alex Martin wore a little brown dress for a whole year back in 2005-2006, and more recently, Sheena Matheiken’s The Uniform Project documented a year of wearing a simple, multifunctional black dress — reaccessorized every day to create unique looks.

Kristy’s project is directly inspired by the Uniform Project — which is where Kristy purchased her Little Black Dress for her experiment. In fact, Kristy purchased two identical dresses from the Uniform Project — thereby giving herself some laundering wiggle room.

Why’s Kristy documenting yet another one dress project? “I’ve set out to explore what it looks like to openly, publicly and boldly survey what clothes and fashion mean to me, and to investigate some of the more meaningful implications the world of clothes have for our lives and hearts,” writes Kristy, who describes her choice as part lifestyle experiment, part cultural protest. “One Dress Protest is meant to be both a statement and an action to express my disapproval of and objection to the ways that fashion undervalues, denigrates, objectifies and oftentimes insults women.”

So far, Kristy’s experiment’s run into some comical snafus. First, she spilled split-pea soup on a dress — a stressful mess if the plan’s to keep wearing the same item all year. Then she managed to make one of the LBDs a mini LBD the very first time she washed it. “It shrunk ALOT — 3.5 inches in length to be exact. It was noticeably smaller, resembling more of a long shirt than a dress.”

All that makes for a pretty entertaining read. Kristy’s just finished her first month of her One Dress Protest project. Read her blog to see how the fashion fast went.

Photos via One Dress Protest

If you’re like most green LA girl readers, you do your best to avoid plastics — especially the microwave. In fact, you’ve probably worked to take the worst types of plastics — like vinyl or BPA-coated #7 plastics — out of your life. And while doing so, you probably noticed a sad fact: Plastics are really tough to avoid in normal, everyday living in America.

But while some enter a sort of plastic nihilism due to the difficulty of getting rid of the stuff, others spot a challenge. And at the health and wellness site Rodale, the challenge is called Plastic Free February. All month, Rodale editors will be documenting their efforts to live plastic-free — along with eight other bloggers who’ve signed up for the challenge.

Interested in making your February plastic-free too? The challenge may seem tough — but could be easier than it sounds. For one, February is the shortest month — so if you’re going to go plastic-free any month, now’s the time to do it. For another, the Rodale editors taking the challenge are rotating the plastic-free duties, each taking the helm for a week at a time. That means you too could decide to go plastic-free for any one week — instead of committing to the full month.

And of course, the challenge will be made easier by the camaraderie of the green blogging group you’ll get tips and mutual support from. In fact, the most plastic free person I know, Beth Terry of My Plastic Free Life, will be advising the challenge-takers to help them reduce their plastic consumption. Beth went through only about two pounds of plastic in all of 2010; watch her TedX video below to see how she did it.

Photo by Alan Levine

Do you have a closet full of guilt? You’re not alone. Guilt is the big reason why women don’t clean out their closets — letting an average of 22 never-worn items languish on their hangers. (via Ecouterre)

That’s according to a study conducted by shopping channel QVC U.K. — but I’m guessing American women too keep similar numbers of unworn clothes in their closets. Men too are guilty, keeping an average of 19 unworn items in their closets, according to the survey.

Why buy clothes that are going to sit unworn? Impulse shopping’s the most common reason, according to the survey respondents. Why keep clothes that won’t be worn? Guilt over money wasted is the big reason for that one — though, of course, keeping unworn clothes in the closet isn’t exactly going to put that money back into the wallet.

There are other reasons for clothes hoarding too — reasons that you might find uncomfortably familiar. Daily Mail reports: “41 per cent insist they are planning to lose weight before getting some use out of their unworn outfits. Some 17 per cent are hoarding particular styles in the hope of a fashion revival.”

I honestly don’t have any unworn items in my closet — but I do have a number of rarely-worn items that I occasionally take out, wonder if I should get rid of, then put back. Most of these are accessories — like scarves I rarely remember to wear — or very dressy clothes — like gowns only appropriate for black tie events. But I’m somewhat proud to say I have less unworn items than the average woman. Partly because I pretty much never impulse buy clothes, partly because have a tiny closet, and partly because I just have a distaste for clutter, I rarely buy items that I don’t have a need for. I also often cull my closet — and donate or exchange the no-longer-loved fashions.

If the unproductive and space-stealing fashion hoarding described in the QVC U.K. survey seems to describe you, I have a quick and fun solution: Throw a fashion swap party! My friend Anastasia actually had one yesterday — and I got to purge my closet of fashions I tired of while having a fun afternoon of hanging out with the girls and trying on different outfits.

Plus, I left the party with three new-to-me fashion pieces — free! One of those is a cute red and white spring dress — that had never been worn by the girl who bought it. It’ll finally get its debut when the weather gets warmer in L.A. –

Earlier:
>> Project 333: Dress yourself with just 33 items for the next 3 months
>> The Great American Apparel Diet: Vow to wear what you already own
>> six items or less: A minimalist wardrobe challenge for the summer
>> A Thing a Day: A simple uncluttering challenge for a saner home
>> The Uniform Project: 365 new outfits — created with the same dress
>> Edit your closet with the One-Year Wardrobe Project

Photo by EvelynGiggles

>> A Re-Nest blogger’s started a Living with Less project. The 10-week program begins this week, so you can actually join Landis for the decluttering task.

>> Green fashion designers can sketch for a cause — and a prize. The Red Carpet Green Dress winner will get to walk down the red carpet at the Global Green pre-Oscar party in Hollywood — as guests of Suzy Amis Cameron and James Cameron, no less! (via Ethical Style)

Photo by Eugene Peretz

Two interesting Wal-Mart headlines hit my inbox today. The first, a National Post piece headlined “Walmart makes communities fat.” The second, a NY Times piece with the headline “Wal-Mart shifts strategy to promote healthy foods.”

Though it’s unlikely that the dueling headlines were timed to coincide with each other, the announcement of Wal-Mart’s new healthy moves seem almost an answer to the news that links Wal-mart and extra pounds. That National Post piece details a study by two economists that found when a new Wal-Mart opened in a community, the community gained weight. National Post reports that according to the study, published in the “Journal of Urban Economics”:

One new Walmart supercentre per 100,000 residents meant an average weight gain of 1.5 pounds per person sometime over a 10-year period dating from the store’s opening. It also boosted the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points, meaning that for every 100 people, two who weren’t obese ended up in that category after a superstore opened.

According to researchers, there’s no simple causation link between Wal-Mart and fat. The extra heft may be due to a whole range of reasons, ranging from lower prices for food to more leisure activities (like watching DVDs bought at Wal-Mart) to steeper price drops on processed unhealthy foods.

The study also found that “people in more sparsely populated places are more likely to gain weight when a supercentre arrives,” but at least in the National Post article (I didn’t pay the $31.50 to read the original study; please feel free to buy it for me before complaining), no explicit comment is made about Wal-Mart effect on a community’s design — specifically those having to do with walkability.

Neighborhood design issues are what I suspect plays a not inconsiderable role in this weight gain issue. As with most big box stores, Wal-Mart’s very much geared towards the driver — who’s able to buy loads and loads of cheap stuff — including cheap, processed food — that can all be hauled away in the trunk of a car. Many experts have already pointed out that having a Wal-Mart pop up in a community can mean having smaller mom-and-pop shops that can’t compete on scale go out of business — thereby leading to less walkable neighborhoods and more driving to big box stores.

And most people would agree that if you eat cheap processed food while walking less and driving more, you’re likely to get fat.

In any case, that study looked at Wal-Marts and the communities around them between 1996 and 2005 — while Wal-Mart’s healthy food announcement is brand spanking new. Just today, Wal-Mart announced — in an event attended by First Lady Michelle Obama, no less — its plans to “make thousands of its packaged foods lower in unhealthy salts, fats and sugars, and to drop prices on fruits and vegetables.”

Don’t expect big changes at Wal-Mart the next time you pop in, however. It’ll be 2015 before Wal-Mart completes its transformation-lite, according to NY Times:

The changes will be introduced slowly, over a period of five years, to give the company time to overcome technical hurdles and to give consumers time to adjust to foods’ new taste, Mr. [Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs] said. “It doesn’t do you any good to have healthy food if people don’t eat it.”

Oddly, the NY Times article goes on to report that “Mr. Dach said the lower prices and food reformulations were motivated by the demands of Wal-Mart’s own customers.” To me, that kind of seems like people are ready for healthy food now, not rationed out leaf by leaf in Wal-Mart paternalistic-sounding five-year time frame.

Perhaps the economists behind the Wal-Mart and fat study will be able to do a second report from 2015 to 2020 to see if Wal-Mart’s healthy food plans change the numbers on the scale. But I digress, and in any case, I’m not a Wal-Mart shopper. Are you?

Photo by Lindsey T