If you’re looking for a good nights sleep that doesn’t involve resting your head on a cotton sheet stuffed with goose down, then you should take a look at these organic pillows. I just recently got the one made of organic wool because they recommended it for anyone who sleeps hot, which is definitely the case with me. The pillow really does work well to regulate your temperature with the organic wool being used as a natural insulator.

Savvy Rest also has three other types of organic pillows besides the wool. One has customizable shredded latex fill and the other two are made of molded latex. Check them out if you are in the market for an organic pillow or mattresses as well.

Recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its annual 100% Green Power Purchaser list which represents organizations that buy enough alternative power to meet 100% of their entire electricity use.

Many hotels made that list and the one that stands out the most is the Talbott Hotel which happens to not only be one of the best luxury hotels in Chicago but the first Green Seal-certified hotels in the United States.

Green Seal is a Washington DC based non-profit that provides environmental certification science based standards. What’s different about the Green seal’s standard-setting process is that it works as a collaborative process making its rules fairer and allows for complete transparency gathering its input from industry, government, academia and the public.

The Talbott Hotel met the Green Seal approval not only by offsetting 100% of its electricity with the use of wind power but also has and extensive recycling program, all of it equipment from lighting to heating is energy efficient and rewards its guests for responsible practices by purchasing one month carbon offsets.

So when we, the Sustainability Ninjas decided to start doing product reviews, the first product that came to mind was Pink Solution. My mother-in-law swears by the stuff and I’d always wanted to try it. The Pink Solution people were nice enough to send us a sample of their products, which could not have arrived at a more appropriate time. Firstly, with a baby on the way we’ve been trying to sell our one-bedroom condo and have been having regular open houses. Regular open houses means regular (nightmare) cleanings of our place – and being pregnant, I’ve been starting to worry about the chemicals, like ammonia, in the cleaners we’d been using and was looking to switch over to a safer product like Pink Solution, a natural enzyme cleaner. So we were lucky enough to have the Pink Solution arrive just in time for a major clean.

Now you might think I’m stretching the truth for effect, but I kid you not, a few minutes later we got another package in the mail full of baby clothes I’d gotten at my baby shower while visiting my mother. We noticed immediately that the box was wet with some sort of oily substance. Now, my mother is an awesome lady and all, but she has this terrible habit of being a royal space cadet and had decided to include a bottle of liquid vitamin supplements for my dog that had fish oil as the prime ingredient. Naturally, she (bless her heart) hadn’t closed the lid properly and the supplement – which must hold the title for the greasiest, rankest substance ever invented – ended up spilling out and coating almost everything. When we opened the box, the stench of fish almost knocked us off our feet. Even the clothes that weren’t saturated in the greasy oil still reeked of fish.

And so it was clear: Pink Solution was seriously going to be put to the test.

For the clothes that were stained with the bright yellow fluid, we treated them first with the Pink Solution Laundry Bar, which is apparently six times stronger than Pink Solution and contains Borax. We then threw all the clothes in the bathtub, ran warm water and mixed it with Pink Solution. We let it all soak for a half-hour or so, and let’s put it this way: words can’t explain how thrilled I was to put the clothes up to my nose after they’d been soaking and not smell fish. The bright yellow stains had also disappeared. And thus, it was official. Pink Solution saved our baby from spending her first few months of life smelling like a rotting piece of halibut.

We were so excited that I decided to try out the third product they’d sent us, Mother’s Choice, a non-toxic, organic and bio-degradable oven cleaner. Now I am embarrassed to admit it that we are among the annoying people whose smoke alarm goes off during every oven use, due to the burned crusties on the bottom we’ve been too lazy to clean. However with little effort, Mother’s Choice removed the baked-on oven grime and rust stains that had been there for years.

Reading the instructions, the thing that is most impressive about this environmentally-friendly cleaning product is that you don’t have to worry. Pink Solution contains no harmful chemicals, and is non-caustic. If our dog were to lick an area that had been cleaned with Pink Solution, it would be harmless. (Apparently, some people use it to clean their cats.) Your kid could basically eat the paste and you wouldn’t be frantically calling poison control. And the fact that it works better than those hardcore ammonia and bleach-based products – well, that’s the bonus.

I just realized that this post kind of sounds like an infomercial and I suddenly sound a hell of a lot like Tony Little. Now those of you who may think my raving is shrouded in some sort of Pink Solution advertising deal, I honestly can’t say enough good stuff about this product and there is no Pink Solution sponsorship or endorsement shenanigans going on here. All they did was send us a sample of their product, and, well, it ended up saving us about $500 worth of baby clothes we would have otherwise had to toss out.

To get your hands on their product, head to the Pink Solution website to order online in the U.S. and Canada. Or, check this link out if you are interested in learning how to stop rusting on metal surfaces and moving parts.

We were thrilled when we watched the Today show this morning and saw a segment entitled “Green Your Routine,” which brought attention to green cleaning products.

Do you know what goes into the cleaners we all use in our homes today? If you’re trying to go green, it’s not as simple as merely looking at the back of the bottle. There are about 9,000 cleaning products on the market that have not been fully tested for safety. This doesn’t mean that they’re all unsafe, however not knowing what chemicals are in products can be dangerous as they aren’t required to list ingredients. You can’t know what you’re using.

Companies are shockingly allowed to use summary terms for chemicals such as “fragrance” or “preservatives.”  What we need is national regulation so that companies must disclose every ingredient in a product.

How do we consumers navigate such a sneaky marketplace? Today reports that many people have gone retro, mixing natural products like water and vinegar to create a product that effectively cleans without using toxins. For example, did you know that you don’t need to pour that crazy blue gunk in your toilet? Simply pour vinegar directly into the toilet bowl and let stand for 30 minutes. Next, sprinkle baking soda onto toilet brush and scour. To keep the bowl fresh, pour one cup of vinegar into the toilet bowl once a month and let it stand overnight.

Also, products that have the Green Seal certification are ones that have been approved by the program. Green Seal has really good standards behind it so that consumers don’t have to figure it out themselves. Also, check out Pink Solution. It’s a cleaning solution that is biodegradable, natural and non-toxic. We at Sustainability Ninja have actually tried the stuff – and it works!

Green cleaning products create a toxic-free environment for families as well as for the planet. Big kudoes to Today for bringing national attention to green cleaning products!

One of the most important factors in making your home more energy efficient, and therefore cutting your energy bill bin half, is having your house properly insulated. Thoughtfully ans sustainably designed homes that utilize insulation, thermal mass design and sustainable energy alternatives, such as solar panels, can save some homeowners up to 50% on their yearly energy consumption.

There are lots of great, green alternatives when looking for home insulation. See if you can find ceiling insulation made from sustainable materials, such as Goldenfleece wool insulation. All natural wool fibre has great insulating properties, with the CSIRO claiming, “wool insulation performs better because of it’s ability to rapidly absorb moisture from the air.”

A company called Bonded Logic has developed an eco-friendly insulation that is made from 85% post-industrial recycled denim leftover from the manufacturing of blue jeans. This scrap material is collected and layered into panels and then treated with a solution that acts as a fire retardant, mold, mildew and pest blocker. This eco-friendly insulation is a zero-waste product since it requires very little energy to make and uses materials that were likely headed for a landfill.

There are also many do-it-yourself add-ons you can consider during the colder months to conserve heat and save money on those energy bills. Seal draughts with door snakes or utilize thicker curtains on your windows to keep out the cold air. If you live in a particularly cold climate, installing and maintaining your caulking and weatherstripping is an easy and affordable way to keep heat in, and energy costs low. In one bedroom apartments, direct your heat with the use of room dividers.

Properly designed and well installed insulation is a key factor for an energy-efficient home. With a recently heightened awareness of the global economic recession and of the importance of reducing our carbon footprint, eco-friendly insulation will be one of the ways homeowners upgrade to ensure their home meets these new eco standards, and, as an added bonus, save them money during these difficult times in our economy.

We all use ‘em – some of us a little too much, but we can’t live without them. You know what I’m talking about. Those wicked little pieces of plastic, which, after they expire get cut up and tossed in a landfill. And now, with the massive credit crunch might going down, many companies have rendered several of your credit cards useless. On a large scale – that equates to millions of plastic cards being thrown out, taking thousands of years to degrade while polluting natural resources like water and soil.

However, the good people over at Discover have found a new way to make money off us without destroying the environment while doing so.

Discover announced the launch of a biodegradable Discover Card option, made of biodegradable PVC, a substance that allows 99 percent of the card plastic to be safely absorbed when exposed to landfill conditions. The company also offered card holders an additional opportunity to help the environment by enrolling in paperless statements.

Now a credit card may seem like too small a piece of plastic to worry about, but with 1.5 billion cards in use in the United States, well, that’s a lot of plastic to throw into our landfills.

A Discover spokesperson says, “We are well pleased with the interest we’ve seen from consumers and our cardmembers about the biodegradable card.”

Are you buying green? If so, then you’re among the 82% of consumers who are also opting for eco-friendly products. Even with the economy tanking, a new study  by Green Seal and EnviroMedia Social Marketing and conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, shows that people are spending the extra cash to have a product that’s better for the environment.

“This research suggests that consumers are buying green products second only to participating in recycling,” said Arthur Weissman, Ph.D., Green Seal’s President and CEO. “This increased consumer demand sends a signal to manufacturers to produce products that are truly green.”

Hopefully this study will prompt companies into making their products more eco-friendly. It’s what the people want – and often, they are unsure whether they are getting it. The study also revealed that about one in three consumers say they don’t know how to tell if green product claims are true.

Buckypaper is a material that ten times lighter than steel, but 500 times stronger when sheets are pressed together to form a composite material. Made of carbon nanotubes that have been disbursed in a liquid suspension and filtered through fine mesh to make a thin film, scientists think buckypaper will lead to consumer applications possibly within a year.

Buckypaper is excellent at conducting electricity and dispersing heat, and could be used in electromagnetic shielding and lightning protection on airplanes, for fuel cells, batteries and a more efficient ways to disperse heat in laptops. In the near future, the Buckypaper’s best potential could be in building light-weight, energy-efficient airplanes and cars.

Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New” Award in green tech innovation for their eco-friendly drywall called EcoRock. EcoRock requires 80 percent less energy to produce and cuts CO2 output by 90 percent in comparison to traditional gypsum-based drywall. These reductions in energy and CO2 are won by getting rid of heaters, dryers, calcining and burning of fossil fuels. The material congeals without heat and no mining is necessary in its production. It uses 85 percent recycled content and is itself fully recyclable.

Gypsum drywall factories produce about 20 billion pounds of greenhouse gases a year.