Sustainable Home

Since founding Fixup, a pop-up repair shop, Sandra Goldmark has become a leader in the movement to demand better "stuff". She doesn't just want to help us clear clutter - she aims to move us away from throwaway culture, to teach us to reuse and repurpose more thoughtfully, and to urge companies to produce better stuff. Although her goal is ambitious, the solution to getting there is surprisingly simple and involves all of us: have good stuff, not too much, mostly reclaimed, care for it, and pass it on.

Look around your home—could you survive thirty days on the water, medical supplies, and fuel you already have? Do you have the necessary supplies to keep you and your family safe if you are forced to hunker down in your home for a month without leaving? Being a good prepper means being prepared to survive any scenario, from keeping your family going when you've lost your job, keeping them safe when law and order have ceased to exist and looters are breaking in to steal whatever they can find, and also surviving off the grid if you're forced to leave your home behind.

Ecological Intelligence argues that "green" labels and recycling programs may do more harm than good by feeding a vital lie, lulling us into the illusion that we are doing enough already while ignoring the adverse impact of the far vaster proportion of what we buy and do.

Unleash an eco-friendly clean like never before! Transform your home into a toxin-free haven in just a few simple steps, without sacrificing efficiency or battling overwhelming routines. Have you ever felt overwhelmed with the daily task of cleaning your home, only to be additionally burdened by the guilt of using harsh, chemically-laden cleaning products? Are you concerned about the impact your household cleaning routines may have on the environment?

Having done it all - having been an anxious clutter-bug herself, studied why we have stuff (headline: we're humans, it's normal) and set up a business to help people declutter - Emma Gleeson understands how you feel. Stuff Happens is her guide to sorting out your relationship with your stuff and finding the right way for you to declutter.

Public Gardens and Livable Cities uses a prescriptive approach to synthesize a range of public, private, and nonprofit initiatives from municipalities throughout the country. In doing so, the authors examine the initiatives from a practical perspective to identify how they were implemented, their sustainability, the obstacles they encountered, the impact of the initiatives on their populations, and how they dealt with the communities' underlying social problems.

Do you want to learn how to transform your household waste into black gold-dust? Do you feel the need to be more environmentally responsible? This beginners guide will break down vermiculture in an easy-to-understand and apply manner, so that you can get started right after listening. Geoff makes this environmentally responsible hobby so simple that even a 5 year-old could start worm composting!

For thousands of years, mending was a deep craft that has for too long been a secret history. But now it's back, bigger and better than ever. In this book, Kate Sekules introduces the art of visible mending as part of an important movement to give fashion back its soul. Part manifesto, part how-to, Mend! calls for bold new ways of keeping clothes and refreshing your style.

In light of concerns about food and human health, fraying social ties, economic uncertainty, and rampant consumerism, some people are foregoing a hurried, distracted existence and embracing a mindful way of living. Intentional residential communities across the United States are seeking the freedom to craft their own societies and live based on the values of nonviolence, self-sufficiency, equality, and voluntary simplicity.

In a perfect world, we would all be able to fit a year’s worth of waste in a mason jar. But for most of us​,​ doing so can be immensely intimidating or simply not feasible. But even if you can’t be perfectly zero waste, you can still have a profound impact on our environment, climate, and health by making some simple changes to your lifestyle and habits.

Surrender your fear and anxiety, trust your instincts, and choose a life that’s compassionate, accountable, and free. This is what it means to be living off the grid. Have you ever noticed that too much garbage and wastewater find their way into the environment? As you continue on this path you face the possibility of leaving an uninhabitable world for future generations. How can you reduce your carbon footprint to make an impact on the global environment?

RVing with solar power is a great way to untether yourself from the trappings of a stationary world. Getting closer to nature and finding your peace is all tied to how well you can make it comfortable within your RV, and how easy and hassle-free you make power generation. This book will teach you how you can install a solar-powered system to generate power in your RV.

Camas Davis was at an unhappy crossroads. A longtime magazine writer and editor in the food world, she'd returned to her home state of Oregon with her boyfriend from New York City to take an appealing job at a Portland lifestyle magazine. But neither job nor boyfriend delivered on her dreams, and in the span of a year, Davis was unemployed and on her own. Disillusioned by the years she’d spent mediating the lives of others for a living, she had no idea what to do next. She did know one thing: She no longer wanted to write about the real thing; she wanted to be the real thing.

Plastic pollution is the environmental scourge of our age, but how can you make a difference? This accessible guide, written by the campaigner at the forefront of the antiplastic movement, will help you make the small changes that make a big difference, from buying a reusable coffee cup to running a cleanup at your local park or beach.

Would you be able to survive for any length of time without modern amenities? If so, how would you do it? What tools and skills are required and how do you put it all together into a working survival plan? From Hollywood dramatizations to real-life catastrophes that seem to occur on a daily basis, there is no shortage of potential emergencies that could leave society in shambles.

A graceful, inspired memoir about building a home from scratch and discovering a true sense of self - in just eighty-four square feet - by Dee Williams, a pioneer in sustainable living and the proud owner of a very tiny house. Discovering the sustainability movement and building her own house was just the beginning of building a new life. Williams can now list everything she owns on one sheet of paper, her monthly bills amount to about eight dollars, and it takes her ten minutes to clean the entire house.

Lead in lipstick? 1,4-Dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they've kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not Just a Pretty Face chronicles the quest that led a group of health and environmental activists to the world's largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions....

This short and concise book, Squatting: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide for Understanding How, Why, and Where People Squat, will help you gain a clearer picture of squatting and its implications for squatters and landowners alike. Here, we will discuss the history, development, and future of squatting as well as its short-term and long-term effects on individuals, properties, and communities in various countries.

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled.

Finally, a book that simplifies the beginning skills of urban homesteading and provides easy lessons for those ready to be more self-sufficient. We are all different and live in different situations. This book will get you started in ways you might not have thought of, no matter where you are.