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Study suggests that more men would recycle if it were seen as 'manly'

"Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green."

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Environmentalism needs men to pick it up.

Environmentalism, it turns out, might have a bit of a gender gap: Women tend to recycle more and leave less carbon and litter behind.

So how do we fix this? According to a Scientific American article, if we want men to make better decisions, we need to make going green feel manly.

The authors of the article were a group of researchers who conducted a series of experiments involving over 2,000 US and Chinese participants. According to their results, everyone seems to view certain green behaviors (like carrying a reusable shopping bag) as inherently more feminine.

Furthermore, when men were confronted with stereotypically feminine environmental messaging — like asking them to imagine using frilly pink gift cards to buy lamps, batteries, or backpacks — male participants apparently overreacted and pushed back by buying less environmentally-friendly options.

Men, it seemed, were effectively throwing the environmental baby out with the floral-scented bathwater.

But the authors say this can change. In further experiments, they revealed that re-enforcing traditionally masculine ideas could undo this effect. One experiment showed that men at a car dealership in China were more interested in purchasing a hybrid vehicle when ads for it included "manly" language. Another showed that men were more likely to donate money to the fictitious, uber-manly, howling-wolf-logo'd "Wilderness Rangers" non-profit, rather than one named "Friends of Nature."

"Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green," the article concludes.

The psychology of gender is, of course, very complicated, so there are no doubt more questions here that need to be answered, but if our goal is to help people go greener at the grocery store, ideas like this could be worth listening to.

This article originally appeared on 12.28.17

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This blogger got into 'green' beauty for an extremely personal reason.

Liz Mimran was a teenager when she started losing her hair.

This is, obviously, not a common problem for someone so young to have.

"I tried every possible hair care line and supplement on the market [to stop the hair loss], but to no avail," writes Liz in an email. "Worse, some products only aggravated the problem and irritated my scalp."

Since this was before all-natural products had become a staple of the mainstream beauty market, Liz decided to research homeopathic and holistic remedies to see if they'd make a difference.

Liking what she read, she began to dip her toe into the world of "green" hair care. She started using products that contained less, if any, synthetics, as well as homemade concoctions.

Liz Mimran. Photo courtesy of Liz Mimran.

And slowly but surely, her hair got healthier.

"A couple of months later, my hair loss diminished tremendously and my hair felt less greasy and fragile," Liz writes. "It did not happen overnight, but it worked."

That was it for Liz: She was now a green beauty product convert.

Two years later, she start blogging about her experiences to help others.

Her blog, Smells Like a Green Spirit, is a fun, down-to-earth guide for anyone interested in trying the sustainable beauty lifestyle.

Coucou, c’est moi 👋🏻. Thank you all for your sweet messages regarding my previous post. It means everything💚 This year my enthusiasm for highlighters reached its pinnacle and I do plan on doing a huge highlighter round up like the one I did with the eyeshadows. On my face, I am wearing the @w3llpeople biocorrect concealer. The coverage is just excellent. On my cheeks, @lavera_naturkosmetik natural mousse blush in soft cherry. Lavera has mastered the art of creating a whipped texture that stays on. Last but not least, @rmsbeauty luminizer in Champagne rosé. Rms is spoiling us with all these highlighters. Champagne Rosé has a pink iridescence to it that looks super cool on the skin. Also pretty as a lip topper. Happy Monday lovely people!
A post shared by Liz (green/eco writer 🌿) (@lizthegreenspirit) on Nov 13, 2017 at 7:05am PST

"I try my best to help people navigate the world of organic and natural beauty and avoid some of the mistakes that I made when I first started my green journey," Liz says.

For example, just because a brand claims its product is "100% natural" or "organic" doesn't mean it is.

Sometimes brands greenwash, which means they claim to be eco-friendly through advertising and marketing but don't actually implement practices that minimize environmental impact.

Since Liz began exploring actual green, sustainable products when they weren't facets of cosmetic stores or beauty magazines, it was more of a challenge for her to find things that were the real deal.

Today, she gets notes from readers having the opposite problem — there are so many green products on the market that they simply don't know where to start.

So Liz gives the following advice: "Read the labels, take your time, and listen to your body. Certain ingredients are natural but that doesn't mean that your skin will react positively to it."

I love a good Friday mask session to reset and cleanse my skin after a busy week. Be it powder, cream, gel, or sheet masks, I just love experimenting and having this little me-time. Starting tomorrow, I'll share a different mask on IG with a mini review for a week. Which mask(s) are you loving lately? 💚 . Ps. @rainbowfeetblog tagged me ages ago for a #maskselfie so Tammy, I hope this collage makes up for it. 😁
A post shared by Liz (green/eco writer 🌿) (@lizthegreenspirit) on Jan 13, 2017 at 11:29am PST

Liz is far from the only millennial to pledge herself to sustainable beauty. It's a movement that's become firmly embedded in the younger generations.

In fact, according to Fast Company,90% of millennials say they'll buy from a brand if they believe its social and environmental practices are legit.

And they have good reason to feel this way. According to the EPA, 30% of the trash in landfills is packaging. Beauty products are a $500 billion industry, so its packaging contributes significantly to that percentage. The more beauty brands commit to making their packaging more sustainable, the less they'll compromise our planet.

Due to climate change and a whole host of other environmental issues, millennials are living in an endangered world. As such, it's often appealing to them to purchase products that don't make things worse.

The wonderful @linahanson has launched the #iamglobalbeauty campaign, which serves a great cause. To me, global beauty means adhering to the idea that there's not one but countless definitions of beauty. There's beauty in each and everyone of us, by coming together we form global beauty. For each post, Lina Hanson will donate $1 to Change International, a non-profit NGO working to end violence against women and children. How to be involved : 1.Post a pic of yourself on IG. 2. Complete the phrase: Global Beauty means___ 3.Use #iamglobalbeauty and tag @linahanson. 4.Tell your followers. 💚
A post shared by Liz (green/eco writer 🌿) (@lizthegreenspirit) on Feb 22, 2017 at 11:57am PST

While Liz wholeheartedly believes investing in green beauty is about saving the planet, she also thinks it's important to focus on what we're are putting into and onto our bodies.

"I believe that the internet and access to [tons] of information has contributed to raising awareness of the significance of living in a more mindful way," Liz writes.

This attention toward personal well-being goes hand-in-hand with sustainability, which is why consumers like Liz look for products that highlight it when purchasing and recommending products.

But it's not just about what they're made of — it's how they're packaged too.

Save water. It makes rainbows. For this year's #worldwaterday, @stopthewater launched their third project aiming to provide clean water access to regions in need. This year, they are committed to bring clean water in the south of Madagascar with their #waterkiosk project. 2/3 of the population lacks access to clean water. I've been using this Lemon Honey soap for a few years now and hands feel nourished and clean after each use. It's an amazing product by a outstanding brand. Their special rainbow edition (500 mL) retails for 21.90 Eur. 10% of the proceeds of each soap goes directly to the #waterkiosk initiative. Available on @stopthewater website. . #goodwaterprojects #stopthewaterwhileusingme #savewateritmakesrainbows
A post shared by Liz (green/eco writer 🌿) (@lizthegreenspirit) on Mar 22, 2017 at 6:32am PDT

Eco-friendly packaging is just as much a part of what makes a product sustainable as what's inside. Thankfully, Liz is noticing beauty brands making efforts there too.

"There's still a long way to go, but I have the impression that brands now understand that a product has to be eco-friendly from head to toe in order to 'earn' the sustainable/ethical label," Liz writes.

Since she's a known beauty blogger, she gets loads of products to review, so she's even more appreciative of repurposed or 100% recyclable packaging than the average buyer.

Liz hopes her generation will continue to demand transparency from beauty brands as more and more go green — and not just for her skin's sake.

Holding companies to such high standards will not only keep us looking and feeling better, it'll help reinvigorate our planet. While they may be younger, millennials and generation Z understand that better than most because they're seeing firsthand the effects that decades of the alternative have made.

So, perhaps we shouldn't call green beauty a trend but rather a necessary shift.

After all, environmentalism as a whole isn't fashionable — it's the cornerstone of our future.

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California is about to become the first state to ban discrimination based on hair style. - Upworthy ›

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Running a dairy takes a whole lot of love — for the cows, the farm, and the Earth.

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“I didn’t go out in life saying I’m gonna marry a dairy farmer,” Leann Krainick laughs, “but Cupid had other ideas.”

Leann started out her agricultural career creating specific feeds for different farm animals. She met Mike Krainick when the two were introduced by a mutual friend (a bull insemination specialist, no less) and the rest is, well, the rest is our story.

Today, the two have been married 18 years, and together, they run Krainick Dairy in western Washington, a farm that Mike's grandfather started in 1912. They raise Holstein, brown Swiss, and Jersey cows — smallish brown cows that produce high-butterfat milk, used to make cheese, ice cream, and other dairy products.

They've been operating the dairy for more than a decade, and one reason they still enjoy it so much is because it offers them such variety in their lives. “The day is never the same," Leann says. "We try very hard to make it routine because that’s what cows like, but you always have to expect the unexpected.”

All images courtesy of Krainick Dairy.

If Leann loves anything as much as her husband, it's their cows.

She knows each of them individually — there are quiet ones, cranky ones, silly ones, and ones that cause trouble. “We can walk through the barn and just by knowing their different characteristics or their hierarchy in the herd, we can tell if something’s wrong," Leann says.

Like what, you ask? It could be a health problem or it could be a mess caused by one of the more mischievous members of the herd.

“They like to find trouble,” Leann laughs. "They've opened a gate in the middle of the night, gotten into our yard, managed to turn on the faucet, and flooded our basement."

It's the Krainicks' love for their animals that drives them to run their dairy in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

They care deeply not only about their own farm, but also about the welfare of animals and the environment in general.

“The first thing people say when they come here is that it’s very green,” Leann says. And that’s true in more ways than one.

The dairy farm is not only green in the picturesque sense, but also when it comes to its sustainability goals. In fact, the other thing that people notice when they arrive is the odor. The air doesn’t smell like cows or manure, but like beer.

“Farmers have been feeding spent grain from breweries to animals for over a century,” Leann says. And that's exactly what Krainick Dairy does. It's also why their farm often smells like beer. It’s a sustainable way for local breweries to get rid of their waste and it also cuts costs on feed for their cows because spent grain makes economical and environmental sense.

That's not the only way they are working to be more sustainable. Another practice became so successful it formed a new offshoot of their business.

When the facility that hauled away their manure became full, the Krainicks had to find another way to get rid of their waste. Instead of carting it away, they bought a machine that turned the waste into bedding for the cows and sustainable manure for the soil.

Not only do they use this soil on their own farm, but they also started packaging it and selling it to other growers after a local pumpkin farmer began swearing by it to grow his prize-winning giant pumpkins. Now, the Krainicks go to the giant pumpkin competition every year, where the huge gourds are tapped and filled with beer for the fairgoers before being brought home for — you guessed it — the Krainicks' cows to eat and turn into more of that prize-winning soil.

Leann and Mike's soil business is just the most recent green initiative in the long history of their dairy.

Krainick Dairy has been passed down through generations, and with each owner, "sustainability and environment, they've always been at the forefront," Leann says. Mike's father and grandfather each did what they could to develop the farm with better, more accurate practices.

To demonstrate that, Leann collects old farm equipment to show how different technologies have been invented and used throughout time as farmers tried to take better care of their animals and land. In just the same way, Leann and Mike are constantly looking for the next bit of technology that will move their farm forward.

Though times and technologies will change, and Krainick Dairy with it, there's one thing above all that is always at the heart of their dairy. "The number one is family," Leann says. "That's top of the list."

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Loveable farmer explains why he and thousands of others have pledged to go carbon neutral ›

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5 ways companies are making gorgeous clothes that are the opposite of fast fashion.

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It's easy to get a little carried away when shopping — after all, so many new clothes are so cheap these days.

Most of us are at least a little guilty of taking advantage. In the United States, we are buying five times more clothing than we did in the 1980s.

And we all know how much the '80s had going on. GIF via Kool-Aid Koolers.

I mean, if you could buy five shirts for the price of one, why wouldn't you? The world of fast fashion gives us more options to mix up our wardrobes whenever we feel like it. And if you're like me, more clothes means not having to do laundry as often.

Cheap new clothes — and more of them — can feel awesome in the moment. But our trend-of-the-moment shopping habits are actually doing damage in a number of ways. One of the problems: We are barely recycling any of our leftover clothes.

The average American throws away about 80 pounds of textile waste every year.

It's no question that number will continue to grow unless we start donating them (hello, thrift stores!) or buy less. As more information comes out about the harm fast fashion is causing to the planet, consumers and companies are starting to think twice.

People are beginning to see through the craze that is fast fashion and into a more thoughtful and eco-friendly approach.

Here are five unique ways products and materials are being reused to make clothing and accessories today:

1. Food ... that you can wear?

As if coffee wasn't already the best, now it can be worn.

I can't even fathom the number of times I've dumped out coffee grounds after making a cup of joe. When you multiply that times the millions and millions of people who make coffee every day, that's a lot of coffee grounds going to waste.

Singtex, a company from Taiwan, is turning those wasted grounds into fabric for clothes. They use an innovative technology named S.Café that incorporates coffee grounds into fibers to help control odors and protect fabrics from ultraviolet rays.

Image via How Can I Recycle This/Flickr.

It's official: Coffee has superpowers.

You know what else does? Coconut. Coconut is known for a lot of uses, such as milk, oil, and suntan lotion. The company Cocona has found another way to use it: by turning coconut shells into yarns and fibers.

The threads they create through activated carbon from coconut shells provide a lightweight and comfortable product that can stand the test of time in a variety of products.

Image via Cocona.

Other foods are being used to create clothes, too, like sour milk and wine. A sour milk dress! Can you imagine? Maybe someday we'll all be wearing food. Can you turn Cheetos into yarn?

2. You can now take your airplane seat everywhere you go.

When Southwest Airlines decided to redesign their cabins in 2014, that meant getting rid of 80,000 leather seats.

Looptworks, a company from Portland, Oregon, knew they could put those seats to good use. They teamed up with Southwest to turn their old leather seat covers into fashionable products like purses and duffle bags. And fashionable they are.

Image via Looptworks, used with permission.

Even better is the process of making them. The Baltimore Sun reports that the company is working with Garten Services, a nonprofit that trains and employs adults with disabilities, to deconstruct and clean the seats before turning them into bags.

3. Dumpster fashion is the new black.

Artist and environmental advocate Nancy Judd is turning heads with her business Recycle Runway. Whether she's creating clothes from old Barack Obama campaign flyers, aluminum cans, crime scene tape, or even the vinyl top of a convertible, Nancy's designs always have one thing in common: They're pure garbage.

This is made of CRUSHED GLASS. Images by Nancy Judd, used with permission.

A cassette and video tape coat, helloooo!

Epic dress made of aluminum cans. I'm obsessed.

She says she got into "dumpster couture" when she realized that art and fashion could be used to raise the public's environmental consciousness. And she's stuck to that idea over the years, using all of her creations to educate about conservation.

She told The Wall Street Journal that she once spent 400 hours unspooling cassettes and crocheting the crinkled tape into a fake-fur coat — taking a very literal approach to the term slow fashion.

4. Your clothes could come from the big blue sea.

A massive project is underway in the Mediterranean, and you may see people wearing it someday.

It's called "Upcycling the Oceans" and is an undertaking by the group Ecoalf. Their goal? To transform the plastic debris found in the Mediterranean into thread to make fabric.

They're seeing a lot of success, having already collected 39 tons of garbage since September 2015.

They hope to show that not only is cleaning the oceans possible, but the materials collected can be recycled into pellets, thread, fabric, and other products.

Image via Ecoalf.

5. Using only what large manufactures leave behind.

Advancements in technology have made fast fashion the norm: large scale production at ridiculously fast speeds. That model, while bringing in huge profits, comes with a whole host of problems. One of them that often gets overlooked is all the material wasted in production.

The average garment factory wastes up to 40% of its perfectly usable materials. Cambodia-based company tonlé is holding them accountable — and creating a smart business out of it.

Tonlé takes the scraps that manufactures don't use and turns them into beautiful products. About 90% of their materials come from big garment factories, and 10% are made from local and sustainable suppliers.

By doing what the large manufactures won't, they are helping to offset the huge global impact fast fashion has on the planet while showing what true sustainability means.

Is fast fashion on its way out? Probably not. But it's neat to see people creating — and demanding — fashion that's a little gentler on the planet.

Not everyone can whip up a dress from coffee grounds or turn their old Paula Abdul cassette tapes into an outfit. But these creative approaches to fashion are a great way to get people to think outside of the mass-produced clothing racks, and about how to reuse things they already own.

After all, clothes are way more fun when they're unique — and Earth-friendly.

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Norway just scored an important victory in the fight to protect the world's rainforests.

Norway is a pretty amazing place.

I mean DAMN. Photo by Ekornesvaag Svein Ove/AFP/Getty Images.

First of all, it's the happiest country in the world, according to a Forbes ranking. Probably because of all that delicious Norwegian salmon they get to eat. Which, by the way, they introduced to Japan in the 1970s — effectively inventing salmon sushi.

Thanks, Norway!

Norway has also done some pretty amazing things for the planet and the battle against climate change.

To be fair, Norway has a stockpile of over $800 billion from oil sales that it's been saving since the 1990s. That's a LOT of cash earned by profiting on fossil fuels.

That said, the internal workings of the country are super-green and getting greener.

They use hydropower to supply 95% of their electricity, and they plan to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 — a lofty goal that they're well on their way to completing.

Norway also does a lot for trees.

Trees! Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images.

Look around you. Do you see any trees? (Try going outside first.) How about now? See any?

I hope you do, because if you're near a tree, that means you're near a thing whose job it is to soak up greenhouse gases (like CO2) and pump out oxygen for you to breathe.

So go up to the tree and thank it. I'm not kidding. High-five that sucker and tell it it's doing a good job.

Trees are great for the climate, which means forests are REALLY great for the climate. Norway wants to protect those forests so they can keep helping us out.

A patch of rainforest in Borneo that was cleared for palm oil production. Photo by Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images.

Norway recently worked with Brazil to help save the Amazon rainforest, which was disappearing rapidly due to deforestation. But their commitment to forests didn't stop there.

Norway just made history by committing to zero deforestation.

What does that mean, exactly?

Well, as the World Resources Institute points out ... it's complicated and means different things to different people. But what it comes down to is that Norway's committing to avoid buying or using items that come from deforested areas.

Indonesia has some of the worst deforestation in the world. Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images.

Many private-sector companies have taken a similar pledge, but Norway is the first country to take it. This sets a new precedent for governments that want to act in a big way on climate change.

“This is an important victory in the fight to protect the rainforest," Nils HermannRanum of Rainforest Foundation Norway said in a statement, urging other countries like Germany and the U.K. to step up to match Norway's game.

The best part of Norway's commitment: You can make it too!

Committing to zero deforestation isn't limited to corporations and governments. There are many ways to ensure that you, as an individual, don't contribute to the rapid loss of forests.

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

You can go paperless. You can look for the FSC seal on paper and wood products. You can try going vegetarian. (Do one vegetarian day a week if the full commitment scares you.) Or plant a tree! Plant a glorious tree and high-five it every day for encouragement.

We can all help save the world's forests, and the fact that Norway is stepping up as an entire country to help out is particularly awesome.

Hopefully this is only the start.

Gorongosa Coffee

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A city in Germany wants you to abandon your single-serve coffee cups.

In 2014, Keurig sold 9.8 billion non-recyclable K-cups. That's enough cups to circle the Earth almost 11 times over.

There are few things more satisfying on this planet than a hot cup o' joe. Coffee, I mean.

It lifts our spirits on the way to work. It gets us through that dreaded morning slog. It's, well...

Exactly. GIF via "The Mentalist."

In recent years, the single-serve K-cup (or whatever brand you choose) has quickly become a favorite method for delivering this heavenly elixir into our bodies as quickly and efficiently as possible. It better suits our unique, individual tastes than brewing an entire pot of coffee, and it cuts down on all that needless waste ... right? Nope.

Hamburg, Germany, just became the first city ever to ban single-use coffee cups from its government-run buildings because of how wasteful the cups are.

While the single-serve pods popularized by Keurig save us from having to dump the remainder of our coffee pots down the drain every day, the pods themselves are actually far more damaging to our environment.

The pods are made from a mixture of plastic and aluminum, and many of the world's recycling plants don't have the necessary resources to process them accordingly. There's also the issue of the cup's size, which at three grams, accounts for a third of the product's total weight.

Hello, you pretty little ... totally wasteful ... thing. Photo Illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

About 13% of Germany's citizens are daily drinkers of coffee made in a single-serve brewer, so the problem is quickly getting out of hand.

Hamburg has about 1.7 million, which means at least 221,000 single-serve cups are being disposed of by the day.

So in an effort to combat this K-cup epidemic, Hamburg government officials issued a series of purchasing regulations in January with the goal of making their city more sustainable and eco-friendly.

"These portion packs cause unnecessary resource consumption and waste generation, and often contain polluting aluminum," Jan Dub, spokesperson for the Hamburg Department of the Environment and Energy, said in a press conference held over the weekend.

It's not just Germany that has a serious caffeine problem.

GIF via "Futurama."

Here in the U.S., the percentage of households with single-serve coffee makers has jumped, from 15% in 2014 to 25% in 2015. In Western Europe and the United States, sales of single-serve cups have more than tripled in the past five years, with industry leader Keurig selling over 9.8 billion of them in 2014. And of those near-10 billion pods sold in 2014, only 5% were recyclable.

While Keurig has promised to produce a completely recyclable K-Cup by 2020, even its founder (and the inventor of the K-Cup), John Sylvan, admits that's an unrealistic goal.

"No matter what they say about recycling, those things will never be recyclable," Sylvan said in an interview with The Atlantic. "I feel bad sometimes that I ever did it."

In any case, a tip of the cap is due to Hamburg for recognizing a problem and taking preventive measures so quickly.

The conveniences we desire in life can often come at the cost of sustainability, unfortunately. It's one thing to say that you're "going green," but it's another thing entirely to actually stick by your convictions when they require sacrifices.

In this case, that "sacrifice" could be as small as occasionally brewing a pot of coffee for you AND your co-workers to share. You know, like human beings.

And besides, it's not like drip coffee is that hard to make, right?

Unless you're Dwight Schrute, that is. GIF via "The Office."