In observance of Earth Day, Wednesday’s episode of the CBS game show will feature environmentally friendly products including cell phones made of recycled materials, solar charging equipment and a recycling cabinet.

Environmentalist and actor Ed Begley Jr. will introduce a showcase that includes an electric bike, golf cart and Toyota Prius hybrid car. Trips offered during the show will be paired with donations to offset carbon emissions.

Whenever something green is going on in Los Angeles, you can bet that celebrity eco-warrior Ed Begley Jr. isn’t far behind! Executives at CBS understand just how much power celebrity can have, and express the goals they hope to achieve by bringing an environmental spin to the popular game show.

“More than ever there are things that we can do that are really simple to do,” said Barbara Bloom, senior vice president of daytime for CBS. “We can do that as people who supply entertainment. We are a powerful tool for messaging. I just wanted to remind people that it’s very easy to keep this in your consciousness as you go through your life.”

This episode of The Price is Right! will air on Wednesday, April 22nd — Earth Day!

It’s part of the station’s larger Free 2 Be Green campaign, encouraging teens to think globally and act locally in the fight to conserve and improve the environment. If your parents and teachers can’t get you interested in some eco-activism, leave it to the Gossip Girls and the cast of 90210 to make it both fashionable and fun. Check out the contest for more details, but don’t wait! It ends on March 31, so get those entries in now.

Avon, Gypsum and Eagle also have joined a few dozen other ski towns in the “Plastic Bag Reduction Challenge,” which runs from March 1 to Sept. 1. The towns, community groups and stores will pass out reusable bags. The winner gets a grant from Alpine Bank to install solar panels on a local school.

The knock on plastic bags, of course, is that they are generally used once and then sent to the landfill, where they disintegrate into tinier and tinier particles over the next 2 million or so centuries.

Bringing cloth grocery bags to the supermarket, then, is a pretty painless way to change our behavior on behalf of our children, our children’s children, our children’s children’s children and so on.

The article goes on to stress a very important note: despite the hype and excitement through the duration of the challenge, this should be a habit-forming endeavor — a practice that should last long after summer has faded and the winners have been announced.

Europeans use toilet paper with a greater proportion of recycled fiber. But for the true eco-warrior, there’s an even more environmentally friendly solution — reusable toilet wipes. Made of cloth, reusable wipes offer all the comfort of the triple-ply, ultra-quilted toilet paper roll with none of the nasty tree-killing consequences. Instead, there’s only the little matter of storing and washing dozens of waste-covered pieces of cloth. Every week. It’s a tough sell, but one manufacturer promises they don’t stink and sells wet bags to contain the dirty wipes.

What.

As admittedly eco-friendly as this idea is, how many people will likely go for it? (Outside of being held to it at gunpoint?) Here’s what Time had to say on the matter:

Eco Craziness: 5/5. The cloth wipes are even sold in “funky and fun” combinations. We’re willing to bet they’re funky, especially after a week in the wet bag. Fun? Not so much.

We agree. Scrap the reusable toilet paper and pick up a reusable bag — a whole lot easier, and a whole lot more sanitary. Check out the rest of the top ten right here!

So just what was the brilliant idea Max came up with? Wallack invented a “Home Dome,” a structure made of plastic bags filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts, designed to serve as a temporary shelter for homeless people and disaster victims. It also would help relieve landfill growth. Max was awarded a $10,000 prize provided by the Intel Foundation, but said: “I don’t really care about the money. I care about helping people.”

What an awesome idea, and — what’s more — it isn’t even his first. According to the article, Wallack has been making waves since the ripe old age of six, with an invention contest win that landed him a trip to Chicago. It can only get bigger and better for this kid. Let’s hope he keeps his sights trained on saving the world.

• A frightful thought for Halloween: our plastics are not getting recycled! [Eco Women]
• Speaking of Halloween, check out Danny Seo’s green Halloween tips. [Ecorazzi]
• That said, the AMA Conference took care of almost a ton. [Country Standard Time]
• Midhurst makes a bid to go disposable-bagless. [Chichester Observer]
• MRM recycling is catching on across the country. [Good Clean Tech]
• Reminder: reusable bags can save you money! [Saving in Greenville]
• Chicago moms are proud to be “bag ladies.” [Mom Blog]
• In fact, lots of moms totally love their reusable bags. [The Thrifty Mommy]
• So do savvy businesswomen! [Pink Slip]

Photo via Flickr!

There are a lot of articles on the internet right now regarding Halloween costumes — not surprising, really, considering it’s just a few short days away — but one that really caught my interest was from the blog EarthFirst. What sets it apart is its hyperspecificity: not just any costumes, but green costumes. Some were a little eye-rolling (ManBearPig? I had to look up the reference. Does anyone still watch South Park?), but one in particular caught my eye as genius of times past.

7. Captain Planet

Captain Planet has been done many times, by many people, but there’s always room for your own special interpretation. Some wannabe green superheroes choose plastic masks and muscle-mimicking padding while others go for ladies’ pantyhose, face paint and red boxer briefs complete with access hole. The creepiness of Captain Planet brought to life is indeed Halloween appropriate, and there aren’t many things scarier than blue men in red panties, especially if you forgo the body stocking and just paint your body blue instead (eww, paint-covered happy trails!).

And, by the way – if you decide to dress as Captain Planet, do it right. A mullet is an essential part of the costume, and your body stocking or paint should be the same color as your face.

Want more? For everything from T. Boone Pickens to global warming personified, head over to EarthFirst and check them out.

Photo via EarthFirst!

Obviously there are holidays year-round, but none seem to require decoration so much as those in the fall and winter months (perhaps for lack of better things to do when holed up inside with the heater on), and it all starts with Halloween. There are pumpkins to carve, bowls of candy to fill, and colored lights to string up for the more ambitious, and… milk jugs to paint? Sure, why not? The Salt Lake Tribune reports this morning with a little craft to turn your trash into your child’s Halloween monster treasure.

Monster jug heads
Supplies you’ll need:

• Gallon-size, plastic milk jug
• 2 milk caps
• 16-ounce plastic container, such as deli or butter tub
• Duct tape
• Acrylic paints in various colors
• Paintbrushes
• Tinfoil
• Pushpins
• Thin cardboard or poster board
• Craft knife

Want to know how to complete this fun and simple craft? (Which the article says will bring all your child’s neighborhood friends to your yard in droves, so be prepared!) Read on at Salt Lake Tribune, and be sure to heed its warnings.

Since we only had three milk jugs, we hustled and found a few other plastic containers. We learned a valuable lesson: Don’t do that. Stick with the gallon-size milk jugs because their thin plastic can be sliced at the end of the project for inserting the precious nose pieces. With the thicker plastic jugs, we had to tape on the monsters’ noses.

Yes, these are critical details.

The craft won’t affect the recyclability of the milk jug, but it will help it live on a little longer, in its current state and yet as something new and glorious and fun.

• Fresh ‘n Easy introduces the 99-cent canvas bag. They’re opening up two new locations in San Diego, muy exciting! [MarketWatch]
• Meanwhile, two enterprising mothers are introducing an innovative reusable bag of their own. [Hebden Bridge Today]
• Becoming LEED-certified is a beautiful thing. Go Giant Eagle! [MarketWatch]
• Dallas does not care about disposable plastic bags. [Dallas News]
• News Item: plastic bags tend to end up in the ocean. [The Downey Patriot]
• Going green for the kids is as good a reason as any. [Tri-Town News]
• Sheryl Crow launches designer reusable bag at Whole Foods. [AHN]
• Polypropylene: stronger or less sustainable? Some thoughts on the controversy. [MyPlanetStuff]
• Need some free reusables? Look no further. [Mom is Broke]

Photo via Flickr!