Houston's First Eco Friendly Hair Salon

Dot Dot Salon is focused on minimizing our environmental impact, by offering predominantely organic hair and skin care services that are up to date and adaptable.

Dot Dot Salon offers non-toxic, organic based, ammonia free hair coloring services. Great for people with allergies to chemicals, health conditions, and for use during pregnancy.

"At Dot Dot we continually strive to offer the best in sustainable non-toxic hair care in a healthy chemical free environment."

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Solar Powered Eco Cell Phone

Samsung Electronics just unveiled the innovative solar powered full-touch screen phone “Blue Earth”, alongside Samsung’s vision for environmental sustainability. Under the slogan: “The Blue Earth Dream: Eco-living with SAMSUNG mobile”, Samsung reinforced its commitment to protect the environment through the design of eco-friendly products and a programme of activities for its customers. It will be showcased at Mobile World Congress 2009 for the first time.

Designed to symbolize a flat and well rounded shiny pebble, Blue Earth is the first solar powered full-touch screen phone. By charging with the solar panel located on the back of the phone, users can generate enough electronic power to call anytime anywhere.

Blue Earth is made from recycled plastic called PCM, which is extracted from water bottles, helping to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions in the manufacturing process. The device, including charger, is free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate.

The latest in a series of eco-friendly products, Blue Earth comes with a unique user interface which is designed to draw attention to preserving our fragile environment. Simple to set screen brightness, backlight duration and Bluetooth to an energy-efficient mode, this new user interface allows the user to be energy-efficient with just one click of ’Eco mode’. Through the ‘eco walk’ function the user can count their steps with an in-built pedometer, calculating how much CO2 emissions have been reduced by walking as opposed to motor transport. This unique function allows user to calculate the value of this footprint through the number of trees that have been saved.

The packaging for Blue Earth is designed to be both small and light, made from recycled paper, and comes with a 5 star energy efficient charger which uses standby power lower than 0.03W. As part of the Voluntary Agreement of European Commission IPP (Integrated Product Policy) pilot program, Samsung has agreed to start using rating on energy consumption on the no-load mode of the mobile device charger.

In addition ZTE announced a solar powered cell phone for the masses. More Info

Eco Labels

What makes a good eco-label?

Below are the criteria we use at Consumers Union to evaluate eco-labels. Generally, the best eco-labels are seals or logos indicating that an independent organization has verified that a product meets a set of meaningful and consistent standards for environmental protection and/or social justice.

Meaningful and verifiable: Eco-labels should have a set of environmentally meaningful standards. These standards should be verifiable by the certifier or another independent inspection organization.

Consistent and clear: An eco-label used on one product should have the same meaning if used on other products. Standards should be written in a way that can be verified in a consistent manner so that the label is consistent in meaning among different products.

Transparency: The organization behind an eco-label should make information about organizational structure, funding, board of directors, and certification standards available to the public. If such information is withheld, it is difficult to determine the meaning and clarity of the standards or the independence of the certifying organization.

Independent and protected from conflict of interest: Organizations establishing standards and deciding who can use a logo should not have any ties to, and should not receive any funding from the sale of certified products or contributions from logo users beyond fees for certification. Employees of companies whose products are certified, or applying for certification should not be on the board of directors of the certifier (and no one affiliated with the certifier should be on the board of directors of the organization being certified). Some certifying organizations have explicit conflict of interest policies prohibiting such affiliations.

Opportunities for public comment: All certification standards should be developed with input from multiple stakeholders including consumers, industry, environmentalists and social representatives in a way that doesn't compromise the independence of the certifier. For example, industry representatives can play an important advisory role without having direct financial, decision making or management ties to the certifier.

more - Greener Choices

Green Jobs

E: The Environmental Magazine's list of booming eco-friendly job sectors is good place to start for inspiration.

Grist, TreeHugger, EnvironmentalCareer.com, HotJobs, and Sustainable Business Green Dream Jobs' listings are drawn from throughout the country.

Idealist.org Job Search specializes in nonprofits; search on "environmental & ecology" or "energy conservation & green living."

Green Jobs is all about the burgeoning area of renewable energy.

The National Park Service has 16,000 permanent employees and another 10,000 seasonal jobs to fill each year, from Hawaii to Yellowstone.

Business for Social Responsibility Jobs Board lists openings at such big names such as the Walt Disney Company.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms connects volunteers with organic farms around the planet - not paid work per se, but a great way to see the world.