Yes, the infamous second booth…well it was a green realter, Kathy Bergquist. When many people are trying to reduce their impact on the environment, green realty may be a great solution.

Kathy mentions on her site http://www.movingtogreen.ca that she focuses on a few different factors to determine the ”shade of green” of a house. These factors include:

• Energy Efficiency
• Water Savings
• Sustainable Site Development
• Indoor Environmental Quality
• Materials Selection

She also has a great section on what buying a green home means that you may want to read.  To summarize briefly, she describes energy efficiency, location relative to the home owners lifestyle, and landscape and plants around the residence as important issues as well as buying locally and building materials used. These factors of course may rank differently depending on the purchaser’s priorities. To read more on the matter, I recommend you visit her website.

Overall, I think green realty is a very interesting innovation that makes a lot of sense and could have a significant impact since our society’s new obsession is going green. Kathy’s website is very informative and I would definately suggest a visit for anyone looking to buy an environmentally-friendly home.

It has been a busy couple of months and I haven’t had time to write the second part of the last post. 

There is good news though. We have been busy working on the site and you can now find listings for organic stores in Toronto and Vancouver organic stores, which we are still working on.

Also, we have added a shopping engine so you can shop for organic products from Canadian retailers. We plan on also adding many new products to the canada organic shopping page in the near future. Those are all the updates for now but I promise the second part of the last article very soon.

SPOILER ALERT: It is about green real estate services.

Once again, the Ottawa eco-fair was fantastic with many great vendors and organizations with various expertise. There were many of the same booths as last year as well as a few new additions. The fair represented a great deal of the important different fields from eco-living initiatives. From energy to retail, everything was pretty well covered.

I did find a few especially interesting booths this year. The first was The Healthiest Home which provides green home renovations in Ottawa. They had a few different samples of cork flooring which were just beautiful. It is really great that they are providing these types of products as they can be very hard to find in many cities. Ottawa is lucky to have a green home renovations store.

So more on the cork flooring, the person working at the booth was kind enough to let us take a few pictures for the blog so we could show you how nice it was. Thanks Rebecca!

Another amazing product they had was recycled glass tiles. Now, imagine a bunch of glass bottles melted down and made into tiles. Not very appealing. That is why we took a picture. These tiles were absolutely amazing!

These are only a few of the products from The Healthiest Home. If you are looking at renovating your home and being eco-friendly, you should definately check out their shop.

The second booth that I found very interesting…to be continued.

The eco-fair is back in Ottawa. It is being held at the RA centre on Saturday April 18th, 2009 and will run from 10am – 5pm. The official website is Ottawa Eco-Fair.

Last year, they had plenty of great exhibits and booths and I expect that this year won’t be any different. We will be there to check out all the new products and services in Ottawa so if you can’t make it check back in a few days and we will post a few of the highlights. Hope to see you there!

The address is: 2451 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, Ontario

Map to the RA Centre.

I have been looking for biodegreadable liquid hand soap in eco-friendly packaging for a few months and finally, I have found it.

Let me start off by saying, maybe I am a bad person for liking the liquid hand soaps and I should probably be using bars if I am trying to be green.

Continuing on. The hand soap is made by Method and comes in a one liter container. Looks a lot like a tetra pack and appears to reduce waste in comparison to typical plastic refill bottles.

I found it at Loblaws but I know Canadian Tire also carries some Method products. It appears to be widely available. According to their website you can find Method products at stores like Costco, Safeway, Sobey’s, Shoppers Drug Mart, etc…

Just though I would share. If you have any other alternatives, please add them in comments.

Now, we won’t announce every new addition to the directory but I feel this one is a propos. Here I go in the last post ranting and raving about recycling and reusing and etc….and the new store Trees and Tots has a great mission statement which I very much felt like sharing.

We care for the trees and tots in the world by making it a common business
practice to recycle and reuse.

Well how about that! They sum it up quite quickly and I love it. Also, they are trouble makers and made us create a new category for London Organic Stores…grrr. Just kidding. We enjoy having more additions and all these new businesses showing up in various areas is very encouraging.

Well this poor blog has not had a post in almost two months (since it has been setup!). That’s just wasteful. Speaking of wasteful. Why didn’t anyone ever really explain the reuse-reduce-recycle concept. It is in order of importance for those of you who are unaware. Here are some helpful suggestions, hopefully, since we all miss out on some opportunities.

Reduce: Our first line of defense against ourselves. Some of the best ways to reduce are very simple. Here are some of the things you can do.

1. Use plastic containers for lunches and snacks instead of bags
2. Use a travel mug instead of getting a new disposable coffee cup everytime
3. Use digital media devices to transfer information instead of CDs and DVDs
4. Get your bills delivered to you electronically
5. Use reuseable grocery bags!

Reuse: If you can’t avoid it, reuse it when possible. You know you are reusing when you show up to work with your lunch in a bread bag.

1. Reuse your plastic bags (often they are a good size for lunches)
2. Reuse paper – if you print a page make sure you use the other side too
3. Reuse this blog – add your own tips because I am having a hard time.

Recycle: Cut your cardboard into pieces, this is your last resort.

1. Clean your recyclable containers and cans
2. Cut up and fold your cardboard
3. Use products packaged with post consumer recycled materials
4. Bring back your beer and liquor bottles to the Beer Store (while you are there get a little something for yourself)

*Caution: This blog in no way promotes alcohol consumption.

I hope this was informative and if it wasn’t feel free to rip it apart in the comments and leave your own tips!

Get Organic is proud to announce the official launch of our blog. This will keep our visitors updated on developments with our website and valuable information on buying organic products and services. We will start with a small description of why this site was created.

About Get Organic Canada

With the increasing trend of consumers going green and buying natural and organic products, it is becoming more and more important for businesses that offer these products and services to create awareness about their stores. As customers turn to the Internet for information and product research, it is very important for green businesses to advertise online and create websites and map listings.  Many of the green businesses neglect to create an online presence which makes it very difficult for consumers to find them. Our directory will serve to help businesses get listed online and make it easy for consumers to find them. Our team has experience in online marketing and can thus create a website that will be accessible to users and available for businesses to promote their shops.

Why create Get Organic Canada? Aren’t there a million directories?

Absolutely, however, there are not very many good sources to find green and organic products. Our office is based in Ottawa and when we search to find products and stores as consumers, it is often unsuccessful online. It is frustrating as a consumer when you search online for organic products that you know are readily available but still can’t find any shopts near you where you can buy them. We would like eliminate this frustration by providing readily available information that is relevant to your search. It is also important to mention that we will not discriminate by store size. Whether it be Wal-Mart, Loblaws or a small local shop like Nature’s Buzz, we will list the store and details and it is the consumers decision to buy from the small local store or the large chain.

We simply want people to be able to live sustainably easily. It’s good for consumers, it’s good for green businesses and most of all it’s good for our planet and future generations.