Articles Written by Julie Hancher

Halloween is around the corner... It's the one time of the year you should pretend someone whom you're not! But don't give up your green habits in the meantime. Here's some ways to Green Your Halloween, whether you're dressing up, dressing up the kids or giving out treats:

Office paper represents roughly 50% of the waste bill from the average business - US offices print about 12.1 trillion sheets of paper annually, contributing about 9% of carbon dioxide emissions. Here are 5 tips to reduce paper waste:

In honor of the Phillies race for the pennant, we wanted to share some pics of the fabulous Ryan Howard's contributions from The Ryan Howard Family Foundation. They're dedicated funding & support to the Hunting Park revitalization effort. Philadelphia Parks & Recreation & Fairmount Park Conservancy recently broke ground on the Hunting Park baseball field to kick off the field’s $500,000 renovation project. City of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, Citizens Bank President and CEO Daniel Fitzpatrick and The Phillies’ Ryan Howard joined Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy in the ceremonial groundbreaking. Pics from breaking the ground:

Those students at Moore College of Art & Design continue their eco-friendly strides through artwork & fashions. Fashion design graduate Auralis Herrero was the 1st Latina designer to present a collection at New York Fashion Week’s eco-friendly runway, the GreenShows. (Not to be outdone by the big apple - Luckily Philadelphia kicked off their Fashion Week last week with Earthly Beauties.) Herrero was 1 of 10 eco-friendly designers that showed her collection of sustainable fashions event at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea committed to ethically sound, sustainable fashion. Her collection introduced an “Urban Tropical” look, inspired by Salsa musicians and artists from her roots in Puerto Rico. Auralis’s emphasis is designing only using organic, sustainable, natural & recycled fabrics such as

Eating less meat reduces carbon emissions greatly and has many other eco benefits. (For example, food for a vegan can be produced on 1/6 of an acre vs 3.25 for a meat eater!) But whether you want to go vegan, vegetarian, or just incorporate a more veggie-friendly lifestyle into your diet, it can be a little tricky to find local resources: Vegvine has menus, restaurants, news, and calendars just for those who are veg-friendly. The Philly restaurant section describes vegetarian, vegan or health store options complete with contact info & reviews. You can add the VegVine toolbar to your browser - Easy step by step instructions are

Move over New York! Philadelphia Fashion Week kicks off tomorrow with an Local & Eco-themed night. This year's show features 29 designers from 9 countries and other theme nights include Student night (Thurs), Streetwear (Fri), and Contemporary Couture (Sat). In addition to seeing awesome fashions, you can also expect live music, DJs & dance performances. Philadelphia Fashion Week is making another eco-first: CMK Entertainment created the 1st mobile application (PhlFshnWk) for a major, national fashion event. Stay tuned about designer times down the runway, designer bios, artists’ performances & sponsoring boutiques with your iPhone, iPad or iTouch! This environmentally-conscious & user-friendly app for Philadelphia Fashion Week App can be found here on iTunes. Creating this app has cut about 75% of the printed material for the event - PFW is expecting 1000 people per night and only created 1000 programs total for the week. (Nice work!) Wednesday's Local & Eco theme is looking promising already! Local tastes include:

Hey guys- The last 2 1/2 weeks sans car have been quite exciting! I've got the train schedule down and have been taking the shorter Express morning train, finished 3 books (2 of which have been Chelsea Handler & Tucker Max) and have read the Metro every morning. Some other highlights include:

Happy October! Plans to celebrate? Join PhillyCAM First Friday October Viewing Party. The Painted Bride Arts Center (232 Vine Street) & PhillyCAM are hosting a special 2-hour, Community produced programming on the theme of sustainability tonight (October 1st) from 5:30 pm–7:30pm. Hosted by social commentator Desire Grover, producer of GhettoPrint and Community Organizer for the Energy Justice Network, you can meet producers and local environmental organizations. Here's a sneak peak of Ed Golden's Re-CYCLE, for you recycling & bicycling enthusiasts! (luckily, I am both!) Here's the list of featured programs:

It's fall! What a better time to re-check your junk mail and minimize where you can. With iPhones, Blackberries, Facebook & the internet everywhere, it's too easy to find people or businesses, and shop online. Do you really need phone books, credit card offers and glossy printed catalogs dropped off at your front door? Save the 1000's of pages used for each dinosaur-era book: