Happy New Year!

Greetings for 2009! I rang in the New Year with family and a Chinese feast of vegetable soup, spring rolls, steamed veggie dumplings, and bean curd. There were two family birthdays to celebrate, so I picked up two adorable vegan tea cakes (one carrot, one chocolate) from Planetary Pastry, available at my local Chelsea Whole Foods Market.

Among other items, I treated the birthday recipients to Sigg water bottles. Breaking the bottled water habit is a great resolution for 2009. More than 1.5 million barrels of oil are used annually to make bottles for Americans' water, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year, according to Carbon Conscious Consumer. Even scarier, they say 86% of plastic water bottles used in the U.S. are not recycled. Never mind all the fuel that is wasted transporting them, and our hard-earned money.

Want to spread your animal rights coolness while saving the Earth? PETA makes this aluminum bunny bottle, $16.


A reusable coffee mug shows you care about the planet and animals. Think about all of those paper cups and plastic lids in the landfills. ASPCA makes this cheerful travel mug, $13.50, also available in grey.


A mug Bob Barker would be proud of. $9.

Just say "yes!" to reusable grocery totes too. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales, and other marine mammals die each year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food, Carbon Conscious Consumer reports. Whole Foods Market offers a 5-10 cent discount per reusable bag, and my Trader Joe's lets you enter into a raffle to win a $25 gift card when you BYO-bag it.

ASPCA's Will Fight for Animals tote, $10.


Visit Farm Sanctuary's shop for totes, cups, and more.

Being an animal rights advocate and an environmental advocate go hand-in-hand for me. We are destroying our climate each day, often out of laziness, apathy, greed, and worse, a sense of entitlement. Any action we take to lessen our impact on the environment benefits all animals.