Back to School time is upon us; the days are getting shorter and a sort of anxious anticipation is setting in among both parents and schoolchildren of all ages. The question is: how to incorporate all that we know about the importance of going green into our back to school shopping urges? All of us know the benefits of going green: saving the environment for future generations, preserving valuable finite resources and ensuring the ultimate sustainability of life on earth as we know it. However, sometimes it’s a little more difficult to figure out a prudent and cost-effective approach to going green in our everyday lives. The following are a couple of easy tips to get you started on living a green lifestyle as the new school year starts.

The warm summer months are the perfect time to enjoy all the benefits of an abundant water supply. Most of us go to the beach, spend time poolside or run around in the sprinklers as much as possible to avoid melting in the sweltering heat. Here in the U.S. we often take for granted our access to water at any temperature at any time of day, but we need to take this opportunity to remember that it is a limited resource, despite evidence to the contrary from indoor plumbing and the proliferation of water parks.  Here are some tips for saving water this summer: 

There is much truth to the saying that we've all heard since childhood which is "you get what you pay for." Many of us, when purchasing fish and meat don't get to see where it comes from. Prices generally reflect where an item is from and often times the quality of food you're getting. Poke, a raw fish salad, when purchased at $10.99 to $14.99 there's a good chance that it's from the local waters in Hawaii, where as when priced at $4.99-$7.99 it's probably from Asia. There's places like Don Quixote (Holiday Mart) that have signs which tell you where your fish is from. Please view the video below issuing a Toxic Seafood Warning.

Every industry show, we always do drawings for Tiki statues, gift certificates or our signature Tiki bar.  This past Spring Home and Garden show in San Diego, Chuck and Sheri Newton were the lucky winners of our Bamboo Tiki Bar!

Here's what they had to say.

Q: Why did you attend the Home and Garden Show?
A: We had just closed on our new home and we wanted to get some new ideas about what we could do as far as decorating the place.  This was the first Home and Garden show we had ever attended.

With the green revolution going strong, bamboo has become wildly popular due to it's versatility for design and utility, along with how modest it's price point is.  The integration of bamboo into any  home or commercial decor offers a distinguishing aesthetic due to bamboo's natural and understated properties. 

One of the most frequent questions we receive is, "How do I add bamboo to my current home decor?" While we've extensively covered how bamboo fencing can be used indoors or outdoors to cover an old fence, accent a wall or create a privacy screen, we wanted to show you 5 other ways to incorporate bamboo to any current home decor. 

Interested in saving the world from pollution and Greenhouse meltdown? As the percentage of forests on the Earth continues to erode, it seems like the only lasting legacy people will leave behind is the chemical plastics they’ve invented. The push to live "green" has inspired many people to use bamboo flooring in their homes. There are many good reasons for going "green" with bamboo flooring. Bamboo is ecologically sustainable, affordable and looks beautiful in any home.

The last time you made a purchase, whether furniture from Ikea, an Ipod from Apple, or even snacks from your local grocery store, did you notice how much packaging went into the product? 

All over the news and media recently is the disaster that has struck Haiti just around the Port-Au-Prince area.  An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the richter scale has left what is feared to be thousands dead and many more homeless and in devastation.  Homes, buildings, roadways and more have been destroyed and the country is in a severe state of emergency. 

With the holiday madness now just a few days behind us, this is generally the time to begin packing away the season's decorations and possibly even give the home a new look. 

Before you throw away that Christmas tree, broken ornaments or burnt out strings of lights, read on to see how you can recycle or reuse holiday decorations.

Want to go green? Quit cutting down all the trees. Why waste a 40 to 100 year old tree when bamboo can provide one of the hardest building materials there is and grows an average of 50 centimeters a day? Indeed, bamboo is the fastest growing woody plant in the world. Some species can grow as much as 121 centimeters in a 24-hour period. Stronger than steel, bamboo grows like a weed and can be a very viable building material.