The Budget Ecoist- Eco Living on a Budget

The Sundance Channel just launched a new season of The Green and if you want some ideas to green up your home, check out Big Ideas for a Small Planet, specifically the “Decorate� and “Gadgets� episodes. “Decorate,� the show that asks the question, “Can we make green design the rule, instead of the exception?� has already aired, but you can tune in to the Sundance website for tales of making furnishings sustainable instead of disposable in the modern age.

Best practices – buy furniture at a junk store and sand them down, or paint them up. One green designer took an old birdcage, added a lazy Susan and some legs to make a swanky (and one of a kind) rotating chair. The leftover pieces became a mirror and towel rack for the bathroom. While you may not be able to hire a designer for your boudoir, you will get some DIY ideas about how to make your home less wasteful and more kick arse.

Other earth-minded designers include self-proclaimed “cork dorks� – designers who fashion anything your home desires out of cork waste. These dorks make cork harvesting sound so titillating we found ourselves throwing out the following facts at parties: Did you know that you can shear a cork tree every six to nine years without damaging the living tee? (Call us a cork dork!)

This documentary series on Sundance is beautifully shot, mind-expanding and a gold mine for green home décor ideas. Tune in June 17th for “Gadgets� when you can see a high school student’s universe-changing invention that creates energy from daily foot traffic on a sidewalk, a telephone run on chicken feathers and chick peas (which makes one wonder if the inventor/professor didn’t just open the dictionary to ‘ch’) and a retail store that does nothing but provide ways for you to save money on your energy bill.