How to Save the Environment in Los Angeles

Home Depot might not seem to be the most fascinating place to spend your Saturday afternoon right now, but you might just change your tune once you see your water bill after purchasing low-flow shower heads and a low-flush toilet.

While I’m sure your pansies look just lovely, it’s time to bid those water suckers goodbye. Instead, get thee to a nursery (ha, it almost sounds like nunnery) and buy some succulents. And that doesn’t mean you have to buy an ugly-looking cactus either; there are tons of attractive succulents that are prickle-free.

The Department of Public Works has an awesome program designed to get you composting in your backyard. The program has 11 Smart Gardening Learning Centers (one of which is located at the Arboretum), which are equipped with various educational and demonstration materials designed to teach you about composting as well as eco-friendly gardening practices. They can even teach you how to compost using red worms! How about that.

I used to drive by this vintage shop everyday on my way to work and they have the most DIVINE gowns and dresses. And now that “Mad Men” has throughly infiltrated our national consciousness buying vintage is now more “in” than ever. However, if you’re looking for something cheap and flirty, this is probably not the place— they deal in “couture,” dahling. But if you’re looking for something sophisticated and undeniably one-of-a-kind (and you want to boost the economy by dropping some serious cash), then put this shop in your GPS stat.

There are PLENTY of places to go meat-less in LA (see the link below), but this is one of my faves. The location is kinda off the beaten path, but if you ever find yourself in the middle of the SFV, then you should definitely hit this place up. (Get the tempeh!) And if you avoid the Valley like the plague you can always pick up FYH salad dressings and whatnot at places like Whole Foods.

So call public transportation in LA what you will (a debacle, a waste, a poor excuse for a transportation system), but you can’t say that it doesn’t exist. And while the Metro is hardly the subway, it does provide a somewhat convenient way to get to parts of LA, including Downtown. Will the Metro ever expand to Santa Monica like they say it will, maybe not, but we can still dream, can’t we?

There are TONS of places to buy a bike in LA, and I’m just putting down Helen’s because that’s where I got mine— you’re just as good going to Performance or I Martin or somewhere like that. I road my bike to work this past year and it was pretty awesome. I felt much less irritable when I got to work and I saved a bunch of money on gas. Not to mention my legs got that cool, I-ride-my-bike-to-work toned look.

The Hollywood Farmers’ Market place is smack dab in the middle of Hollywood (right by the ArcLight and Amoeba). The market takes place on Sunday mornings, so don’t be grossed out when you see a bunch of post-coital hipster couples.

I LOVE this restaurant. It’s pretty simple: just soups, salads, and hot plates (think meat and potatoes), but everything here is very fresh and tasty. Plus, they get most of their produce from local farms, and all the meats are hormone free. So if you’re going to eat out without breaking the bank, this is an excellent place to do it.