Welp, ever since I’ve given up coffee on a bet with my girlfriend Tiff, I’ve been drinking a lot of yerba mate. What is yerba mate, you might ask? I might answer that it is a South American drink that is popular as heck in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina. If you’re looking to find a new drink of choice, then perhaps this is it.

What is Yerba Mate?

To make some yerba mate, you pack some dried-up yerba mate tree leaves in a hollowed-out gourd (a lot of Uruguayans called it a mate). Then fill it up with hot water (many Uruguayans carry a thermos of hot water for just this reason). To drink it, put your bombilla (metal straw with a strainer at the bottom) in the gourd. Watch out, ’cause the metal straw can get hot.

Benefits o’ Yerba Mate

Some people claim that yerba mate can restore hair color, give athletes a boost, and detoxify your body. I don’t know about all that, but it does have antioxidants, plus saponins, which help out your immune system. There are also some other vitamins and minerals in it. It’s healthy, plus it won’t stain your teeth like coffee. Another plus is you don’t have to wait for it to steep like normal tea, just pour it in and you’re ready.

“Green” Benefits of Yerba Mate

A lot of yerba mate is shade-grown in the Amazon rain forest, meaning it’s grown beneath the natural rain forest canopy. This is good because it provides locals with some money without them having to resort to destroying their rain forest.

The most popular brand of yerba mate in Uruguay was Canarias. I brought back two large packs of it. It’s cheaper down there than it is in the U.S. (naturally), but there may be some other, domestic brands of yerba mate if you look. Once I run out of my Canarias, I’ll see if I can find some domestic yerba mate.

Oh, also…

Yerba Mate has a celebrity who endorses it…

How many razors do you go through in a year? Probably a lot. The deadly combination of debris in the blades and moisture causes the razor blades to dull. But here is how to only use one razor per year! This is the secret to making your razor immortal (or close to it).

Get a Good Razor

Remember, you will be using this razor for a year (or maybe even more). I went ahead and splurged on a Mach 3 Turbo, and if I can get it to last for years, it will have more than paid for itself.

Clean Your Razor

After you’re done shaving (I recommend shaving while taking a navy shower), clean out yo’ razor. Use an old toothbrush to scrub out any mess stuck between the blades, then let some water run over it for a second or two. And now, the big secret to turning your razor immortal…

Dry Your Razor

I use a towel to do this, but you can also use a hair dryer. Get it as dry as you can. When you put up your razor, don’t put one of those little plastic caps on it. Those hold moisture in. Put your razor somewhere where it will stay pretty dry until the next time you use it.

That’s all there is to it. I’ve been doing this since New Year’s day, ever since I learned about it through one o’ my co-workers. So far, so good. Hopefully when next year rolls around, I’ll still be using my same razor, thereby saving plastic, metal, and some o’ my money.

Update on the Immortal Razor (May)

Death of the Immortal Razor – not so immortal after all (July)

Rainforest Treasure tea is supposedly revitalizing, and helps the communities in and around the rainforests in South America. Which rainforests, I don’t know. Anyways, the bottom line is that this is yet more free tea, much like the free organic tea a couple months ago, or the other free tea offer that I found.

Click the picture to go getchoself some free tea.

Let us all hope that they actually send it, and we can rejoice with some good ol’ free tea.

Congratulations to the Live Green, Live Smart people for becoming the first ever to get LEED Platinum status on a remodeled house.  LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum is the highest “green” rating that they give out, so EcoJoes is sending out a hearty “Huzzah” to them, and also making them an honorary Eco Hero.

I suggest you go check out their website and read all about the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making this marvel of a mansion.

Roads and parking lots. They are everywhere in today’s busy, dog-eat-dog, modern world. They sit there all day, selfishly absorbing the sun’s rays, then squandering all that heat at night by simply releasing it into the night air. Welp, a Dutch company named Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV is now working on ways to take that solar energy and use it to heat homes and offices.

Ooms has already implemented this technology in several places around the Netherlands; solar energy collected from nearby roads and parking lots helps heat an industrial park of 160,000 square feet in Hoorn, a 70-unit apartment building in Avenhorn, and an air force base hangar.

This is a great idea; even on cloudy days, this system of getting heat from roads is effective. Let’s hope that America can build off of this Dutch technology and start using our numerous roads and parking lots to heat our buildings. Just think about how much of our land in cities is taken up by roads and parking lots. Imagine if we were using that captured solar energy to heat our buildings. We could cut our power usage in a huge way, while not sacrificing anything in the way of personal comfort.

A good article about getting energy from asphalt can be found right about here. Thanks to my pop for letting me know about this.