Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World

Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World


Can your pocketbook save our planet? The author of Big Green Purse says it can!

Out of every dollar spent in the marketplace, women are shelling out 85 cents. That's a huge percentage from us girls -- and author Diane MacEachern says it could be put to enormous good. In her book Big Green Purse and in interviews around the country, the longtime conservationist is urging women to use their pecuniary powers for positive change. But how does smart shopping fit in with a buy-less message, and could saving the planet really be this easy?

Author Diane MacEachern has something she calls her big, green purse that, she says, carries the power to influence the marketplace to "create a cleaner, greener world."

Visit her website, Big Green Purse, and sign up for her One in a Million campaign, a pledge to shift at least $1,000 of the yearly household budget to more sustainable goods. That's a shift, she explains, not an additional expenditure: When choosing fruit, choose organic apples; when buying a bottle of lotion, look for one without phthalates or parabens; if you must buy a car, find one that fits your needs but is also fuel efficient. Still, her first piece of advice recommends us to always buy less.