the one club knows what kind of pressure you're under

Who has time to think about awards when there's so much unrewarding work to get done. Nice folks at The One Club understand this. So they're extending deadline for The One Show to February 6. And making that date just for registration, not for materials. So you've got another three weeks to get actual samples to their offices.

And because they know ad grunts who do digital are probably even busier than their counterparts in traditional, they've extended the deadline for Interactive to February 27.

This year, they're introducing a new category to support work for green causes: Environmental Advertising. Remember that pro-bono ad for recycling you did for your uncle on the school board? Send it in. You could win a Green Pencil. Made of--what else-- recycled glass.

(image resurrected from a dusty One Show annual, 1974. It won gold that year for Consumer Magazine Cover. Yep, people were stressed in the seventies, too.)

coming clean

After all this pondering the morality of the business we work in, I've decided to give back today by posting how to replace brand name cleaning products with recipes from eco-warriors who never have to wonder if they're doing the right thing. Yep, this should make up for all my years as an ad broad.

DRANO

½ c baking soda
½ c vinegar

Directions: Pour baking soda into drain, followed by vinegar. Let stand 30 minutes, flush with boiling water.


PLEDGE FURNITURE POLISH

¼ c olive oil
¼ cup vinegar

Apply to furniture, rub off.

CLOROX SOFT SCRUB

2 cups baking soda
½ cup Castile soap
4 tsp vegetable glycerin

Store in sealed jar, lasts 2 years.

More eco-clean recipes at Women's Voices for the Earth

green corn

Used to be, all anybody thought to do with corn was to butter it, pop it, make salty snax out of it or brew it into oil with heart-zapping levels of polyunsaturated fats. (I wanted to post the viral-before-there-was-viral Mazola spot from the 70s. Say "we call it maize" to anyone over 40 and they won't be able to stop themselves from repeating it. No luck excavating footage. So, picture this: tanned white woman wearing long black wig, leather wrap dress, Tonto headband, standing in the middle of a corn field sighing, "You call it corn, but my people call it maize."  (Maize + oil, get it?)

Fast forward a few decades and now food service companies use corn to demonstrate their environmental leadership by serving beverages in Greenware instead of plastic. Greenware is made of a resin derived from corn and other plants. To order this 100% compostable* alternative, contact the manufacturer in Kalamazoo. On Plastics Place.

But why would a 50 year old midwestern manufacturing firm choose for itself the url f-k?

*where facilities exist