Traveling abroad often means abandoning your routine at home, as well it should. But the “what happens there, stays there” mentality shouldn’t pertain to everything, especially when it comes to staying green.

Being green at home can so easily become part of a daily routine that it shouldn’t be neglected when traveling abroad. Here are some simple tips for making sure that your travels don’t effectively erase all the good green efforts you put in at home.

Homepage Photo:Shutterstock

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“Thinking Outside the Bin” can spark many positives, including saving money, exercising the right side of your brain or purely expanding your awareness of household-generated waste. These beneficial attributes, when combined with eye-catching imagery on Tumblr, are an excellent way to ignite and motivate progressive thinking, creating, and living. Here are 6 unique Tumblr blogs that share our mission to recreate “trash” into beauty and these are their stories. Happy Tumbling!

Photo: Shutterstock

The average shave uses 5 gallons of water. The average beard is awesome. Your directive is clear.

Budweiser recently launched its “Grow One. Save a Million” campaign, a push to save a million gallons of water by encouraging people to abstain from shaving. Participating in the campaign is simple: Once Facebook users “like” Bud’s page, they are able to pledge to participate, submit and browse photos of beards-in-progress, see how much water has been saved to-date, and more.

We’ve highlighted many ways to save water over the years, but none quite like this. Consider Earth911 to be “all in.”

A number of Earth911 employees, both male and female, will banish razors for the next two weeks, embrace the rugged beauty of an au natural look and save a whole bunch of water in the process. In two week’s time, we’ll revisit our wooly participants, gawk at each dandy duster in detail and tabulate the total waste-reducing impact of a shave-less two weeks.

Our goal is to save as much water during this time as we can, not only in our office, but with our readers in the mix too. Want to join us? Make sure we know you’re participating so we can add you to the total count. Here are a few ways how:

1. Tweet and share this story using the Twitter and Facebook buttons below.
2. Tell us with an @Reply to our Twitter that you’re participating.
3. Look for posts about this story on our Facebook Page and comment that you’ve joined.

We’ll tally up how many people participated and let you know how much we collectively saved. And in return, you get virtual high-fives from our team and some excellent karma for making a positive change.

Ready, set, grow!

A look at the Greenbean "reverse vending machine." Photo: Greenbean

Every day, vending machines around the world pump out countless drinks and snacks, bringing with them the packaging waste to match, but what if they did the reverse? What if, after you’re done with your bottle, you can feed it back to vending machine for cash that can then be transferred to you or someone in need?

The idea isn’t a new one. After all, people have been turning in their cans and bottles for cash since the early 70s, but Greenbean Recycling is piloting a way to make package recycling accessible to the masses for a good cause. Starting with three colleges in Massachusetts, Greenbean hopes to improve recycling rates and give a little back to charity.

The “reverse vending machines” are currently placed around the campuses Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University and Brandeis University, which allow students to see just how many kilowatts of energy they saved by recycling and get a bit of money back as student ID cash or transferred to a PayPal account. Students can also donate the extra coins to charities including Nature Conservancy, The Fisher House Foundation, Relay for Life and various local charities.

Get Paid: 7 Ways to Make Money by Going Green

Unlike other reverse vending machines in grocery stores that only accept containers sold in-store, Greenbean accepts all recyclables. Once you’re finished recycling your beer bottles, cans and containers, the vending machine gives you an option to share your contribution with your friends via Facebook and other social media platforms.

It’s an idea that won the company recognition at the WPI Venture Forum, an organization for technology entrepreneurship, as well as several other entrepreneurship competitions since its 2010 inception.

The company plans to expand its vending machine services to airports, stadiums, condos and pretty much any place that has a large amount of recyclables and foot traffic.

Don’t Miss: Get Money for Recycling

Good times that are good for the planet? Yes, please! There are plenty of simple ways to share environmental awareness with family, friends, and neighbors, like cleaning up the block, supporting local farmers, and finding ways to reuse and recycle what you would ordinarily toss in the trash – plus, plenty of good eats along the way!

1. Cookware Swap

You’ve heard of a clothing swap, but this time it’s cleaning out the kitchen cabinets instead of the closet. That pasta maker that’s collecting dust may be perfect for an Italian food-fanatic friend. Whatever cookware is left over, the host can donate after the party.

A swap can be action-packed, so bite-sized apps work best. Serve a few dips like this Lemon-Mint Hummus and Simple Tzatziki with pita bread. Meat on a stick is pretty portable, and this Chicken Satay with Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce goes perfectly with a brightly colored Gin Kimchi Cocktail.

2. Meatless Monday Dinner Party

Meatless Mondays have been a great way to promote sustainable eating, so sharing it with friends ups everyone’s carbon offsets. A truly elegant vegetarian feast won’t leave anyone pining for beef or thinking of tie-dye and patchouli oil.

You Might Also Like: 8 Ways Vegetarian is Good for the Planet

Kick off the party with Mini Corn and Leek Flautas and Champagne Margaritas. Once everyone’s seated, ladle out this Butternut Squash Soup with Chickpeas and then serve a platter of Broiled Tofu with a Spicy Mango Sauce and a side of brown rice. Pass bowls of a Beet and Blood Orange Salad and a zesty White Carrot Saladaround the table so everyone can serve themselves.

Photo: Flickr/amy[treespacestudio

3. Herb Potting Party

This party takes a little planning. First stop: The plant store to pick up a range of herbs, soil, and small potting pebbles — plan on three plants per person. Next, tell the guests to bring their own clay pots. Find a big bucket or something to hold the soil and some large spoons. Whether you’re inside or outside, it may make sense to put the herbs and bucket of soil on a table with newspaper underneath (that you can recycle). Then people can gather around to pot their herbs.

In keeping with the theme, use some fresh herbs to make a homemade salsa and serve with an assortment of chips. Fresh Tomato Bruschetta and Goat Cheese with Honey are also good warm-weather complements to this equally refreshing Winthrop Gimlet Cocktail.

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On top of becoming entirely carbon neutral, Microsoft is also looking into making its Redmond, Wash. campus more energy efficient, saving the company $1.5 million next fiscal year. Photo: Microsoft

One of the world’s largest corporations is about to make a huge swing toward going green.

Just over a month remains for software giant Microsoft to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by July 1.

Earlier this month, CEO Kevin Turner posted on the company’s official blog that Microsoft pledges to make all direct operations carbon neutral – including data centers, air travel, offices and software labs – at the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year, which begins in July.

“Working on the issues of energy use and environmental change provides another opportunity to make a difference in the world. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s also an opportunity to promote positive change, as the world transitions to new ways of using energy and managing natural resources,” Turner writes.

More Corporate Sustainability: Green from the Top

Every Microsoft business will now be responsible for the carbon they create, which means increasing purchases of renewable energy. The company will place a price on carbon for each of its sub-sectors in 100 countries, based on the price of carbon offsets and renewable energy. Each business will be financially responsible for doing their part to offset carbon emissions.

Microsoft will purchase carbon offsets for any emissions they can’t completely eliminate.

“We believe climate change is a serious challenge requiring a comprehensive and global response from all sectors of society. This carbon charge-back model is one way we seek to both reduce our impact and test new approaches which we hope are broadly useful for other organizations,” the company says on its blog.

Microsoft will also pilot a greener buildings initiative for their Redmond, Wash. campus to make its building more energy efficient, which is projected to save the company $1.5 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

CarbonSystems, a supplier of sustainability software that has overseen similar initiatives at Canon, Fuji Xerox, IGA and other companies, will keep Microsoft in check as it checks up on the software company’s environmental data and identifies how it could be run more efficiently.

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This weekend, thousands of artists, crafters, inventors and tinkerers will gather in the San Francisco Bay Area for the sixth annual Maker Faire, the world’s largest do-it-yourself festival that celebrates the spirit of creativity and invention.

Organized by MAKE magazine, the event will feature a wide variety of exhibits and displays including robots, electric vehicles, green tech, student projects, arts and crafts, and ideas for sustainable living – just to name a few. Festival-goers can also watch demonstrations and take part in hands-on workshops — from a demo of the explosive reaction between Coke Zero and Mentos to soldering and sewing classes.

Sustainability goes hand-in-hand with the Maker Faire’s do-it-yourself ethic.

“In addition to the makers who are teaching attendees about things like at-home composting, growing your own food, or alternative transportation and fuels, the event makes huge efforts to reduce its overall footprint,” says Sherry Huss, maker-in-chief of O’Reilly Media’s MAKE division. “For example, at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, over 45 yards of waste were recycled including over 30 yards of organics. We’ll be doing more of the same this year including increased options for alternative transportation to the event.”

To whet your appetite for this weekend – or in case you can’t attend the event yourself – Earth911 is bringing you a preview of just a few of the hundreds of makers and projects that will be featured at this year’s Maker Faire.

Don’t live in the Bay Area? Stay tuned for upcoming Maker Faires in Kansas City, Mo., Detroit and New York. Or look for a Mini Maker Faire near you: Orlando, Seattle and Raleigh, N.C., are just a few of the cities hosting these independently-organized, smaller-scale festivals this year.

Here are five ways the benefits of recycling can hit close to home:

Photo: Shutterstock

1. Creates Green Jobs

Recycling has become a major industry that reaches far beyond your average curbside pickup program. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2010 employment in green goods and services accounted for 3.1 million jobs in the United States. The green job potential grows exponentially the more communities invest in their own recycling efforts.

It’s easy to associate green jobs with what we see most often, such as curbside collection services, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot to do with recycling that goes on behind the scenes.

Once a recyclable material is collected, it usually requires processing to transform it into a valuable material that can be reused. From there, those refined materials get manufactured into new products made from recycled material.

None of these steps can take place without businesses and employees to collect, transport, process and manufacture recovered materials. When put in the context of the numerous types of materials collected, such as glass, plastics, paper and metal, it is easy to see how the potential for green jobs adds up.

Next: More Community Recycling Benefits

Sustainable holidays with Corey Colwell-Lipson and Lynn Colwell

Photo: ©Holli Dunn Photography

While trick-or-treating with her two daughters and a group of other moms in 2006, Corey Colwell-Lipson noticed that kids were getting more excited about prizes like stickers than they were conventional candy.

Puzzled, she began thinking about Halloween and other holiday celebrations and wondered: Could kids be craving a change? Could this be a small window of opportunity to give Halloween, and potentially all holidays, a much-needed sustainability makeover?

Colwell-Lipson brought the idea to her mom, Lynn Colwell, who jumped on board right away. The following year, the mother-daughter duo launched the first Green Halloween® in their hometown of Seattle. Afterwards, they were approached to write a book, and penned “Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family,” in a mere six weeks (seriously).

By 2009, Green Halloween official cities included Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Tampa, Daytona Beach and New York City. The following year, Green Halloween expanded to even more cities and the duo created National Costume Swap Day™ to further reduce holiday waste.

“The idea was: Could we create a cultural shift around making holidays healthier and more sustainable?” Colwell-Lipson says. “We believed it was possible, but we weren’t sure if that would happen. Now, heading into the sixth year since Green Halloween launched, you will find communities all across the country…implementing ways to make the traditions a little healthier.”

The mother-daughter team also blogs about sustainable celebrating at Celebrate Green! and posts daily tips via Facebook and Twitter. With nationwide growth in less than six years, the sky is truly the limit for these cool eco moms.

Karen Lee turns reuse crafting into social enterprise

Photo: Karen Lee

Karen Lee began experimenting with reuse crafts while waiting to pick up her children from sports practices, clubs and other after-school activities. She thoroughly enjoyed her new hobby but never thought it would go any further until she discovered Etsy.

After opening an Etsy shop to sell her crafts, Lee joined up with the EcoEtsy team, a group of sellers dedicated to creating eco-friendly handmade goods. As she talked with her teammates at EcoEtsy, the creative crafter discovered she had a lot to learn about sustainability. Lee began to chronicle her green living journey on her personal blog, EcoKaren, and quickly developed a passion for the environment.

As part of her most recent endeavor, Lee is partnering with fellow EcoEtsy seller Mary Kearns to launch Herban Crafts, a for-profit social enterprise selling organic health and beauty DIY kits. The first kits should be ready to ship in June, Lee says.

In addition to giving customers the ingredients they need to make nontoxic personal care products at home, Lee and Kearns will also be helping low-income women in temporary housing get back on their feet financially. While assembling DIY kits, the women will receive job training from social workers and Lee and Kearns will educate them about sustainable living practices.

“It will create a community-based type of environment…we really want to foster that type of support,” Lee says, adding that racial, social and economic differences are often seen as roadblocks to embracing sustainability and that increasing education low-income populations could go a long way towards healthier people and a healthier planet.

Based in Westchester, NY, the mother of two children, ages 16 and 19, is now an EcoEtsy team captain and blogs regularly at EcoKaren. To support Lee’s fledgling social enterprise, head to their campaign on IndieGoGo.

Homepage Photo: Mother’s Day Flowers and Gift, Shutterstock