The BP Gulf Oil Spill focuses new attention on a problem that has plagued the oceans for decades.

Summer is the season for fresh, local foods and bountiful farmers’ markets, but unfortunately, too few of us are really taking advantage of nature’s harvest. Even though eating what’s in season, and cooking for ourselves, should be cheaper than processed and prepared fare, many people are stuck on old habits. This is also true despite the fact that cooking your own food helps with weight loss, because you have better control over what’s included and you tend to use lower-fat ingredients.

Another good reason to eat fresh and local foods is to cut down on preservatives and other food additives, some of which are questionable. We’ve written before about the debate over nitrates and nitrites (are they really unhealthy?), as well as the continuing controversy of hormones in dairy products.

Let’s take a closer look at food additives:

Summer is the season for fresh, local foods and bountiful farmers’ markets, but unfortunately, too few of us are really taking advantage of nature’s harvest. Even though eating what’s in season, and cooking for ourselves, should be cheaper than processed and prepared fare, many people are stuck on old habits. This is also true despite the fact that cooking your own food helps with weight loss, because you have better control over what’s included and you tend to use lower-fat ingredients.

Another good reason to eat fresh and local foods is to cut down on preservatives and other food additives, some of which are questionable. We’ve written before about the debate over nitrates and nitrites (are they really unhealthy?), as well as the continuing controversy of hormones in dairy products.

Let’s take a closer look at food additives:

Avoiding the clothes dryer in the city is tough but worth it, as my experience with indoor clothes drying racks, improvised clotheslines, broken shower rods, almost-mildewed bath towels and sudden rainstorms shows.

Volkswagen’s dream team assembles in Chattanooga as the factory goes up behind them. (Volkswagen Group of America photo)

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE–I’m fascinated by the recent trend for auto plants–hardly our greenest manufacturing operations–to go “zero waste,” which means that nothing production-related goes to the dump. In effect, it’s “nil to landfill,” a concept once reserved for fringe activists and New Zealanders (who made zero waste a national rallying cry).

But the under-construction Volkswagen plant in Tennessee I just visited (the company’s first in the U.S. for decades) is going to be zero waste, and that milestone has already been achieved by 43% of General Motors’ worldwide operation. Wow, if conservative GM can do it, every carmaker can. Subaru says that its sole U.S. plant (in Indiana) is also zero waste, and claims it was the first in the U.S. to achieve that status.

You have to make some allowances here, because nil to landfill doesn’t mean that some product doesn’t go up smokestacks–GM is incinerating paint sludge, for instance. And read on to see why VW has an edge in that department–its sludge gets made into cement.

There are some really interesting things going on at the VW plant. According to Tobias Schmedding, assistant environmental manager for VW’s Chattanooga operations and a member of the company’s U.S. site selection team, the plant (on the site of a former Army munitions factory) hopes to source some of its electricity from a landfill four miles away.

The landfill gives off methane, a powerful global warming gas that also doubles as an effective transportation fuel. “Right now they’re flaring it off,” Schmedding said. But the gas can be captured and burned in an engine to generate electricity that can be brought into the plant via power lines. It’s a strategy that is working well for some Vermont farmers today, and if it’s good enough for cow power, it’s good enough for VW.

The carmaker is building an all-new car code named New Model Sedan (NMS) here, which it fought hard to land against competition in Alabama and Michigan. In the video, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey talk about hosting one of the greenest plants in the U.S.:

Margaritas make refreshing summer drinks, but they aren’t the only cool, tequila-fired game in town (bloody Maria’s anyone?). If you’re looking for something to spice up an often under-appreciated spirit, or need some rocket fuel to mix with all those fresh ingredients from your garden, check out Artá Tequila.

Yes, I’m aware that many of you may try to avoid tequila, on account of what happened during your freshman-year trip to Juarez, or because you still remember the loamy taste in your mouth after the weekend following the big layoff. But hear me out: tequila can actually be good! Even subtle and delicious!

I hadn’t heard of Artá, but since I’m a big fan of green drinks (both socially and swallowingly), I said I would give it a try, after a PR rep called and offered a free sample bottle. It arrived a few days later, and did not disappoint.

I should say that I do like tequila, having lived with a guy in college who was rarely without his “Cup O’ Tea,” and made a convincing case for everyone to do a shot at the slightest provocation. Flunk a test? “Boy, get your Cup O’ Tea on!” Get a phone number of a cute girl? “Boy, get your Cup O’ Tea on!” Perhaps needles to say, Artá goes down a bit easier than the old Montezuma bottom shelf. Lime is more of a garnish than a necessity. Artá does also make good margaritas, which were a hit at a party I recently attended.

What’s green about Artá? According to the maker it is 100% organic, and is currently in the process of seeking certification. Artá is made with 100% pure blue agave (many cheaper brands mix in cane sugar and other fillers to thin out the good stuff). It is aged in 100% oak barrels and is said to be harvested, distilled and bottled with the Earth in mind. This means small, handcrafted batches and estate-grown agave, tended by 11th generation ranchers and 3rd generation distillers, the Gonzalez family, who use traditional methods and their own unique recipe. In fact, Artá is produced in the town of Arenal, which some call the birthplace of tequila. (The brand also has a “tequila visitor’s center” and “tourist distillery” on the beach in the Cabo San Lucas area.)

Margaritas make refreshing summer drinks, but they aren’t the only cool, tequila-fired game in town (bloody Maria’s anyone?). If you’re looking for something to spice up an often under-appreciated spirit, or need some rocket fuel to mix with all those fresh ingredients from your garden, check out Artá Tequila.

Yes, I’m aware that many of you may try to avoid tequila, on account of what happened during your freshman-year trip to Juarez, or because you still remember the loamy taste in your mouth after the weekend following the big layoff. But hear me out: tequila can actually be good! Even subtle and delicious!

I hadn’t heard of Artá, but since I’m a big fan of green drinks (both socially and swallowingly), I said I would give it a try, after a PR rep called and offered a free sample bottle. It arrived a few days later, and did not disappoint.

I should say that I do like tequila, having lived with a guy in college who was rarely without his “Cup O’ Tea,” and made a convincing case for everyone to do a shot at the slightest provocation. Flunk a test? “Boy, get your Cup O’ Tea on!” Get a phone number of a cute girl? “Boy, get your Cup O’ Tea on!” Perhaps needles to say, Artá goes down a bit easier than the old Montezuma bottom shelf. Lime is more of a garnish than a necessity. Artá does also make good margaritas, which were a hit at a party I recently attended.

What’s green about Artá? According to the maker it is 100% organic, and is currently in the process of seeking certification. Artá is made with 100% pure blue agave (many cheaper brands mix in cane sugar and other fillers to thin out the good stuff). It is aged in 100% oak barrels and is said to be harvested, distilled and bottled with the Earth in mind. This means small, handcrafted batches and estate-grown agave, tended by 11th generation ranchers and 3rd generation distillers, the Gonzalez family, who use traditional methods and their own unique recipe. In fact, Artá is produced in the town of Arenal, which some call the birthplace of tequila. (The brand also has a “tequila visitor’s center” and “tourist distillery” on the beach in the Cabo San Lucas area.)

Clearwater has an eco-theme, and the Toyota Priuses and VW buses are out in force. (Jim Motavalli photo)

I spent part of the weekend at the Clearwater Festival alongside the Hudson River in upstate New York. The river is considerably cleaner since folk singer Pete Seeger, who lives on the Hudson in Beacon, decided to get involved in 1966 and built the sloop Clearwater (the festival’s namesake) to focus attention.

The Clearwater Festival (also known as the Great Hudson River Revival) is in its 40s, and Pete Seeger (who appeared on stage this year as every year) is now in his 90s. That means a lot of graying ponytails and fraying tie dye at the annual celebration. I mention all this because as I was driving up to the festival I got behind two nearly identical Priuses festooned with bumper stickers (they both had the one saying “Coexist”) so I knew I could tailgate them all the way to the entrance. And so it proved.

The Toyota Prius is everybody’s favorite hybrid car, and it’s the pick hit of folk singers (and their fans). There were dozens of them at Clearwater, but they were followed closely by versions of the Volkswagen Microbus (number one transport for tofu vendors). So let it be said here that although both those vehicles have the eco stamp of approval, only one is really a green car.

It turns out that the VW Beetle and its Microbus variant (same engine) are like Rush Limbaugh to the Prius’ Al Gore. One auto analyst did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for me and concluded that the mid-60s Beetle produces more than 141% more hydrocarbons and 80% more nitrogen oxides (the main smog ingredients) than does the typical SUV the greens hate. Even a Hummer is far cleaner for the environment (and the Hudson, for that matter), than old VWs.

Jeff Yeager is the author of the new book The Cheapskate Next Door.

Those are the words I’ve spent the last two and a half years traveling the country to hear. It’s a simple but rare statement, given that nearly half of all Americans say that they literally live paycheck-to-paycheck and have little if any savings. How can some people live not only within their means, but substantially below their means, even when their incomes are often less than the national average? And here’s the biggest question of all: How can some of those same people insist that they are happier — joyous really — because of their thrift and frugality?

I traveled thousands of miles — nearly 3,000 of them by bicycle! — and surveyed more than 300 of my beloved “Miser Advisers” to find the answers. In my new book, The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means, I share what I discovered about people and families who not only know how to stretch their money, but who are more content and happier because of it. The book also includes hundreds of their practical, money saving tips — unique ideas that anyone can use every day.

Some of what I found may not surprise you: they despise debt and have found creative ways to eliminate it from their lives; they differentiate between “needs” and “wants,” and between “affordability” and “borrow-ability;” and, yes, most of them own and still wear at least one article of clothing dating back to the Carter administration (or earlier).

But other findings surprised even me, the Green Cheapskate: only about 10% have a written household budget (”we live our budget — it’s second nature — we don’t waste time writing about it,” one cheapskate said); while they have savings in the bank, less than 15% have a formal “emergency fund” (”an emergency fund is for people who don’t have their financial house in order otherwise,” another cheapskate said); and more than nine out of ten say that they think, worry, and stress-out about money less — not more — than their non-cheapskate peers. They are 100+ times more likely to have a dog or cat adopted from a shelter than one purchased from a pet store; far more likely to own a crock-pot (or several) than an iPod or flat-screen TV; and they divorce at less than half the national average.

These aren’t your miserable, Scrooge-like cheapskates. These are folks who know what’s important in life, and they skip the rest. Here’s a glimpse inside the mind of the Cheapskates Next Door:

Portland, Oregon-based textile designer Rio Wrenn has a unique vision for lingerie, combining modern eco friendly materials and dying techniques, antique constructions and ethical manufacturing to create her line, R.A.W. “I started R.A.W. in 2007, which is inspired by vintage undergarments ranging from the 1800’s to the 1950’s to modern day,” says Rio. Her collection of corsets, bras and undies has a special look, and with the Summer and Autumn 2010 trend of exposed undergarments, she’s right on target with perfect base layers for style mavens and lingerie fans alike.