This week we’re stepping out of the house and into the outdoors to make some eco-friendly touches. From the backyard, patio, to the balcony, we’ll be shedding the radiance on how to turn your outdoor lighting into a green urban sanctuary.

In the northern states, summertime is the designated time of year for frolicking and entertaining outdoors. One does not have to go far to escape interior confinement. There’s no need to make a trek over to the closest outdoor café, the beach or even the park. 

As summer is all about enjoyment, we wanted our exterior space to epitomize fun.

So, we went shopping for eco-accessories, as in outdoor lighting and eco-friendly bug repellant. We took three environmentally unsavory outdoor products and found some festive but green alternatives.

Outdoor Toxic Problems and Green Fixes

String Lights
A little lighting sets the ambiance outdoors. At Target, we found some lovely, colorful string lights, but the package had a prominent warning about the cord containing lead. With the exception of this eco-unfriendly quality, the string of lights met our other shopping criteria: vividly muted illuminations.

Green Fix: As an alternative, we settled for solar light panels. The panels feature subdued vibrant incandescence and sporadically changes a spectrum of colors.

Tiki Torch
There’s something so lively and yet so noxious about the tiki torch. While the flame is natural, the black smoke billowing from the torch is not. Sans the toxic fumes, we found an eco-friendly alternative: the solar torchlight. Not as ostentatious as the tiki torch, the energy efficient flicker of amber LED lighting turned the carbon emitting tiki torch into a sophisticate shade of ambient outdoor lighting.   Made of bamboo and without the wiring, the solar torchlight is fuss free.

Citronella Candle and Bug Repellant
To keep mosquitoes at bay, we went looking for non-toxic alternatives to the citronella candle and bug repellant, DEET. What we found is 10 times more effective than both without the harmful fumes.

Green Fix: Catnip is a naturally potent mosquito repellent that smells of soothing mint.

If you are looking for an eco-friendly alternative and need advice, we welcome your questions.