Learn more! SPECIAL PRODUCTS NEW! DFW AutoLink DFW AutoFinder Deal on Wheels Panache Star-Telegram Weddings Bridal Magazine Neighborhood Values Special Sections Use our local experts to get your important questions answered. Real Estate Agent Web Site Design Back to Home > Friday, Mar 24, 2006 email this print this reprint or license this '); R E L A T E D C O N T E N T STAR-TELEGRAM/JOYCE MARSHALL "Respecting the earth in our daily habits -- that's yoga, too," says Gemma Hobbs, proprietor of Breathe Yoga Studio.

As a young girl, she would accompany her mother, an avid recycler, to the one church in San Angelo that accepted used paper and containers. The car ride was not exactly pleasant.

These days, Hobbs is doing her own part to better the planet. In November, her Fort Worth yoga and Pilates business, Breathe Studio, became one of 19 studios around the country, and one of two in Texas, to join the Green Studios Pilot Program. It aims to encourage ecologically sound business practices among yoga studios and thereby influence their clients. When Hobbs saw an ad for the project in Yoga Journal, "I thought, 'Well, this makes sense. . . . Respecting the earth in our daily habits -- that's yoga, too.' "

Hobbs opened her Camp Bowie studio in January 2004, after more than a decade as a personal trainer and fitness professional. Her participation in the pilot program requires her to take part in five teleconferences, and online discussions, in which Hobbs learns about the environmental impact of conventional business routines and the benefits of earth-friendly alternatives.

Both Gaiam Real Goods, an eco-friendly cataloger, and The Center for a New American Dream, a Maryland-based nonprofit, have partnered with the Green Yoga Association on the pilot program to help the yoga professionals put some of the suggestions into practice.

The most recent pilot program teleconference focused on reducing the impact on forests, by using recycled-content paper and soy-based inks on printed materials, for instance. Hobbs had already outfitted her studio with ceiling fans, to reduce the need for air-conditioning, and plants, to help clean the air. Large storefront windows diminish the need for artificial lighting. Hobbs' husband, a welder, made the two all-metal "wave" benches and the studio's front desk. (The recyclable metal is a great alternative to particle-board-based furniture or chairs stuffed, most likely, with polyurethane foam.) The floors are wood.

Hobbs had a handle on most of these environmental issues before joining the pilot program. What she didn't know is that most yoga mats are made from polyvinyl chloride, popularly known as PVC. PVC production is one of the more polluting industrial processes, resulting in the release of dioxins, phthalates and lead, among other toxins, into the environment. Not surprisingly, then, exposure to PVC products, which emit or leach some of these chemicals into the air and water, can compromise human health.

As a result, Hobbs has chosen to sell natural rubber mats (she had sold out of her first order of a dozen last week). But she can't afford to throw out all of the studio's old PVC mats and purchase new, greener ones. And that's OK with the pilot-program organizers; they realize, Hobbs says, that small-business owners usually have finite resources and only ask them to pursue "doable" changes.

Besides the rubber mats, Hobbs now carries a line of organic-cotton yoga clothing. She cleans her yoga mats with a homemade solution of environmentally friendly ingredients, including witch hazel, lavender and grapefruit oils, and Shaklee's Basic-H biodegradable cleaner. Her husband is creating a bike rack to encourage clients who live nearby to bike to class.

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