Day 49 - Dangerous waters

These are the most polluted bodies of water in the U.S., and the states responsible for putting them on this list:

1. Mississippi River (TN, AR, LA, MO, IL, MN, WI, IA, KY, MS)

2. Pacific Ocean (OR, HI, CA)

3. Ohio River (IL, IN, OH, KY, WV, PA)

4. Tennessee River (KY, TN, AL)

5. Houston Ship Channel (TX)

6. Ward Cove (AK)

7. Savannah River (GA, SC)

8. Delaware River (DE, PA, NJ)

9.Thames River (CT)

10. Gray’s Harbor (WA)

According to freedrinkingwater.com, “human waste mingles with household chemicals, personal hygiene products, pharmaceuticals, and everything else that goes down the drains in American homes and businesses,” collecting finally in these waters. Pesticides, fertilizers, automotive chemicals, and trash run off from the streets also collect there, making the water hazardous to humans.

How can we change this? Check out the Natural Resources Defense Council website, NRDC.org, to find the top twelve ways to reduce water pollution.

Tip for Day 49 – Use natural fertilizers such as bone meal, peat or compost in your garden and on your lawn whenever possible.

Day 48 - Et tu, Sierra Club?

Just read about a deal that has the Sierra Club endorsing Clorox cleaning products.

Clorox, named one of a "dangerous dozen" chemical companies by the Public Interest Research Group in 2004, developed a line of “green” cleaning products, which the Sierra Club agreed to endorse in exchange for a share of the profits.

Several executive board members walked out after the decision was announced, saying the organization “sold their souls to the highest bidder.”

Does anyone else feel dirty?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25708115/from/ET/wid/18298287/?GT1=45002

Tip for Day 48 – Mix one part water and one part white vinegar in a spray bottle to clean and disinfect to clean bathroom fixtures, tub and toilets.

Day 47 - Green drive

MallDad and I will soon be looking to repave our driveway. Since asphalt is petroleum-based, I decided to explore “greener” options. I don’t know what the cost difference is, whether these greener options can survive the Northeast winters, or if any of them will be feasible for us, but it’s interesting to see how things are changing, even in the world of driveways and parking lots.

One type of green driveway is called GrassPave2, which a porous mat-type of system through which grass can grow. It allows you to drive and park without crushing the grass beneath, and the drive can absorb more rainwater instead of sending it, and the pollutants from the drive, into storm drains and sewers. Some of these pollutants are then consumed by bacteria in the soil.

Another advantage to this is that your driveway won’t be creating heat pockets when it gets warmed by the sun.

There’s also an option called “porous pavement,” which looks a lot like regular pavement, but sits on top of a reservoir of gravel and sand, which collects and filters dirty rainwater before it can make it’s way into groundwater or storm drains.

Of course, there’s always paving stones, crushed stone, or gravel. But these options would be hard-pressed to survive snow plowing up here in the north.

It’s great to have choices, though.

Tip for Day 47 – Don’t accept the status quo. Look for greener options whenever you make home improvements.

Day 46 - Super sites

We’ve gotten into the habit of picking up any trash that’s in our paths, from tiny scraps of paper to empty cans or bottles. It feels good to know that you’re doing something every day to make the world a little cleaner.

Kids love to get involved. Here are some great sites for kids:

http://www.earth2kids.org/handcrafted2.asp

http://www.ecokidsonline.com/pub/eco_info/topics/landuse/ecosites/index.cfm

http://www.epa.gov/kids/
http://pbskids.org/eekoworld/

http://kidsregen.org/main.php?section=naturalMoves&status=1


Tip for Day 46 – Take a weekly walk through your neighborhood to pick up trash.

Day 45 - Warm thoughts

In light of the fact that the U.S. once again failed to agree to measures to reduce carbon emissions at the recent G-8 Summit, I figured I should learn more about global warming and its consequences, since we're going to be facing them sooner rather than later. I found this great site:

http://stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_actionitems.asp

Hmm. Wonder if G.W.B. has ever surfed this site?

I also wrote to my Senator and State Representative about voting against any measures that would allow off-shore drilling (for which lifting the moratorium is seriously being considered by GWB and congress). I believe the sooner we realize we’re in crisis, the sooner we’ll step up our efforts to conserve energy and develop cleaner, more efficient technologies. Besides, I can’t imagine what offshore drilling would mean to some of my favorite beaches.

Tip for Day 45 – Turn off your car when waiting to pick up your kids at school. You’ll use less gas, and emit less carbon dioxide.

Day 44 - Party time

Summer means party-time, but piles of plastic forks and spoons, beverage bottles, and mountains of those red plastic cups can leave you with a terrible trash hangover.

There are ways to have a “greener” party.

First, send out e-invites instead of paper ones. You’ll not only save a tree, but you’ll save on stamps, too.

Decorate with flowers, sea shells, plants or other natural materials instead of balloons. Try using sheets for tablecloths instead of the disposable paper ones. Tie them at the corners with ribbon to dress them up.

And how about renting china and glasses, instead of throwing away all that plastic and paper?

If you’re having a lot of guests, consider getting a keg instead of bottles of beer. In many places, you can get a keg of root beer or birch beer, too, if you’re having a lot of soda drinkers.

If you’re having your event catered, or if you’re ordering prepared food from a market, ask if you can supply your own trays and bowls instead of using their disposable ones.

For more upscale entertaining, check out this article in Epicurious:

http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/entertaining/partiesevents/greenentertaining


Tip for Day 44 – Rent glassware and china for parties instead of using disposable stuff.

Day 43 - Home remedies

Has a day at the beach left you red and ready to reach for that big ol’ (fluorocarbon producing) can of Solarcaine?

Before you do, consider a natural, earth-friendly remedy.

According to MallMom’s research, daubing sunburn with aloe vera, milk, cold tea bags or apple cider vinegar may help.

There are many safe and effective home remedies that could have you cleaning the dangerous, an environmentally unfriendly, stuff out of your medicine cabinet for good.

Have a case of the hives? Try dabbing with Milk of Magnesia. Or take a bath in a tub of warm water with ½ a cup cornstarch and ½ a cup baking soda.

Head lice? Try washing your hair with vinegar for a couple of days to kill the eggs. Olive oil left on the hair for 8 hours will smother the little suckers. Just comb them out with a fine-tooth comb.

Got warts? Rub them with a potato slice every day for two weeks!

Do these home remedies really work? I don’t know, but I’m sure going to try them. They can’t hurt, and imagine how great it would be if they helped?

Try these sites if you’re game:

http://www.free-makeup-tips.com/home-remedies/home-remedy-warts.htm

http://kellyskitchenandhome.blogspot.com/2008/05/homemade-remedies.html
href="http://www.indianchild.com/home_remedies.htm">http://www.indianchild.com/home_remedies.htm

http://www.grannymed.com/

But remember, herbs and essential oils may have side-effects, and may affect some people differently than others, so do your research before concocting your own medicines.

Tip for Day 42 - Explore natural remedies to "green" your medicine cabinet.

Day 42 - Water, water everywhere

Did you know that less than two percent of the Earth’s water supply is fresh water? Or that only one percent is drinkable?

Did you know that the average American uses about 140 -170 gallons of water per day?

Bath: 37 gallons
Shower: 40 gallons per 10 minutes
Leaky faucet: 100 gallons per day
Tooth brushing: 5 gallons
One toilet flush: 7 gallons

Conserving water is one of the easiest things we can do to reduce our waste. Changing a couple of habits, and maybe a couple of appliances, can conserve thousands of gallons of water per year.

Here’s some good news: An automatic dishwasher uses 9 to 12 gallons of water
while hand washing dishes can use up to 20 gallons.

Other things you can do:

Run the dishwasher and clothes washer only when they’re full.
Invest in a high-efficiency washing machine.
Turn off the faucet while you’re brushing your teeth.
Take shorter showers (ten minutes or less), or turn off the water while you soap up and shampoo.
Fix leaks.
Flush after two uses instead of one. Don’t flush bugs, throw them in the trash!
If you must water your lawn, do it in the morning.

For more ideas, check out this site:

http://www.monolake.org/waterconservation/

Tip for Day 42 – Shorten shower time and save hundreds of gallons of water per month.

Day 41 - What to do with...YOU

Did you see this great article on MSN today? It’s about where to recycle just about everything, from CDs to prom gowns to… you. Yes, it tells you how you can recycle your body when you’re gone. Wow.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/greenarticlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100210758>1=45002

I had to check into this “eco-burial” thing. Found this somewhat creepy but interesting video description of “Promession” on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ic8ruziJ48

Or how about a Tibetan sky burial? Wikipedia defines it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

This place in Florida offers no frills, no chemicals burial in a Nature Preserve:

http://www.glendalenaturepreserve.org/

Options, options, options! Certainly gives you something to think about, huh?

Tip for Day 41 - White vinegar makes an excellent kitchen cleaner. Use it full strength for tough grease, or mix half and half with water to clean out your fridge, microwave, countertops, etc.

Day 40 - Hazard help

Did you know chances are good you have hazardous waste in your home?

Before you go calling the NRC, let’s check our definitions of hazardous waste.

Paints, varnishes, stains, gasoline, oil, antifreeze, kerosene, household cleaners such as spot removers, drain cleaner, oven cleaner, insect sprays, weed killer, moth balls, rat poison, compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs), which contain mercury, batteries, cell phones,

Yep. All hazardous materials which should be disposed of at a hazardous waste facility instead of in the trash.

So, how do you get these things to a hazardous waste facility?

Sometimes communities will run collections several times a year. But if you can’t wait for that, or it isn’t available in your community, check out this website, where you can put in what you want to get rid of, along with your zip code, to find out where:

http://earth911.org/household-items/

Tip for Day 40 – Dispose of household hazardous waste properly.

Day 39 - Check out Dave!

Heard this guy being interviewed on NPR today. He’s challenging himself to save all the trash he generates for an entire year. NPR posted the video on their Day to Day blog. Check it out!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/daydreaming/2008/07/sustainable_dave.html

Tip for Day 38 – Keep a waste diary for one week to find areas where you need to improve most.

Day 38 - Recycle for Charity

Recycling is one thing, but recycling for a good cause? It doesn’t get any better than that.

How about recycling printer cartridges and cell phones to find a cure for childhood cancer? Check out:

http://www.curerecycling.com/

You can also recycle cell phones to help animals:

http://www.wirefly.org/charities/aspca.php

Or send your used-but-still-useable eyeglasses to the Lion’s Club to help kids and adults in developing nations:

http://www.lionsclubs.org/EN/content/vision_eyeglass_recycling.shtml

Think about cleaning out your pantry, and taking all that food you’ll never use to your local food bank. Food banks and missions suffer during the summer for lack of donations. The Second Harvest site has a food bank locator. Just put in your zip code and find the one nearest you:

http://www.secondharvest.org/zip_code.jsp

You can even recycle your tights and pantyhose by donating them to an organization that uses them for medical purposes in Ethiopia. Go to this site for more info:

http://www.tightsplease.co.uk/index.php?page[cat][]=126

With a little research, your recyclables could mean the world of difference for people or pets!

Tip for Day 38 - Research ways to recycle for charity.

Day 37 - Surf's up

Here are a few great sites, some of which I’ve mentioned in past posts:

http://www.globalstewards.org/ecotips.htm

http://www.ourearth.org/
www.treehugger.com

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/

http://simplypeaceable.com/blog/tag/ecoblogs/

http://gristmill.grist.org/

http://www.celsias.com/

http://www.envirowonk.com/

I’ve been motivated by every one of these sites, and check in on at least two or three of them every day, just to keep focused on change. Old habits are hard to break, and for me, I need to reinforce my commitment every day. Hope they motivate you, too!

Tip for Day 37 – Old habits are hard to break. Find something that motivates you and inspires you to change your wasteful ways.

Day 36 - To market, to market...

In an earlier post, I talked about kids and marketing, and how it starts at such an early age. I came across a website that give a bit of information on this subject. Here are just a couple of facts, according to a poll by New American Dream:

American children aged 12 to 17 will ask their parents for products they have seen advertised an average of nine times until the parents finally give in.

More than half of the children surveyed (53%) said that buying certain products makes them feel better about themselves. The number is even higher among 12- to 13-year-olds: 62% say that buying certain products makes them feel better about themselves.

Nearly a third of those surveyed (32%) admitted to feeling pressure to buy certain products such as clothes and CDs because their friends have them. Over half of 12- to 13-year-olds (54%) admitted to feeling such pressure.

The marketing firms know that Nagging Kid = Buying Parent. They also know how to make kids believe that Stuff Will Make Your Life Better. (They know how to make adults believe that, too.) And they know that parents feel guilty when they can’t give their kids everything they want.

But there is definitely hope. Here’s a fact that’s really interesting:

According to that same poll, 57 percent of children age 9-14 would rather do something fun with their mom or dad than go to the mall to go shopping.

I feel bad that I’ve dragged my kids to the mall so many times. And I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason we walk out of there with so much stuff is because I feel guilty about taking them there, so I buy them things to make the experience more pleasant for them. And because the phrase, “Everybody else has one” really works on me. Hey, what can I say? My kids are becoming expert marketers.

(See http://www.newdream.org/kids/facts.php for more...)

Tip for Day 36 – Reward your kids with a fun outdoor activity rather than a trip to the mall.

Day 35 - Pavlovian trash theory

I was reading about the psychology of buying, and I found this simple, yet profound, statement:

“Behavior ---> consequences ---> behavior is more or less likely to be repeated.”

I was thinking how this applies to our attitudes about creating post-consumer waste, and how there are hardly ever any consequences or rewards. Perhaps if we had to pay for trash removal by the pound, we’d be more careful how much we produced.

MallMom’s parents have just such an arrangement. When they moved to a new development down South, they had to pay an arm and a leg for curbside trash pickup. Now, I don’t want to say my parents are cheap… so I won’t. But they opted to drive their trash to the dump as needed, instead. This has some surprisingly good consequences. Because, while they never bothered to recycle before, now that they get paid by the pound for recycling glass, plastics and newspaper, they’re avid recyclers. And what they get paid for their recyclables almost completely offsets the cost of paying per bag for non-recyclable trash disposal. Double motivation!

My own community just started a program where recyclables are weighed, and families earn coupons from local businesses per “weight points.” I haven’t yet cashed in my points, but there seem to be some fairly good options. I know this program has convinced at least one family on my block who hadn’t been recyclers to get on the bandwagon.

But there are many on my block who often have two full trash cans out twice a week. So that means they’ve been motivated to recycle, but not to cut down on the volume of their post-consumer waste.

Maybe we need some more negative reinforcement. How about starting a “trash fund,” and collect ten bucks for every bag that won’t fit in the can. You can donate that money to an ecological preservation fund, or use it to plant trees. Those are consequences everyone can live with.

Tip for Day 35 – Carry a mug in your car for fill-ups at your favorite café.

Day 34 -

We’re officially more than one-third of the way through our challenge. Yesterday was tough. I actually shopped for Emma’s** birthday, and felt guilty and exhilarated at the same time. I simply could not let a six-year-old’s birthday go by without (new) presents, because it just didn’t seem fair. But the buying spree was pared way down, for sure, and I did feel guilty as I paid for my purchases. (I did bring my own bag, which threw the checkout girl into a tizzy.)

I only wondered about the psychology of all this for a second, because, really, it’s a six-year-old’s birthday. There can be no greater day for a six-year old, and I didn’t want to be the one to quash that.

So that takes care of the guilt. But what about the exhilaration?

I must admit, my pulse raced along with the beeping sound of the scanner. A purchase! It felt good to buy. Clearly, I need therapy.

Over the next few days, I’m going to look into the psychology of buying, and see what I can come up with.

In the meantime, check out this great blog I found on my ‘net travels:

http://www.enviromom.com/

These moms serve up some great eco-tips (and challenges) with lots of humor and no gloom and doom.

Tip for Day 34 – Get little ones involved in environmental efforts to create habits that will last a lifetime.

Day 33 - Green getaways

Ahh, summer. Filling up the gas tank and driving to the beach, or the mountains, or the amusement park. It’s great fun, but those bare feet can leave some big carbon footprints.

Here are some ways to have a great vacation while lessening your impact on the environment:

First, airplanes are one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, a Canadian foundation dedicated to sustaining the natural world, “Although aviation is a relatively small industry, it has a disproportionately large impact on the climate system. It presently accounts for 4-9% of the total climate change impact of human activity.”

So consider taking a vacation closer to home, and skip the long flight, the crowds at the airport, and the frisking by big-boned Thelma in the security line.

Second, look for a hotel or motel that has taken environmental issues into consideration. www.itsagreengreenworld.com and www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com list hundreds of “greener” hotels and accommodations.

Better yet, commune with nature on your vacation. Try camping in a national park (http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm), or how about an ecotourism vacation? Check out http://www.reallynatural.com/archives/cat_travel.php

Third, minimize your waste, wherever you go. Use towels more than once, and sheets more than one night, even if your hotel doesn’t require it. Bring your own shampoo and soap, and leave the little ones for the next guest. Or if you do use them, bring along “doggie bags” to carry home the leftovers. Those little hotel soaps are great in guest bathrooms.

Next, skip the junky souvenirs and go with something you can truly use, or would be proud to display forever. Or longer. And if you know you aren’t going to want those pictures the staff photographer takes on that cruise, or at that theme park, request that they don’t print it out.

With a little thought, you can tread lightly on Mother Earth during your next vacation.

Tip for Day 33 – Search out environmentally responsible lodgings on vacation.

Day 32 - Kicked to the curb

Went out for a walk tonight and saw, out for the trash: a couch, a boy’s bicycle, a large dollhouse, a chest of drawers and an area rug. All looked to be in good shape—not perfect, but definitely usable. I just can’t help but feeling that someone, somewhere, would want them.

There are many types of organizations that take donated goods such as these. To find one near you, try this website:

http://www.justgive.org/html/ways/ways7.html

You can search by type of goods, type of charity, location, etc., to donate everything from furniture and computers to prom gowns and automobiles.

Another site that I’ve found useful is www.freecycle.org

I can't say enough about this site. Everything I’ve ever posted has been taken by someone. One man’s trash is another’s new living room.

www.OurEarth.org gives you national recycling program information, including what to do with cell phones, compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), computers and packing materials, among other things.

Tip for Day 32 – Don’t throw it away until you’re sure nobody else will want it.

Day 31 - Bag it

Seems I spend a lot of time washing plastic baggies these days. I haven’t yet found a good storage and lunch-packing alternative. Reusable containers take up so much more space in the fridge and lunchbox, they’re often impractical. And while I used to use and throw away the baggies, our new commitment to extending the life of all products forbids it.

So it isn’t unusual to find three or four plastic baggies drying on the counter these days. But I’ve recently come across a site that has some handy tools for bag recycling, like Bag-E-Wash (an accessory that lets you wash your bags in the dishwasher), a plastic bag drying rack, and some great eco-friendly bags and bag alternatives. Check it out:

http://www.bag-e-wash.com/purchase.html

Tip for Day 31 – Give plastic storage bags a second life by washing and reusing them.

Day 30 - Giving 'til it hurts

Since this project began thirty days ago, the kids have been taking it pretty well. No, scratch that. They’ve been taking it VERY well. They haven’t asked for a thing (except for a magazine plastered with the Jonas Brothers’ faces), which has led to a startling revelation:

Our kids have lots and lots and lots of stuff, most of which they never even asked for. That’s right. THEY NEVER ASKED FOR IT.

Many times when I’m out and about, I’ll see something I think they’ll enjoy and I’ll just pick it up. Books, magazines, little toys. MallDad loves to buy them movies, games for the Wii and the DS, and other tech gadgets. (Although personally, I think they’re more for him than them.)

About the only time the kids ask for things is if we’re shopping together, and they see something that interests them. Now that we haven’t been shopping, it’s been pretty much a non-issue. Which begs the question: What have we been doing to our children?

We’ve been teaching them to be thoughtless consumers. To value “stuff.” Not only have we been spoiling them, we’ve been loading them up with toys and games they don’t need, or even necessarily want, and then complaining when they don’t play with them.

Sure, they’ve gone through phases where they HAD to have things (like dozens of Bratz dolls, or every Webkinz ever made), but for the most part, they aren’t really consumeristic kids. Yet.

However, if MallDad and I keep it up, they will be.

There’s a definite psychology behind this. Wanting your kids to have all the stuff you didn’t have, maybe. Or living vicariously through them. Or buying their love? It’s a terrible thing.

A change is definitely in order around here. When this is all over, the kids are going to get gifts only on gift-giving occasions, like birthdays and Christmas. And we’re going to limit to our shopping excursions to reduce the temptation to buy.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Tip for Day 30 – Limit shopping excursions to limit temptation.

Day 29 - WALL-E World

Today we went to see the movie WALL-E. It’s pretty stark for a kids’ movie, portraying the Earth as a trash-filled wasteland in the aftermath of obsessive consumption fueled by a Walmart-like corporation.

In fact, it has become so polluted that all human beings have had to escape it aboard a giant space cruise ship, where they must stay until Earth is habitable again.

It’s pretty grim, but one might argue it’s a good lesson for kids. One that may make them think about how they can change the course of things. Except the promoters blew it. Big time.

Every kid going into the movie gets a little rubber watch wrapped in plastic wrap. A watch that, if it works to begin with, surely won’t by the end of a weeks’ time. So it will end up in a landfill. So if half a million kids see the movie? That’s right. A half million little watches will end up in landfills.

That doesn’t even take into consideration the rest of the marketing juggernaut. The toys in the fast food kids’ meals. The plastic WALL-E action figures in the toy stores (making their way here from China, no doubt). So what kind of message is that sending?

This could have been a great opportunity to disseminate kid-friendly information about ways to protect the environment, instead of contributing to its destruction with a lot of useless junk. Or at the very least, don’t give away anything at all. Let kids take away something far more important that a rubber watch:

The message.

Tip 29 – Just say “no” to the little plastic toys in fast-food kids’ meals.

Day 28 - Bulk up

One of our biggest sources of waste is prepackaged food for lunches and snacks. We’ve tried to cut down, but those single-serving packages are just so convenient to grab and go.

I know I should buy in bulk, and put those things into reusable containers. The issue is, of course, time. It takes time to put stuff into little containers. It takes time to wash the little containers, too. And every minute counts when you’re on the run.

I’m not sure what the solution is. Perhaps setting aside half an hour a week to prepackage snacks, or starting a few minutes early when packing lunches. But it will take time and effort to make this a habit. Time and effort on all our parts. And lots of little containers.

Here are a few sites that have some alternatives to those little single-serve packages or plastic bags:

http://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/cart/storagecont.htm

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/06/17/compostable-containers-by-eatware/

http://www.reusablebags.com/store/lunch-bags-lunch-boxes-c-4_20.html

Tip for Day 28 – Get rid of those single-serve snack packs. Buy in bulk and pack them yourself in reusable containers.

Day 27 - Green In Vogue

Day 27 – Green In Vogue

What are you wearing these days?

One website that sells natural clothing claims that the conventional non-organic cotton industry uses a quarter of the world's pesticides. The dyes used in clothing can be dangerous to the environment, too, as can the manufacture of synthetic fibers.

Production, shipping, and disposal of clothes all have an impact on the Earth. But there are choices you can make that will lessen that impact.

Choosing clothes made from natural fibers, from sustainable sources is one way. Wearing clothes longer, buying from local manufacturers, and donating your worn clothes instead of throwing them away will help reduce that impact. There are even clothing manufacturers that create their wares from recycled soda bottles! (See Patagonia.com)

Some sites I found are:

www.thegreenloop.com

www.happyhippie.com
www.whiteapricot.com

www.getconscious.com

While some “earth-conscious” fashions look like park ranger gear, there are plenty of choices for the more fashion-conscious, too.

Tip for Day 27 – Become more clothes-conscious. Natural fibers, local manufacturers and “gently used” clothes can all benefit the Earth.

Day 26 - Green roofs

I’m not a big gardener.

Let me rephrase that. I am a terrible gardener. I have a black thumb. Anything I plant immediately dies, and then weeds grow there. You should see my lawn.

So I can’t imagine growing things on the roof. But today I got a newsletter from a hotel we stay at in the Adirondacks every year. They’ve been working to lessen their environmental impact for the past few years, and have done some amazing things. The most recent is their “green roof.”

I had never heard of this, but apparently, it’s a growing trend. No pun intended.

Green roofs, or vegetative roofs (VRs), reduce heating and cooling costs by insulating the building, can be used to grow fruit and vegetables, and filter pollutants out of the rainwater and air, among other things.

Of course, they are expensive (around $14 to $50 a square foot, depending on what type you get), and not practical in areas prone to drought. But they are definitely an interesting concept.

For more information about green roofs, check this out:
http://www.greenroofs.net/

If you can’t green your roof, try planting a new tree, or a few plants around your house and yard, either in the ground or in pots. Replace portions of your high-maintenance grass, which needs to be watered (wasteful), fertilized (pollution), and mown (fossil fuels) with low-maintenance ground cover.

Here’s a great article about replacing your lawn in the St. Petersburg Times:

http://www.sptimes.com/2008/03/01/Homes/Lawn_begone__Replacin.shtml

For information about what types of plants are native to your region, try:

www.Lesslawn.com

Isn’t it amazing what you can find on the internet?!

Tip 26 – Replace your resource-sucking lawn with plants and hardscaping.

Day 25 -Quarterly review

Okay, I definitely know how you can cut down on paper towel waste. Remember back in Day 6, when I suggested switching to unbleached paper towels made from post-consumer waste? Well, we did!

We now use less than one roll of paper towels a week, down by at least a whole roll. The reason? They suck. Seriously. (At least, the ones I bought suck.)

But that’s a good thing! Because I’ve found myself actually reaching for them and going, “Ugh. No way. That won’t work,” which has forced me to make a habit out of going for kitchen rags instead.

As for some of the other changes we’ve made so far?

The toilet paper, I must say, has been a good thing—for real. No, we haven’t given that up! We can hardly tell the difference between the recycled post-consumer stuff and the new-pulp stuff. It’s been great.

Cleaning-wise, I love Sun and Earth. I just cleaned a glass-top table with it, and it works great. The old blue stuff is on its way out! The laundry detergent seems to work well, too. Haven’t tried the dish detergent, yet, though. Still using up the last of my conventional stuff.

Natural shampoo? Haven’t found one I like. Suggestions are welcome. But the deodorant works well, and the toothpaste, too (Tom’s of Maine).

The supermarket bag thing is going really, really well. I estimate I’ve un-used about over 100 plastic bags so far.

The driving thing has been tough. It seems like there’s always somewhere we have to be, immediately, and we’re doing pretty much driving around. Need to find a couple of families to carpool with to the pool and swim meets.

Bought a couple of things like birthday gifts and graduation cards, because we’re sort of embarrassed not to. But otherwise, no unnecessary purchases so far.

We’re working on our list of ways to cut back every day, really starting to get into this. MallDad said the other day that it has been sort of a relief not to even have to think about buying things. We have a lots of free time now, too.

So, that’s how it’s going 1/4 of the way in. Another update in 25 days…

Tip for Day 25 – Make a list of little things you can change to reduce your waste, and try to implement one of those things each week.

Day 24 - Climate crisis

Yesterday I got an email alert from The Environmentalist, an online newsletter I subscribed to at the beginning of this project. I didn’t have time to read the message until today, but it’s pretty scary.

It’s an open letter from Dr. James Hansen, originally posted on the Huffingtonpost.com website. Dr. Hansen testified in 1988 at a hearing before congress that “the Earth had entered a long-term warming trend and that human-made greenhouse gases were almost surely responsible.” He is the scientist who alerted us to the “tipping point.”

In this recent letter, Dr. Hansen says he is “99 percent positive” that if our government doesn’t take drastic action within the next year, many irrevocable tipping points will be reached that will seriously and permanently damage our environment beyond repair, and the oceans, rainforests and Arctic will suffer dire consequences.

To read Dr. Hansens’ complete letter, go to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/twenty-years-later-tippin_b_108766.html

Dr. Hansen says that if politicians refuse to lead in forcing the reduction of the use of fossil fuels, that citizens need to take charge.

“We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They provide continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy solution.”

It’s time for all of us to take action. Write to your members of congress and your senators today. You can find list of names and addresses at:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
and

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

Tip for Day 24 – Write to your members of Congress and the Senate and urge them to take action to save our environment.

Day 23 - Kid's stuff

Our house is full of toys. They’re made of all kinds of things, but the majority of them are made of plastic. Sure, it would be much better to buy a toy made of wood, or organic cotton, or metal. But the materials the toys are made of aren’t the only thing that makes them no fun for the environment.

Just as you might choose fruits and vegetables that don’t have to travel far to get to you, the same goes for toys. Toys made in China and other far-away locations leave a big carbon footprint because of the energy it takes to get them here. So consider buying local when it comes to toys, too.

Also, consider how long a life the toy will have, both in terms of how long it will interest your child, and its durability. We’ve bought tons of “sale-priced” toys, only to have them fall apart in the first day or two. That’s no fun for anyone.

Take a look at the packaging. Try to choose toys that have less packaging, or recyclable packaging. Nowadays, there’s more packaging with a toy than…well, toy. Much of this has to do with how far the toy must be shipped, so that the contents don’t shift, so toys that are over-packaged have probably had to travel quite a distance.

Many local stores now sell earth-conscious toys. Try Learning Express, the Discovery Store, and Zany Brainy. Here are some online sites that offer eco-friendly toys and games:

Gigglefish.com
Thinkbutton.com
Planethappytoys.com
Pristineplanet.com

Those are just a very few of the sites I found.

Or give toys a second life by shopping at second-hand stores, flea markets, yard sales, etc. Try a “re-gifting” birthday party, where kids bring a toy in good condition that they no longer play with. (Okay, so maybe that’s pushing it.) But with a little research, you can find ways to make playtime lots more fun for Mother Earth.

Tip for Day 23 – Choose durable, earth-friendly toys that are made locally and have less packaging.

Days 21 and 22 - Bright ideas

Combining days because MallMom was sick this weekend.

Sara B. wrote to tell us about several great recycling efforts, including Stonyfield Farms yogurt cup recycling. Apparently, Stonyfield Farms has partnered with an organization called Recycline, and if you send your yogurt cups back to Stonyfield, they’re used to make toothbrush and razor handles. Then, if you send those products back to Recycline, they’re recycled again, to make plastic lumber, giving Stonyfield yogurt containers a third life!

Check out the links below for more information:

http://www.stonyfield.com/SpecialOffers/Recycline.cfm

http://www.recycline.com/

Sara B. also said that IKEA has a recycling program for batteries, and for CFL light bulbs, which we know have a much longer life than typical incandescent light bulbs, but which contain mercury, which should not be disposed of in the trash. IKEA has recycling bins in their stores for such bulbs.

IKEA has lots of other earth-friendly ethics. Check out their site at:

http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/social_environmental/environment.html

Thanks for the great tips, Sara B.!


Tip for Day 21 – Not all wood is created equal. When buying furniture, check to see if the wood is certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

Tip for Day 22 – Plant local flora in your yard to provide homes for native insects and animals.

Day 20 - Green pets

So I was wondering, what kind of waste does my dog create? Aside from the obvious, of course.

Well, first of all, the “obvious” has to go somewhere when I pick it up off my lawn. For that, I used to use the plastic bags I got from the supermarket. But when I started using cloth bags, my supply of plastic bags dropped off considerably. Besides, plastic grocery bags are bad for the landfill.

I picked up some biodegradable doggy bags at the pet supply store. But these, too, won’t degrade in a landfill very quickly beneath all the other landfill stuff, without air, sun and water reaching them. However, the bags, along with the poop, can be composted, as long as the compost won’t be used on food-producing plants.

Food-wise, there are organic pet-food options available at many pet stores, grocery store and online. But check with your vet to make sure the brand you choose can give your pet the proper nutrition.

For earth-friendly pet toys, collars, leashes, etc., try fetchdog.com, purrfectplay.com, or ecopetlife.com. The toys are made from all-natural, undyed, sustainable materials.

For those of you with cats, you might want to try eco-friendly cat litter. The clay in most litters is strip-mined and doesn’t degrade well in landfills, making it a double whammy to the ecosystem.

According to treehugger.com, “Over 2 million tons of non-biodegradable cat litter made from clay that is mined ends up in municipal landfills each year.”

But there are alternatives. One is called Swheat Scoop. They sell it at pet supply stores, like Pet Smart. It’s made without clay, silicon or chemicals, and is fragrance free and biodegradable.

Treehugger says, “This non-toxic litter is a great alternative to traditional litters in that it doesn’t create dust, is made from a renewable resource and is 100% compostable (for non-vegetable plants and after it’s been scooped, of course). Swheat Scoop is so safe it can even be licked or digested without serious consequences, making it perfect for kittens, and is also sensitive on their little paws.”

Aww!

Tip for Day 20 – Check out eco-friendly pet supplies to reduce your pet’s carbon paw-print.

Day 19 - Second life

My grandmother lived through the Great Depression. For several years, she and her family had nothing. They had to scrimp and save and stretch every resource. This affected her for the rest of her life, even when she had money enough to live well.

She’d scrape the butter off its paper with the edge of a knife, leaving nothing behind. Food was rarely thrown away. She’d darn the holes in everything that could be darned—socks, slippers, jeans. She owned the same pajamas for forty years.

She had a hand-cranked machine that could roll newspapers into tight logs, which she burned in an old metal stove in the middle of her living room. Often times, it was the only thing heating her house. Her storage system for leftovers consisted of margarine and Cool Whip containers. Many of her drinking glasses were formerly jelly jars.

Margaret was an expert recycler. Practically everything had a second life.

Over the next 81 days, I’m going to save lots of items I’d normally throw away, and see if I can find alternate uses for them. I’ve already begun storing the kids’ craft beads and buttons in egg cartons. If you have any tips, I’d love to hear about them.

Tip for Day 19 – Be creative. Find a second life items you’d normally throw away.

Day 18 - Doesn't compute

Every trash day, as I drive through my neighborhood, I see at least one or two computers and monitors out for the trash. It has always disturbed me from a pack-rat point of view, but I never realized how bad this actually is for the environment.

Jeffrey Farber at Turtle Wings, Inc., a corporation that provides electronics recycling to companies and communities in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., says computer components are toxic. You should never dispose of them in the trash, because one 17-inch computer monitor can contain as much as 10 lbs. of lead, which begins to leach from the machine and into the water table the first time it gets rained on.

Farber says the monitors and older televisions Turtle Wings collects are sent to a special recycling center, where the glass, lead and plastic are separated. These components are recycled or reused, leaving only about 1% of the original product destined for the landfill.

MallDad is a tech junkie, so I was excited to discover that Costco has a trade-in/recycling program for tech gadgets, including computers, laptops, monitors, mp3 players, printers and more. They’ll give you a free “valuation” on your equipment, the value for which they’ll issue a Costco Cash card. If it isn’t worth anything, they’ll still take it for recycling.

Here’s the web address if you want to check it out:
http://www.greensight.com/CostcoTrades/Common/equiptypes.aspx?SiteXfrMsg=1

Other options to get rid of your unwanted tech gadgets:

1. Donate useable items to a school, church or senior center. The Crisitina Foundation can help you find a needy charity. See www.cristina.org
2. Check out eWaste Services at http://www.ewasteservices.org/who_we_are.htmThe site says it “benefits the community and its environment, but it also provides sustainable employment and job training for disadvantaged adults who have difficulty finding and maintaining long-term employment.”
3. Check out Second Rotation at www.secondrotation.comThey buy cell phones, digital cameras, mp3 players, camcorders and more.
4. Watch your local paper for community recycling events.

Tip for Day 18 – Don’t toss that old computer or TV in the trash. Recycle!

Day 17 - Attack of the Vampires

“Standby power, also called vampire power, phantom load, or leaking electricity, refers to the electric power consumed by electronic appliances while they are switched off or in a standby mode.” (Definition from Wikipedia)

I must admit, just about every outlet in our house is filled almost all the time. We rarely unplug appliances, aside from our seasonally-used blender (Margarita, anyone?), and our semi-rarely used vacuum cleaner.

Consider this statement from The Economist Intelligence Unit, which advises businesses how to save money in technological matters:

“Strange though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food. For while heating food requires more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idle—in “standby” mode—more than 99% of the time. And they are not alone: many other devices, such as televisions, DVD players, stereos and computers also spend much of their lives in standby mode, collectively consuming a huge amount of energy.”

So, how much “vampire power” are your appliances sucking? You can find out with a simple little device called Kill A Watt. This will measure the power your appliances are using while they’re idle.

Check it out at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/05/killawatt.php
MallDad ordered one today, rationalizing that this product will offset the post-consumer waste it generates by helping us reduce our energy waste in a big way. We’ll let you know how we fare.

Tip for Day Seventeen: Unplug appliances when they aren’t in use.

Day 16 - Pumped up

Day 16 –

Today MallMom filled up the good ‘ol minivan for the first time since this project began. It cost more than $70. Yikes!

I’d always heard that driving 55 or under helps conserve fuel. Mall Dad wouldn’t be caught dead doing to speed limit (or less), but I’m game. This is what I found out.

Fueleconomy.gov, a website hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, says, “Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gas. It can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money.”

They also say, “As a rule of thumb, you can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional 0.20 per gallon for gas.”

Okay, but can you really trust those government types to tell you the truth?

autoMedia.com, a site maintained by “automotive professionals,” says, “Motorists need to do a number of things that will in turn reduce their usage of fuel: combine [short] trips into one; keep one's car well-maintained, including proper inflation of tires as well as regular checks of the vehicle's air filter, oil levels and brake pads; roll down a window and use the car's air conditioner less at non-freeway speeds; and naturally, drive slower. Each one mph increase over even 55 mph causes an equal percentage decrease in fuel economy.”

Nigel Powell, a columnist for the London Sunday Times and a contributing editor for Popular Science, has a list of
“104 driving techniques to conserve fuel” on his weblog, Red Ferret. Check it out at: http://www.redferret.net/?p=10398

Tip for Day 16 – Take the pedal off the metal. Drive the speed limit to save gas.

Day 15 - What a bargain?

Yesterday our mettle was tested… By $2 tee-shirts.

Not only were these tee-shirts cheap (Come on! Two dollars!), but they bore the insignia of our kids’ new swim team. They were nice, too. And aside from a magnet for the back of the car, we thus far own nothing with the team logo on it. Gasp!

The parents selling the shirts looked at us as if we were crazy. You’re saying no to a two-dollar tee-shirt? How can that be? What will you do on tee-shirt night, when everyone else has one, and you don’t?

We felt…well, we felt cheap. And embarrassed. And a bit like party poopers. Mall Dad was actually a little angry that we couldn’t buy those TWO DOLLAR TEE-SHIRTS! He always needs tee-shirts! Or does he?

Between the four of us, we probably own forty or fifty tee shirts. Do we really need four more? Probably not.

But I’m guessing we’re still going to feel bad on tee-shirt night.

Tip for Day 15 – Cut old, unwearable garments into strips with fabric scissors to use as ribbon for gift-wrapping.

Day 14 - Bare facts

Since my kids are well out of toddler-hood, I must confess I’ve been out of the loop when it comes to issues facing mothers of small fry. But a friend of mine clued me in on a growing movement called—drumroll, please—THE DIAPERLESS BABY.

Yes, there is a group of parents who believe it is not only possible, but environmentally and psychologically beneficial, to raise your child without a diaper ever touching his or her skin. The idea is that you can read your child’s signals and know when he has to eliminate (elimination communication), and take him behind a tree, or hold her over a toilet. It sounds absolutely crazy. In fact, my friend and I have giggled about it many times. And yet…

I have to admit, there were many times, as I stuffed another diaper into the endless diaper genie sausage (those of you who have used one know what I mean), when I had painful pangs of guilt. I imagined the enormous pile of diapers my one tiny child had sent to the landfill, and it made me queasy. (I quickly stopped using the diaper genie. Why encase those smelly little bombs in yet more plastic?) But there were no other options besides washable or disposable, and each had their consumer waste drawbacks. Harsh detergent and bleach in the water system versus disposable diapers in the landfill.

So I would say this idea definitely has merit, if you are not faint of heart, and if you are truly and steadfastly dedicated to reducing your landfill waste. There are surely many challenges to this system, but I think there could be benefits, too. Check out Grist Magazine’s take on it at http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2004/02/12/umbra-diaperless/index.html

Here’s a blog by a family who is actually trying this system (although they’re not completely diaperless):

http://loriandpaul.hopedenver.com/babynotes/2007/11/diaperless-update.html

Of course the flipside is that, as a parent, you will have to become even more obsessed with your child’s bodily functions than you already are. That might not be good for some of us. But it’s something to think about.

Another option is the biodegradable diaper, but if these end up in a landfill, they won’t degrade much, anyway. Nothing degrades much in a landfill. But for disposables, try to buy some with recycled content. Besides cloth, these are the most environmentally friendly, according to the Waste Prevention Information Exchange.

Tip for Day 14 – Use diapers made with recycled content if you’re going the disposable route.

Day 13 - Poor Ed

Mall Mom is tired out today, with all the end-of-the-school-year running around. It's easy to take short-cuts when things are crazy. Grabbing a water bottle from the fridge instead of filling a thermos. Running through a fast food place. Grabbing small packs of snacks for the car.

We've managed to (mostly) avoid these things for the sake of this project, but I know there will be times in the future when life will get in the way of good intentions. When convenience or desire will win out over Earth-conscious behavior.

I think it's important we don't beat ourselves up when we can't always be as good as we'd like to be. There will always be days when it will just be too hard to be Mother Nature’s best friend.

I was flipping through the TV channels today, and found a new station called Planet Green (www.planetgreen.com). At least, it’s new to me. There was a show on there called "Living with Ed," about Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife.

Now, Ed is an eco-maniac. He was giving his wife a terribly hard time about wanting to update the kitchen (too much waste in a landfill). No new appliances, even though you couldn’t even see the numbers on the dials of the stove anymore, because they were worn completely off. The man was saving some really gross, mold-infested bathroom rugs because he imagines someone, somewhere, might use them. NEWS FOR ED: NOBODY WILL WANT YOUR SKANKY RUGS.

His wife jus rolls her eyes. It must be painful for her. I know it was painful for me, the whole half hour I watched. I realized that, while I admire Ed’s fervor, I will never be that manic about all of this. I care, I really do. But I just can’t live my life that way, agonizing over every little thing.

I do know my family and I are going to try a lot harder, though. And I hope your family will join us. I can’t help but think that if we all just gave a little more, maybe Ed and his wife could relax a little.

I’m going to reiterate my hopes for this effort. We’d like to get 100 families to take the challenge to reduce their post-consumer waste by not buying anything you don’t need for at least one week, some time between June 1 and September 9.

If you’d like to take the challenge, email me at MallMom@live.com so I can add your family’s name, or nickname, to the list.

Let’s not make poor Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife do it all!

Tip for Day Thirteen – Commit to just one small change today.

Day Twelve - Oh, suds.

I love my laundry detergent. It works on just about any stain my kids can concoct. Occasionally I have to wash things twice, but most of the time, it is my hero in the laundry room. I know in my heart, though, that my detergent is bad for me. Yes, laundry detergent is the Russell Crowe of cleaning products.

Tonight, I surfed the web looking for information on how it affects the environment.

It would seem that most of the ingredients in traditional laundry detergents are synthetic, and slow to degrade (although they can claim they are biodegradable) in the environment. The worst is the surfactant nonylphenol ethoxylate, or NPE.

Phosphates, which occur in nature, are added to remove hard water minerals. But too many of them in our water can unbalance ecosystems and cause overgrowth of certain plant species, which can be as harmful as synthetic substances.

I fetched my bottle of traditional detergent, but the ingredient list is rather vague. “Ingredients include biodegradable surfactants (anionic and nonionic), and enzymes. Contains no phosphates.” Hmm. How does this translate? I went to the product website, but found no information on ingredients (nor any claims that the product in environmentally friendly). But I read on a consumer site that the company that makes it stopped using NPE a while back, which is good.

I also recently bought Planet detergent, which claims to be “environmentally friendly.” A visit to their website, planetinc.com, claims all their products are “non-toxic to aquatic life” and “certified 100% biodegradable.” They claim the laundry detergent is made from corn and coconut based cleaners. The bottle is recyclable, and made from at least 40% recycled plastic. It’s not tested on animals, either. It works pretty well, although I haven’t used it on any heavy-duty dirt, yet.

Another choice is Seventh Generation. And this is interesting. In an interview I read, the makers of Seventh Generation claim a study of their liquid laundry detergent showed that 96 percent of its contribution to global warming came not in its manufacture or shipment but in its use: Heating the water in which the detergent works best counted for nearly all of its greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m guessing this is true for all detergents. So it would seem that a cold-water washing formula would do the most toward sparing the environment. Seventh Generation now says on their website (seventhgeneration.com) that their detergent works great in cold water. I’m going to give it a try.

Check out this link for reviews of laundry detergents.
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/house_and_home/laundry-detergent/


Tip for Day Twelve – To save energy, wash laundry in cold water whenever possible.

Day 11 - Dirty laundry

We lost power today for a few hours. I was right in the middle of doing a load of beach towels in the washer when it happened.

I started thinking about how many times I wash those beach towels over one summer. Lots of times they’re just wet, not dirty. But I have nowhere to hang them, so out of habit I stick them in the washing machine, and then the dryer, using loads of resources to basically dry a wet towel.

I bet I do at least four loads of towels a week in the summer in my front-loading washer, which uses about 20 gallons of water per load. (A top-loading washer uses between 40 and 50.) So if I hung the towels up to dry half the time, and only washed them half the time, I would save 40 gallons of water a week, just for towels.

Now imagine if we wore our clothes (not including underwear, of course!) twice instead of once before tossing them into the laundry basket. That’s saving another four loads a week, or another 80 gallons! That’s 120 gallons of water per week by just wearing clothes or using towels twice before laundering. Amazing!

That doesn’t even take into consideration the detergent it takes to wash them, or the electricity I burn to heat the water and dry them. We’ll save those numbers for another day…

Tip for Day Eleven – Conserve water and energy by wearing clothes more than once if they aren’t dirty.

Day Ten - Trash picking

If you pick through your trash, what will you find? Chances are, it’s filled with a lot of things you only used once.

In an article for Vegetarian Times (Jan. ’06, by Alan Pell Crawford), the author interviews Joel Makower, editor of The Green Business Letter, a publication that advises corporations how to be “greener.”

Makower says, “The problem with landfills is the energy and resources used to make the stuff that goes into them. Over 95 percent of the things we buy--disposable razors, single-use water bottles-have a useful life of less than six weeks, and sometimes less than a day. Almost every environmental problem we face is a result of our own wastefulness. We pay a high price for being a consumer society, and not just at the checkout counter.”

When we shop, convenience is foremost in most of our minds.

Reducing your family’s post-consumer waste doesn’t have to be a huge project. Start with the little things. Buy a razor with replaceable blades, instead of the disposable kind. Buy family size instead of individual “fun” packs, use washable, re-useable plastic containers in lunch boxes instead of plastic bags. Change the way you think, just a little.

Tip for Day Ten – Consider the amount of use you’ll get from a product before you buy it.

Day Nine - Bottled up

Today, I called the water delivery company to (try) to cancel our service, since we’ve had a new filter installed on our refrigerator’s water unit, and would no longer be using our water cooler.

How did it go? Picture a dark room with a single, naked bulb swinging from the ceiling… An inquisition… Questions. Never-ending questions… Why?? Why do we want to cancel? I could literally not get off the phone with the customer service rep.

I told her we now had a refrigerator unit.

Well, what about the half-liter bottles?

I told her we were trying to cut down on our use of plastic bottles.

Why? Weren’t they convenient enough? Would we want a different size? A different type of mouth on the bottle?

No, I said. We’re just done. Really. We’re breaking up with you. Just let us go.

According to a site hosted by the Container Recycling Institute, “Every day in the U.S. more than 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away.”

The site has a running ticker of the number of cans and bottles that have been land-filled, littered and incinerated so far this year. And let me tell you, that sucker is spinning fast. Check it out at http://www.container-recycling.org/

The thing is, I know lots of people who use these bottles as their only source of drinking water. They use them all the time, even when they’re sitting at home. A better solution would be to use the refrigerator unit, or a filter on the kitchen faucet, or even a system like the Brita.

Here’s a site that compares filters:
http://www.waterfiltercomparisons.net/WaterFilter_Comparison.cfm

Think about it: 60,000,000 bottles a year! I know we can do better than that.

Tip for Day Nine – Get a water filter and save plastic water bottles for when you’re on the move.

Day Eight - Charge it!

A while back, I bought a pack of rechargeable batteries and a charger from Costco. Today my clock stopped, so I pulled out those batteries and charged them up.

Guess what? The clock didn’t run with the rechargeable battery. It did when I replaced it with a single-use alkaline. I wondered why.

Turns out, like chocolate or sports bras, not all rechargeable batteries are created equal.

I found a website that tells you what to look for in a rechargeable battery, their shortcomings and their benefits. An important tip I learned: If you let a rechargeable battery drain of all power, you will likely ruin it.

Most electronics stop using power when the power source (the battery) runs low. But some things, like flashlights, will drain every ounce of energy from the source beyond a normal power drain if they are left on. For those items, you’re better off using single-use alkaline cells.

Also, you can overcharge batteries unless you have the type of charger that switches to “trickle charge” when the charging cycle is finished. Overcharging is just as bad for a rechargeable battery as using it until it’s dead.

Check out this website for more information on the best way to keep rechargeable batteries strong, and which types to buy.

http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/WPW/Power/RechBattInfo.htm

While it seems it will take a bit of research to find the perfect rechargeable battery, I’m committed to this effort because I’ve always felt bad about throwing all those alkaline batteries in the trash.

So our tip for the day is…

Tip for Day Eight: Switch to rechargeable batteries when feasible.

Day Seven - Cool Talk

It’s hot. The first really hot day of the summer, and it isn’t even officially summer yet.

We went down to Philadelphia today, to an event we’d bought tickets to months ago. In the spirit of our challenge, we didn’t drive. We took trains and subways, and a taxi for two legs of the journey, because we couldn’t figure out the bus system. Hey, it’s intimidating for most suburbanites.

Anyway, it was about 110 degrees in the city, and air conditioners everywhere were running full force.

We put our own window unit in yesterday, in anticipation of four or five days in a row in the nineties. Mall Dad absolutely cannot sleep when it’s hot, so fans were not an option. But I read somewhere that each year in the U.S., we use the equivalent of more than 400 tankers worth of crude oil in energy for residential air conditioning.

So, how can we reduce our energy use when cooling our homes?

According to “Mr. Electricity,” Michael Bluejay (www.michaelbluejay.com), there are lots of ways. For instance, install a programmable timer for central air, or put window units on plug-in timers. It’s an urban myth that it costs less to cool your house when you leave the air on all day.

Also, keep the thermostat at 80 degrees, and use ceiling fans. Every degree below 78 uses 3% to 4% additional energy.

Don’t cool unused rooms. Close AC vents and doors. And use curtains to block sunlight, which can heat rooms.

For many more tips, check out Mr. Electricity’s website at:
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooling.html

Day Six Tip: Put air conditioners on timers to save energy.

Day Six - Paper Weight

The kids had field day today, and it was amazing to see how much trash was generated by one event. Giant trash cans filled with paper cups, plastic freeze-pop sleeves, orange peels, paper towels, and plastic bags. It’s amazing how you become conscious of waste when you’re taking this challenge.

Approaching the end of our first week, I’ve noticed a drop in our trash volume already. But there are plenty of ways we can improve, too. Five-year-old Emma* uses way too much new paper for doodling and drawing. So I’ve put a box on the counter to collect fliers and school papers that still have one blank side, which she can use when she’s not doing a “serious” project.

Ten-year-old Lucy* reaches for juice boxes and bottled iced tea when there are plenty of other drinks in the fridge.

I’m a paper towel waster, much to my shame. I got into the habit of using them long ago, and it’s a hard habit to break. My husband is almost as wasteful with them as I am. Maybe I’ll move the roll to the laundry room, so it will be easier for us to reach for a rag or towel when we’re in the kitchen.

According to Green Seal, a non-profit organization that certifies products that meet earth-friendly specifications, “40% of trash in U.S. landfills consists of paper products,” and “30% of the timber consumed in the U.S. is used to make paper products.” They say that the bleach used to bleach paper products, elemental chlorine, causes the release of compounds that are mutagens, carcinogens, and can be extremely harmful to wildlife and aquatic animals because they build up in the systems of organisms through the food chain.

So the tip for day six is to reduce paper waste, and the environmental dangers from paper products.

Day Six Tip: Choose unbleached paper products made from recycled post-consumer waste whenever possible.

Day Five - Balloon Afternoon

We slipped today. Minor, not major, but still. Didn't even think about it. We took the kids to one of those indoor mazes on our way somewhere, and they didn't have socks (which they needed in order to be admitted into the maze), so without thinking, we bought them some. We sure didn't need 'em. Lord knows we've got socks coming out of our ears around here.

I guess we "needed" them in the context of the moment. Or maybe that's just a sad rationalization. But we definitely didn't "need" the helium balloon my husband bought a few minutes later. (We haven't figured out penalties for our screw-ups yet. We have to talk about that.)

So, I decided to do a little research on helium balloons' effect on the environment. Here are the surprising things I found out.

On a site hosted by the "Surfing Scientist,"--the guy hails from Sydney, Australia--the caution is more about the strings and ribbons on balloons that are released into the atmosphere. When the balloons pop, these attachements fall to the ground and become litter. But he says that in organized mass releases, it's common practice to use 100% biodegradable latex, which degrades at about the same rate as an oak leaf.

Also, he says, the theory is that balloons reach such atmospheric heights, that when they do explode in the sky, they break into such small pieces that they would not be a threat to wildlife.

A company called Balloons Galore says that helium poses no danger because it's a natural part of the environment.

However, New York State has an actual law (A01373), which limits the amount of balloons which can be released at one time to 25, on the supposition that balloon "pose a danger...particulary to wildlife and marine animals."

Most sites I checked, though, seemed to agree that latex helium balloons, which are made from natural subtances, are pretty harmless to the environment.

This is great news for my five-year-old, as she lives for a good balloon. However, she'll have to wait at least 95 more days for another one.

Day Five Tip: Go for the latex when decorating with balloons, and remove strings and ribbons if you're releasing them.

Day Four - The Scourge

I recieved four catalogs in the mail today, three yesterday. They are the bane of my existence. A scourge. A pox.

My mother-in-law, who lived in a nursing facility for quite a while, wasn't able to get out to shop, so she bought a lot of things through catalogs. She had no idea that ONE purchase would cause her pile of catalogs to multiply like rabbits. When you take the bait from one mail-order company, suddenly all the fishing lines go into the water.

Many mail-order companies make extra money by selling their customers’ names to other mail-order companies. Before you know it, you’re overrun.

At one point, my M-I-L was receiving almost 100 catalogs a week! I kid you not. She was absolutely overwhelmed. I found her crying in her room, surrounded by piles of junk mail. So we spent weeks calling every single company who sent her a catalog to have her name taken off the list. We urged her not to buy anything by mail anymore, but of course, she had no other choice. So a year later, she was overwhelmed again.

There are now clearinghouses for canceling catalogs.
http://www.catalogchoice.org/ is “a free service that lets you decline paper catalogs you no longer wish to receive.” A message on the site says:

“The Catalog Choice community is presently 899,632 persons strong, having already opted out of 11,693,682 catalogs.”

Wonderful!

A friend gave me this web address:

www.dmachoice.org
You can remove your name from promotional lists, including direct mail, catalogs, telemarketers and email lists through links on this one site, all for the bargain price of a buck.

Another great site is:
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm

They tell you how to get off a bunch of unwanted lists, as well.

So…

Tip for Day Four: Save a forest. Put a stop to all unwanted junk mail.

Day Three - Monthly angst

There was an interesting article on msn.com today about “frugalists” and “freegans”—people who get most of their food from dumpsters, and most of their possessions second-hand. Here’s the link if you want to check it out:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24879628/

Meanwhile, I got three magazines in the mail today (we’ll talk about the Scourge of the Catalogs tomorrow). According to an article by Jon Swartz at USA Today online, an estimated 12 billion magazine issues are printed each year in the U.S. Wow.

My own stack of unread magazines has now reached the two-foot mark. I just don’t have the time. Usually, I keep them for a while and then end up throwing many of them away lightly perused, or even completely unread. I subscribe to three magazines and get one with a professional membership, so 12 issues per year X 4 means I’m putting 48 magazines in the recycling bin or the trash each year.

My husband subscribes to no less than 8 - two of which are weekly instead of monthly. That’s another 176 per year. Together, we get 224 magazines per year, not counting the ones we pick up at the supermarket or bookstore. Or the kids’ comic books, or my oldest daughter’s new obsession with pre-teen gossip magazines. (The Jonas Brothers have been generating a lot of paper waste, lately.)

We’re going to sit down and seriously consider which ones we could do without. (In my case, probably all of them!)

We also get the daily paper. I’d like to say it’s thoroughly read, but let’s face it. There’s the front page and the sports section, and everything in between is pretty much cat box liner.

Having a journalistic background, I am loathe to get down on print publishing, which has suffered many blows over the last 10 years. But the reality is that the environment can’t support this kind of waste.

One option might be to change to an online format for magazines. Check out zinio.com, where you can purchase online subscriptions to your favorite magazines—Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, Business Week, Organic Gardening, plus about 750 more. You can pay for a yearly subscription or by the issue just as you would a paper publication. Plus, many people are hard at work to make these volumes available on mobile devices in the near future, so portability could be right around the corner.

Some of the comments attached to the USA Today article said this service was great. However, others claimed they received a lot of spam from it. So I’d do some research before subscribing. Other sites suggested were Texterity.com. and Nxtbook.com.

If anyone has any experience with online magazine subscriptions, please let us know the advantages and disadvantages.

Tip for Day Three: Find a friend to exchange magazines with, and cut your subscriptions in half.

Day Two - No more peanuts

Didn't get anywhere near temptation today. Too much to do with end-of-the-school-year stuff. But swim team starts tomorrow, along with pressure to purchase "team spirit" in the form of tee-shirts, back packs, hats, etc. It will be interesting to see what happens when the kids realize they'll have to forgo all of that.

MallDad received a couple of packages in the mail today, stuff ordered before our 100 days began. It still amazes me how much packaging accumulates from so little merchandise. Amazon.com claims to be reducing their packaging waste, but so far, I've personally seen no evidence of this.

They've even posted a study on their site that claims internet shopping is much more environmentally friendly than retail-outlet shopping, though the study was written seven years ago, and only takes into account books as the product. (See http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=578084&#online if you're interested in learning how earth-friendly Amazon.com is--according to Amazon.com.)

All I know is that for the next 99 days, I will not have to deal with a single packing peanut. Ahh.

But if you find yourself knee deep in them, here's a:

Tip for Day Two:
Take packing peanuts to your local shipping outlet (FedEx, Post Office, UPS, etc.) for recycling/reuse. If you can't find a place to take them, call the Plastic Loose Fill Council Peanut Hotline at (800)828-2214 and they'll help you.

Day One - Impulse Anxiety

Our little project has finally begun. We made it through the day, but not without some anxiety—at least on my part.

At the grocery store, I labored over my choices, trying to pick products with recyclable packaging over non-recyclable, in sizes that made sense both economically and in terms of generating less post-consumer waste. It was difficult, because my local grocery store has just completely changed their layout again--an old trick to get you wandering the aisles, making impulse buys.

I brought my reusable cloth grocery bags, skipped over the small plastic bags for my produce, (leaving my lemons, limes and cucumbers to run loose in the bottom of the cart), and snubbed the pre-packaged baked goods I normally drool over.

And then I got to the checkout counter, and saw a magazine that looked interesting. I had it on the conveyor belt before I could say Brangelina—and just managed to snatch it off before it beeped over the scanner. Whew! Close call.

It made me realize how many things I throw onto that pile in the last few moments of a shopping trip, thus upping my bill--and my future trash volume--with hardly a thought. Those market researchers have really figured us out.

So, here’s Day One’s…

TIP:
Go to the store with a list, and do not to deviate from it, no matter how tempting it might be. Make a pledge not to buy anything from the racks in the checkout line.

Rules of the Game

As I stated before, we're trying to get 100 suburban families to participate in our "thoughtful consumer" challenge this summer, between June 1 and September 9.

If you and your family are interested in taking the challenge for a week or more, please email me at MallMom@live.com with your family name (or nickname, if you prefer to remain anonymous), so I can keep track of everyone.

Email me, also, if you're interested in being a guest-blogger for a day (or more), and I'll set you up. You can leave comments and tips on reducing consumer waste in the comments section, as well.

We're really hoping to generate some discussion on what it means to be a conscious consumer in the suburbs, and how we can all make a difference in reducing waste in our community. We'd love to hear from you!

As promised, here are the rules my family and I decided on. I'm sure we will add to these as the project goes on, but for now, this our jumping-off point. These will be posted next to our family diary:


OUR RULES OF THE GAME

1. STORE PURCHASES
No store purchases unless they are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Food, medications, gas—no brainers. But can you do without those individually packaged snacks? The bottles of iced tea? The gum? Every single purchase has an impact. Think it over before you buy. And if you absolutely need something, try to find it used first.

2. ONLINE PURCHASES
No online purchases. The packaging is too wasteful.

3. ENTERTAINMENT
Seek entertainment with minimal environmental impact. Miniature golf requires no electricity. The public pool is there whether we swim in it or not. A walk in the woods or a visit to an art gallery is a great way to spend the day together. Rethink “fun.”

4. TRANSPORTATION
Drive only when absolutely necessary, and try to combine several errands in one trip. Plan your route carefully. Carpool, walk, or take public transportation whenever possible.

5. REDUCE WASTE
Try to figure out ways to reduce our trash output. Look for new uses for things we would typically throw away. Choose products with no packaging, less packaging, or recyclable packaging.

There they are! Wish us luck. (Deep, deep breath...)

The Suburban Experience

I think the suburban experience is a unique one, because we who live in the ‘burbs are spread out over a much larger area than our city-dwelling counterparts, which means we usually can’t easily walk to schools or grocery stores or shops.

Biking isn’t practical (no bike lanes on these crazy, winding suburban roads), nor is public transportation widely available. We have to drive everywhere, so we want to make it worth our while.

We also tend to live in bigger homes and have much more space to store stuff, therefore we don’t have to be so choosy with our purchases. How many times have you bought something, only to discover later that you didn’t really want or need it. But instead of taking it back you stuffed it in a closet somewhere, just because you had the room to do it?

Personally, I’m a terrible offender with food. I can’t get out of the grocery store without a minimum of two full bags, even if I go in there with the intention of buying three things. (Though I can say I’ve been religiously using my cloth bags.)

I have a pantry chock full of dusty canned goods and boxed products, some of which have languished there for years. I feel too guilty to throw them away, but they’re out of date and not suitable for donation, either. So I just push them to the back of the cabinet and load up on new stuff.

That will someday be old stuff.

That I will not throw away.

One of my goals during our one hundred days is to plan meals more carefully, and try to buy only the stuff I really, truly need for the week. I’m also going to attempt to use whatever isn’t out of date in the pantry. I have a feeling we’re going to have some interesting dinners.

Tomorrow I’m going to post the set of rules my family and I have come up with for this challenge.

Talking Trash

For the past 23 days we've been weighing our household trash (not including recyclables) before we take it out to the big green can. To our shock and disgrace, our little family of four has been averaging about 42 pounds of trash per week. For those of you without a calculator handy, that's 2,184 pounds a year--not including Christmas detritus, which probably adds another 40 pounds or so. That's more than a ton of trash per year. A ton. From one average family.

The rough total for just the families living on our street? About 61,000 pounds (30+ tons) per year.

Now imagine a neighborhood. A town. A city. A state. It makes me sick just to think about it.

Where is all this trash going?

According to www.zerowasteamerica.org, the U.S. has more than 3,000 active landfills, more than 10,000 old, out-of-use municipal landfills, and probably many thousand more private and commercial dumps. A disclaimer on the site warns that most of the information there has not been updated since 2002. Does anyone believe things have gotten better since then?

I'm beginning to feel a sense of urgency I did not have when we first began this.

The Start of Something Big

For the past eighteen days, my family and I have been preparing for a social experiment. Can we go 100 days as non-consumers? Can we buy only those things we really, truly need? (And what are those things, exactly?)

The idea first came to me when, during a particularly consumeristic week, our garbage can was overflowing with bags, boxes, packing peanuts and other flotsam and jetsam related to the Art of Buying. "We need a bigger trash can," my husband said.

As I crammed yet another shirt into a closet that was clearly ready to burst, I thought, "Bigger trash can? We need a bigger house."

And then I stopped myself, and realized how crazy our lives had become. I could no longer fit all my kids' clothes into their drawers. My home office was piled to the ceiling with excess stuff. Our basement, our attic, our garage, our garden shed? No room at the inn.

We don't live in a mansion, by any means. But we've got plenty of house for a family of four (and one spoiled dog). Lately, though, it's been feeling more like storage space than living space.

All of us, even our five-year-old, have our weaknesses. Webkinz, tech gadgets, games, books and clothes. We love our stuff. But do we really need it?

This isn't (completely) about lessening our impact on the environment, or saving money, or making a point, although I suspect we'll do all those things over the course of those 100 days. What it's mostly about is rethinking what's important. Finding out why we feel the need to keep up with the Joneses.

Starting June 1st, I'm hoping we find out.