Green Home items

Here are some things you can do around the house to "green up" the place.

1. Switch from your plastic food storage containers to glass (as the plastic wears out of course - don't just throw perfectly good Tupperware in the garbage - creating unneeded waste - b/c you want to replace it.) Here are some resources for glass food storage containers: Crate and Barrel, Cooking.com, Kitchen Etc., and Wisementrading.

BECAUSE: Not only does glass not leach harmful toxins into your food it is made with out the use of petroleum and can be recycled easily into more glass again and again and again.

2. Use cast iron (the original non-stick) instead of non-stick coated pots and pans. You can get cast iron pots and pans at any good retailer. Check out Williams Sonoma or Crate and Barrel. And for those of us that are a bit more thrifty - JC Penney also carries some really nice looking cast iron. The good news is that when cast iron is cared for properly it lasts forever. My mom has plenty of cast iron that is much older than I!

BECAUSE: The use of non stick coated pots and pans has not yet been proven to cause problems for humans, but the development and application of these coatings does create perfluoroocrtanoic acid which has been shown to cause developmental problems in lab animals. Cooking in cast iron can increase the amount of iron in a food by around 80% - good news for all of us veggies out there. Plus it cooks things very evenly and can go from stove top to oven.

3. Purchase some reusable bags. Karen and I have used the following bags and REALLY like them: Envirosax, good size w/ nice handles that fit over your shoulder. They come in awesome prints (b/c you want to look good carrying your bags) and roll up nice and small. And the lady that developed them is SUPER COOL. Chico Bags, almost exactly the size of a shopping bag, hold about 20lbs, come in fun colors, stuff (I'm better at stuffing than folding) into an attached little bag for easy storage and have a hook to hook them on about anything. Cafe Press, you can get one w/ your Green Girl splashed all over it! This one is large w/ long handles that will go over your shoulder as well. It doesn't fold up as small, but it says GREEN GIRL on it! Come on! :)

BECAUSE: Decrease the amount of bags hitting the land fill by using yours over and over again!

4. Switch to non-toxic dish washing detergents such as Shaklee or Seventh Generation.

BECAUSE: Conventional detergents pollute the water supply with chlorine and phosphates.

5. As your incandescent bulbs burn out replace them with compact fluorescents - CFLs.

BECAUSE: They last longer - about 10x longer - and will cost about $30 less over the life of the bulb. Yeah, less energy therefore less money leaving your pocket! One CFL can save 450 pounds of emissions from a power plant over its lifetime.

6. Use recycled toilet paper!

BECAUSE: According to the Natural Resource Defense Council we are destroying valuable habitat to make our disposable paper products - "But if every household in the United States replaced just one roll of 70-sheet virgin-fiber paper towels with 100 percent recycled towels, 544,000 trees could be saved."

7. Change all of your household cleansers from conventional cleaners to either natural "around the house" cleaners (see below) or to a non-toxic environmental variety like Shaklee (have I beat that horse enough yet? Can't help it ... it's what I use and I believe in their products.) Some natural cleaners you could use around the house include vinegar, baking soda and good old fashioned elbow grease.

BECAUSE: Conventional cleaners contain many harmful chemicals that are not only introduced to our water system, but are released into the air in YOUR HOME while you use them.

8. Install a rain barrel to collect run off water. Here are some options: The Rain Saver: Quite a pretty option as rain barrels are concerned. Clean Air Gardening: This site has ALL KINDS of barrels.

BECAUSE: m The more water you can conserve from rain water the less fresh water you use on your lawn and the less water that has to be processed in a water treatment plant!

Prius vs. Hummer?

There have been a lot of articles recently about the "dust to dust" cost to society over the full lifetime of a car or truck with particular emphasis on the Prius, a hybrid which gets excellent gas mileage vs. the Hummer, a large to medium size SUV which gets horrible gas mileage. Most of these articles claim that the Prius actually costs our society more than the Hummer: $3.25 per mile driven over 100k miles vs. $1.95 per mile driven over 300k miles. Yesterday I read an article in the Oregonian titled "Smug Alert" where the author also talked about the nickel in the Prius' battery. Apparently the nickel is mined in Sudbury, Ontario, which is an environmental wasteland - NASA even chose that site to test drive lunar buggies because it is the one spot on earth that is most like the moon. He also talks about the distance the nickel has to travel (start to finish more than 10k miles) and tries to factor the "global emissions" caused by this travel.

I will say first of all, that while I do not own a hybrid vehicle, I love them and am a big fan. This smearing (in my opinion) prompted me to do a little research of my own. First I looked into the mining in Sudbury. Apparently the place was an evironmental wasteland LONG before Toyota started buying 1,000 tons a year. They have actually done a bit of clean up and planted some trees in the area to try and revitalize the landscape. While I don't blame Toyota for the devastation, I do think it would be a great move on Toyota's part to help with the clean-up and environmental restoration of the area. It would say a lot about Toyota's true commitment to the environment.

Second, the mileage numbers that the author used: 100k for a Prius and 300k for a Hummer? I just don't believe it. For one thing, Toyota consistently makes cars that are reliable and long lasting. For another thing, since the Pruis is a hybrid, some of the time the engine is not actually running. So while the mileage might say 100k, the engine will actually have far less usage. So far there have been Prius' that have hit the 250k mark, which is not surprising for a Toyota vehicle or a hybrid, in my opinion. However 300k miles on a Hummer would greatly surprise me. I have a hard time believing the mileage discrepancy between the two vehicles would be that large.

Another concern that people have with hybrids is the the battery, and what is going to happen to all those batteries once their life span is over. While I can't speak for other car manufacturers, Toyota's battery has an 8-10 year warranty. Toyota offers a $200 credit to return the battery, when they then dismantle it and recylce all the parts.

All in all, I believe that Pruis and other hybrid vehicles are the way to go. Also a great option are cars with traditional engines that achieve excellent gas mileage. Honda now makes a civic hybrid that runs on natural gas and is the cleanest burning car on the road. (too bad it's only available in CA and NY right now) Diesel engine cars are also a great option with biodiesel becoming more available, unfortunately there are few diesel cars to choose from in the US. Hopefully that will change as the demand for alternative-fuel vehicles grows.

You can check out the full Dust to Dust report by CNW Research HERE.

San Francisco to ban plastic bags?

Mayor Gavin Newsom is backing the proposed ban on plastic bags. The city tried to impose a 17-cent per bag tax in 2005, which resulted in a voluntary agreement to use less bags, thereby avoiding the tax. Now the SF environmental council wants to ban bags altogether, charging the grocery stores have not done enough to reduce plastic bag use. The Environmental Council proposes offering recyclable paper, compostable plastic, or reusable cloth bags instead. If the ordinance passes, stores that do $2 million and up in sales would be affected. Grocery store chains are (of course) against the ban. Peter Larkin, president of the grocers association, has this to say: "Compelling more than 50 grocery stores to make the switch would also cause more environmental harm as baffled consumers mix biodegradable bags with regular plastic bags in recycling bins, contaminating recycled plastic, Larkin argued.
"You would end up with a situation where non-grocery stores are using regular plastic bags and the consumers will never be able to tell the difference or segregate the waste stream," he said. "We think it is going to confuse consumers and do damage to our efforts to recycle more." (msnbc.com)

Ok...let me get this straight. They think that people won't be smart enough to tell the difference between a recyclable/compostable bag and a regular plastic bag, thereby jeopardizing the TINY portion of plastic grocery bags that are currently recycled? Oy. Personally, I am all for getting rid of plastic bags. I think that people who take the time to bring their bags back to the store will know the difference AND since SF has a curbside food compost program, consumers could even use the compostable grocery bags to store food until pick-up. Although San Francisco may be the first US city to propose such a (radical) thing, bans on plastic grocery bags are already in effect in other parts of the world.

Go San Francisco! Go Mayor Newsom!

GET CLEAN

Okay… so I’m 31 now.. (ouch) and you know we are always supposed to listen to our mom b/c ‘mommy knows best’, but we also know that deep down inside we want to disagree w/ mom… just because. Well, MY mom has been selling Shaklee products for some time now and I’ve always kind of let it all go in one ear and out the other… 1. Not a big fan of cleaning so any cleaning talk was useless to me (ha) and 2. I’m my own woman and didn’t need my mom telling me how to do things…. Ha ha

Fast forward: I’m a wife, mom, home owner and let’s face it I’ve got to start cleaning this house!!! I’ll summarize the story as to how I got to using Shaklee products. Post birth of my babies my skin was a wreck… even more of a wreck than it had been previously… now in addition to my lovely acne I had I now had a not so attractive RIDUCULOUSLY dry patch on my face. Mom and I traveled together and she went on and on about Shaklee and finally I said, “okay.. I’ll try your stuff while we’re on this trip.” (in my mind thinking this SO isn’t going to work) Well, IT DID! The dry spot cleared up in less than a week and I was sold. Mom had talked about the environmental aspects of Shaklee all along, but I hadn’t done the research on my own. Now that I was going to order my own Enfuselle (another post to be done in the future RE: skin care, but if you are looking for info now click here to be directed to the website.) I was going to do my own research. WOW Shaklee is one environmentally conscious operation. This led me to look into their cleaning products.. Mom had sung their praises as well, but I was leary about the shipping cost. After what I read about Shaklee and their environmentally conscious business practices I felt it might be worth it. Not only is it worth it… it’s cost effective because the products are so concentrated. I’m not paying for them to ship a bunch of water. I don’t’ have to have a bunch of different cleaners. Basic H works on almost everything.

They have named their cleaning product campaign Get Clean – meaning not only get your house clean, but get our planet clean.

The products are safe for you to use.. no harmful chemicals and therefore no horrible odors… no more having to turn on the fan in the bathroom just to do the job. No more rubber gloves or worrying about your kids being close by or following behind and touching before everything has dried and gassed off.

Quoted from the Shaklee website: “Go to your cupboard right now. Pick a cleaner, any cleaner. Does it contain chlorine, phenol, ammonia, or formaldehyde? These—and more—may be toxic. Toxic as in dangerous, as in hurtful, as in not very clean at all.”

Shaklee cleaning products have:

* No napthalene
* No kerosene
* No formaldehyde
* No phenol
* No cresol
* No lye
* No hydrochloric acid
* No sulfuric acid
* No petroleum distillates
* No benzene
* No ammonia
* No paradichlorobenzene
* No sodium hydroxide
* No butyl cellosolve
* No phosphoric acid

There products are also good for the planet.

Quoted from the Shalkee website: “Get Clean™ products use biodegradable cleaning agents, which means they break down easily instead of hanging out in the ground for hundreds of years. They also have no phosphates, borates, nitrates, or other stuff the planet doesn't appreciate. And by making them superconcentrated, we leave you to add water so we can subtract waste. This has tons of implications. Literally. Less weight to ship. Less product to use. Less packaging to throw away. So you can get that clean feeling about your house, knowing you're keeping the planet clean, too.”

Shaklee cleaning products have:

* Sustainably sourced natural ingredients
* Biodegradable
* No chlorine
* No phosphates
* No nitrates
* No borates
* No animal testing
* Recyclable packaging
* Recyclable wipes
* Recyclable dryer sheets

Some statistics from the website convinced me that purchasing the products on line and paying to have them shipped was worth the cost – and was actually a wash – because it helped me to achieve some of my personal goals for 2007: decreasing the amount of waste the I send to the landfill and decrease my environmental footprint. Here are the statistics that I found astonishing:

“108lbs of packaging waste stays out of landfills when you buy the Get Clean Starter Kit versus conventional ready-to-use cleaners.”

“248 pounds of greenhouse gas are eliminated when you buy the Get Clean Starter Kit versus conventional ready-to-use cleaners.”

I ordered the starter kit and I’ve gotta say I LOVE IT! Not only is it well packaged – hey come on .. I know it’s just cleaning stuff, but the fact that it looks good makes me feel good.. I don’t know why – it gets the job done and only drops of it are needed to perform hard tasks. Basic H rocks my cleaning world. You mix it in different degrees to clean different things… like windows vs. bathroom (all-purpose cleaners). I got my stuff in mid October and am no where near going through the Laundry detergent, Basic H, dish soap, hand soap, Nature Bright, fabric softener or scour off paste (love this stuff for hard to clean stuff... the sink, caked on cooked on stuff on pots and pans) . I did order more dish detergent, but for some reason we run the dishwasher a lot.. how does a family of 2 (+ 2 9 month olds) go through so many dishes?

I will stop going on and just direct you to the place to go for all info about Getting Clean and staying Green!!!! It even comes w/ a cute little caddy and cleaning rags… LOVE IT! Click HERE.

So here I am saying it for the world to see... Mom, you were RIGHT! AGAIN!

5 States come together to combat global warming

Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico came together when the Governors from those states signed a compact designed to target and limit the major sources of human caused greenhouse gasses (GHG's): vehicle exhaust and industrial sources including methane. The states want to send a message to the federal government saying that if the FD isn't prepared to act, then the states will act to protect their precious natural resources. The pact has the potential to expand to include other states, and possibly even British Columbia.
Check out the 5 state pact at http://www.governor.oregon.gov/Gov/pdf/letters/mouclimate.pdf . Since the western states that joined together collectively produce only 11% of all carbon dioxide nationwide, experts say that there must be a bigger effort from more states to have any impact. There are already 9 eastern states that have joined together to limit emissions from power plants, so hopefully the two pacts will inspire other states to get involved, and ultimately cause the Federal Government to act and pass laws to control GHG's and help slow or stop global warming.