Photo by Jacopo O Do you use recycled content products around your house? I'm over at Green...Your Way talking about how I've recently been convicted about using recycled products at home. From the post: Did you know that most regular toilet paper, paper towels and other paper products are made from virgin trees? This means that 100-150 year old trees are cut down and made into convenience paper products so that we can use them once and throw them, or flush them, away. I don’t … [Read more...]
FAQ – Why Recycling Should Be A Last Resort
So, since we've been talking all about the 3 R's - reducing, reusing and recycling this past month, I wanted to finish up by talking a little bit about why recycling should only be used as a last resort, after reducing and reusing. Our first goal should always be to reduce the amount of waste we create, as much as possible. This blog has some great tips for getting started with reducing your waste all around the house. Then, with whatever waste we have, we should reuse what we can. … [Read more...]
Reducing Food Packaging Waste
Here's something that bothers me: why do many kinds of higher quality/organic bread come in two packages? There's the outside bread bag, and then a tighter inner plastic wrapper around the bread. Is it to keep it fresher for longer because it doesn't have the same mold inhibitors as lower quality breads? And why does some organic produce come with more packaging than its conventional counterparts? Like organic bananas have a large sticker around the whole bunch, and a little plastic thing … [Read more...]
Garbage Inventory – The Results
Photo by andrewgraham.nyc Well, as with many things in my life lately, my garbage inventory didn't go exactly as planned. I tried to keep track of our garbage, but we've been busy - in and out of the house, and I just didn't keep up with it as well as I had hoped. I did pay attention to what I threw away, I did start to write a list of everything I threw away, but I kept forgetting to put it all in one garbage can like I was supposed to. What I realized pretty quickly though, is that we … [Read more...]
Garbage Inventory Intro
Photo by NatalieMaynor I think it was way back in February that I was talking about doing a garbage inventory. Oops! I still haven't gotten around to doing it. Since we're talking about Reducing, Reusing and Recycling this month, and now that the weather is a little nicer out and I can pile my garbage up outside instead of inside, I think I'm finally ready to tackle this garbage inventory thing again! This week, or at least for the next few days, I'll be keeping track of our garbage … [Read more...]
Simple Steps – Make Recycling Easy For Your Family
We all know the phrase - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The three R's of going green and good stewardship of our earthly resources. While reducing and reusing are the most important of those three, the reality is that we still buy and consume stuff with packaging, or get unwanted junk mail, or sometimes forget to bring our reusable grocery bags to the store and come home with groceries loaded into plastic bags. (Okay, maybe you never do that, but I unfortunately do!) Photo by Steve … [Read more...]
Decreasing Disposables – Start with a Garbage Inventory
Photo by Al Muya Since one of my green goals for this year is to decrease our disposables, I thought it made sense to first take a look at the kind of trash we are creating - what are we actually throwing away every day? Not long after we moved into our house, and before my second child was born, I did a garbage inventory for a day, and it was really pretty interesting to me (as interesting as garbage can be), and it showed me what kind of waste we were creating and ways that we could make … [Read more...]
Question of the Day – Doing Crafts With Your Kids
Photo by Shimelle Laine Creativity and craftiness are not my specialty. In fact, I would definitely label myself as creatively-challenged. I don't have an artsy bone in my body. BUT, I wish that I did. And now that I have kids, I really want to try to instill at least a little bit of creativity in them. I want to encourage them to make and create without feeling hindered by my own lack of creativity. I have a few concerns about doing regular craft type activities that keep me from … [Read more...]
An Unexpected Blessing!
Last week my wonderful friend, Shelley, gave us a double stroller that was taking up space in her garage. With winter on the horizon, she wants to be able to park her car in her garage.We were blessed to have GREAT weather for November this past week and weekend, and I was able to get out and take the kids for a walk with the new-to-us stroller. I am so thankful that she passed along this stroller to us and that we could make good use out of it. I want to encourage you, if you have things … [Read more...]
Garbage Inventory – Part I – You Are What You Waste
Photo by D'Arcy Norman Garbage - Yuck!! Garbage is one of those things that most people probably wish that we didn't have to deal with - and is probably not something that you want to really spend any time thinking about. It smells, it's dirty, it's just plain gross! But what I had never really realized or thought about before, is that we are what we waste. Think about it, our garbage says a lot about us. You've heard the stories about investigators who go through people's garbage and … [Read more...]
