Are YOU a Camel, too?

Note: This is a chapter taken from my new book based on this Blog! I am still in the editing phases so if you notice a typo or grammatical slip-up, I’d appreciate the heads up. Also, if there is anything here that is cause for alarm or confusion, point it out. If you loved it, hated it, or think you know a better way – tell me that, too. You can do this by posting in the comments or by shooting me an e-mail at cara.achterberg@rocketmail.com.

Drink More Water (Plus a bonus Soapbox Sermon on Plastic!)

Drink more water. I know you’ve heard that before. I think I’m part camel because I'm able to go nearly all day without a drink. But I’m trying to do better.

Here’s just a few of the things water does for you (if you drink enough): increases energy level, reduces joint/back pain, prevents headaches, aids in digestion and prevents constipation, ensures proper circulation, increases metabolism and regulates appetites, and keeps us alive (we can live a month without food, but only a week without water).

Recently I read Stiff by Mary Roach. In Stiff, Roach investigates what happens to our bodies once we die. The book considers all the possibilities from donating your body to science to becoming human compost. It sounds gruesome, but it was a really fun read. This book taught me two valuable lessons.

Recycling the Un-recyclable

I have thousands of milk caps. Thousands. I’m not lying. I started collecting them about the time we began curb side recycling. I put the bottles in the recycling, but couldn’t bear to throw out the bright plastic lids. Why couldn’t they be recycled too? I figured the recyclers would figure it out eventually, and until then I’d save them. But then they never did.

The lids piled up (along with the yogurt containers, sour cream cartons, deli plastic, etc.). Slowly I found solutions to for my rapidly growing bins of plastic crowding the corners in our basement. Yogurt cups make perfect seed starter pots if you poke a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Sour cream containers are just about the right size to freeze chicken broth for future recipes (just under two cups). Ice Cream tubs are excellent for sending cookies to school for parties, and also for refilling with homemade ice cream.

But what to do with all those lids?

One Person's Trash is Another's Treasure

This Thursday is America Recycles Day. I know you’ve already got your champagne chilling and your streamers ready (made from old magazines and newspapers I’m sure), but just in case you need some incentive to celebrate, I’ve prepared a little tribute to my favorite recycling organization. 

I couldn’t let this special day go by without highlighting my favorite recycling method – freecycle.org. If you haven’t signed on to the freecycle in your area, do it right now. I mean it. You can give away (“recycle”) just about anything – and I mean anything. Everything listed is free and local. How awesome is that?

I listed a big box of broken crayons and had eight takers within hours! Plastic fish-shaped candy molds – gone! VCR/DVD player that only works as a DVD player – too many takers to count.  

Recycling doesn’t always mean sorting your trash. It can also mean giving things away, or acquiring “recycled” items instead of buying new. 

I checked today to see what kind of gems were listed on my local freecycle and here’s a sampling of OFFERS:

 Hospital bed

Brother multi-function printer

Ranger Rick magazines from the late 70’s and early 80’s

Kids wooden play set (you dismantle and haul)

web Christmas lights

breast feeding supplies

white salt and pepper shakers

Danielle Steele books on cassette (now there’s an offer I can’t refuse…)

Golf balls (gotta love a thrifty golfer)

Stanley’s Dinosaur Round Up DVD

Kid’s wagon

Toaster Oven

 And even if you’re embarrassed to list some of the items you’d like to give away, there are people asking for them every day. Here’s a sampling from the WANTED list:

 1 ½ to 2 inch pipes in six foot or longer lengths (it’s good to be specific)

6ft christmas tree (no mention of real or artificial)

Women’s jeans size 4

Items for a cat (they weren’t very specific)

Craft items for kindergarten students (teachers lurk on this site)

Christmas Sweaters (honest – this was posted in the WANTED section!)

Fanny Pack (yes, this was too)

Canning jars (woman after my own heart, wish I’d known about this site before I bought mine!)

Pushable Lawn Sweeper (not sure what this is, but I’m betting if you have one in your garage behind the bags of stuff you keep meaning to drop off at Goodwill, you do)

Arm Sling

Freezer Burn Meat (truly, it says this) 

The WANTED list is how I got one of my best bread makers. I recently asked for Pampered Chef stoneware, but that must have been the limit. Nobody responded to my plea. Freecycle is moderated for sicko people and all posts have to be approved by the moderator before they appear in the feed. I’ve rarely met the people I’ve bequeathed my junk too. Normally we arrange via e-mail for them to pick the items up from my porch.  

When I picked up my breadmaker it was in an unmarked brown paper bag in front of a garage at a house that had no lights on. When we pulled up my husband was sure this was actually a drug deal. Great breadmaker, though. 

So celebrate America Recycles Day and recycle something besides cardboard and aluminum. Get rid of the items that are just taking up space in your life and pass them along to someone who will treasure them (or at least use them).

This is a great project for your kids. Maybe they can list some items to give away and then list an item they’d like to have. I’m sure someone has the Rockem’ Sockem’ robots in their basement or a paint-by-number set that’s never been opened collecting dust in a closet. It’s worth a shot! Freecycle is loaded with kids’ items. 

This is the bike I'm listing on Freecycle this week. Gently (or not
not so gently) loved, some rust, needs handle bars straightened -
great deal for the price! (FREE)

Teach your children how great it feels to give new life to old things. Talk to them about the importance of recycling. There is enough stuff for all of us already on this earth. Any time you have the opportunity to recycle or upcycle or precycle or whatever you want to call it, you’re making a play to preserve our planet. And that’s the most important reason to celebrate recycling on any day!

Stop Junk Mail

What would happen if you accepted all those credit card offers that come in the mail on an almost daily basis? Might be an interesting experiment, but it could easily get out of hand. And what about the insurance offers? Refinancing your mortgage?

I’m assuming that these come-ons must work or companies wouldn’t keep mailing them out, right? It’s discouraging when you think of the sacrifice of paper, energy, and resources. Normally I tear the offers in two and throw one half in the recycling and one half in the trash. And then I worry that some creative thief will figure out my system and start pairing up my trash and recycling and steal my credit/identity/money. I’m sure no one’s this resourceful, no matter how desperate. My worries are simply a result of the paranoid mindset that overcomes you when you read far-fetched stories on Facebook.

Alas, I have solved this problem and don’t stress sorting the mail, what there is of it now that I no longer get all these lovely offers. How did I do it?

OptOutPrescreen.com is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to Opt-out or Opt-in of firm offers of credit and insurance.

It’s fairly simple to get your name off the books. You can choose to do so online and it’s good for five years, but you can also print out the forms and sign them, mail them back and have your name removed PERMANENTLY. Pretty cool, huh? I had no idea that one agency could control the mass of mailings that have littered my life.

I do remember passing by this site years ago, but I didn’t believe it would really stop all of the offers, so I never took the time to print out and mail in the request. About six weeks ago I finally did and walah! no more credit card offers! This has reduced our mail load significantly. Sorry for the USPS, I know they need the business.

I’ve mentioned it before, but if you’re tired of getting catalogs you don’t need/want/care about, you can put a stop to them also by removing your name through www.catalogchoice.org.

I’m waiting for the day when we get zero mail. We’re getting closer. The only stuff we get now are bills, magazines, real letters, and mass mailings from local businesses. I figure the time it took to cancel catalogs through catalogchoice and send in my Opt out request is more than made up by the time I’m not spending circumventing identity thieves and recycling mass amounts of mail.

Opry Waste Land

I’ve stowed away on a business trip with my hubby to Nashville. Having a blast – cowboys who play guitars are my thing. When not frequenting the Honky Tonks on Broadway, I’ve been using the time to write. I’m finding a quiet hotel room divinely inspirational, especially when I didn’t pay for it. Getting some good stuff written and catching up on all the blogs I profess to follow.

It’s all good, but I must say that I’m horrified at the collective waste of the average American traveler. That would be me this morning. The picture posted shows our breakfast table. By-passing the fancy dining room (the bill might give away my stowaway status on the T&E report), we opted for breakfast at the hotel coffee bar. I did carry in my own tea made in the room (with no option other than a paper cup because my travel mug is too big for the one cup machine), but there was no way around the rest of the plastic and paper waste if we wanted to eat.

We each ordered a little egg mcmuffin-like sandwich. Both came thoroughly over-microwaved in their own plastic encasement that could have held six mcmuffins rather than just the weenie one. We also ordered some fresh fruit to share. It came with a huge plastic coffin too. Add to that the plastic water bottle for the water my hubby ordered, the paper napkins, and then the biggest waste of all – a thick cardboard tray to carry our delicacies the twenty feet or so to our table.

All that crazy waste and I’m just one unofficial resident at the hotel. The other seven thousand or so (we’re staying at Gaylord Opryland – it is HUGE), certainly created plenty of waste themselves. And beyond that number are all the other hotels in Nashville and beyond. Why are we allowed to do this? When the majority of the earth’s population struggle to put food on the table, we throw away what must be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of containers, plastic utensils, paper cups, and napkins just for breakfast! The magnitude of this waste overwhelms me this morning. 

A Bathroom Built For Two

Do you know what’s clogging up our landfills more than all the disposable diapers and lunchable containers? Construction materials. They make up approximately 20-30% of the debris in our landfills depending on whose report you’re reading. This kind of amazes me because we aren’t allowed to toss out construction materials in our regular trash. I just assumed there was money to be made on pickup trucks full of construction trash and a special dump just for them. I admit we occasionally hide a piece of drywall or the remnants of a pressure treated 2 X 4 in the bottom of our trash bag, hoping some animal doesn’t get in to the garbage overnight and expose our crime before the garbage truck carts it off unawares.

We are in the midst of a bathroom renovation. The walls of our master bath have had a creeping mold that I have been battling since the day we moved in. Finally those walls are coming down thanks to my diatribe about the mold (either that or the fact that there is only one sink and I’m a bathroom hog of sorts). I remember reading about some couple who had stayed together and in love for 60 years and when they asked the wife what the secret was, she said she kept her bathroom business private. In all those years her husband had never seen her tinkle or put on deodorant or scrunch up her face to put on mascara. I like the idea of keeping my personal business private, but that’s impossible when you share a bathroom so moldy and tiny, you feel it’s dangerous to shut the door.

So last week we set to tearing out those walls. And while we were at it, we decided to add another sink and a real bath tub (claw feet and all!). But doing this created some serious construction debris. It was just like when I clean out the car. It’s really hard to believe all that stuff came out of such a small space. We had dry wall, framing boards, tile, insulation, and bathroom fixtures. But we also had pipes, electrical boxes, a beat up door plus its frame, a shower rod, and lights. In my mind, everything had to go, but it didn’t have to go to the dump.

We added most of the dry wall to our compost pile up in the woods. I read the pros and cons and decided that it’s basically inert materials (gypsum and paper, plus a little glue and maybe some fiberglass), so it will decompose with the right amount of moisture and time, especially if it’s broken down in to small pieces. Since we let the kids have at it with hammers, the dry wall was in really small pieces. I dumped it on our long term compost pile where the barn and yard waste cook.

I pulled hundreds of nails out of the framing wood and we are re-using it to frame the new bathroom. My husband dubbed me the “Queen of De-construction.” Most everything else – the tub, sink, cabinet, medicine chest, lights, even the toilet who’s cap I broke in the process of moving it out to the driveway, plus the door and the all the electrical plates, will be picked up next week by an organization called ReStore York where they will be used in low-income housing projects or sold to penny-wise builders to be repurposed in useful ways.

The tiles have been stacked neatly in the shed for the kids to paint and use to create pathways in the garden. In the end, there is really not that much headed for the dump -a little carpeting, some moldy insulation (all the non-moldy insulation we re-used), some concrete boards from around the tub and some sewer piping, plus lots of bent nails (although I’m still trying to figure out if they’ll recycle the steel).

We throw out way too many useful things in this country. I remember volunteering at an orphanage in Tijuana with a group of teens many years ago. There was a garbage dump nearby. The images of the people who lived in that dump are still clear to me -the aristocracy of the desperately poor with first dibs on all the stuff that was thrown out, salvaging everything, doing the work of scavenger birds as they climbed and dug and sorted. The next time you are tempted to throw out the appliance you no longer need or the light fixture that is outdated, pause and figure out if there is any use left in it. If there is, pass it on. This country is full of many needs – you just might be able to fill one. Here’s some resources to help you do that:

ReStore York 717-852-7574

http://www.habitatforhumanity.org/ – works with ReStore, but also welcomes your donations and time

http://www.sustainablesources.com/ - online green building information

http://www.useitagainpa.org/ – a website that allows you to search for businesses that rent, repair, or sell used products across Pennsylvania

If none of these organizations can help you, there’s always Craigslist or Freecycle.

How Big is Your Trash Pile?

Sustainability expert Melissa Schweisguth doesn’t throw anything away. In fact she can fit her entire year’s worth of trash in one coffee can. Isn’t that impressive? I’m way impressed. She composts, recycles, re-uses, and even takes her own utensils and napkin with her to restaurants! Talk about living trash free. She is my hero.

I didn’t think our family does too bad on the trash front either. After composting, recycling, and hoarding, most weeks we have a half-full trash can to drag down the hill for the trash truck. I really think if it weren’t for my children, we could get down to a coffee can or two a week. But I have children and children create trash. I take some comfort in the fact that Yu-gi-oh cards can be recycled, but what about all those Littlest Pet Shop creatures and all their stuff?? I was faced with this dilemma this morning as I sorted through our basement. Things have gotten to the breaking point down there. As I confessed in a recent post, it is a dumping ground. Out of sight, out of mind. At least until you need to find an extra lunch box because someone left theirs at school. Wading through the boxes and piles and stepping over the furniture and bins was becoming much too treacherous.

This morning I headed to the basement with boxes, a big contractor clean up bag, and my resolve. I would not hold on to everything. But what about the six thousand pieces of “pottery” the kids made at clay camp? Or the large plastic fragments left from Christmas’ past – part of the Mega-ship Shark Attack? What to do with hundreds of Beanie Babies and their hand-made Beanie Baby sleeping bags? Then there were the craft kits - garden mosaic, Tile-Fun, Your-own-Pottery-Wheel, and those aptly named, Blow Pens? Not to mention the Earthworm observatory and the Ant Farm. What do I do with these things? Lucky for me our church is having a Yard Sale this fall. We go to a very open-minded, environmentally-friendly church filled with creative, resourceful people who are very big on recycling and re-purposing– maybe someone will want a partially used Ant Farm? I filled several boxes with potential treasures. I also filled several boxes for Goodwill because I just can’t bear for anyone to know I ever owned these things. It took hours and hours, but things are a little better down there. Even after re-purposing and recycling, and possibly pawning off as much as I could I still trooped up the stairs with a Contractor Trash Bag filled to the brim. I am no Melissa Schweisguth.

Reading about Melissa did inspire me. It’s made me hyper-aware of everything I bring in to my house. I thought about going to the store today to get the ingredients for Watermelon Slushies. I have a ton of watermelon leftover from the monster watermelon we sliced over the weekend. It needs to be put to use today or it’s chicken food. The recipe called for several items I don’t have so I mentally made plans to stop at the store this afternoon. But as I dug through the mounds of stuff in my basement I thought about our trash allotment. It’s mostly kid junk and food containers that can’t be recycled. Two of the items I need for the slushies come in just such containers. This motivated me to create my own slushies using what I have here so I can keep my trash allotment at zero for today.

I get some really nice e-mails from people who read this blog and I’m always thrilled to hear from anyone, especially someone with more ideas about living a kid-friendly organic life. Here are two products that were suggested by readers that can help reduce the trash created when it comes to packing lunches for your kids (or you):

Reusies –
Reusies are basically 100% cotton bags that are lined with a washable nylon coated material (BPA, Lead and Phthalate free). The Velcro closures on the outside allow you to close the bag tightly and keep the snacks inside instead of all over your lunch box. I was doubtful about this ability, but after using them this summer to carry snacks in my purse, my backpack, my kids’ backpacks, the floor of the car, and the pool bag, I can say that we’ve had no spillage. The bags come in several sizes to fit sandwiches and just about anything else you might put in a Ziploc bag. They can be washed in your washing machine (be sure to turn them inside out and attach their Velcro back to themselves or they will disappear only to be discovered in a sleeve or pantleg someday.) or just rinsed out with water. There are lots of color options to choose from and fun patterns kids will like. The only downside on these little beauties is that they are kind of pricey – 8.75 for large and $6.75 for small. My mom was able to make some with her sewing machine, so if you’re handy like that you might buy a couple and then figure it out for yourself. In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that one of my children refuses to use the reusies, claiming that the food is stale by lunchtime. I’ve done my own tests to verify this and can honestly say it is completely in the mind of the beholder. Nothing I put in there got stale, even after a couple days. To learn more about them and/or order your own, check out http://www.reusies.com/.

The other product that I really liked, but was again kind of pricey, is Laptop lunchboxes. Each “Bento Set” (this is an international company so I’m not sure where the Bento comes from) is $24.95. The laptops were very cool for my 4th grader, but now that she is in 5th grade, not so much. I think they are perfect for younger children. The lunchbox is shaped like a small briefcase and has four plastic containers inside that nest in the designated compartments. They even come with a teeny, tiny adorable container with a lid for dip to go with your carrots. A slot on the side makes room for utensils. Only one of the containers has a lid, but the lap top is engineered so perfectly that none of the food migrates to any other sections. It’s a fun way to pack a lunch and creates no trash since all the sturdy plastic containers can easily be handwashed. I would love to see a bigger version of these laptops because my youngest child has such an appetite that I just can’t pack enough food in a laptop for him. Also, the laptop doesn’t have a handle or a place for a drink, so it’s a little unwieldy to carry to the lunchroom. The company does sell an assortment of bags to fit your drink and laptop inside, I was just too stingy to go for it. You can get your own Laptop Lunchbox at http://www.laptoplunches.com/.

Tupperware also makes some really nice sturdy sandwich keepers and snack holders. We got ours adorned with SpongeBob. They even have their own version of the laptop lunchbox which does hold a little more food, but also doesn’t have a handle. I’m sure by the time my kids are grown up, all these glitches will be worked out and there will be an uberlunchbox. Or maybe the schools will finally figure out how to serve a healthy, environmentally conscious lunch. I’m not holding my breath.

It is a challenge to be like Melissa, but it’s a good challenge. I hope you will make it your own.

Post-Post: I did make Watermelon Slushies and they turned out awesome. I’m a bit of a free from cook and didn’t measure anything, but here’s an approximation of the recipe:

Watermelon Slushies

4 cups chopped watermelon (frozen for at least an hour)
1 cup chopped ice
½ cup water
1/8-1/4 cup organic sugar
2 teaspoon lime juice
½ t Orange Essential Citrus Oil

Process thoroughly in blender. Add more water or ice to make the consistency you want. If you don’t have the citrus oil, you could use a ½ cup orange juice instead, or skip it altogether.

Back to School!

School starts tomorrow. And for once I’m not frantically racing around from store to store finding all the school supplies and new clothes that herald the start of another school year. I did purchase some items, mostly for my new middle schooler (why do they need TEN folders?). It wasn’t just budgetary considerations that kept me away from Walmart this year. It was this sense that we are being swallowed alive by too much stuff. When my 7 year old hears I’m going to the store, he grabs his wallet and hollers, “I wanna come too!” When I ask him what he needs from the store he replies, “I just want to buy something.” Sometimes I think we all succumb to this need. But where does it come from?

It’s tradition to buy all new notebooks, lunch boxes, backpacks, and clothes for each school year, right? It feels good walking down the aisle tossing in fresh crayons, sets of highlighters in eight colors, and Sponge Bob book covers. Then we hit the young girls section and find new socks, a cute outfit, and maybe some hair accessories. I always feel like a real parent when preparing my kids for the new school year. I pore over the list, label everything with permanent marker. I’m even that parent that shows up at the bus stop on the first day of school with her camera. So really, I’m in touch with the great urge to BUY STUFF, especially at the start of the school year.

With the exception of the school supplies that weren’t already leftover from last year and two new lunch boxes (because the others smelled soooooo bad and vinegar couldn’t take the scent away), our budget escaped unscathed this fall. There were no new clothes. My kids have plenty of clothes. More than they need. I know this because of the number of weeks they can go before they finally bring their dirty clothes to the laundry room. Even then they are never naked, they have something to wear (they just might not like it so much).

As you get ready for school to start, consider what you already have. Are there notebooks that survived last year? Do you have as many colored pencils as I have? We bought a new set every year for all three kids for too many years to count and now have thousands. And really, who uses colored pencils? They aren’t nearly as exciting as scented markers or twist up crayons. Today the kids will choose from the thousands of colored pencils we’ve accumulated and we’ll crank up the pencil sharpener and have at it. We’ll track down the highlighters from the junk drawer and write names on them (last names so they can be used again). Pencils seem to multiply at our house. It’s just a matter of choosing the ones with the best working eraser and sharpening them to a surgical point.

When I first made the decision to reuse as many school supplies as possible this year, I planned to pay the kids a dime or a quarter for each supply they located and agreed to reuse. I figured they’d need incentive after years of consumer programming regarding the start of the school year and new stuff. Miraculously, I didn’t have to pay them. They were fine with using the stuff we had (as long as they didn’t have to use the same smelly lunch box!). And there were some things on the list we couldn’t avoid buying. (Why does a fifth grader need to own her own three-hole punch? Seems a little over the top to me, considering there’s one in every classroom). But if you need to bribe your kids, I think it’d be worth it.

This morning we sorted through all the clothes dividing them between school clothes, play clothes, clothes that don’t fit anymore and clothes they would never be caught dead wearing. We dug out some sneakers and made sure they still fit after a summer of bare feet. Tonight we’ll pick out the perfect outfit to wear (or in the boys cases, I’ll pick out the perfect outfit) and I’ll lend my daughter some earrings for the first day. I’ll wait for the Labor Day sales to buy new socks we need them and make it a point to stop in the Goodwill a few times this month for a few unstained shirts for the boys.

It is possible to make this a special start of school without all the brand new clothes and fresh school supplies. This afternoon we’ll pack up the backpacks and bake cookies to pack in their lunch tomorrow. Tonight we’ll have a dinner everyone loves and stop at the local ice cream stand for dessert to celebrate the start of school. And tomorrow morning I’ll trail them to the bus stop, camera in hand, ready to start a whole new year.

Just Bag It

So lets talk about bags. I know they seem boring and inconsequential, but in reality they have great impact on the quality of your life – or at least, your food (which is necessary for your life, so indirectly the bags affect your life). This year I’ve truly expanded my bag repertoire. That’s a sentence I never expected to write in this life (and probably not one you expected to read). I have bread bags, cheese bags, lettuce bags, potato bags, onion bags, and too many bags for recycling.

Let’s start with the potato and onion bags because that was my first venture outside of re-using the plastic grocery bags. I bought these bags from Current. I’ve recycled their catalog for years and rarely give it a parting glance, but on this occasion I was stranded at the bus stop holding the mail and the kindergarten bus was late. There was nothing else to do but leaf through the catalog. I discovered these bags in their clearance section so I don’t know for sure if they’re still available with Current, but I’m sure someone somewhere is selling them on the internet. The catalog claimed that these bags would keep your potatoes and onions from growing eyes and tails as potatoes and onions are prone to do if you don’t eat them quickly. They are heavy burlapy feeling bags that have a dark lining that keeps light out. They have a drawstring on one end and a small zipper entrance on the other. You place your potatoes in the potato bag and your onions in the onion bag. Aside form the cutesy drawing of potatoes and onions on the outside, I don’t see how the bags are any different. I’m not sure what made me order them in the first place, most likely it was the great clearance price. When I look back it seems very out of character for me to have ordered some cheesy bags from a wrapping paper catalog. At any rate, the bags work great so I’m glad I did. My mother looked at them and deduced that you could probably make your own, but I like to believe that these are one-of-a-kind bags with years of technology behind them. If you venture out and buy your own potato or onion bags, remember you should never store potatoes and onions together. They will make each other go bad. Even when they are in their own bags – keep them apart.

The next specialized bags I purchased were bread bags called Debbie Meyer Bread Bags. They came 10 in a box (including 2 extra long ones for French baguettes) and cost about $7. The box claimed to make bread last longer. Since I bake our bread and homemade bread tends to mold much faster than the preservative laden store bought bread, I was all about finding ways to make it last longer. The bread bags do seem to extend the life, but more importantly they are large enough to hold a bread machine loaf. With the bread bags, my bread will last about 4 or 5 days in the bread drawer and weeks in the refrigerator. I don’t have a huge mass of data on this because bread doesn’t typically last that long at our house without being eaten. I asked my dad the PhD Chemical Engineer why these bags that look like ordinary plastic bags would make bread last longer and he said it probably had something to do with the amount of oxygen in the plastic. Hmm. They do tear pretty easy so we’ve gone through a few. I bought our last box about four months ago and we’re down to about five bags now.

Cheese bags come from the same company as the bread bags. They are my newest addition to my bag collection. So far I do believe that cheese kept in these bags is not getting moldy. You do have to remove the wrapper the cheese comes in which makes it difficult to know which cheese is what if you have as many types in your fridge as I do. I find myself sniffing little blue cheese bags pretty regularly trying to identify the occupant.

I have tried the vegetable bags made by Ziploc and been unimpressed. Vegetables at my house either get eaten immediately or get lost in the back of the vegetable drawer never to seen from again until the drawer starts leaking nasty liquids and my husband cleans it out, muttering under his breath about people who stuff too much in the fridge. I am most happy with my own system which is to leave veggies in their original package if they come from the store and to eat or freeze them immediately if they come from my garden. Lettuce would be the only exception. Lettuce I wash, dry, and put in Ziploc bags with a dry paper towel. I think the specialized bags by Ziploc and hefty are just one more way to take our money and clog up our kitchen cabinets with unnecessary boxes of bags.

Which brings me to the gazillion plastic bags that manage to enter my house even though I carry my own bags to the store with me. I think that some day when they are digging up the remains of our civilization what they will find is plastic grocery bags. We are completely outnumbered by them. I just want to take the electronic space right here to say – recycle your plastic bags – ALL OF THEM. I know sometimes we get lazy and think “I’ll just throw away this one,” but don’t do it. Even the little plastic ones that individually wrap the gift card you bought or the plastic bags that held all the pieces for the game your kid just got for his birthday. All of these bags need to be recycled so that they don’t end up blowing around a parking lot somewhere, or suffocating a woodland creature or clogging up the drainage ditches. Instead they can become a deck or playground or whatever else the clever scientists are figuring out to do with them. So recycle your bags – develop your own system to make it easy. Buy or make a bag collecting bag or put a box in the bottom of your closet or pay your kids to recycle them, but find a way to do it. Because someday you don’t want the only thing our generation is remembered for to be a plethora of plastic bags.

Yard Sale Happiness

There seem to be more yard sales than ever this year. Maybe it’s the economy or maybe we’re all motivated to recycle. Or maybe some of us just have too much stuff. For me it was about the stuff. We’ve got too much of it. Three children generate a lot of stuff. Our basement was crammed with it so we filled up the back of the pick up truck and joined some good friends in their driveway for their neighborhood yard sale. Since we don’t have a traditional “neighborhood”, we have to adopt others. We do the same thing at Halloween. We’ve been trick or treating in the same neighborhood for so many years now that I’m sure the residents think we live there.

This particular yard sale had very reasonable hours of 9am-3pm. So we began setting up at 7am, which I quickly learned is not early enough when your yard sale begins at 9am. By 7:15 there were early birds picking through my boxes along with me. The kids set up a stand and began selling breakfast of painfully sweet lemonade and homemade chocolate chip cookies. They did a brisk business all morning until their interest petered out around 9:30. Lucky for us other neighborhood kids were quick to take their spots and no one made it up the driveway un-accosted by adorable kids yelling “Don’tcha want some lemonade?”

I love to go to yard sales. Love to find treasure in someone else’s trash. But it’s been a long time since I was the seller at a yard sale. I forgot how much I hate the haggling. For heaven’s sake here I am laying out all my junk and asking just a few pennies for it and you’re going to come along and ask me if I’ll sell it for even less than a few pennies? I know, I know. As one of my fellow yard salers pointed out – that’s the point. Still, I’m uncomfortable with the haggling. I’m terrible at it too, because even if the guy said, “Hey, you give me a dime and I’ll take that old frying pan off your hands,” I’d say, “Sure.” I made every deal. Which I guess was fine since my entire motivation for participating in the yard sale was to get rid of my stuff. But by 8:30am I was already thinking “why didn’t I just box all this stuff up and take it to Goodwill?”

At lunchtime the kids had made more money on the cookies and lemonade than I had on all my junk. Next time I think it would be a better strategy to put the cute kids behind the saw horse table full of dishware and I’ll sit on the plastic fisher price chairs out front with the lemonade. Still it was fun to hang out with our friends and we did meet some nice people and send them off happy in the knowledge that they had totally scammed me. As I watched the latest satisfied customer leave with a barely used Calphalon pot for a buck, it dawned on me that maybe the best thing to do would be to give it all away. That way I don’t have to stress over being taken advantage of, the customers are happy, and just maybe all the stuff will go and I won’t have to box it up and take it home. After convincing the other yard sale proprietors in the driveway that my plan made sense, we posted a sign at the end of the driveway that said “Everything’s Free! Really!”

Customers walked up the driveway hesitantly, not sure if the sign was a joke. When we told them otherwise they carefully selected a few items and scurried away asking, “You’re sure?” I smiled and thanked them for coming to our sale. This was my kind of yard sale. I loved it when a very young couple laden three little kids came up the driveway and I was able to make their oldest daughter grin like it was Christmas morning as she wheeled away my daughter’s old pink bike that sat in our driveway collecting rust for the last two years. That smile was worth much more than the $5 price tag that still clung to the handlebars. The rest of the afternoon went on in this fashion. I loved all the smiles we created on grateful faces and wished we’d switched to the new pricing system much earlier. The beauty of it all is that I went home with $60, an empty truck, and the knowledge that I had made lots of people very happy that day.

I don’t think I’ll ever sit on that side of the table for a yard sale again, but just in case you do, here’s my advice:

1. Have your kids set up a lemonade stand with homemade baked goods alongside of your yard sale. It keeps them busy and draws the right kind of customers. People who stop for lemonade stands generally have kids or grandkids and they’re more likely to buy your stuff which is probably mostly kid stuff. Plus it teaches your kids some responsibility, garners them a few marketing skills, and gives them an opportunity to do a little math in the summer.

2. Price everything before you actually get to the yard sale. Put a sticker on everything. I got a pack of stickers at Wal-Mart that already had yard sale prices on it and that made this easier. I didn’t price things before I got there and it was very stressful to price things while the professional yardsalers looked on and dug through my boxes.

3. Set up your stuff at least two hours early or put up a big sign that says “NO EARLYBIRDS!” (although I’m not sure a sign will really scare off the true professionals).

4. Join other families having yard sales at the same time. This way you can share in the expenses and work of signs and advertisements. These signs and advertisements are key to getting lots of traffic. Plus it’s just really nice to have company while you suffer through the humiliation of selling stuff you’re embarrassed you ever bought in the first place.

5. Consider having a rain date. We had perfect weather, but it would have been a miserable day if it had been rainy.

6. Bag up kid’s small toys that are similar in Ziploc bags together. We put toy power rangers in a bag with a power ranger video, Barbies in bags with extra clothes, and all the Cars movie toys together. Gathering up a bunch of Polly Pockets and some extra outfits in a sandwich bag was much easier to deal with, same with legos blocks and hot wheel cars. It’s too hard to price every small toy, bags are easier to handle.

7. Have lots of extra plastic bags for your customers to take home their treasures in and newspapers to wrap dishes and breakables.

8. If you have junk that you doubt anyone would want, but you can’t bear to throw away, consider having a “free” box. You’d be amazed what people will take when it’s free. Now it will clutter their life and not yours and you don’t have to feel guilty!

9. Work out a pricing plan with anyone who’s sharing your yard sale space. Pick a time to go to half price. If everyone’s willing, pick a time to make everything free. I promise this will be your favorite time of the sale.

10. Remember that the bottom line is you don’t want to take anything home. It will just sit in your basement cluttering up your home and your life and your conscience. Make the deal!

Carrotmobs and Greenish Companies

I made the mistake of wandering in to Wal-Mart on a weekend. I’m usually smarter than that, but the dog was completely out of food so I waded in with the masses. Not only was it a zoo because of all the Wal-Mart faithful, but apparently Wal-Mart is doing so well in these economically trying times that they are completely renovating our store. This must prove difficult considering the place is open 24 hours. Do you just shop from the moving skid loader as it rearranges?

Anyway, the dog food was not where the dog food is meant to be. After wandering in circles and being misled by the overhead signs that have yet to be changed, I located the dog food in the very back of the store on the very back wall. Wal-Mart’s new marketing plan worked really well on me. Now that I had been sucked in to the abyss, I couldn’t help but notice all the other goodies around me – things I just might need. I remembered we were out of aluminum foil and I could use some plastic bags for the six thousand pounds of lettuce I’m growing these days.

Conveniently the bags and wraps were located at the back of the store also. They must know that those of us that avoid Wal-Mart as a rule, still troop back there to buy pet food and plastics. Alongside of the traditional Reynolds wrap I found 100% recycled Reynolds wrap. What is this? Another major brand attempting the green thing? Sure enough the box boasted that the aluminum foil was made from 100% recycled aluminum, the box holding it was made from 100% recycled paperboard, and the inks used to paint the box were water based! Wow! Maybe the grinch does have a heart! I snatched up a box because I’m all about positive reinforcement. Works great with puppies and occasionally with children. The best part is that this aluminum foil wasn’t any more expensive than the foil I normally buy.

Next I went in search of plastic bags and lo and behold what did I find but Ziploc ‘evolve’. Noting that the price was somewhat higher than all the other plastic bags, I was still intrigued and pulled a box from the shelf. It claimed that the “ultra light bag was made with 25% less plastic” and that’s not all folks – it was made with wind energy! Not kidding. And of course the carton was made with 100% recycled paperboard. I guess all the big guns have figured out that sooner or later everyone is going to wise up to the importance of preserving this planet. We are having an impact. But you can bet that these companies are going green not because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s the profitable thing to do and quite possibly the only way to survive.

Time magazine had an article last week about Carrotmobs. A carrotmob is the opposite of a boycott. Again with the positive reinforcement. In a carrobmob, customers swarm stores that use some of their cash to get eco-friendlier. How it works is this, stores submit bids to the carrotmob organizer citing all the ways they will use the influx of cash generated by the carrobmob to make their store greener. There have been carrotmobs in 11 cities in the US, plus some in Finland and France. The carrobmobsters are organized to appear at the selected store on a specific date. Clever. Nothing motivates a retailer to go green like some extra green. To learn more about Carrotmobs check out www.carrotmob.org/faq.

All kidding aside, I do think it’s important to support any efforts to bring about change in the marketplace. Companies won’t become more environmentally responsible for altruistic reasons, but they will change their ways if it means additional profits. That’s where we come in. We must support companies that are making an effort, any effort, to change. Sure, most aluminum foil is made from mostly recycled aluminum already, but here’s a brand that is making it a central feature of their product, plus adding in other green features too. Good for them. Yes, they stand to gain financially. And that is good because the bottomline, like or not, always comes back to the almighty dollar. That fact won’t change, but what can change is how that dollar is earned. Ecologically responsible products and companies that are more energy efficient is a win-win for all of us. Pay attention to the products you are buying – you are much more powerful than you know.

Live an Earth Life, not just a Day

I’m having trouble writing something for Earth Day because truth be told, Earth Day frustrates me. It’s ridiculous that on one day each year we talk about the importance of reducing, reusing, recycling, and caring for our earth and then the next day we go back to business as usual. Why is it we feel driven to keep our homes immaculate and in perfect running order (some more than others I know), but we don’t feel the same way about our planet? Isn’t our planet truly our home? It’s our responsibility - each one of us, not just the hippy-leftover lady that picks up trash along the side of the road. We wouldn’t walk by a bag of trash lying on our living room floor, so why is it so easy to look the other way at the trash lying on the sidewalk? We wouldn’t throw away money, so why is it so easy to throw away recycling? I’m as guilty as anybody. I’ll throw out the jar of peanut butter rather than try to clean it out for the recycling.

We recycle when it’s made easy for us and when it’s not we look both ways and then pitch the item in the trash. It’s just one bottle, can, newspaper, envelope, whatever. But that’s just it. We don’t think just one of us can make a difference and just one of us can’t. But just one of us times a million makes a huge difference. My paper’s obligatory Earth Day article on the front page recited some interesting facts: Recycling just one aluminum can creates enough savings to power a TV for 3 hours. Now I don’t know how “they” get to that number, but think about it. It’s kind of like trading your carbon rights. You recycle that can and you can watch TV for three hours and not feel guilty. (although personally I think three hours in front of a TV should make you feel guilty or at least bored out of your mind.)

Another statistic quoted said that each person, on average, creates 4.4 pounds of trash each day. Wow! That’s nuts. But I’m guessing it’s fairly accurate. Just think what could happen if each of us changed a few habits – recycled all the envelopes and junk mail (or better yet called a halt to the endless junk mail by logging on to www.optoutprescreen.com and other sites like it and requesting an end to it), compost your coffee grounds and filters, filled a box for donations, recycled even the yucky peanut butter jar. Each of us could easily become less than average if we made one small change. 4.4 pounds per person is more than this earth can, or should, handle. So cut out the garbage.

On this Earth Day make a real change. Sit down with your kids and talk to them about Earth Day. They’re probably getting it pounded in to them at school so ask them what they learned. Make a pact to change just one habit. Let this Earth Day last longer than just one day. Maybe for your kids it can be an Earth Life.

Even More Trash Talk (just can't get enough!)

In my house we eat with cloth napkins every night. In fact, we eat with cloth napkins for breakfast and lunch too. It’s not that we have a formal dining habit (far from it), it’s just that I can’t stand the waste of paper napkins. Huge pet peeve of mine. I can’t bear to use a small piece of a tree to wipe my mouth one time and then throw it in the trash. Such waste. No, it’s too painful for me. So long ago, I gave up the paper napkin habit.

Not only is using cloth napkins more responsible ecologically, they look better and make every meal feel more important. I’ve been using some of the same napkins for well over 10 years. Some were made by my mother for me when I got my first apartment. Some I collected from sale bins at linen stores and gift shops. Some were Christmas presents. I keep them folded in a big basket sitting on the piano in the corner of my kitchen. My kids don’t know any other kind of napkin. I could go on, but that’s more than enough about cloth napkins! I know there are some of you out there who are mumbling about the water and energy wasted when I wash my beloved napkins. Here’s the thing – with the exception of my six year old, most of my family can use the same napkin for multiple meals. Truly. They don’t get that dirty. We just shake out the crumbs and hang them on the back of the chair at the end of our meal. Then they’re ready for the next one.

My mother-in-law called to tell me she had given up her paper towel habit. She knows about my fetish with the napkins, so she was sure I’d be impressed with her new paper towel replacements – and I was! She decided that she had way too many old cotton t-shirts, but instead of tossing them, she cut them in to small paper towel size pieces. She rolled them up neatly and arranged them in a basket on her counter. Now, when she has a job that calls for a paper towel, she grabs a t-shirt piece and it does the trick. Then she can wash them or toss them if the job is too gross.

Here’s another idea for old t-shirts. I’m a runner, so I have a huge collection of t-shirts (they give them out at every race). Compost them! Yes, I mean it. If they’re 100% cotton, they’re 100% compostable (is that a word?). When my kids’ shirts get too stained to pass down or pass on, or my collection gets too unwieldy for the closet shelf, I cut them up, keep a few pieces for cleaning rags and then toss the rest in my long-term compost pile. They do take some time to break down, so they probably won’t be feeding our tomatoes anytime soon. If you’ve got a leaf/yard leftovers pile going somewhere, that’s the perfect place for your t-shirts.

I’m still considering the t-shirts-as-paper towels alternative, but meanwhile I have some real paper towels on my counter. I buy the kind with no dyes or perfumes and I compost them. They break down quickly and along with egg cartons, add some “brown” to the “green” in my compost. (Note: that’s a little teaser for Friday’s post. I know, you can’t wait!)

Ten more ways to reduce your trash:
1. Buy biodegradable cat litter. I toss mine in a particularly prickly area of the edge of our woods. Cat litter is not compostable (cats eat meat), but it will break down and return to the earth on it’s own rather than take up space inside a plastic bag that will not break down in the landfill.
2. Save your not-meat scraps. We feed ours to the chickens, but neighborhood ducks and birds would love your leftover bread crusts and cereal too. I know it’s a small thing, but imagine if everyone did it? (We’d have some fat ducks)
3. Donate your old running shoes. There are lots of organizations that collect these shoes and either turn them in to rubber mulch or donate them to people who can still use them.
For a list of places that will take your running shoes, check our www.runtheplanet.com and search for recycling. They’ve got a list of programs all over the world. And speaking of shoes, Crocs also has a recycling program.
4. Break up your cardboard boxes and recycle them. I know it’s a pain to break them down. I toss them in our yard shed until the pile accumulates so high the kids can’t retrieve their bikes and then we break them all down at once and take them to the recycling dumpster at the township.
5. Cut down on paper mail – go paperless with any company that you receive bills from. Almost all companies do this now (it saves them money, there’s the motive).
6. You can cut out your junk mail for just a buck by registering your mail preference service at www.dmaconsumers.org.
7. Sick of getting all those catalogs? I know I am. You can request that companies stop sending you catalogs at www.catalogchoice.org.
8. Do you have stuff to unload but it’s too big/bulky/unwanted to take to Goodwill? Check out www.freecycle.org. You’d be amazed what kinds of things people will take off your hands. Just be careful you don’t sign up and start collecting more stuff for yourself.
9. There are several swap services out there for exchanging your unwanted books, DVDs, and CDs for someone else’s. Just do a search and you’ll find them. I haven’t used one, so I can’t recommend one yet. I just signed up for swaptree. Future post, I’m sure.
10. My friend Susan responded to Monday’s post and mentioned she has been “repurposing” some of her things instead of tossing them or allowing them to collect dust. She repurposed some souvenirs from England in to a toothbrush holder and soap dish. What a great idea! I pulled out some old china tea cups that I’ve kept forever just because I can’t bear to get rid of them. They’re really just collecting dust, so I’m going to fill them with some of the thyme plants I’m growing for my kids teachers and give them as gifts at the end of the school year. Now I’m eyeing all my underutilized belongings and wondering what else they could do for me.

Talking Trash Again

My daughter came home on Friday all excited about her upcoming field trip. They’re going to the dump! I take great pride in the fact that my daughter is so thrilled to be touring the county dump. Although chaperoning field trips is almost as attractive to me as having a root canal, this is one field trip I’d love to tag along for. I’m really curious what happens after my garbage leaves my driveway, and I’d like proof that they really are recycling the things they say they are recycling. I have my momentary doubts when I watch the garbage men fling all my recylables in to the same receptacle and press the masher.

In Pennsylvania we incinerate our trash. Horrible, I know, but I guess that’s what each state has to decide – do you put the garbage in the ground or the air? Many of my hillbilly neighbors don’t bother with the formalities of trash cans and simply burn their trash themselves. It’s definitely not a perfect world. I’d like to hear from the dump director about the logic behind burning versus burying. So, yeah, I’d love to go to the dump and I’ll be pumping my daughter for information the moment she gets home.

The only real solution to the problem of trash is to make less of it in the first place. It has to be said – if we buy less stuff, we’ll have less to throw away. I’m reading a book called, Not Buying It by Judith Levine. It’s her year of not buying anything but necessities. Nevermind that she paid off a huge credit card debt during that year, she also comes to terms with just what is a necessity and how much she really can live without. I’m thinking of having my own period of not buying it. Maybe I’ll even start a Not Buying It group.

The other ways to make less trash are to reduce, recycle and compost. A friend asked me to write about composting. I’ve been composting for so many years I don’t even think about it anymore. So I’m going to think about it this week and I’ll post about it on Friday. Meanwhile, recycling is pretty basic. We’re all getting good at it, but we could be better. In PA they are now accepting other numbers besides 2 and 5 on your plastics, so there’s more to recycle. But you can also recycle on your own. I’ve mentioned how great yogurt cups are for starting seedlings. Empty prescription drugs bottles are also wonderful for storing seeds. Many plastic containers work great for freezing leftovers (just don’t heat them up in the same container). There is really no reason to ever buy a drawer organizer – check boxes and plastic shredded cheese containers work great. Shoe boxes can be used to hold pictures or organize just about any shelf that’s out of control. We throw away so much, yet constantly troop over to Walmart to buy more containers to hold our stuff.

Packaging is one thing that really fills a trash can. So much is overpackaged. It’s absurd, really. My husband has patiently explained to me again and again, that when a company is shipping thousands of products in containers on ships from Asia, those products must be overpackaged to prevent them from being damaged. The cost of the overpackaging (and all the hours of people twisting the little ties that hold everything in place so they look just so) is much less than the cost of products lost to damage. OK I get it, but that only creates one more great argument for buying locally. So consider not only what you are buying but how it is packaged.

Recycling and reducing saves you money. If you’re serious about it, it could save you big money. More importantly, the example you set is teaching your children. We cannot afford to be a throw away society anymore. There’s only so much room on our planet. Here are a few ideas to help reduce and recycle:

1. Buy in bulk whenever possible (and be sure to recycle the plastic bags you use to hold your bulk items)
2. Take your own bags to all stores, not just the grocery store. Most store clerks everywhere don’t bat an eye when you bring your own bag.
3. Develop a storage system for odd size plastic containers – that’s half the problem with keeping them. Once there is a place for them, you’ll be more inclined to reuse them.
4. Shop Goodwill and yard sales where you can reuse someone else’s goodies (and the bonus is no packaging and you save lots of money!)
5. Give away things you don’t need. If you aren’t using it and/or loving it, someone else might be able to. Figure out which of your friends isn’t offended by leftovers and/or donate your stuff to Goodwill.

I’ve got a bunch more ideas, so I’ll save them for Wednesday because I’m sure you’re tired of reading by now. This week I challenge you to look at everything you throw out and consider whether it really is garbage.

Talking Trash and Earth Hour

This morning as I was crushing another cereal box for the recycling bin and dropping the apple peels in the compost, I realized that trash has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then (and I won’t say when “back then” was) we threw everything away. I remember we had three big trash cans in our garage filled to the brim and then some. The garbage men walked up our driveway, lifted the garage door, and carted them out to the street. Then they put the trash cans back in the garage and closed the door again. Times have changed. Between composting, recycling, and my plastic container fetish, we have about two or three bags of trash each week. They all fit in one trash can that we roll down to the street. The garbage men pick them up, along with all the recycling, empty them in their truck, and fling the cans back in to our driveway with as much force as possible. Sometimes the can rolls back in to the street to create an obstacle course for our neighbors. Like I said, trash has changed.

My kids have grown up with compost and recycling. They don’t know any different. They know all about saving the planet and global warming. They are concerned about the rainforest. Teaching your kids to live a life that is good for them and for this world isn’t as hard as it used to be. Being green is “in”. As much as they might complain about changes to their lifestyle that involve the loss of cheese curls and soda, they will adapt. And it will be what they know. Once they become parents themselves they’ll even appreciate it.

This weekend there is a great opportunity to create a memory for your children and do something good for the planet. Last year 50 million people participated in Earth Hour and created the largest voluntary power-down in history. This year it could be even bigger. I’m already planning our evening. I’m gathering candles and games and yummy snacks. At 8:25, we’ll send the kids all over the house to turn off everything. Even though Earth Hour organizers are only directing us to turn off lights, we’re going for broke in our household. We have a Black and Decker gadget that tells us how much power we’re using in our house at any given moment – we’ll try to make it say 0. We’ll light a fire if it’s cold and light lots and lots of candles and then for one hour we will be together and have fun without using any electricity. My kids are stoked for this, as am I. We can’t wait. What can your family do for Earth Hour? Don’t miss this opportunity to teach your children about conservation and have a great family memory to show for it.

One other thought, if 8:30-9:30pm this Saturday doesn’t work for you, pick another time. Your kids will never know it wasn’t the real “Earth Hour”. Besides if you do it sometime within 24 hours of our Earth Hour, you’re bound to be participating in Earth Hour somewhere on the planet. It’s important that we find ways to pass on our commitment to a planet-conscious lifestyle. Here’s a great chance. And don’t forget Earth Day is coming in April – start making plans now!

You can learn all about Earth Hour at www.earthhour.org. Earth Hour is a worldwide event. You can check out other people’s posts, videos, and tweets from all over the world. You can join the Earth Hour group or just be a fan on Facebook. Isn’t it cool to be part of something so big?