Change the World Wednesday Challenge - Make wraps and foils a No-No in your home!

So here we go for another challenge! It's been a few weeks since I've posted, but I wanted to do my share.

So this week's CTWW challenge is as follows :

This week ... for the entire week ... don't use plastic wrap or foil. No plastic wrap to cover food while microwaving, no foil to line a pan, and neither to cover leftover food. No plastic wrap or foil ... none ... for one week.

Or ...

If you never use plastic wrap or foil, identify one area of your life that could be a little more Eco-friendly. Tell us, in the comments section, what that one thing is and commit to "greening it up".

So what are we gonna do? Well, we are already practically wrap and foil free. It"s not really something we use. One thing we do use is paper towels. We are horrible at it sometimes. We buy the "select a size - made from recycled material" ones, but that is no excuse.

So here is my pledge : To stop using paper towels for a week!


What is your challenge this week? Chime in!

Plastic bags : Facts and why we need to stop using them!

Everyone knows that plastic is bad for the environment. We don’t need to spell it out again, but some facts are important to know and since people respond to numbers, here are a few facts on plastic bags I found on LivingGreen that may help solidify your resolve :

• Less than 1% is recycled. It actually cost more to recycle a plastic bag than to produce one-there is no monetary incentive to recycle plastic bags.
• Many of our garbage bags are dumped illegally in our oceans. A study in 1975 showed that ocean going vessels dumped 8 million pounds of plastic bags annually.
• Billions of plastic bags also find their way into oceans via rivers, drains and sewage pipes where the effects on aquatic animals such as turtles, sea birds, whales, dolphins and seals are catastrophic. These animals ingest plastic or become entangled resulting in agonizing deaths. The unsuspecting creatures often mistake the floating plastic for food! Plastic bags are found in most oceans of the world. (World Wildlife Report, 2005)
• A study of albatross chicks on Midway Island, near Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, found that nine out of 10 birds had plastic garbage in their gullets.
• Plastic bags do not decompose! They break into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate our soil, our waterways. In time the toxic microscopic particles enter our food chain. (CNN.com/technology/Nov.6 2007)
• Plastic cannot be burned or buried safely. When it is burned it produces fluorocarbons which are carcinogens.
• When we bury plastic bags they block the natural supply of air and water to the soil. This affects plant life directly and the chain of life indirectly.
• Plastic bags can even cause landslides when plant life in mountains is reduced. Plastic bags clog the sewage pipes and often cause water to be stagnant. It reduces the water retaining capacity of the soil and this in turn affects the water table.

We all (I hope) try our best at reducing the amount of plastic that is used and thrown away. This is not only for our environment and wildlife, but for our health as well. Recently, new technologies in plastic bag production have led us to believe that maybe some weren’t as bad, but are they?

Traditional bags are made from petroleum products which can release toxic compounds into the air that are known to cause major health issues.

Now, more and more bags are made from polymers called polyethylene that are, for most part, recyclable. Great right? Not exactly. The problem seems to be that bags can be made of different types of resin that although look very similar, when broken down, can’t exactly be easily recycled. So if you ARE going to put plastic bags in the recycling, make sure that they have the recycling symbol with the numbers 1, 4 or 5, as other numbers may not be recyclable in your area.

What about the new trends of biodegradable bags? This seemed to be the greatest idea since the corn and potato starches are made to biodegrade or photo degrade when in contact with air or light in less than 18 months! WONDERFUL! Not… this will only work if you bag is on top of a free standing hill of trash and according to an amazing article on HealthGoods.com, 95% of all trash is land filled. “In landfills, garbage is buried beneath layers of soil that make it difficult for air or sunlight to reach discarded items. The fact is that most plastic bags just don't degrade, even in a compost pile. There are some new starch-based plastics that may be more degradable. But few grocery bags are made from that type of product.”

So, short of it is there really is no easy answer to plastic bags besides stopping using them. Carry around reusable bags in your car, buy little foldable bags to put in your purse or pockets, carry out small items when you know you don’t need to carry it very far and if you MUST, ask for paper bags when leaving the store! Those are easily recycled, are often made of recycled paper and can easily be transformed.

As a final note, here is the link to Thomas’s post, on Renewables at Home, that responded to my challenge and wrote an excellent article you all should read! Thank you for jumping in Thomas!

EDITED :

Here is another one of my readers (Harri Pao) that took the challenge and wrote about how they eliminate plastic bags in their daily lives.

Change the world Wednesdays… are you ready for a week long challenge?

Hello again!

Just wanted to share with you a post by one of my favourite bloggers, Small Footprints at Reduced Footprints.

Last week, she started a challenge series with her readers of taking 10 minute showers for a whole week. This week, it’s about absolutely refusing plastic bags everywhere.

I would like to send the same challenge to all my followers and readers! Write a comment and take the pledge! Take it to your readers by sharing this challenge. And like in her blog, all of you who are already plastic-free and have a blog, write, within the next week, a detailed article on why plastic bags are so horrible to the environment. Send me your links when you write your articles and I will post them here!

Together, we can reach so many people and prove that every little action counts!

Are you in for the challenge?

Rethinking recycling – When you move, donate goods and share resources!

Good morning to you all.

As I have mentioned before, my husband and I are on the verge of moving to a new apartment. When looking for our new place, we came to the understanding that we would have to sacrifice space for location in order to be happier and greener :

• Moving to a better built and more recent building meant less energy wasted through unsealed windows and outdated heating.
• Closer to work and our community garden meant less of the car being driven.
• Walking distance from the farmer’s market and our favourite local stores for food and fun meant the same.

But in this process, we lost 160 sq.ft and no longer have a basement storage unit. (Not that I’m complaining because we have now an underground parking spot so no need for de-snowing and idling the car in winter.)

So, we decided this would be the perfect time to really reassess what we were actually going to move and what we were getting rid of. Hard and long process, but a satisfying one to say the least! So I thought, since we are probably not the only ones doing massive spring cleanings or getting ready to move, I would share some ideas on items you may not have thought of donating but that are great to share and give away.

Toys and clothes :

That is an easy one! Everyone knows that they have local clothes banks and toy drives. No surprise there, but still, a reminder is always good. Toys can also be donated to daycares, children’s hospitals and shelters.

Bedding, towels, wash cloths :

You can donate all kinds of linens to homeless shelters and women’s shelters around your city. Towels and blankets can also be donated to local animal shelters to be used as beds in the cages.

Dishes, utensils and cookware :

Soup kitchens and shelters always have a need for extra dishes and things to cook with. Or, you could simply ask a friend if they need them! I’ve made so many starter kits for friends, I lose count. It’s always a great way to share.

Pet supplies :

Animal shelters need everything from litter boxes to food dishes, food, leashes, bedding, toys, carriers… if you use to have a pet (or like us, have pets that have outgrown their first litter boxes and carriers), then take them to your local shelter. You can also donate old hamster, bird, rabbit cages or aquariums to local grade schools to use in classrooms.

Books and magazines :

Local public libraries, high schools, grade schools, clinics, hospitals (long care units can use the books) and even local detention centers and prisons, will gladly accept donation of reading materials.

Shampoos, conditioners, soaps and other toiletries :

We all have in our home leftover bottles of shampoo, body washes, soaps, etc. that we have gotten on a whim and not used fully. Places like women’s shelters, were women and their families come in with very little in their possession, need things like that to help out.

So as you are going through your old things, please think of how they can be reused.

I hope you have a great day!


What do you share and donate in your community?

Where to dispose of CFLs, cell phones and batteries properly - a follow-up

As a follow-up to a comment posted on my previous blog topic, Heating through light : Another reason for using CFLs in your home, I decided to take a few minutes this morning and do a quick search on where we can dispose of certain products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), cell phones and batteries.

CFLs :

For all of us in Canada and the US, Home Depot is one of the easiest ways to dispose of CFLs. If you are like me, there are at least 3 Home Depots within a 10 mile radius from your house so drop off is easy. You can grab a disposal bag and bring it home with you, store your used bulbs and take them back. Another big name store to take back CFLs is IKEA. They were actually ne of the first company to offer a take-back program.

Rechargeable batteries and cell phones :

One of the greatest sites I found while surfing the net this morning was the RBRC - Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation that has a wonderful search engine where you put in your postal code or ZIP and they will give you a list of businesses and drop off points with the distance from your house and directions through Yahoo maps.

One place that seemed to come back a lot in the United States is Radio Shack. Again, very widely spread, they are an easy drop off points in most towns and cities. Staples is another common store in most every area that will take back your used products.

In Canada, Canadian Tire stores take back rechargeable batteries nation wide and some take back old cellies. Our equivalent to Radio Shack, The Source, supports the same programs as in the US. I’ve also gotten hits on various other home hardware stores and Sears here in Canada.

Do check out the RBRC site! It is worth having a good list of drop points to not dispose of them in the trash.

Car batteries :

I know that here in Canada, Canadian Tire recycles them. Your best bet is to call your local car parts place and ask them if they recycle. Many of them will and it will prevent them from ending up in landfills.

Regular one-time-use batteries :

As much as I would like to believe that people have stopped using these, the average person still buys dollar store discount batteries and most of these end up in the trash! They cannot be recycled unfortunately, but here in Canada, Future Shop/Best Buys have drop boxes and takes them in for proper disposal. I would think that Best Buy in the states would do the same, but I wasn’t able to find a reliable source. They do take in rechargeable ones, but that is as far as I was able to find.

In most cities, if you call the sanitation department, you may be able to find out where to take your non-rechargeable batteries. But the best advice from me would be :

DON’T USE THEM ANYMORE!

On a final note, I did find a company in the United States called Battery Solutions that sells iRecycle kits in various sizes. They come with the safety containers for storage and pre-paid postage for sending your batteries and other things for disposal. They accept :

• Household batteries, both rechargeable and non-rechargeable, such as D-cell, C-cell, AA, AAA, 9-volt, and button cells
• Rechargeable battery packs from: Cell phones, cameras, laptop computers, power tools, etc.
• Handheld electronics: Cell phones, iPods, PDAs, pagers, etc.
• Any other dry-cell batteries.

So I hope that this provided a good follow-up to my previous post that suggested using CFLs in your home to keep cooler this summer.

How easily can you reach a recycling or disposal drop-off point in your area?

Our garden –Year 2 : Eggshells, the wonder trash

A little snippet for all of you this morning in my garden series.

Last year in our garden was a year of learning. It was the first year that we had a plot at the local community garden and unfortunately, it did not yield much. I would like to blame the horrible weather we had that year (we got almost 493 millimeters – over 19 inches – of rain last summer) but I know that a lot of it was our lack of experience and knowledge.

But like all good students of a new art form, we observed a lot of the more experience gardeners around us and one thing we quickly noted was all of them walking around, early in the season, with buckets full of crushed eggshells that they would sprinkle around all their plants.

Turns out, like bone meal, egg shells are a great calcium source for your soil. Calcium deficiency is one of the most common problems in gardens. What it does is to make the roots weak and then, you end up with a root system that is unable to sustain a healthy plant. According to Calcium Deficiency in Organic Vegetable Gardens - Natural Garden Solutions for Your Green Lifestyle, a wonderful article by Deborah Aldridge :

“Calcium deficiency symptoms in organic vegetable garden plants is very noticeable, but may be misdiagnosed, as some symptoms, such as browning of young leaf margins and leaf curling, can also be associated with other deficiencies and diseases. However, if these early symptoms are not treated, it can lead to the death of the terminal bud and root tips.

A very common and easily recognizable symptom of calcium deficiency is blossom end rot, which usually shows itself on peppers and tomatoes. Blossom end rot begins with a decayed brown spot on the blossom end of the fruit. Sometimes, not all the fruit is affected. Feeding with a fertilizer too high in nitrogen can also cause blossom end rot.”

You are probably thinking they are already pretty amazing little scraps. But that is not all!

Fun fact : Did you know that if you sprinkle broken eggshells around your more delicate plants, they will keep away slugs and snails?

So as you are making your Sunday eggs this morning, think of rinsing the shells and setting them to dry. You will reduce waste and grow happier, healthier vegetables this summer.

What natural, organic ways have you found to keep your garden and flower beds happy and healthy?

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Make your ink cartridge last : Use ECOFONT

So, a blog I really like called The Buzz recently put together a list of ways to reduce your office carbon footprint and one of them was simply too fun I had to share :

The ecofont was developed by a creative communication agency named SPRANQ (based in the Netherlands) that wanted to find a way to use less ink on a daily basis. In this case, 20% less!

The font is based on the Sans Serif Verdana font, widely used in a business context (I know Verdana is the default font at our office), and is better used at sizes 9 or 10. Up close, you may say it's not very nice looking, but used at its intended size, it's very readable and easy on the eyes.

The font is a free download and can be installed on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux platforms. So take 2 minutes and make ecofont your default font at home and work. Save some money on ink and offset carbon for a greener world.

What environmental measures do you or your place of work take to reduce your carbon footprint?

How to reduce waste in your home.

Like I've been saying from the moment I started my blog, every little thing we do to help the environment makes a difference. Sometimes we get overwhelmed at thinking of a full green conversion. How will it affect our day to day life? Well I've decided to quickly list a few simple steps I've taken to reduce waste in my home and in the process, sending less waste to the landfills.

1- Just because you recycle, doesn't mean there is no waste! We all try to do our best and recycle everything we can. It's not always easy, but most of us do as much as possible. But the truth of the matter is that even if you recycle, a lot of waste is created during the production of the recyclable materials... It's important to understand the 3 Rs of a greener life : Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. When you buy foods in containers that can be recycled, also think of how they can be reused. Yogourt containers, plastic ice cream buckets, glass jars and bottles... they can all be reused in your day to day life.

2- Graduate from paper coffee filters : If you are a fan of coffee like I am, you probably make coffee everyday. That is 365 paper filters that go in the trash a year. And I know you may say its paper and paper is biodegradable, but stop and think. Most filters are made from new paper, which means trees are being cut down. Plus, most of them are bleached which is a process that puts a lot of chemicals in the environment and, well, your coffee! Did you know that tons of companies like Krups, Mr. Coffee, Medelco, Hamilton Beach (to only name a few) make reusable, permanent filters that sell for a few dollars and last you years! You can get them in basket and cone shapes. They are great and totally washable!

3- Baking can be green too! So how many of you out there love baking? I know I adore it. I make muffins all the time. When you start adding it up though, it really gets scary : 12 muffins every 2 weeks : Over 300 paper cups to put them in and throw away every year. Really, it isn't necessary. Most of us have non-stick bakeware and with a minimal coating of canola oil, you have perfectly unstuck muffins or cup cakes!

4- Wrapping wrapped produce? We all have the habit of grabbing those little plastic produce bags at the grocery store. But are they really necessary? Fruits and veggies with delicate and breakable skins like tomatoes, plums, bell peppers, apples, maybe... But why put onions, bananas, oranges and grapefruit in them too? Nature offers a variety of pre-wrapped foods ready to be simply brought home. And for those of you who simply MUST have the bags, try these reusable ones : ECOBAGS makes organic cotton drawstring that way less than 0.10 lbs on the produce scales.

5- Trapped biodegradable waste cannot biodegrade! No matter how much biodegradable waste we throw out like food and paper towels, the reality is that if you trap them inside a non-biodegradable trash bag, they will stay for years and years in a landfill somewhere. Most biodegradable trash bags are made from a treated polyethylene material that has a biodegradable cycle of 12 to 14 months. According to Munger Nature, a Québec company that makes amazing biodegradable plastic products, the oxo-degradable principal transforms the polyethylene into biodegradable matter. The site's info is a wonderful read, you should really click and see...

I hope these little tips help you take those first steps into a greener everyday life!