be green

I’ll be honest, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t recycle. Most towns have easy pickup with garbage day. My little town recently switched from once a month to every other week. I was ridiculously excited when we got the letter about it. If we forgot to set out our recycling we would then have two months worth for the next time. Every other week works out a lot better!

I always feel a little sad on recycle day. Driving through town there isn’t a lot of garbage cans at the curb. Why not recycle? We have two garbage cans on our back patio. One gets garbage and the other gets aluminum and plastic. It takes pretty much no effort.

I’m curious though why people choose not to recycle. Maybe because I’m a child of the eighties but I feel like “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is drilled into my head. I feel guilty every time I throw out a something that could have been recycled.

Here are the benefits of recycling according to the EPA:

-Recycling protects and expands US manufacturing jobs and increases US competitiveness.
-Recycling reduces the need for landfilling and incineration.
-Recycling prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products from virgin materials.
-Recycling saves energy.
-Recycling decreases emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.
-Recycling conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals.
-Recycling helps sustain the environment for future generations.

I encourage you to start recycling if you aren’t already. It’s a good job for kids and it’s great for the environment! I’ll leave you with this quote that I just happened upon last night: “We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” -Aldo Leopold

I thought in honor of Earth Day I would finally do an update on cloth diapering. (Sorry to all who asked forever ago!)

We have been using cloth diapers for almost a year and a half now, specifically BumGenius 3.0. I love them as much as when we first started. Since we made the switch when Jasper was four weeks old, he has only been in a disposable once. (The night I was a bad mom and forgot to pack diapers in his diaper bag before leaving the house.)

The diapers are holding up remarkably well considering they are worn and washed every three days. We have a few liners that are slightly stained but nothing major. Some of the Velcro tabs are curling but still stick.  BumGenius will actually send you replacement tabs if you want to sew new ones on.  I have also found a place online that will replace all of the Velcro with snaps which I am considering.

We currently are using the regular liner and newborn liner that come with the diapers during the day. At night we use the regular liner and a special absorbent liner(s) to go with it. This makes it possible for Jasper to sleep all night without needing a diaper change.

Jasper has never really had too much diaper rash.  Occasionally he’ll get a little red but nothing too bad.  AND… we have NEVER had a blow-out.  Not once!  Seriously, that alone makes the diapers amazing.

I do a load of diapers every three days or so.  I love the Sanitary cycle on my washer. It washes with extra hot water and I do extra rinse.  The diapers take 60 minutes to dry and about 10 minutes to stuff all of the liners in.  I would honestly say that I don’t feel I’m doing a lot of extra work.

Considering our diapers have long since paid for themselves, I would say they were well worth the investment.  Now it’s just our way of life and I can’t imagine doing it differently.

I ran across this article last week about making your own dishwasher detergent. We were almost out of dishwasher tabs so I thought I would give it a try. Not only is it eco-friendly but it’s super cost effective. The article estimates 50 loads cost 50 cents! Considering I pay probably around 8 dollars for 50 loads I was sold.

I found all of the ingredients at my grocery store. The only citric acid I could find at the store was the Fruit Fresh bottle in the canning aisle. That may have raised my cost per load. But I did a little research online and found that you can buy a 5 pound bottle on Amazon for $26.

I mixed up my first batch tonight. My dishes were just as clean as they were with the dishwasher tabs. It is suggested that you add vinegar to your rinse spout for best results. I gave the new detergent a try without the vinegar for the first run. My glasses were a little spotty so I’m guessing the vinegar would take care of that. When I run out of this batch I’m going to buy some citric acid online and continue to make my own. Two thumbs up to my new eco-friendly dishwashing method!

Josh and I decided months before Jasper was born that we were going to use cloth diapers. We were given about two weeks worth of disposable diapers so of course, decided we would use them first. We ended up doing about four weeks of disposable before switching to the cloth and I’m really glad we did it that way. New parents tend to change diapers more often than necessary. Newborns dirty A LOT of diapers. And I don’t know how many times Jasper would dirty a diaper as we put a clean one on.

After four weeks we switched to cloth diapers and haven’t looked back. We absolutely love them! When I put that first diaper on him I knew we had made the right decision. They are so easy to use. We had a few leaks at first but switched to the regular liner instead of using the newborn liner. (Let’s face it, Jasper hasn’t been much of a typical newborn.) We haven’t had any leaks since.

The diaper fits really well which still kind of amazes me. They seemed so big at first and yet they just worked. The Velcro is great because you can refasten the diaper really easily. The Velcro is so much better than that sticky stuff that masquerades as Velcro on disposables. When the diaper is dirty, you pull the liner out and dump both the outside shell and liner in the same pail. About every other day we do one load of diaper laundry. After the load is dry we go through and stuff the liners back into each individual shell which takes about 10 minutes. Josh and I usually do this while watching TV and it goes really quickly.

Even when we are out and about, using them isn’t any more difficult. We have a lined bag to hold wet things. I just put the dirty diaper in there and empty it in the pail when we get home. I don’t anticipate needing to use disposable for any reason.

I also feel a lot better about putting them on Jasper’s skin. They seem so much softer and better for him. We also haven’t had any diaper rash so far.

I would so recommend the Bum Genius diapers to anyone. (Although I would suggest doing disposable for a couple weeks.) They’re cute and really easy to use. Really the only thing that is different is the laundry and that’s not nearly as time consuming as one would think. Josh figures that by the end of the year the diapers will have paid for themselves. That’s reason enough for me!

Before I was even pregnant, I had been doing a lot of research on cloth diapers. We were still living in the apartment at the time and not sure if we’d have a house before Baby. Not having a washer and dryer at my disposal was really the only thing holding me back. So soon after we bought the house Josh and I both agreed that cloth diapers was the way to go for us. I was even a little surprised at how sure Josh was that we should go for it.

Some of the reasons:
1. It’s WAY better for the environment. I have a hard time thinking about throwing away tons of non-biodegradable waste every day.
2. We’re cheap…or rather frugal. We invested close to $500 in cloth diapers that will last until our kid is potty trained. On average people have figured you end up saving at least two grand with using cloth diapers.
3. I’m forgetful. I’m pretty sure that I would be one of those moms that was always forgetting to buy diapers. We would be running to Meijer at midnight to pick some up. Once we forgot to buy toilet paper every time we were at a store and I had to steal a couple rolls from my parent’s. Hmm…actually I think that has happened more than once.
4. Cloth diapers are actually better for the baby. Disposable diapers contain all kinds of toxic chemicals I can’t pronounce. I can pronounce cotton!
5. Supposedly there is less diaper rash, kids potty train sooner and the smell isn’t as bad. Those I’ll have to let you know on.
6. They’re really cute. It’s true that this was a reason for going the cloth diaper route.

Some reasons that we (and others) hesitate:
1. That’s a whole lot of laundry. We will be doing one load of laundry every other day. Once I started thinking about it though I realized it’s not all that bad. I hate doing laundry that is a hodge podge of clothes, socks and everything. Folding sucks. Diapers though will be all of the same. Josh and I washed all twenty-four diapers the other night. We sat while watching crappy TV and had the inserts stuffed and the diapers folded in half in probably less than 10 minutes. Okay, so not the biggest time commitment I had originally thought.
2. You might have to touch poo. When using cloth diapers, you don’t have the convenience of just wrapping up a diaper and tossing it in the trash. Once the baby is a little older you will have to shake the poo out of the diaper into the toilet. Not so bad…I mean, parents deal with baby poo every day. It reminds me of that part in the movie Baby Mama. The mom sees her little boy covered in something brown. She says, “Is that chocolate or poop?”. No answer so she licks his hand. “It’s chocolate”. And the response, “what if that had been poop?”.
3. They are inconvenient and awkward. Josh and I picked the BumGenius 3.0 diapers because they grow with your kid and they are super convenient. You literally just shove an insert into the pocket and go. They definitely aren’t what most people picture when they think cloth diapers. I remember telling my mom early on about the cloth diaper decision and she didn’t really say much. About halfway through my pregnancy we were talking about the baby and she said, “The only thing I think you might want to reconsider is the cloth diapers”. When I asked why I could tell she was still thinking of the old fashioned prefolds with pins and rubber pants over. I started explaining the BumGenius kind that we had picked. Her face slowly lit up more and more. The kicker: I explained how there was even elastic around the legs. “Elastic???!?”, she exclaimed. That’s what sold her.

It’s been fun for me to show people our cloth diapers and see the look of surprise. We’ve already converted one couple who is pregnant and another who just got married and isn’t going to have kids for awhile. I’m excited about doing the whole cloth diaper thing and I’m glad we decided to go for it.

Back in September, I read on Danny Seo’s blog that Method was doing a promotion where you buy $20 worth of product and get a free reusable bag. Well you can bet that I was all over that. I can always use some Method product so it was easy to spend $20. I got laundry detergent, another microfiber cloth, tub + tile spray and some of the eucalyptus mint flushable wipes. Okay, so I probably spent over $20…but it was well worth it. I sent away for my bag and it came on Saturday. I was thrilled! It’s super sturdy and even has a zippered pocket inside. I already tried it out and I love it.

I’m a big fan of the Method products. I have slowly switched to using pretty much all of their cleaning products. And we recently switched to their laundry detergent and really like it. Did you know that they have some holiday products? I can hardly wait to start using the Hollyberry hand soap. (I’m a sucker for anything Christmas related.)

Anyway, go buy some Method cleaning supplies, fill out this form and get a free bag. It’s made of awesome.

“So called ‘global warming’ is just a secret ploy by wacko treehuggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!” -Chip Giller, founder of grist.org

I almost missed Blog Action Day! Bloggers everywhere are writing about the environment today. I thought I should join in. A week ago the temperature reached a stifling 92 degrees. Josh and I were joking that morning about how anyone could think global warming didn’t exist on a day like that. (92 in October in Central Illinois!) Of course, later that day Josh’s younger cousin said the exact words that I couldn’t understand. He said, “I don’t believe in global warming”. Are you serious? I was flabbergasted and utterly speechless. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I think that upset me more than anything…that I didn’t know how to respond to that. Today I ran across “How to talk to a climate skeptic“. Eureka! That’s exactly what I need. So I’m going to be studying that and hopefully learning how to respond to someone.

I have completely committed to not using plastic bags. It practically makes me sick if I have to use one because I forgot my Envirosax. Josh and I have also given up paper towels but we’re still working on napkins. The thought of having to do more laundry hasn’t allowed me to give those up yet. I have also been researching biodegradable garbage bags. I found these and these.

I have been frustrated with the amount of packaging when ordering online. Living in a small rural area really limits the amount of items I can find local. I recently wrote a company after I was so disappointed with the crazy amount of plastic packaging. They wrote back and said that they would look into other packaging ideas but it should be noted that this could increase their price. Hm… It would nice if companies like Amazon had a green packaging option. You could chose it for a couple more dollars or something.

I truly believe that every little bit helps. Making one small change will lead to another and another and another…you get the idea. Try it!

Check out The Greens at www.MeetTheGreens.org. A new kids’ guide to looking after the planet. Watch this episode. Great summary of the problems going on with the environment and it’s pretty cute!

After all of our talk about the Pur water filter, Josh and I just decided to go for it and buy one. I’m so glad that we did. And because we’re big dorks, Josh and I set up a blind taste test for me. (I can always tell a difference in bottled waters.) So I tried our regular tap water, Pur-filtered water and the bottled water we had. I picked them all out without knowing which was which. I also decided that I liked the Pur-filtered water best.

Josh was just as happy about it as I was. He offered anyone who stopped by over the weekend a glass of Pur-filtered water!

Josh and I are slowly trying to change certain things we do to be more environmentally friendly. I realized that it’s pretty discouraging if you feel like you have to change everything all at once. Little things though, can make a difference.

I finally got a Sigg bottle to replace using plastic water bottles. Next up we’re hoping to get a faucet water filter, like the PUR faucet mounts. (We just have to have the money for it!) This would cut out the huge plastic bottles of water we buy a couple times a month.

Every time we go somewhere and use my Envirosax, we get comments on them. People want to know where we got them, how we like them… I’m getting less strange looks and more “I need those” looks.

I am currently reading The Lazy Environmentalist by Josh Dorfman. That is a wealth of information! I have also been bookmarking sites left and right. Here are some to check out.

“Plastic bags are killing us” Article on Salon News – Very interesting little video of a recycling center in San Francisco
Ecogeek – Updated daily with all kinds of geeky technological ways to save the environment
How can I recycle this? Suggestions for reusing and recycling just about anything