Filed under: recycle
It seems silly now, but because of the convenience of the bathroom waste basket, I would throw out the toilet paper roll when all the paper had ran out. How wasteful!! But now I have seen the error of my ways and I am placing these little rolls in the recycle bin. Phew! That would have been a pretty bad eco-blunder.
I’m thinking the next step would be to find toilet paper companies that use recycled cardboard for their rolls. That would be a step toward a good thing. I will save that hunt for another day. For now, here’s to recycling some cardboard rolls!
Filed under: recycle
Check out all the recyclables I brought home from work today. As part of my attempt to do green things during the work day, I collected these items over the past week or so and I usually bring them home the night before trash day. However, they’d piled up so much that I needed to bring them home early. You can’t even see everything in the bag here but there’s a lot. All of which would’ve been thrown away since my company can’t recycle (We’re in a high-rise complex building and the building doesn’t have recycling set up yet. This is weird and concerning considering the building is in Chicago city limits and there are pretty good recycling programs in the city.) So I brought all my stuff and placed in the recycling bin. (Fortunately, the town I live doesn’t charge for recycling, just trash, so this effort is free too.)
I ran over to the local grocery store, reusable bag in hand and I thought I was doing well. I had a small basket full of items (only needed one produce bag—I forget to bring my reusable stash with me) and I headed to the checkout. I asked the nice young man at the bagging station, “Can you put everything in this?” “Sure,” he responds. I’m smiling and I’m happy. I’ve done a small good green thing. I saunter out pretty proud of myself
I get home, still happy as a clam (although I had to fill up my car and the price stung and the lack of options made me smolder). I began unpacking my items. WHAT? I cried. What was in my awesome reusable bag? A plastic bag wrapped around my meat. Ahh! I was thwarted! I thought I did good, but I wasn’t paying close attention. It was nice that the young man didn’t want any meat juices to spill out on any other items, but now I had a grocery bag and a produce bag. Two bags! Even with my reusable. It was a sad moment.
For my one green thing today, however, I am vowing to take reusable produce bags with me to the store (until I get around to making fabric produce bags I found at Circle of Life Foundation, which is on my list). But until then, reusing what I have will be the baby step. Maybe this weekend I’ll get to the fabric produce bags.
I’m giving up my beloved paper to do list for an efficient, conservation pda type. I’ve actually had my PDA for some time and generally use it for list type items but always seemed to come back to the pen and paper. It might be the writer in me (actually I’m sure it is) that keeps me connected with the scratching of parchment for sentimentality’s sake, but I feel that now with this eco-quest, I need to put down the pen and take up my stylus sword.
Wow the drama, but this sort of occasion needs some dramatization. This is a big deal for writers. You just don’t understand. Working completely on the computer doesn’t work. I know, I know, printout are awful but if you’re not an editor, you don’t understand. You miss so much on the screen. It’s like the nuances of the ink and letters on paper hide themselves on screen until they can fully ripen on the page. So that’s why I’m moving to the pda list to cut down on paper as much as I can. However, I feel this may be a work in progress item on the eco-wishlist.
I’ve unplugged the cell phone charger. Phew! Who knew it was such a waste? I sure didn’t. But I’ve taken to only plugging it in when I’m charging. What I used to do is charge it all night and grab it on my way out. Now I’m charging when it gets low, not leaving the charger plugged in all the time.
I still haven’t graduated to turning off my TV/VCR/DVD, etc. but they are all on power strips. My computer is on two, but I can’t reach one of them where it is located now. That’s a green thing for another day. So is turning off the computer. But my attempts at work have been fairly successful. Except my greener settings seem to make my Mac act funny. I will, however, continue to turn off the computer each night before I leave.
Filed under: energy-saving
No longer will I use the “hot” or “warm” settings on my washing machine. According to Green Is Sexy, heating water accounts for 80% to 90%. Well that’s just too much in my view. On the other plus side, my clothes are sometimes fairly delicate and the cold water helps everything in the wash get along without having to run a bunch of different loads depending on the type of clothes. I just run full loads of whites, darks and delicates on cold and watch as my clothes come out all nice and wonderful.
I also don’t dry my delicates. Those are hung or laid to dry naturally to preserve their wear so I’m cutting some energy usage there too. The rest is just too much to air dry so I use the dryer to get them as dry as possible and let them air dry any further after that.
Filed under: green living
So there was a small glitch in my plan to blog my one green thing each day and to proudly go where few bloggers have gone before! (OK, maybe not so “Star Wars” introduction voice here, but you get the idea). I was prepared. I had a list, I had ambition, I had umph. And then I got busy. I traveled, I got busy and I couldn’t keep up with my personal blog, let alone this one. So while I was gone, I kept using my reusable bag, my lunch bag, turning off my work computer, letting it mellow, taking home my recyclables, using my bamboo cutlery instead of plastic and replacing 12 more bulbs with CFLs. I tweaked my eco-wishlist and always thought of ways to fulfill my one green thing. I just couldn’t get myself in front of the computer to report it. But I’m back, from outer space, and ready to get back to the task at hand. I look forward to reporting my progress again.
I have abandoned the brown bag and dedicated my life to a reusable lunch bag. OK, maybe not that dramatic. Here’s the Target lunch bag I snagged that will transport my delicious midtime meal to and from work. I used to use Starbucks brown bags I’d acquired over time. Since I’m using reusable bags now (yippee!) this plan won’t really work in the long run. I was tempted by Laptop Lunches and the neat lunch box they have, but I resisted considering all the various plastic Tupperware-type items I already own. Best to keep that down to a minimum I thought. Plus I love the colors. It seems to match everything I wear.
I also started buying Method products this weekend. I spotted this wee bottle of hand soap at Bed, Bath & Beyond. As part of my dedication to finding greener cleaners, I discovered that I was running low on hand soap. What a great opportunity to find something that is biodegradable. I did some price comparison and for 12 fl oz, it wasn’t much more than comparable items. Dial soap was cheaper, but I hate Dial soap smell and that really wasn’t the point of this exercise anyways.
Other eco-friendly things today? It’s Spring kids so the windows were WIDE open letting some mad-style fresh air breeze on through the house. That was pretty niiiice.
I went on a field trip to an LYS (local yarn store) and bought some yarn. I count this as pretty eco-friendly since I’m supporting a local vendor. That’s pretty good. They took home a lot too in my contribution to Mama Earth. 
My group also carpooled. Yay, reducing the carbon footprint. (I know, already counted the carpool thing, but this is a daily effort blog so it’s a good thing.)
