{c post} Three Easy and Cheap Things for Green Living Beginners

When beginning a lifestyle change, it's easy to immerse yourself in all the information out there--and there is a lot. Immersing yourself can often lead to getting bogged down and then feeling immobilized. Information overload. Guilt overload. "I'm doing too many things wrong. I don't know where to start. My efforts won't make a difference. Why bother?"

There are many different personalities out there: some like to dive in and some like to test the waters and ease in slowly. My own personality is the latter. I pick just a few changes at a time, focus on those until they become habit. I then adopt a few more things to try. I know it will take years for the shift to happen, but, for me, that's best way for me to make those changes permanent.

With that in mind, I offer you a choice of three items on the Beginner's Menu: Cloth Edition. Try one, two or all three. None of them is expensive. None of them is drastic. All of them reduce waste. All of them can cause a ripple effect in your circle of influence.

1. Refuse bags. Bags are ubiquitous. Everywhere you shop, cashiers will bag your purchases. Even tiny items. If the item can fit in your purse/bag, if you can just carry it in your hand, or if you have a reusable cloth bag/tote with you, politely refuse the bag. That way, you don't get stuck with yet another plastic bag, and the cashiers and other patrons will see what you've done and start thinking . . .

2. Cloth napkins. Whether store-bought or home-sewn, cheap or expensive, cloth napkins will cut down on your garbage, free up storage space (no more jumbo packs of paper napkins), and save you money. It's not difficult to toss a few napkins in with your regular wash. And, during most dinners, napkins are hardly touched so you can throw them back in the drawer--you do not need to wash them after every meal. You could choose one color/design per person to distinguish. Or if you have uniform napkins and wish to subtly differentiate, you could sew a small loop of different washable ribbon (or similar) to one corner of each napkin. (We have uniform napkins that are not assigned; sharing has worked fine for us.) Note: I personally don't see the point in fancy silk napkins. I would be afraid to use one; that defeats the purpose.

3. Cloth towels and rags vs. paper towels. We bought a Costco-sized pack of paper towels years ago. And then I started using cloth towels and rags instead of paper. We still have 3 unopened rolls of paper towels in our storage. I don't know how long it will take us to get through them--several years, maybe. The only time I really use paper towels is if I'm draining oil-cooked food. And, when it's done draining, the paper towel goes in the compost. My cloth towels are not fancy--I got a bag of woven cotton "shop rags" (yes, years ago at Costco). I use them to clean the counters, as back-up napkins, at picnic lunches, pretty much anywhere you might use a paper towel. They, like the napkins, can be tossed in the wash without much effort or impact on your laundry routine.

Relatively simple, cheap and effective. You don't have to do everything. But you can do something.

FUN Challenge!! (that has nothing at all to do with garbage . . .*wink* *wink*)

Who wants to hear about my garbage? Anyone? Anyone? C'mon, I promise to use the word "rubbish" and speak with a British accent . . . ?

I thought it'd be delightful, . . . uh, let's change that . . . "fascinating" is probably more appropriate, to see how long our family (2 adults, 3 children ranging in age from 8 years to one-and-a-half years) can go without taking the trash bin to the curb for pick-up. Our city picks up each week, though I've regularly just taken it out with the recycling bin every other week. (Read: LAZY. Hey, it's been ice and snow out there, people, if I can avoid a trip . . .) I've always wondered, though, how long it would take us to actually fill the can. And so with the birth of the New Year, epiphany struck: it's time for a Fun With Rubbish Challenge!!! (If you put the word "fun" in there and add embellishments and a classy foreign accent people can't help but be whisked away in the excitement of it all. And if you issue a "challenge," well, then, people have to do it or their very manhood is at stake.)

(Wait, should that be individualhood?)

I will take out the bin when it's full. If it starts to smell I'll move it outside the garage so my neighbors can enjoy the sweet smell of my success. I think they will like me even more than they do now--if that's possible--for inspiring them so with my genius-borderline-insane ideas. I plan to keep track--the last time was January 4th--of the frequency and see how we do over the course of the year. (Disclaimer: This is clearly not a scientific experiment. I will, no doubt, smash it down at varying rates; same goes for bulging over the rim, etc.)

What we do, and what we will start doing to cut down our trash output:

* Keep equally offending everyone with our hybrid cloth-and-disposables diapering system.

* Maintain our recycling efforts--Curbside recycling, check. Glass containers to Target, check. Mail old Christmas lights to be recycled, check. Trip to the Park City recycling center to recycle the other various odds and ends not accepted by curbside recycling, . . . well, er, it's been awhile. Perhaps in the Spring. My latest quirky recycling habit: tearing off the plastic windows and sticker labels/stamps from envelopes so I can recycle the paper portion of the envelope. It actually makes quite a dent on mail waste. [Note: Since this first appeared at http://www.heraldextra.com/momclick/, I was informed that our city curbside recycling accepts those envelopes as is. Phew. Next step: stop the junk mail.]

*Enhance our composting system and educate/train/put the fear of God into the children about the system. ("Garbage Nazi" returns to reclaim her title.) I recently placed receptacles next to the regular trash cans around the house--kitchen, bathroom, etc. for dry compost material--read "non-rotting"--like paper tissues, t.p., paper towels (rarely use these, though), paper scraps, toothpicks, dry bread crusts, string, cotton Strawberry Shortcake panties that have clearly lived a full life, really, any dry organic waste.

(What? . . . I cut off the elastic waistband first . . .)

*Continue in our efforts to be more conscious about our food waste. Serve what you can eat, freeze any leftovers you can or eat them up before they go bad. And if they go bad, compost them.

*Continue to find new ways to reduce the rubbish. My garbage hero is a woman in the Bay Area who blogs about a Zero Waste Home. (She will blow your mind.) Though I don't see myself adopting all of her ideas, I plan to try several new things I've learned from her.

Who's your garbage hero? (By the way, that's not intended to be read as a self-referencing inquiry as in "Who's your daddy?" Because that would just reek of narcissism.)

Did someone say reek?

Ah, just wait'll summer.

[I wish the city could place a bar code on each bin. The truck scans your bin at each pick-up and the city charges per pick-up instead of a flat monthly rate. As it is now, I pay $10 per month even if I don't use the service. Economic incentives work elsewhere, use it here, too. Would it work? Would people really reduce their garbage output? Maybe if you say it will be FUN!! they would. C'mon, City leaders, what do you think? I challenge you!!]

Will U B Mine? . . . Y R U Looking @ Me Like That?

The children wanted to make Valentine cards for their upcoming class parties. Of course they did . . .

As a kid I loved going to the store and choosing from all the cards with characters expressing undying Valentine devotion through *witty* puns. And, yes, you were forced to profess the very same love to both the playground dreamboat AND the "alleged" you-know-what-eater. Eww.

But, as a grown-up on a mission to cut excess, I'm not up for highly-specialized single-use items.

Being the wonderful mother that I am, I told my children I would have all the supplies ready for them when they got home from school. Now, I am not what you would call a "crafty person." I don't have a knack for eye-catching design; I don't have fancy paper punches, glue dots or an array of beautifully-patterned paper made by the gentle brush of angels' whispers. I'm also lazy so, frankly, I didn't feel like making a trip to the store "just to get stuff for a Valentine craft." I decided to make do with the resources I had on hand.

When the kids got home from school they were met with:

* a stack of construction paper (Yes, they still make construction paper these days. Well, at least I think they do. To be honest, I wouldn't know; this stack is about 10 years old.)

* a pair of scissors

* a paper cutter (yes, I do have one of those)

* a glue stick (Yeah, yeah, I know I fell from my green throne because I used store-bought glue instead of a homemade concoction of egg yolks and cornstarch. There's always room for growth, though. Maybe next time.)

Oh, and as for the "Valentine-y" paper choices . . . well . . . we had about 5 sheets of white, one sheet of pink, and zero red. Their faces fell as they surveyed the remaining options that lay before them. It took a wee bit of creative convincing, "C'mon, kids, I bet if you add a flourish of black to this brown paper, you could turn out some GREAT Valentine cards!! It'll be super fun!! Let's get started!!"

Luv U!

The Gift of Change

Last Christmas my parents gave a unique gift to each of their children's families: a children's book, Beatrice's Goat, by Page McBrier, a recording of a 60 minutes segment featuring the "real" Beatrice, and an invitation for my family and my siblings' families to join forces to provide a meaningful gift for a stranger, through the Heifer International charity.

(Heifer International is a charity designed to give gifts of animals--cows, goats, and sheep for milk, poultry for eggs, bees for honey, etc.--that can improve both the health and the earning capacity of a family in need. Families are provided training and are slated to then "pay it forward" to another family in need with offspring from the original animal. The gift continues and communities are empowered to climb out of a life of poverty/malnourishment that had plagued them.)

The idea was to set aside money throughout the year--it could be a percentage of our income, a set dollar amount each week, or any accumulating loose change. The dollar amount itself was not significant. The way I see it, the ultimate design of the project was to:

* keep the concept of "charity" forefront in the mind year-round

* find a specific, tangible expression of an often-vague goal to "give to charity"

* strengthen our family through a shared experience

* strengthen a family of strangers, and consequently a community

Our little family accepted the invitation and planned how we would contribute. There were a few times during that time when I needed to break a one dollar bill (or a five) and turned to the charity jar to exchange for coins. As I took the coins out my 5-year-old daughter would piteously plead with me to put it back because "that's for the poor!" It didn't matter how much I tried to explain to her what I was doing, she fretted. And bless her for that.

This idea works with any charity--in your town or on the other side of the world--any dollar amount, and any type of "family" (friends, co-workers, business partners). Pick an organization, save for a designated period of time, combine your efforts, bless a life.

Ours was a Christmas project, but yours doesn't have to be. Maybe Valentine's Day becomes the jumping off point for this year. Appropriate.

Now, we realize that our humble efforts will not change the world. But, who knows?