11 ways to...Green Your Life

Here is a link I came across with ways to green your life:

http://parkhowell.com/?p=1800

From his list, #6:

Opt-out of receiving phone directories: YellowPagesGoesGreen.org

Play Kitchen: A Centerpiece to Thora's Play World

Two weeks after it was built, Thora's play kitchen is still holding center stage in her playtime, and also, still holding up! And if you're thinking of making one of these yourself, please glance at the designer's blog here. In addition to other interesting and beautiful posts, she's posted photos of some of the people who've followed her design and built their own kitchens. (Mine is there, too!) Some people have made some very creative and interesting adaptations. They have me very inspired.

While I've yet to put the very final finishing touches on it, I added a couple reinforcements--very discreet strips of extra cardboard glued for support. Thora was using the kitchen to pull herself up, and so the horizontal shelves and countertops were sagging a bit. This was normal wear and tear by a toddler. But also, she's been known to do exactly what I'm asking her not to do, since it gets such a wonderfully intense and immediate reaction out of me. Like, "Oooh, please don't climb the kitchen. No, don't climb it. It'll break. No, DON'T climb it!" Ahhh... year two. The joys!

But seriously, I'm terribly proud of my work; extremely happy with the design and instruction from anna at forty-two roads; and I'm quite satisfied that such a well-used and stylish toy was made from recycled material.

Ta Daa: Play Kitchen

I don't have much time to write about this, since I'm totally spent and dying to get to sleep. But I couldn't resist posting a photo of the finished product: Thora's new play kitchen made out of recycyled cardboard. I'm very pleased with the end result. Firstly, I completed it before Christmas day, which I was beginning to think was an impossiblity. Secondly, I think it looks really nice and seems relatively sturdy. I say "relatively" only because toddlers are known for some unpredictable and wobbly movements. And also, I say "relatively" since my measurement and cutting was done with a less than machine-like accuracy. Part of me is stunned that it even fit together! But I do think it's going to be a great addition to Thora's play toys. So pleased!

Here's a closer view of the oven door.

The one thing that this is missing is a fabric curtain below the sink. That will come soon. And I think I might like to create a window in the oven door.

I'll write more about my experience in building this later. Now, must... go... to... bed.

Building a Cardboard Play Kitchen

So I'm moving right along, building Thora a play kitchen made of recycled cardboard. As I mentioned before, I found this project here, on Etsy.com. I spent what seemed like an eternity scouring my neighborhood for pieces of cardboard big enough for this project. (The main upright pieces, actually not pictured anywhere here, are almost 40" in height.) Then the other day, recylcing day in our neighborhood, I was lucky enough to spot an intact box that had recently held a storage shelving system. If only friends of mine could've seen me, a crazy woman, running down the streets of Cambridge with a huge cardboard box over my shoulder.
Our living room is currently overrun with bundles of cardboard that I've gathered from the neighboring grocery stores, most of which are too flimsy or small. But once I scored the gem of the storage box, I began actually following the instructions. And that was measuring and measuring, cutting and cutting. I would suggest you really invest in a metal ruler!

Anyway, I've finally got all the pieces cut out and reinforced. Now I'm ready to start cutting out the notches that create the joists. Don't want to get bogged down with blogging about it. Better just get back to it. I mean, this thing isn't going to build itself by Christmas. And Georgia and Kitty are shitty elves!

Holiday Shopping

I am so compelled to hype all the great gifts I've been finding for friends and family this year, many of which are green. Except that my readers consist almost entirely of friends and family. I don't want to spill the beans and so will post about some of the big hits after the gifts have been opened. But I can say this: I've fallen hard for Etsy.com, a site that hosts artists, crafters, designers, etc., and their products. As someone with a creative impulse, I feel a connection to these artists, posting their art, jewelry, clothing, and I'm happy to support them.

And it was on Etsy that I stumbled upon this gem, the instructions for building your own child's play kitchen out of cardboard. Check out the link here. The materials are recycled cardboard (I'm going to the Trader Joe's on Monday to collect some of their broken-down boxes), hot glue, wire hangers from the dry cleaners, and some other odds and ends for detailing, making this is a very post-consumer waste, eco-friendly piece of play equipment. I hope to get the odds and ends this weekend, the cardboard on Monday, and to start building next week. This is one of Thora's Christmas gifts. And for as much as she's wanted to be apart of the kitchen activities, I'm hoping that this will encourage her kitchen play. I'll definitely post my progress and final product. So stay tuned.

Kicking the Single-Use Petroleum-Based Plastic Bags Habit

I've become aware that available to the average consumer are totally biodegradable corn-based plastic bags. This plastic was originally created for farmers and used as crop cover, that would decompose into the land. So someone, who will surely going to eco-heaven, has started marketing products using this innovation to regular consumers needing plastics for their homes. Surely an executive somewhere realized that there is money to be made in this area of the market, so it's not a totally altruistic deed, meriting eco-sainthood. Still, reducing the petroleum-based bags that are produced (harmful part 1) and then litter our planet, both on top, like clogging shorelines and waterways, as well as sitting for hundreds of years underground in landfills (harmful part 2 and 3), I applaud and support the effort! These bags from Biobag can decompose between 10 and 45 days, leaving behind no residue. While a bit pricey, I think there is an easy, and long-term cost-effective way to incorporate these into our home.

We re-use plastic grocery and produce bags in a variety of ways before ultimately taking the bags to the recycling bin at the Whole Foods. However, some plastic bags in our house are used only once or at most a few times and those are used to:
* line the 13-gallon kitchen garbage can
* line an identical 13-gallon bin for recycling
* line the wet cloth diaper pail
* carry with us on our dog walks

These are my next steps in order to try to eliminate our household reliance on the single-use petroleum-based plastic bag, by replacing those old bags with either these corn-based, compostable plastic bags or with washable liners:

Step 1) Purchase kitchen bags ($4.75 for a box of 12) and doggie waste bags ($4.29 for a bundle of 50) from BuyGreen.com. Use these kitchen bags for the kitchen waste only, to which we accumuluate 1 bag per week. So a box of 12 would last us 3 months. (Not too bad for less than $5.) We will stop using the plastic grocery bags and produce bags for dog waste and instead use these Biobags exclusively. The plastic grocery bags can still be re-used for produce at the store and for other purposes, but will ultimately end up in the plastic bag recycling bin.

Step 2) Purchase 4 stuff sacks (2 small ones--$6.95 each--for the diaper pail and 2 large ones--$17.95 each--for the kitchen recycling bin), like these found at TinyTush.com, the diapering website where I purchased Thora's cloth diapers. Line the wet cloth diaper pail and wash it along with the diapers when needed. Since I will have two, I'll always have a clean diaper pail liner to use. The same method will apply for the recycling bin, which I was lining before to keep from cleaning up the inevitable leaks of rinsed-out-but-not-totally-dry bottles of beer, wine, juice, milk, random gunk, etc. This way, we'll dump the recycling and wash the liner when needed, replacing it with the spare, clean liner.

While there is the unavoidable upfront cost of the washable stuff sacks, I think they will pay for themselves relatively quickly, since we'll have reduced our home's need of a plastic bin liner by over 50%. And even if they don't quite pay for themselves that quickly in terms that are apparent in our monthly budget (what would be quick enough?), I'm not sure that I care all that much. If the financial burden for me is slightly more so that the environmental burden on the planet and my fellow human beings can be slightly less, well, it's a no-brainer.

Couldn't Be Easier: Green Carpet Cleaning

Look at that white carpet! This is thanks to Lily's Home Services.

They shampoo-ed our somewhat large, white, living room carpet in about an hour. And they are true to their word. They scrubbed that carpet clean of all its stains (in our case, mostly foot/dog traffic) for a very reasonable price. And they don't use perchloroethylene (the main chemical used in carpet cleaning). While I didn't get the exact contents of what they used, (it's proprietary, they said), I gleaned from what they did say that it is mostly hot water and non-toxic household cleaner. Need some thorough, non-toxic cleaning done? Call these guys!

Couldn't Be Easier

So the venture into homemade baby wipes was as easy as pie! Well, so much easier than pie, really. It was as easy as measuring 2 tablespoons of two liquids and then mixing them with 2 cups of previously boiled water. I reconstituted a stack of machine-washed and -dried wipes that I merely put back into the plastic tub that we've been refilling with store-bought wipes.

The recipe that I found called for 2 T baby bath soap, 2 T baby oil, and 2 C. boiled, cooled water. I used several of the un-touched, dust-collecting bottles of Johnson's products we received as un-opened hand-me-downs and parts of care packages, so this project was easy and free!

Overall, I'm really pleased with how these came out. They don't have the chemical scent of the store-bought wipes (even though we've always bought "unscented") but rather smell like the baby bath and baby oil, which is pretty pleasant. And I wouldn't hesitate wiping Thora's face or hands with these, whereas with the store-bought wipes, I always fear that the liquid is going to get in her eyes or mouth. And an extra bonus: I think the baby oil may actually make the poop easier to get off of the cloth diapers. My theory is that while not rendering the diapers non-absorbent, the oil rubs onto the diaper and creates a barrier, much like the diaper liner, which doesn't allow the poop to bind with the cloth. This was a bit of a blessing, since I waited too long to re-order diaper liners, and we went without them for about a week. However, we didn't suffer too much, I think, because of the new wipes. Hooray, New Wipes!

Green Things Part 3

Re-Furbishing Diaper Wipes

I know. You're thinking "WHAT? It's the convenience you pay for when you buy wipes. Convenience. What's next? Re-using your kleenex?" Actually, I learned accidentally that wipes could be washed and re-used. I must've unintentionally tossed a wet wipe in with the wet diapers. Because there it was, in the dryer, all fluffed up, clean, but still intact. And then I got to thinking... Since we launder our own cloth diapers, isn't it a bit silly to be throwing all those wipes away. I mean we're washing it all anyway. And for the most part, if they don't catch on some velcro from one of the pocket diapers while they're in the dryer, then the wipes are perfectly re-usable.

At first, I was recycling just a couple every few days, since it took some time to remember to put them in the diaper pail and not the trash. With just a few dry wipes to "reconstitute," the easiest thing to do to get them soaked again with the wipe fluid, was to put them underneath the new wipes in the box. There's usually so much excess liquid in the new wipes that it soaks down through the recycled wipes and they're nice and wet--just like new--by the time I get to them. However, now I'm managing to get almost all of the wipes into the diaper pail for washing and re-use so I've got quite a stack going. And there's far too many of them to merely soak up the excess fluid of the brand new wipes.

So, what to do with all these fluffy, dry wipes? I found a recipe for homemade diaper wipes online, which calls for:
2 T. baby oil
2 T. baby bath or shampoo
2 cups boiled water, then cooled

That's seems VERY easy. And CHEAP. And GREEN! The author of this recipe actually made her own wipes from a roll of paper towel. She could get 2 boxes of wipes with 1 roll of paper towels. To buy a refill 3-pack of wipes costs around $8 or over $2 per pack. If a roll of paper towel costs $1, she would save close to 75% per box when when she made her own wipes.

Which gets me to thinking... I wonder how expensive Seventh Generation paper towels are? Or other paper towels made from recycled paper? Would they be too rough to be used as wipes, even once they've been soaked in the wipe liquid? Hmmm... Although, that may defeat my efforts in my Green Things Part 2 post. Will have to figure this out.

Green Things Part 2

Going Paper-Free... One Step at a Time

I've decided that we should stop using paper napkins and instead use cloth napkins. So far, this has proven practically effortless. We eat dinner in every single night (we're poor AND trying to save to buy our first home one day soon) and so we've gone through an obscene amount of paper napkins. I'm using some nice kitchen washcloths that we were given; they're the perfect size for napkins. And really, we're not THAT messy. We can use one napkin each, for days. However, for some reason, when we were using paper napkins, our efforts to re-use them were always thwarted by Thora. She'd get her hands on a napkin that we were saving from the night before and within seconds, she'd tear it to ribbons. I'm also trying to be cognizant of using washcloths for cleaning as opposed to sheets of paper towel. And so far, we've had the same roll of paper towel up for weeks! I think this plan is working.

Green Things Part 1

Here are some Green Things I'm currently trying:

Composting

Cambridge, MA just seems to rock when it comes to embracing efforts to protect the environment. They allow recycling of almost all of the plastic that we buy (#1-6). If it weren't the Gerber food that we buy for occasional supplementing of Thora's diet, I'm not sure what plastic we'd have to throw away. (As it is, though, I compulsively re-use the Gerber plastic food containers, so few have gone to the landfill.)

And this spring the City of Cambridge instituted a pilot program for composting. While I've been collecting our scraps, I've yet to take them to the drop-off location. This is clearly one of the annoyances that will plague this effort in environmentalism. For now, there are limited opportunities to drop off one's compost. And it's a bit of hike. Will I be able to carry my compost (right now in a double-layer paper grocery bag) the mile or so with the stroller? Compost can get heavy, as the water in the food sinks to the bottom. So we'll see. My plan is to try this tomorrow, during their drop-off time in the early evening. Otherwise, I'll need to go, with Sean, in the car on Saturday.

Regardless of the hassle, I'm feeling motivated about composting. As the city's website says: "By recycling food, we reduce methane emissions at landfills that result from decaying organic matter. Methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide! Our goal is to divert at least 400 pounds/week, avoiding about 20,000 pounds of CO2 per year." (DPW) So it appears that composting is better for the environment than using a garbage disposal--something on first thought I figured was just as earth-friendly. And additionally, we've never recycled things like paper towels. I'm hoping that composting proves, if not as easy as recycling, not too troublesome. I'd really like to see the pilot program succeed.

The First Post

Here I am. I'm actually quite surprised that it took me this long to get here.

Why I'm here: I want a place to document the raising of my daughter and my attempt to establish a green, peace-focused household. My daughter turns 1 in less than two weeks and perhaps I'm feeling like her birthday is a perfect occasion to start down this road. It's becoming increasingly clear that she is now at an age when raising her goes beyond keeping her fed and safe. For almost her entire life up until now, our concerns have been to meet her basic needs. We've made decisions as to what to feed her and how to soothe her, for example. These were important decisions, but ones that seemed enclosed in our snug little house with just the three of us to measure the outcomes and to deal with the consequences. But now, the decisions we are beginning to face have repercussions that reach in to the future and outside of our house--into the world at large. She's not a baby anymore; she's no longer oblivious to us beyond the fact that we keep her happy. I'm no longer merely "The Boob." I'm "An Example." She's a young girl with a growing understanding of how the world works. I need to make conscious decisions as to how my husband and I are going to raise her. I need to be aware of how my behavior (practicing what I believe in and not merely professing my beliefs) shapes her developing world-view. What kind of person do we hope her to be? How do we instill the right priorities to get her there? How am I going to keep myself from swearing around her?

This is the aim for this blog. To record my life, all its choices, milestones, mistakes, successes, as I raise my daughter to be a teeny, greenie peacenik.