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

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.