Mother's going GREEN Day 61 - Signs of Change?

Sometime ago I watched the movie "An Inconvenient
Truth" with Al Gore, I did enjoy it but both my husband and I preferred the one called "The 11th Hour". narratted by Leonardo DiCaprio. One scene in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" stands out for me and in my daily life I often recall it. It is at the end of the movie and Al Gore is walking through an airport terminal and the voice over is of him speaking: "I keep looking for signs of change..."

I too keep looking for signs of environmental change.... I live in a small community and as I go about my daily life I feel good about the choices I am making and can visualize the impact - but then I go into the larger city and I see sooo many people and I watch them with all their plastic shopping bags and I wonder.... is change happening.... it seems difficult to see amongst those plastic shopping bags - the too much plastic packaged merchandise - the rows and rows of toxic products in the big box stores - the many many cars on the road - and how people toss out their garbage without a care in the world.

I have - when I go out and need to grab a quick something to eat - bring my garbage home with me as I feel there are not enough option for me to properly dispose of my garbage. Sure there is a box for glass bottles and perhaps cans next to the garbage bin - but what about the plastics and the paper. Today I brought home the banana peel from my banana (food for my worms) The empty juice bottle and a paper napkin - just so I could dispose of it properly.

Then I return home to my smaller community, were life seems simpler and I feel I can make a difference. Do I see the signs in my own community - to be honest very little - but it is a smaller scale and I at least feel more hopeful....

Mother's going GREEN Day 46 - Children's Eco-Craft

Today's Eco-craft was crafted without my children . Their dad had the day off so they spent some quality time with him, and I according to my husband I was "sticking garbage together to hang on our door." Today I made a wreath out of recyclables.

Go Green Wreath

You will need:

-- Twigs (flexible ones) We collected ours the other day from the woods near our house

-- Recyclable items. (It can be anything) I used: Cardboard egg carton, pop bottle caps, milk jug lids, plastic bag from fruits, large yoghurt container lid, milk jug & the shower scrubby.

-- Paint and paint brush

-- Glue

-- String

Instructions: (with adults help if required)

-- Bend twigs into circular shape to create a wreath (tie as required)

-- Using the glue (glue gun works best) decorate wreath with recycled materials.

I used:

-- The shower scrubby for the 'ribbon' on the wreath

-- The yoghurt lid painted with the recycling sign

-- Colourful circular accents are the milk jug lids

-- The 'Go Green' sign was painted on a plastic piece cut from the milk jug

-- To make the 'pop top flowers' we cut 2 sections of a cardboard egg carton, painted the inside green. Glued a circular piece of clear fruit bag plastic to the centre to create a petal effect and then glued a bottle top in the centre as the flowers center.

Voila - we had our wreath. Be creative there are limitless possibilities to creating a wreath with a recycled theme.

Enjoy displaying your wreaths so everyone will know that you are 'Green'.

Mother's going GREEN Day 39 - Childrens Eco-Craft

This weeks craft can be used to add some scent to your home. We hung one in the cupboard were our garbage can is and another in our laundry room above the dirty cloth diaper bucket.

Cinnamon and Spice Rope

You will need:

-- Plastic bag

-- 3 x Cinnamon Sticks

-- 2 x Coffee Filters

-- Spice/Herbs

-- String

-- Ring (optional - I used a ring from an old key chain)

Instructions: (with an adults help if required)

-- Cut the plastic bag into strips (at least 6 fairly long strips). Lay the bag flat and cut up from the bottom into strips.

-- Tie at least 6 strips of the plastic bag to the ring. If you do not have a ring you can use a piece of string with the ends tied together to create a loop.

-- Braid the plastic bags (2 strips for each part of the braid). Tie it off when you reach the end with string or an extra plastic strip.

-- Take the coffee filters and place about 2 teaspoons of herbs/ spice in the centre. Pinch together and tie - see picture to right

-- Finally tie the cinnamon sticks and spice pockets to the braided plastic and hang up.

Mother's going GREEN Day 27 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on Plastics

So we made the switch from plastic water bottles and sippy cups to the stainless steel variety. The most popular being Klean Kanteen. They are great. I did though find out too that there are safer plastics than others out there and will share some info with you:

SAFER: If it is a #2 HDPE (high density polyethylene), or a #4 LDPE (low density polyethylene), or a #5 PP (polypropylene)- safer plastic for use as food and drink containers AVOID: #6 PS (polystyrene) - can leach styrene, a brain and nervous system toxicant, associated with advesre effects on red blood cells, liver, kidneys and stomach in animal studies.

AVOID: Other plastics not found in numbers listed above which includes polycarbonate plascti made with bisphenol A (BPA). BPA can leach from polycarbonate plastic, especially when heated. It is a hormone disrupter, linked to the early onset of puberty, obesity, recurrent miscarriages, decreased sperm productions, and is associated with breast and prostate cancer.

Holy Camoly, pretty unnervinfg stuff. I for the most part am going to try and aviod plastic of pretty much all kinds, unless it is noted clearly to be the safer plastic as listed above. The Kleen Kanteen has plaxtic lids but is of the safe plastic.

I will keep you updated on my purge of plastics and what I plann to use as substitutions. For starters there will be no more milk in plastic jugs but in the cardboard cartons.

For more information visit: http://www.toxicnation.ca/

Mother's going GREEN Day 21 - Shopping the eco-friendly way

Yes, there can be an environmentally way to shop.

• Shop less (do we really need everything that we buy - lets think how quick the excitement of the product you buy will wear off - especially when it comes to children's toys)
• Shop locally - support your local businesses in your community, often the business in our community in turn support the community we live in. Also, it will help foster relationships which is also a good thing.
• Locally made - Shop for locally made products. Support your country's economy.
• Shop online (my personal favourite) - when you shop on eBay or Craig's list you can choose to buy second hand items (recycling) "one mans junk is another's treasure" and many of the warehouses use much less energy than your conventional store.
• Packaging - try to purchase items with minimal packaging. Today, I was so excited to buy my infant a baby rattle (made no less with the environment in mind) it is made with wood and natural fibres packaged with recycled paper and none of those plastic ties which you land up having to pry from the toys with some sort of sharp object. This toy had natural string holding it on the board - a simple knot to untie and toy was ready for enjoyment. (pictured on right)
• Bring your own bag - always bring your own bag or try to anyway.

References for this post was from a book I have on hand "Green for Life (200 simple Eco-Ideas for Every day)" by Gillian Deacon

Mother's going GREEN Day 20 - Those darn plastic bags

Even though we long ago said "NO PLASTIC BAGS" one or two always make their way back into our home via my husband. As soon as he walks in the door he apologises - but he did not have any fabric bags with him and they just gave him a bag anyway is his excuse. It is a challenge to teach an old dog new tricks. First off I have suggested to him to just say no - no to plastic bags the cashier does not take any offense to it; and also at all times to have a bag ready. But I guess for some men remembering to take a bag with them everywhere they go can be quite a feat.

These plastic bags are like cockroaches - always around and no matter what lengths you take to get rid of them they always seem to be there and like cockroaches they will probably be around long after too - give or take a few hundred years.

Today, I told my husband that I am not getting rid of anymore plastic bags he accidentally brings home. I will be reusing them in several ways. I have found a website that gives you detailed instructions on how to make "fabric" out of them (he might be wearing a rain jacket soon from the bags he brings home). There is also many websites that offer crochet patterns for plastic bags. I love to crochet so I might be doing a bit of that with the bags. I already have 2 crafts that I will be utilizing the plastic bags in my children's Eco-craft Friday's. So my dear hubby better watch out - he might soon find himself among a ton of creative re-incarnations of the "plastic bag".

Some serious facts about the plastic bag:

• Well over a billion single-use plastic bags are given out for free each day.
• Each year billions of bags end up as ugly litter.
• Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.
• Production requires vast amounts of oil.
• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

The above facts and more plus possible solutions can be found on the following website: http://www.reusablebags.com/facts.php

Treehugger provides some pictures of 'plastic' fabric clothing and some links to places on how you too can make your own fabric or perhaps your next crochet project - just visit the following link: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/diy_plastic_bag.php