Mother's going GREEN Day 104 - Garbage and Recycling

I am really excited about an article I read in our local newspaper. The district has decided to only pick up our garbage every 2nd week. Why am I excited, well, people will have to create less garbage. On garbage pick up day, every week, I see garbage cans filled to the brim and now if we have pick up every 2 weeks this will have to be halved which forces people to consider what they are throwing away as garbage.

At the same time they will be implementing curb side recycling (currently we have to drop off our recycling at various depots in town). Now every other week they will pick up our recycling they will give a large tote to put our recyclables in - I know our recycling bin will be close to over flowing and I hope other's recycling totes will be too.

I am so thrilled about this new decision although I have read about many complaints too. Many seem to be concerned that their is just too much garbage and pick up every 2 weeks is not sufficient enough. To them I say: Just recycle more - If I can reduce my garbage to a can a month then you can do it too.

Click here to read the full article as it appeared in our local paper

Mother's going GREEN Day 98 - Laptop Lunches

Pretty much every mom who is writing a green blog has blogged about Laptop Lunches. So you know that they must be pretty darn good.

My story starts in my search for a 'green' lunch container. Back in the day when I only had one child and worked while he attended daycare - I prepared the best lunches. I had searched out these plastic containers with dividers as I liked to send several items in one container and when I found them a t a dollar store stocked up on many of then. Being from a dollar I doubt very much that they were produced from a safe plastic. But live and learn.

Anyway in my greenness I again went on a search. My preferred lunch box would have been stainless steel but I could not find any that was compartmentalized (is there even such a word). I kept running into laptop lunch boxes. I then started looking at them much more seriously and decided to purchase one for my son and his going to school. Let me tell you I am excited. It is though made from plastic - but safe plastic. I am not so crazy about the bottle it comes with, but my son will be taking his Klean Kanteen to school with his beverage.

I have always been and will always be for packing a healthy lunch. Fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. and with the laptop lunch box system it just makes it so much easier and not to mention fun.

This mother who is going green definitely recommends this system and I think everyone should have it. Even adults who take their lunch to work.

If you get a complete system as I did it comes with a handy little book with some fun ideas for lunches as well as some interesting facts on the amount of garbage produced by traditional school lunch systems:

-- The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation estimates that one student taking a disposable lunch to school every day will create 45 - 90 pounds of garbage per year.

That figure is not hard to believe considering the plastic wrap or bag that the sandwich is packed in. What about all those snacked size items that you can buy to put in lunches - juice boxes, paper napkins, plastic cutlery and straws. Well starting with us that is all about to stop with the laptop lunch system. I love it.

To truly appreciate this product and all that it offers be sure to check out the website: http://www.laptoplunches.com/

Mother's going GREEN Day 30 - Let's talk Trash

On Day 2 of my blog, I spoke about our families 6 bags of garbage and how I needed to get that down, especially since on a whole we produce way to much garbage.

So today, Wednesday, garbage pick up day - I am proud to say that we only had 2 bags of garbage to throw out - a big drop from the 6 bags we originally had which was the norm. My husband even said "Hey, we do not even need to put the garbage can out for pick-up." And we didn't - but I put it out anyway as I want an empty garbage can for my next challenge - which is "One Can a Month". I know our family can make this challenge, we pretty much have with our 2 bag a week - but now that I have accomplished that - I want 1 bag a week. Lets see if I can do it. Can you do it? Join the challenge and find out.

Some of you may ask how did I do it? Simple really. First off I got rid of the disposable diapers, then we have our worm compost and we feed it lots. We feed it so much we needed to get more worms to eat it all - but in the end we are going to have great fertilizer. I also took more notice of what I was throwing into the garbage, simple things like plastic candy wrappers, paper clothes labels, the plastic do-hickeys that hold the clothes labels onto the clothes, paper receipts, the plastic that the bread comes in, the plastic do-hickey thing that holds the bread closed and many more small things that can be recycled. It is by doing this that I became aware that I was throwing away stuff no matter how small could that could still be recycled and now that is what we do. We recycle a lot more.

Word of the day in case you did not notice "do-hickey" and "recycled" .

Join the challenge of one trash can a month and to get more information visit: http://www.enviromom.com/enviromom/join-enviromoms-one-can-a.html

Mother's going GREEN Day 6 - Simple things CAN make a difference

I was reminded today that simple things can make a difference....

In my on-going journey to reduce our family's ecological footprint, I am looking at the what I am throwing out without much thought. One of the items is receipts. Paper receipts from stores. While it may not be a big thing it all adds up. A statistic I posted earlier says that 1/3 of garbage is paper products. These can be reused and recycled and not tossed out.

Recently I had to run to a store to purchase on item and left with a receipt of 11inches long (photo to the right) for one item. I have never been one to keep receipts, If I buy it I usually want it and don't plan on returning it, but I also usually just throw them out.

Today, I have decided to keep them and reuse them. Our family keeps a pad of paper stuck on the fridge where we write our grocery list. It is a running list as when something runs out we just note it on the list. From today on I will be using the back of my foot long receipts. I have a nice magnetic fridge clip that will keep them together nicely and who knows now if I ever do need to return something I will have the receipt.

This way I will reuse the paper and then be sure to recycle it.

Mother's going GREEN Day 2 - Wednesday is Garbage Pick Up Day

How Charming - Our weeks worth of garbage....5 standard garbage bags.

Lets look at my garbage:

• 2 garbage bags in picture above contain disposable diapers (remember I have a toddler and an infant)
• I would say the another 11/2 could be kitchen waste (those kids don't always eat all the food served to them and then it is those fruit & vegetable peelings, coffee filters etc.)
• The remainder I am not certain

General facts about North American garbage:

• an adult produces 600 times their weight in garbage over their life time. Now that's 40825 kilograms for a 68 kilogram adult. - Natural Resources Canada
• 1/3 of our garbage is paper and paperboard, 1/3 is kitchen and yard wast and rest is made up of glass,metals, plastics, textiles wood and other materials - Environment Canada
• Americans create nearly 210 million tons of garbage each year. About 31/2 pounds of garbage is thrown away every day in the US - http://garbage.wikidot.com/garbage3
  

Hopefully, by this time next week I can get rid of a couple of bags of garbage:

• I will be more mindful of what is going into the trash
• Look at composting our organic kitchen and yard waste
• Switch to cloth diapers instead of disposable

Stay logged on and lets see what becomes of my garbage.