bring your own water bottle

i'm just going to get straight to the point: did you know that bottled water costs 1000 times more than tap water? every time you buy a bottle of water, you're throwing money away! and your tap water is, in most cases, better drinking water than bottled water (however, if you have nasty tap water, just buy a filter - it may seem a little pricey but it will end up being way cheaper than constantly buying bottled water).

not only that, but those little plastic bottles take quite a toll on the environment. every year, the world throws away 1.5 billion tons of plastic. that's pretty gross, and to make it worse, it takes over 1000 years for plastic to break down. ew! if you really have to buy a bottle of water, make sure you recycle it! then think about this: it takes 1.5 billion gallons of oil every year to transport bottled water. and that's not including the chemicals used in the manufacturing of the bottles. tap water just makes more sense all around.

if you still aren't convinced, how about this: plastic water bottles have phthalates in them. phthalates are nasty little buggers that mimic estrogen (they are endocrine disruptors). what does that mean? it means that girls go through puberty at an earlier age and boys become emasculated. reusing plastic bottles isn't really a great solution, because even more phthalates are released the older the bottle gets.

so what is one to do? fortunately there are plenty of alternatives. the ones made out of aluminum are really good, but you can get plastic ones. just make sure it is hard plastic, because the chemicals don't leach out of those; they are #5PP, #2HDPE, and #4LDPE. i use the sigg water bottle, which is aluminum. this is the one i use:

isn't he cute? yeah, it's made for a kid, but i didn't feel like carrying around a huge bottle. i love this thing and take it with me to school every day. the other neat thing about these (besides the fact that you are saving the environment) is that you don't have to put water in there. let's say you feel like some orange juice in the morning...just fill it up and then you can rinse it out and fill it with water later - for free! the bottle cost me around $20 but it's paid for itself several times over already.

like i said, there are tons of options. you can check out the kleen kanteen or new wave enviro products, but that is by no means an exhaustive list. there are plenty of reusable bottles out there.

a bit more on paper...

as if you needed any more things to be crammed in your head since that last post...but i forgot to touch on junk mail - a big paper waster. aren't we all tired of getting catalogs and credit card offers that we barely even acknowledge? well, first of all, you can try contacting the organizations directly and tell them to stop sending you things. if you don't feel like doing all the work, then check out 41 pounds. you have to pay $41 to sign up for this but it stops unwanted junk mail for five years. you can also put in the names of everyone else living in the same household, and then you just type in the names of all the places sending you junk. not only that, but you can choose a charity for them to donate a portion of your money to, and depending on the organization, they will plant 15 to 150 trees on your behalf. another organization is green dimes. this does basically the same thing and costs $20 a year. they will also plant five trees for every member who signs up, which is pretty cool. finally, if you don't feel like spending money, you can at least stop the catalogs from coming in with catalog choice. you sign up for free, and then either search or browse through their existing list of catalogs and check off the ones you no longer want to receive. if the ones you are getting aren't on the list, just let them know so they can add it. easy! so what are you waiting for? i think i'm going to try catalog choice first and see how that works, as well as contacting people directly and letting them know i am not interested in receiving mail from them.

recycling

our top five items for this week are about recycling. everyone knows the three r's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. reducing what you consume comes first; the less you consume, the less waste you produce. second is reusing - whatever you do end up buying or consuming should be reused when possible (plastic bags for instance). finally, you should recycle anything that can't be reused anymore. while recycling should be the final and last resort of the three r's, it doesn't mean that it isn't important! i'm going to cover recycling paper and clothing.

first - paper. in most places, paper (including cardboard) is extremely easy to recycle. some don'ts for the recycling of paper are: greasy or food contaminated items (like pizza boxes), wax paper, carbon paper, sticky paper (such as post-its), and laminated paper. but other paper, including magazines and newspapers, can generally all be recycled together. but, rather than recycling right away, see if you can donate your old magazines to the library, hospital, or doctor's office - reuse before recycle! you can also use the pages for gift wrap or for kids arts and crafts projects. i wrapped all my christmas presents in newspaper this year, and no one thought i was being cheap, they all thought it was a cool way to recycle. phone books are another item that can be recycled (if you happen to have a rabbit, you may want to give them your old phone books as they love to chew on them). now, for shredded paper. there are those papers that you can't recycle, and you just have to shred. well, i use them for bedding for my numerous little critters (gerbil, mouse, and hamster). the shredded paper works wonderfully, and i haven't had to spend money on expensive bedding from the pet store. you can also compost the shredded paper straight from the shredder, or use it as packing material. it's WAY better than those nasty styrofoam peanuts! and i just compost my shreddings after cleaning up after my critters (you can compost waste from animals that don't eat meat, so these guys pass the test; but don't try to compost your dog or cat poo).

if you first want to reduce the amount of paper that you have to recycle, you can pay bills online - almost everyone offers this service now. you can do online banking, which cuts out a lot of paper use. also, you can email whenever possible. i know, sometimes emailing can be unprofessional or tacky (like wedding invitations), but a lot of times, an email will suffice.

and one last thought on paper - if you truly want to go full circle with recycling, you should also buy recycled paper products. this includes regular old paper, but also paper towels, toilet paper, tissues, and napkins. or you could start using cloth towels and napkins to replace the disposable kind, and - dare i say it - handkerchiefs. think about this: in the u.s., if every household replaced one box of tissues with a box of 100% recycled ones, it would save 163,000 trees. if the same was done for only one roll of toilet paper it would save 423,900 trees. for paper towels, it would save 544,000 trees. finally, if one package of napkins in every u.s. household was replaced with 100% recycled ones, it would save one million trees. everything you do makes a difference, so think before you buy. here's a handy list of brands to buy and who to avoid. the recycled products tend to be a little more expensive, but it's totally worth it. just think of all the trees that you will be saving.

second - clothing. the best way to recycle clothing is thrift stores. i love thrift stores. how can you not love them? you can get super cheap clothing and you're money is going towards a good cause. check out the pages for goodwill and salvation army if you aren't already familiar with them. but as for recycling, you can just donate all of the old clothes you don't wear anymore to either of these places, or any other thrift store near you. there are other places that you can donate clothing to and shop at that are a bit more upscale, for those of you who don't like sifting through the acid washed jeans and muu muus and xxl garth brooks concert t-shirts. plato's closet is one such place. they give you money for your "brand name, gently used" clothes. there is one in deptford, nj that i go to occassionally and i never leave there without buying something amazing. there is also the freecycle option. if you aren't signed up for freecycle you should definitely do it. it's an email list and when you sign up for it, you get emails from people in your area who are getting rid of stuff. and you send out emails telling people that you have stuff you want to get rid of. you don't pay for anything, all you have to do is be able to go pick it up from them. it's a great way to get rid of old clothing if you can't drop it at a thrift store (not to mention all the other junk you can rid of in this way). one little suggestion though - it can get pretty crazy with all the emails, so you may want to use a separate account so your regular emails don't get lost in them.

since this is turning into an exceptionally long post, i'm just going to leave you with that. remember: reuse and recycle your paper and buy recycled paper; and recycle your clothes via thrift or consignment stores or freecycle. you'll be glad once you do.

more about laundry

ok, so now you know about saving energy (and water) while doing laundry. but there's more! namely, the detergent you use. this is a big deal. to begin with, here are some things you are likely to find in regular laundry detergents:

• linear alkyl sodium sulfonates: skin, lung, and eye irritants; nonbiodegradable; toxic - release a carcinogen during manufacturing process. ew.
• alkyl phenols, nonylphenols, nonylphenol ethoxylate: first of all...what? i can barely say these words. hormone disruptors, bioaccumulative (builds up the higher up it goes in the food chain), nonbiodegradable, or they degrade into even more toxic compounds. nice.
• ethanolamines: skin, lung, and eye irritants; corrosive and carcinogenic; absorbed through the skin and cause damage to liver, kidney, and nervous system. mmm.
• sodium silicate: skin, lung, and eye irritant, allergen, corrosive, not biodegradable. are you sensing a theme here?
• sodium sulfate: skin and lung irritant, allergen, can cause asthma attacks, corrosive, biodegrades very slowly.
• sodium hypochlorite: skin, eye, and lung irritant; corrosive; damages liver, kidneys, blood, heart, immune and respiratory systems; really bad for people with asthma and heart conditions; forms toxic compounds in environment, harms plant life, toxic to aquatic life.
• sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate: eye and skin irritant, toxic when it degrades.
• Triethylene glycol: toxic to aquatic life when it gets in groundwater.
• trisodium nitrilotriacetate: again with not being able to pronounce these things...this is a known carcinogen, and eye and skin irritant, and is bad for aquatic life.

wow...just wow. i sure don't want this stuff rubbing all over my skin - almost all of them are skin irritants! they are just terrible for the environment and for you. detergents contian phosphates - water with the detergents in it gets into our water system, and phosphorus ends up in the ocean. why is this so bad? phosphorus leads to eutrophication, which is when algae blooms take over and kill everything else that lives there, due to lack of oxygen and sunlight. algae LOVES phosphorus and it makes it grow huge.

also, i may be alone in this, but when i'm walking outside and someone is doing their laundry, and that dryer sheet smell floats through the air - it gives me a major headache. blech. i hate those fake flowery smells that smell nothing like what they're supposed to. again - blech. so - here are your alternatives:

• biokleen
• caldrea
• citra-solve
• country save
• earth friendly products
• ecover
• method
• mountain green
• mrs. meyer's clean day
• naturally yours
• seventh generation

i saved the best for last - i LOVE seventh generation detergent. it smells awesome and i don't get those nasty headaches from the smell. oh, and they have the best scent - blue eucalyptus and lavender. yum. check out the websites and read about all the fab features of these non-toxic detergents, and next time you go to the store, get one of these instead.

saving energy

before i start, you should go check out the top 5 list on how to save energy over at green your life.

so, if you are looking for an easy way to start saving energy at home, look at how you do your laundry. first of all, you should only wash full loads (this also goes for your dishwasher). your washing machine is going to use the same amount of energy no matter what, and if you don't fill it, you're just wasting water. your machine works most efficiently when it is full. and if you think you can get away with doing a few smaller loads, think about this: two small loads are using up more water than just one full load. anyway, if you're anything like me, you are probably waiting to do laundry until the last possible moment, when you have absolutely nothing left to wear; filling the machine is no problem. just don't cram it too full, because then it won't be able to work very well.

second - always use cold water when you are doing laundry. hot water is NOT going to get your clothes any cleaner. most of the energy used when doing laundry (85-90%!) goes toward heating the water. think of all that energy you're saving by not heating the water at all. and if that's not incentive enough, hot water is worse for your clothes. it wears at them more quickly and makes colors fade faster; cold water is your best option all around.

if you're not convinced, i've been doing both of these things since i first started doing laundry myself...my clothes are always clean plus i'm saving a ton of energy. oh, and another thing - you can also use a little less energy by using a shorter wash cycle; detergents do all the work they can in the first ten minutes, so after that you're just wasting energy and time. also, if you're in the market for a new washing machine, check out the energy star certified ones.

for a class at temple, i am doing a group project which is going to examine how to live a more eco-friendly life. we are going to be giving a top-5 list of different ways to make changes in specific areas of your life, and also test out the methods to let you know what works and what doesn't. check out the blogs of my two group members to get the top-5 list and another perspective on what ideas work and which ones don't.