I found these facts regarding how long various items take to biodegrade after we’ve thrown them in the trash very interesting. Seeing that all BC residents will be receiving a cheque for $100 per family member for the Climate Action Dividend, why not use a small amount of that money to actually green your life?  Don’t forget you must register your children via this form to receive the dividend.

After reading the examples of how long items take to decompose in our landfills, why not pay that small extra amount to buy biodegradable garbage bags?  One very small step can make the huge difference of these petroleum based bags taking 20 years to break down in our landfill…and that’s if they have proper exposure to air, etc.  Or check out the time for a Styrofoam cup to decompose…100 years!  If you are a frequent coffee person that likes take-out, why not invest in a travel cup and carry it with you?  Small steps are going to help us clean up our mess. 

 (Source is the UK Department of the Environment)

• Plastic bags, 10-20 years
• Glass bottle - 1 million years
• Plastic Beverage Bottle - unknown, possibly 500+ years
• Cotton rags, 1-5 months
• Paper, 2-5 months
• Rope (natural fiber), 3-14 months
• Orange peels, 6 months
• Wool socks, 1-5 years
• Cigarette filters, 3-12 years
• Milk cartons, 5 years
• Leather shoes, 25-40 years
• Nylon fabric, 30-40 years
• Plastic 6-pack holder rings, 450 years
• Styrofoam cup, 100 years
• Banana peels, 2-10 days

A great question arrived recently via ‘Ask Suzanne’.  Here is a snippet:

“My kids love helping me clean the house, but I usually tell them that I am happy for their help but I don’t want them handling all those yucky cleaning products.  Do you know any good recipes for home made, eco and kid friendly cleaning solutions?”

I could not agree more.  I would love to hand my kids a rag when they follow me around wanting to help clean, but I don’t want them inhaling toxic products.  We all probably know the most common home made cleaning product - vinegar, but I’ve also included recipes that include baking soda, lemon juice, olive oil, and rubbing alcohol.  If anyone has other home made cleaning recipes that are favorites, please post them using the ‘comment’ feature.

I’m giddy after researching this question, because I had no idea vinegar has so many different uses.  I had no idea you can use it to kill weeds!  The front of my house is in need of a dandelion bombing, but I didn’t want to use toxic weed poison so this information is timely!  I’ll just fill up some squirt bottles with vinegar and let my boys have target practice….another eco friendly kid’s project.  Here are some other uses for vinegar:

Glass/window cleaner.  Mix 2 teaspoons white vinegar with 1 litre warm water to clean glass.  Use a soft cloth or crumbled newspaper to clean.  

Ant Repellent.  If you’re looking for an ant deterrent, white distilled vinegar is a natural product for this purpose when used to wipe counter tops, cabinets and floors.

Stainless steel appliance cleaner.  Apply vinegar to shammy or soft cloth and apply.

Fabric Softener.  Vinegar works great as a fabric softener substitute because it cuts detergent residue.  Add 1 cup of undiluted white vinegar in the rinse cycle - this is a good tip if you have a person with sensitive skin in your family.

Vinegar works as a deodorizer.  1 cup of apple vinegar set in a glass in the fridge will remove smells in 2 days.  Boil 1/4 cup white vinegar and mix with 1 cup water in the microwave and use to loosen food and it will deodorize at the same time.

White vinegar can be used to clean soap residue, bathtub film,  and toilet bowl stains.  3 cups of white distilled vinegar will deodorize your toilet if left for 1/2 hour.  Here is a recipe for toilet bowl cleaner:

Mix 1/4 cup baking soda and 1 cup vinegar.
Pour into bowl and let sit for a few minutes. Scrub.

This has nothing to do with cleaning, but I thought this was brilliant!  Apparently vinegar can fix a worn DVD that has begun to skip or suffers from freeze-frame (seriously!).  You apply vinegar to a soft cloth and wipe the DVD, ensure it’s dry, then insert into DVD player.  Good god, could it be this easy?  This one I’ll be trying tomorrow…stay tuned.

Baking soda is another commonly used home made cleaning product.  Get your child to sit on your kitchen floor, give him/her cups of vinegar and a box of baking soda.  They will believe they are mixing a ‘magic potion’ because of the fizzle/mild explosion effect.  The bigger the mess, the better, because you can clean your floors with the spills after play time is over.  Angelo washed his pennies doing little potions for over an hour last week.  It was a great way for him to pass the time and it forced mommy to wash the floors.
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I read an interesting article at our local Ecology Centre that describes how you can save money if you know the category your city’s water falls into:   Soft, Medium, or Hard.   If your water is soft, you can use 1/2 the recommended amount of laundry detergent and still have your clothes clean.

Why?  The target water category that detergent is developed for is medium to hard water.  The water in our city (Vancouver’s Lower Mainland) is categorized as ‘very soft’.  A few Canadian cities marked as having moderate to hard water are Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax.   Regina is listed as having very hard water.   Because cleaning product manufacturers’ typically recommend amounts based on moderate hardness, we having ’soft’ water can use much less detergents, starting at 1/2 the recommended amount and adjusting from there.  

The chemical that produces a ’sudsy’ action in cleaners is called  surfactants.   All detergents, personal/home care cleaning products, even toothpaste contain surfactants…they can be found in anything that produces suds and they increase the level of cleaning power.    Laundry detergents contain the highest level of surfactants.   When the amount of laundry detergent is overused to wash clothes, excess surfactants  get released  after treatment.   This can have a negative impact on fish and other aquatic life.   While saving money for your family is a bonus with reducing your amount of detergent, think of this action as one more way to help our local ecosystem.

I’ll admit I’ve never been an ‘accessories’ girl.   I own one watch (a Roots sports watch that has a night light so I can clock what ungodly hour my kids get me up), no jewelry, purses, umbrella, and really only 1 pair of shoes.  I wait until I’ve worn out my current pair of crocs or boots, then buy another pair to wear.   It’s not because I don’t want to look cute, I just know I’ll lose anything that isn’t nailed down to me.  I might be the last person on this planet that doesn’t own a cell phone.  It’s all I can do to keep track of my wallet and camera.  Oh yes, the 4 kids, their stuffed animals, snacks, change of clothes, diapers…. yikes!   No wonder I don’t have accessories.

However, lately I’ve been carrying a green reusable canvas tote for my wallet, kids’ snacks, diapers, etc. and I’m using it very proudly.   It might not be the most attractive bag ever, but if I loose it (give me a week and that thing is gone); I’m only out a few dollars.  I think I’m onto something…girls, can the canvas totes be our new Prada?   My sister was recently here with her latest Betsy Johnson purse and I was temped to  ask how much, where can I find one, etc., but I think I’m ok with my new discovery.    

Especially when using the canvas tote is in the top 10 ways to green your home.  Read the below from www.livescience.com:

“Eschew plastic bags by bringing your own reusable canvas totes the next time you’re at the supermarket or store. Because petroleum-based plastic isn’t biodegradable, it’s certain to outlive you-by about a millennium or so. Each year, thousands of marine animals, including the endangered leatherback turtle, choke to death on plastic trash they mistake for snackable morsels. Our unholy love for plastic disposables has also bred a swirling vortex of plastic trash the size of Texas in the North Pacific Ocean-not surprising when you consider that Americans run through about 100 billion plastic bags annually, using up an estimated 12 million barrels of oil.

You’ll easily forget about horrible plastic bags when you see the amazing totes found on Etsy.  I love this site devoted to selling handmade items.  Just to demonstrate that the reusable canvas tote doesn’t have to be ugly like my green selection…check out this one with owls!

Loose Caboose Designs is the adorable shop on Etsy that created this bag.

Happy Earth Day!  Find an Earth Day event in your community, have fun, and learn! 

My thanks to Suzanne C who wrote this article to assist the everyday consumer with purchasing paper goods that are the best environmental choice.  Not only is she an amazing mom of 2, but she works with her husband and his business, Wisent Environmental Inc. Based in Burnaby BC, Wisent Environmental works with businesses to deliver sustainable solutions for the way they purchase, manage, use and dispose of their supplies and materials.  Read on…

Increasingly, parents are looking for greener and more sustainable products and experiences when it comes to their children and families. People are making changes, and you see the evidence everywhere.  Folks are opting for thermoses for their daily coffee fix instead of throwing away paper or Styrofoam coffee cups, refilling water bottles instead of buying and disposing of them after each use, and bringing reusable bags for their trips to the grocery store. What about paper products?  It’s the simplest of items – things we buy for our households all the time.  Items like paper towels (if you’re not already using re-usable kitchen cloths such as microfiber instead) or bath tissue (there’s really no getting away from needing this) or even the seemingly endless supply of craft and drawing paper your children need for their daily drawing, colouring, cutting and pasting?

Here is a bit of a refresher on what exactly we should be looking for when we go to buy these paper products – made from our natural resource – trees.

“Recycled” Paper Products such as paper towels and bath tissue:

When purchasing paper products it is important to understand the “recycling logo” and its meaning. Paper that is designated as “recycled” can be a mixture of virgin wood fiber, pre-consumer waste and /or post-consumer waste.  It is important to consider that producing recycled paper produces 74% less air pollution, 35% less water pollution, and creates 5 times the number of jobs than producing paper from virgin paper sources - trees. It saves old-growth trees, forest ecosystems, native habitat and biodiversity - providing an all around much better choice for increasingly green conscious customers.

The difference between Pre-consumer and Post-consumer content in recycled paper:

Pre-consumer (sometimes referred to as Post-industrial) content is paper made out of  paper scraps and trimmings left over from the paper manufacturing process. These paper scraps and trimmings are easiest to recycle, as they do not have to be collected, separated, de-inked etc.  Post consumer waste (PCW) is paper that has been used by the end consumer and then is collected for recycling from various recycling programs.  This is the best paper to buy, as it uses and creates demand for paper that would normally end up in the landfill and no trees are cut down for making the paper.

When looking at the labeling on paper products we look for 2 numbers - the first expresses the percentage of total recycled content and the second number shows the post-consumer waste recycled content. For example, on a label that reads 50% recycled 20% PCW, this means of the 50% recycled content, 30% is pre-consumer recycled and 20% is post-consumer recycled, leaving 50% of the content coming from virgin fiber.  100% post-consumer waste (PCW) is of course the best environmental choice.

Another note – if something says its “recyclable” that only means it can be recycled and pretty much any paper product can be recycled so it’s really an empty statement.  Worse, it probably means the product had no better redeeming environmental qualities to state so it’s likely made from 100% virgin fibers…and that’s our trees.
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