Ecominded Mama

A year of ecomindedness

I've been blogging about my efforts to be more ecominded for a year now, and I have to say that I'm pretty proud of the changes I've made. I certainly could be more ecominded in my actions (I've been wanting to buy a compost bin for at least a year, for example, but still haven't bought one), but all in all I'm doing a lot better than I was when I started this blog. I committed to changing my habits and my spending patterns whenever I could, and for the most part I've been satisfied and even incredibly surprised at how easy those changes were: I turn off my car when I think I'll be idling for more than 10 seconds, my dryer goes largely unused because I dry most of my family's laundry on clothes racks if the weather isn't amenable to me drying them outside on my clothesline, I pack snacks and leftovers in reusable containers, we fill our Klean Kanteen and Sigg bottles with water at home instead of buying bottled water (my 5-year-old did not lose her school Klean Kanteen bottle for even a DAY this year!), we unplug appliances we aren't using, and minimize our entertainment center's phantom load by hooking everything up to the Smart Strip. Am I singlehandedly saving the planet with these small changes? No. But I am making a difference, and that's something to celebrate. 

Minimizing products packaged in plastic

I took a look at my recycling bin recently and was somewhat surprised to only realize NOW, after nearly a year of consciously trying to reduce my environmental impact, that many of the products I'd bought in landfill-clogging plastic bottles could have been bought in paper packages instead. To name a few: bar soap in a paper box instead of liquid soap in a plastic bottle, and powder laundry and dishwasher detergent instead of liquids in bottles. I'm going to make an effort to choose products packaged in paper from now on whenever I have a choice.

Landscaping: Use what you have

We've been in the suburbs for just over two years now, and fixing up the yard has been on our to-do list ever since we moved. We did a lot of work last spring (tearing out dead and overgrown plants and shrubs and replacing them with healthy evergreens), but we ran out of money and inspiration when it came to choosing paving stones to separate our plants and the mulch surrounding them from the grass. We went to our local nursery, which we love the idea of (all organic, family-owned) but that seriously falls down in the customer-service department, but didn't see any that we liked. Then we went to Home Depot thinking that they'd have a larger selection, but again -- nothing that suited our taste. We pretty much decided to shelve the project, but then my husband had an idea: Why don't we collect some of the mid-size rocks that are scattered around the yard and use them? We spent about 90 minutes collecting and placing the rocks, with fantastic results (I'll post a picture in the next day or two... it's raining buckets here now). The rocks are small enough that they're unobtrusive, yet large enough to contain the mulch and provide a nice visual separation between the plants and grass. The rocks were free, and now other areas of the yard are more conducive to barefoot play -- bonanza!  

NYC clotheslines are back!

I'm still primarily relying on my clothes racks to dry our clothes, but I'm looking forward to using our clotheslines (see this and this) again (maybe even this weekend... the weather forecast says 78 degrees for tomorrow's high!). The article Sheets Flap, Socks Dance and Towels Just Hang Out in the NY Times got me excited to bring mine out of hibernation.

Buy replacement parts

I was in a baby store shopping for a gift for my friend the other day, and I happened to notice that they sold replacement valves for the sippy cups my daughters use. They didn't have what I needed -- replacement tops for those same sippy cups, which our dog chewed on -- so I looked online, and voila! Playtex sells sippy cup tops individually. It would never have occurred to me to look online for replacement parts for things like sippy cups, but buying just the part I was missing instead of a whole new cup saved me money and saved the three lidless sippy cups I had from going in the garbage (they aren't labeled for recycling). I'm going to remember this in the future when just a part of something breaks -- why buy a whole new one when I can replace the broken part?

Your garbage v. my garbage

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend yesterday on a most unexpected topic: garbage. I have no idea how we came to discuss it, but in the end we decided that her family produces about twice as much garbage as my family does. We are both married with two similarly-aged kids (and both, it's important to note, ecominded), but my family typically has one garbage can of trash per week (with two or three tall kitchen bags inside, to be specific) and her family typically has two cans. Without sorting through our actual garbage to see the differences, we talked about what generally gets thrown out and what gets recycled and there were no discernible differences between us. We ultimately determined that the difference was a result of the types of packaging we bought our products in -- she generally buys in small or "standard" quantities and I generally buy in bulk. I buy jugs of juice and serve it to the kids in (reusable) sippy cups; she buys juice boxes. She buys snack packs of crackers (like goldfish crackers) and I buy the gigantic 2.5+ pound box and serve them to the kids in a bowl. We were amazed at how much of a difference the packaging could make in the amount of garbage we generate. How does your garbage measure up?

Unplug the washer and dryer

I've heard this mantra for quite some time, and have been good about unplugging small appliances when not in use -- in my kitchen, the toaster, electric water kettle (which uses less energy to heat water than using a pot on the stove, btw), and coffee pot are unplugged. My printer is unplugged; the paper shredder that sits next to it is unplugged. I use a smart strip for our entertainment center in the living room.

But I never thought about the two phantom energy loads in the basement: my washer and dryer. I generally do laundry once a week, spread over two days (so that I can allow things to dry on my clothes racks and not run out of space), but the other five days neither the washer nor the dryer are used. They're sitting idle and unplugged now... quite possibly the simplest ecominded change I've made so far. 

10 Easy Changes to Make Today, Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day, here's my list of the easiest ecominded changes to make.

1. Change traditional incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent ones.

2. Bring your own reusable bags to the grocery store, mall, farmers market, pet store, take-out restaurant... anywhere you'd normally be given a bag to carry your purchase.

3. Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones.

4. Recycle.

5. Reuse things whenever possible: donate unwanted clothes to charity or have a clothing swap, use empty jam jars to store beauty supplies or buttons, buy used things rather than new ones.

6. Buy in bulk to reduce the amount of packaging required.

7. Lower your thermostat during the winter; raise it during the summer.

8. Only run full dishwasher and clothes washer loads.

9. Walk or use public transportation rather than drive.

10. Use just a little bit less of... everything.

Eco-focused coupon and discount sites

I heard about three sites that may be of interest to ecominded shoppers who love a bargain:

• GoGreenDeals.com is a daily blog that highlights sales and special discounts on a wide variety of products and services.

• Ecobunga.com focuses on "winning green" (highlighting giveaways of ecofriendly products) and "saving green" (coupons and discounts). 

• PristinePlanet.com bills itself as an ecofriendly comparison shopping site, but it also has some great offers in the Coupons section.

Please write if you know of other sites I should include here!

Ecofont

I love this one: By changing your font, you can use 20% less ink when printing documents. Ecofont has tiny holes in it that are imperceptible at 10 point and below (I can see them if I look really hard when printed in 11 point on my pretty low-end HP laser printer). The font was easy to download and install (clear instructions are provided) -- the only trick for me was looking for the font under its full name of "Spranq eco sans" rather than "ecofont" in Word's font list. It looks a little lighter on-screen, too, so I'd say it's best for people that actually print their documents, not just read them on-screen.