One thing Recycla has to do every year at this time is take packages to the post office to be shipped hither and yon. She has relatives scattered around the country, which means sending gifts to loved ones near and far. Over the years, she has learned to be efficient, eco-friendly, and budget-minded when shipping packages.
Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, living green on a budget
Nothing, not even a week in Italy with George Clooney, could induce Enviro Girl to go shopping on Black Friday. The last predictions she read indicated 77 million people planned to shop that day, mostly with plans to buy stuff for themselves. Consumption and consumerism has shaded most people’s Christmas season. There’s no escaping the message from the advertisements: buying stuff will make us all happier. The reality is that going on a spending frenzy at the mall has absolutely zilch to do with joy or peace on earth.
As happens this time every year, Recycla and her family are starting to get holiday party invitations in the mail. At this point, her family has one afternoon open house, one evening neighborhood party, a New Year’s Day open house, one holiday concert, and the potential for one or two more events. (These are all family-centric events; the invitations that are not usually get declined. After all, a big part of the holidays is being with one’s loved ones.)
Attending holiday parties means that everyone in Recycla’s house needs appropriate outfits to wear. While this could be an expensive undertaking, it doesn’t have to be.
Posted in clothes, eco holidays, eco kids, living green on a budget
With Thanksgiving coming hard and fast next week, followed by the five week juggernaut known simply as The Holidays, the chances are really good that you’re going to be doing some entertaining in the next six weeks. Whether you’re hosting an intimate dinner for six or an open house for 60, Recycla has some ideas for making your gatherings fun and easy for you, but also easy on Planet Earth.
Posted in eco holidays, house stuff, living green on a budget
You don’t have to spend much to create a lovely home for the holidays. The Eco Women encourage you to skip the faux garland, plastic pine cones and vinyl wreaths sold at craft stores and Big Box stores. For almost no money and even better effect, you can find plenty to use for decorating in your own back yard. Last year Eco Lassie gave lots of ideas for using natural decorations, from pine boughs to sea shells, pine cones to berries. (And if you don’t have a back yard, many tree lots will give away the trimmings from Christmas trees or sell them cheap.)
Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, living green on a budget
Tagged bring it inside to decorate for the Christmas season, decorate out of your back yard for the holidays, easy holiday decorating with nature, green decorations for holidays, ideas for natural Christmas decorations, natural holiday decorations, plastic-free holiday decorations, save money by decorating naturally
With Thanksgiving just next week, many people have already started their holiday shopping or are about to. Here’s the big question: How are you going to wrap all those gifts? If you said metallic wrapping paper finished off with a plastic bow, think again. Most wrapping papers are made in China using lots of toxic chemicals, by people not making a living wage, and then shipped halfway across the world to your local big box store.
A friend of Recycla’s recently started making her own laundry detergent and has written a guest post tell you how easy and economical it is:
I have always been a good steward of coupons, but they became even more precious to me when I had children. I knew that our cost of living would increase per bundle of joy, but unfortunately, the redemption amount on coupons does not keep pace as families grow. This is especially true for coupons associated with laundry care. While a $0.25 coupon for a small box of detergent may have served my husband and me well, that same coupon fails to carry much weight for the super-duper economy-sized box of detergent that is needed to keep my family of six clean. Family, in my case, means two adults, 2 children, and 2 dogs. Laundry is serious business in my house.
Posted in house stuff, living green on a budget
Enviro Girl’s grandparents lived through the Great Depression. Like many people of their generation, they were prone to saving everything, throwing out as little as possible because “you never know when you’ll need it.” This resulted in cupboards filled with empty jars, drawers stuffed with bits of string and lengths of fabric scraps and closets overflowing with empty cardboard boxes and old newspapers. Enviro Girl tends toward the “purging” end of the Spartan/Pack Rat spectrum, but appreciates the thrift behind saving “junk.” Plus, a lot of “junk” can be quite useful and recycled, saving some money and some landfill space. Here are 8 things Enviro Girl saves from the garbage bin and reuses or recycles:
1. Gift wrap. There’s no shame at her in-laws’ Christmas gathering, at the end of the gift opening, all the bows and lengths of ribbon get tossed into bags to be used again for the next gift-giving occasion. Enviro Girl actually ties up her presents with good quality fabric ribbon, which can get used over and over again (plus she thinks ribbon is classier than plastic bows). She hasn’t bought a gift bag, ribbon or bows in years–she stores those gift wrapping items in a closet and has a gift bag handy for any and all occasions.
2. Plastic containers with lids. There’s never a need to buy plastic bags when you’ve got a shelf laden with empty and clean sour cream/cream cheese/yogurt/ice cream containers. Enviro Girl uses those plastic containers to freeze fruits and vegetables, she stores leftovers in them, heck, she and her sons even use them to store their mouth guards for karate! When Enviro Girl brings a meal to celebrate a new home or baby, she generally can tell her friends, “You don’t need to return any of the containers.”
3. Old clothes and linens. Ratty clothes become rags. The buttons come off (to be used in crafts or to replace missing buttons on viable clothes) and the fabric gets cut up as required. Enviro Girl never met a mess, a spill, a dirty car or a cruddy refrigerator that an old t-shirt couldn’t get clean.
4. Envelopes. Those enclosed envelopes from solicitors or bills are a great resource for storing coupons and jotting down grocery lists. Enviro Girl most frequently uses these envelopes to send along field trip money for her sons at school. She almost never needs to buy envelopes, she gets supplied for free through the mail!
5. Boxes. Like her grandmothers, Enviro Girl does keep a number of empty cardboard boxes in all sizes handy. She uses them for packing and shipping. She uses them to transport donations to the local thrift store. Old boxes get laid down in her vegetable garden to serve as weed control if she can find no other use for them.
6. Shopping Bags. Even though Enviro Girl brings her own, every now and then someone will bring her something wrapped in a plastic or paper shopping bag. She saves these for all kinds of situations. Wet swimsuit and towel after a day at the beach? Plastic bag keeps everything else dry while storing the wet items. Need to leave a few books on your neighbor’s front porch? A plastic bag will keep them safe from the elements. Sending a kid home from a play date laden with miscellaneous toys and articles of clothing? Shopping bag will keep everything together.
7. Broken dishes. Piled in the bottom of potted plants, they create wonderful drainage and prevent root rot.
8. Corks. A bit of cork can pad the bottoms of furniture, the backs of picture frames, the base of a candle or knickknack and protect your walls and wood surfaces.
Recycling stuff out of your garbage conserves landfill space and other resources. Enviro Girl is confident she’ll never get featured on an episode of Hoarders, but she’s also confident that her cupboards and drawers have that odd article when she needs it–be it spare rubber band or safety pin or button.
Tell the Eco Women: what do you save and re-purpose out of your garbage bin?
Americans will spend an average of $66.28 on Halloween this year if past years are any indicator–a grand total of $6 billion! A portion of that $66.28 will get spent on consumable stuff, mostly candy. The rest will get spent on costumes, decorations and miscellaneous crappe. Now, much of the candy will get eaten, many of the costumes will get recycled, but a lot of packaging and excess stuff will end up in landfills. While Enviro Girl doesn’t consider herself a huge holiday Scrooge, she won’t spend the average on Halloween. Consuming less and spending less can make Halloween a greener holiday.
For starters, Enviro Girl’s family will recycle costumes. Instead of buying a brand new concoction of nylon/vinyl/plastic from a Big Box Store, Enviro Girl and her family will raid the toy bin and their own closets to create costumes for trick-or-treating and parties. Enviro Girl will use lipstick and eyeliner on her sons to give them zombie/football player/vampire faces. They’ll use glue, thread and safety pins to patch together their various accessories and get creative reusing stuff out of their garage and basement. Team Testosterone will go trick-or-treating using the same canvas bags they’ve used for the past 4 Halloweens, no need to buy treat bags or buckets.
Enviro Girl grew her own fall decorations–lots of pumpkins and gourds. She and her sons made some bats and other spooky creatures out of construction paper, paint and old egg cartons. Many websites have great ideas on how to brew up your own, unique Halloween decorating on the cheap. An old white sheet can make ghosts that hang from tree branches or drape in front of windows. White chalk can outline cadavers on the driveway or etch skulls on framed photographs. Enviro Girl even filled old canning jars with beets and carrots from her garden–adding some colored water made them look like eerie science experiments. Check out Family Fun Magazine or Martha Stewart for more cheap decorating ideas.
Halloween is not for gifts–there’s no need to spend money on trifles and trinkets. The objective for this holiday is to get your spook on and raid the neighborhood for treats. To this end, Enviro Girl will give no presents–her sons will contribute home-baked goods to their classroom parties and she’ll give candy to the little ghouls and goblins on the front porch come Halloween night. Her family will go trick-or-treating and the boys will load up on candy. This October they’ll go to a “haunted zoo” to enjoy a scary hayride while admiring the carved pumpkins and animals all over the zoo. They’ll attend a few Halloween parties where people will dance and play goofy games while wearing costumes. They’ll carve pumpkins and bake cookies. They’ll watch a mildly frightening movie (or two). On the consumption scale, these activities rank fairly low.
Enviro Girl will spend about $20 on Halloween shopping this year–on candy and recipe ingredients, consumable goods that leave change in Enviro Girl’s pocket. Treading light on the planet means consuming less so you throw away less. You can spend less and use less while making Halloween just as much fun, spooky and thrilling.
Tell us, reader. What will you spend on Halloween this year? Can you match Enviro Girl’s $20?
Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, eco kids, green around the world, living green on a budget
Tagged consume less at Halloween, environmentally friendly Halloween, green and fun Halloween, green Halloween traditions, greener Halloween, Halloween that doesn't clog landfills, recycled and crafty at Halloween
The Green Queen and her husband love to recycle, reuse and re…do. The Green King (TGK) – or would that be Prince by virtue of marriage…? Well whatever the title may be, he likes to grab old wood that’s been thrown away. If he sees sticks, and slabs of old wood at the side of the road, or in dumpsters and even discarded in landfills… that’s not garbage to him. He can’t leave it laying in waste, he grabs it and smiles like he’s just rubbed the side of an old lamp and found an old treasure…or a genie in a bottle. Then, with a schoolboy giggle he’ll load that wood in the back of his car and drive off into the sunset with visions of how he’s going to put that piece of lumber to use.
And old electrical wire spools are no different than beautiful pieces of unutilized wood to him.
He found this broken spool outside an electrical supply company and asked if they were throwing it away. They were. So he asked if he could have it. Just like in Beauty and the Beast, they said, “Be my guest.” 
He took the spool home and went to work repairing and repurposing that old drab oversized spool.
Now it’s a beautiful garden table and chairs. 
Think what you might be able to do with garbage you find laying on the side of the road, who knows, it might be a beautiful piece of garden furniture in your future.
