Category Archives: living green on a budget

Easy eco entertaining for Thanksgiving, the holidays, and beyond

Posted on November 17, 2011 by | 1 Comment

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.

Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in eco holidays, house stuff, living green on a budget

Holiday Decorating: Go Natural

Posted on November 16, 2011 by | 2 Comments

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.)

Continue reading →

→ 2 Comments

Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Cute, Cheap & Green Gift Wrapping

Posted on November 14, 2011 by | 1 Comment

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.

Continue reading →

→ 1 Comment

Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , ,

Making your own laundry detergent.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by | 5 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

→ 5 Comments

Posted in house stuff, living green on a budget

Save It: 8 Useful Things To Keep Out of Your Garbage Bin

Posted on October 24, 2011 by | 2 Comments

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?

→ 2 Comments

Posted in 3 Rs, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , , , ,

Get Your Spook On With A Leaner, Greener Halloween

Posted on October 17, 2011 by | 1 Comment

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?

 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in 3 Rs, eco holidays, eco kids, green around the world, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , , , ,

SPOOL TABLE

Posted on October 14, 2011 by | 1 Comment


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.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in gardening, house stuff, living green on a budget, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

Reducing Food Waste

Posted on October 10, 2011 by | 4 Comments

Coming Soon:  October 16 is Blog Action Day, and this year’s topic is FOOD!  What a great topic!  On that day, bloggers will cover topics including sustainable food production, the availability of food, the cost of food, creative ways to serve food, malnutrition, hunger, becoming vegetarian and favorite foods.  As an omnivore, Enviro Girl can’t wait for October 16th!

Speaking of food, Enviro Girl read an interesting piece the other day:  How That Food You Throw Out Is Linked to Global Warming.  Wasting food resources has significant environmental impact, but people often don’t think about it.  The energy spent on food production and transportation could be reduced if we reduced the 55 million tons of food we throw away.  Enviro Girl has read other staggering statistics on food waste–and she’s been guilty of throwing away food at her house too.  It’s a common thing to find gross stuff in refrigerators, but tossing out a bag of food each month is a waste of money and many other resources as the article explains.

Waste aside, Enviro Girl began really examining her family’s shopping and food consumption habits about two years ago.  It bugged her to literally throw out money from her fridge every month.  How could she fix this problem?  Here are three of the things she did to reduce her family’s food waste:

1.  Meal planning.  Instead of randomly shopping for food each week, Enviro Girl started writing a list of what she planned to make for meals ahead of her weekly trip to the grocery store.  AFTER taking inventory of the necessary ingredients, Enviro Girl would shop for what she needed.  By planning meals a week in advance, Enviro Girl saved time, money and threw out less wasted food.  This also resulted in less stress–instead of asking “what’s for dinner?” at 5:00 each evening, her family knew chicken casserole was on the menu and every part of the meal was assembled beforehand for fast preparation without any missing ingredients causing delays.

2.  Eating down the pantry.  Once every few months Enviro Girl skips her weekly shopping trip and makes meals out of what she finds in her pantry, fridge and freezer.  This forces her family to eat the frozen half of a lasagna they’ve saved before it succumbs to freezer burn.  This keeps Enviro Girl from stockpiling ingredients for meals she didn’t get around to making.  By managing her family’s resources by hoarding almost no food, Enviro Girl never throws out bottles of ketchup that expired in 1998 or cans of soup that should’ve been sold in 2002.*

3.  Buying less.  Sure, there are 5 people in Enviro Girl’s family, but that doesn’t mean she needs to buy 5 pears or 5 oranges.  (She’s not sure why she kept doing this for so long, but one way she figured out her family’s consumption habits was by buying less to see what they actually ran short of and what they never really ate.)  Enviro Girl began buying less perishable food more often.  This meant the food she bought actually got eaten before it became rotten and turned to mush in her produce drawer.  Buying less perishable food means throwing out less rotten food.

*  Bonus tip:  Every time there’s a food drive, Enviro Girl donates every unopened can/box/jar of food she can find in her pantry.  This insures that nothing remains beyond its expiration date and when there’s less clutter, Enviro Girl can take better inventory of what her family really needs.

→ 4 Comments

Posted in 3 Rs, food, issues, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , , , ,

Unplugged

Posted on October 5, 2011 by | 4 Comments

You don’t have to move off the grid in order to reduce your dependence on electricity. Look around your house. How many of your small appliances can be replaced with the “acoustic” versions?

For example, how many of you have electric can openers? Unless you have a dexterity issue, manual hand-cranked can openers are the more eco (and less expensive) way to go.

Other examples:

If you live in an old house with radiators, forgo humidifiers and simply put pans of water on top of a couple of radiators. This also works well if you have a wood stove.

French press coffee pots can replace electric coffee makers — some coffee purists say the non-electric version makes a superior cup of coffee anyway. (Bonus: No paper filters!)

Air dry your hair instead of using a blow dryer.

Use an old fashioned pencil sharpener instead of an electric version.

Use a regular toothbrush instead of an electric one. (Recycla confesses she uses power tools to brush her teeth and she’s not sure she could go back.)

And then there are the big things, like hanging your laundry up to dry.

That said, sometimes, switching back to the old way won’t work for you. For example, studies have shown that using a dishwasher ultimately uses less water than handwashing. And in Recycla’s house, laundry is hung up inside in the laundry room, but never outside because both Recycla and one of her daughters have seasonal allergies, so wearing t-shirts covered in tree pollen is not going to work for them.

You don’t have to do all of these things, but you might want to consider trying even just one.

Tell the Eco Women: What other ideas do you have?

Photo credits: Yahoo Images

→ 4 Comments

Posted in 3 Rs, house stuff, living green on a budget

It’s Not Personal, P&G. We Just Don’t Need (most of) Your Products.

Posted on October 3, 2011 by | 7 Comments

The other day Enviro Girl got a phone call from someone conducting a survey.  After ascertaining her age and status as the primary shopper for her household, the caller asked Enviro Girl to rate her attitude towards Proctor & Gamble and their various products.

Enviro Girl declared her status as “neutral” and admitted she doesn’t really buy Proctor & Gamble products–and then on Sunday while reading through the weekly coupon offers from that company, discovered why.  You see, it’s not that Enviro Girl is against Proctor & Gamble, per se.  It’s not even that she’s buying goods produced by a competitor.  She doesn’t buy Proctor & Gamble products because as an environmental activist and “green” housekeeper, they don’t make much that she needs!

Let’s take a quick look at their brands and product lines and why Enviro Girl doesn’t buy them:

Always:  well, maxi pads are gross and Enviro Girl prefers tampons.  She sees panty liners as a total waste of plastic-lined trash.

Clairol, Aussie, Herbal Essences:  Enviro Girl goes au natural with her hair color and prefers a paraben-free, synthetic-fragrance-free, sulfate-free, phthalate-free shampoo/conditioner experience.  She’s an Avalon Organics girl all the way for her hair care products.

Secret:  Not strong enough for this woman.  She prefers Certain Dri.

Tampax:  Is it just Enviro Girl or have other people noticed the “designer style feminine hygiene care products?”  Bottom line:  An applicator is a waste of plastic or cardboard.

Ivory:  Actually, Enviro Girl swears by bars of Ivory soap at her house, so Proctor & Gamble do get her money for this product.  Tried and true, it’s a cleansing classic.

Venus:  Ditto here–she invested in a razor and likes the disposable cartridges instead of disposable razors.

Scope:  If you brush and floss, mouthwash isn’t necessary.  If you find it is, then you’ve probably got bigger issues going on in your mouth.

CoverGirl:  See the above issues Enviro Girl has with hair care products.  Ditto for her face.  She does not buy most make up products, when she does she opts for brands free of toxic chemicals.

Crest:  Enviro Girl’s household uses Crest.  Not everyone in the household brushes their teeth with crest, so it’s not the main toothpaste brand of choice.

Comet:  (no site link available) Enviro Girl uses Bon Ami or baking soda–not the lung-searing cleaning power of Comet.

Swiffer:  It’s a disposable mop-head/broom product, people.  Disposable.  Enviro Girl won’t even speculate on what they brew to make the floor spray stuff with–she uses a regular mop and vinegar with hot water to clean wood and tile floors.

Tide/Dreft/Cheer/Gain:  Enviro Girl has major issues with chemical fragrances and she likes to use a laundry detergent that’s gentle on the environment.  To that end, she’s a Seventh Generation fan through and through–that detergent never fails to clean her family’s clothes and doesn’t leave a heavy scent behind, either.

Ferbreze:  Speaking of chemically toxic smells, most people already know that a clean house doesn’t require air fresheners.  Never ever in a million years would Enviro Girl buy a product that leaves behind dangerous chemical residue in the name of “freshening up” her household. Enviro Girl cleans well with vinegar and water and leaves windows open for that “fresh air” fragrance in her house.

Duracell:  Enviro Girl has already invested in rechargeable batteries by Energizer.  ‘Nuff said.

Downy/Bounce:  Enviro Girl has posted before about dryer sheets and fabric softeners.  They’re a wasteful and even dangerous product.   If static cling is really an issue, wool dryer balls or a quick spritz with vinegar and water will cure it.  It’s products like these that make the last few aisles of Target an asthma attack waiting to happen for people like Enviro Girl.

Dawn:  Just as she feels about laundry detergent, Enviro Girl likes an environmentally friendly and natural smelling dish soap.  She chooses Mrs. Meyers Clean Day products.  (And is it just Enviro Girl or do other people notice a wonky smell on dish cloths when folks use the “antibacterial” Dawn dish soaps?)

Cascade:  Again, environmentally friendly dishwasher detergents are Enviro Girl’s pick.  She really likes Seventh Generation’s dishwasher powdered detergent.  It’s fairly inexpensive and does a great job getting dishes clean.

Bounty:  Enviro Girl has taken The Paper Towel Challenge and uses about a quarter a roll of paper towel a year.  Paper towels really aren’t necessary–old newspapers or rags do the same job for a fraction of the price and without decimating forests.  In fact, Enviro Girl’s family has even reduced their use of paper towels since she originally took the challenge!  Because she barely ever buys paper towels, she spends a bit more on some 100% recycled paper towels.

Charmin:  Enviro Girl buys the store brand of toilet paper–not super plush, not super scratchy.

Pringles:  Enviro Girl will let the ingredients speak for this product:

RICE FLOUR, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN OIL, COTTONSEED OIL, SOYBEAN OIL, AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL), DRIED POTATOES, CORN FLOUR, MALTODEXTRIN, WHEAT STARCH, MODIFIED RICE STARCH, SUGAR, AND TRIGLYCEROL MONO-OLEATE. CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, WHEAT BRAN, DRIED BLACK BEANS, SALT, AND CITRIC ACID. CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS.

Um, yeah.  Enviro Girl likes potato chips made with 3 ingredients, potatoes, oil and salt.  FAIL, Pringles.  FAIL.  (And this is the ingredient list from the healthy-sounding “Multigrain Pringles.”)

Mr. Clean:  Enviro Girl loves Ecover.  Bless your shiny bald head, Mr. Clean, but the contents of your bottle will never in a million years live up to the high environmental standards of Ecover.
So, it’s not personal, Proctor & Gamble.  It’s more a matter of being friendly to her environment (air, earth and water) and knowing what’s necessary to keep her household clean and healthy and what will probably pollute it more.   Do tell, reader–do you buy Proctor & Gamble products for your household?  Or have you opted to buy more eco-friendly brands?

→ 7 Comments

Posted in health, house stuff, living green on a budget

Tagged , , , , , ,