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I was reading an article in my local newspaper this morning where they were bragging about the biodegradable trays and packaging that they were using this year to help reduce the trash at one of our local stadiums.  That’s all well and good but does it really do any good if those biodegradable containers go into a plastic trash bag?  Do they ever actually biodegrade?  The answer…eventually but only after a hole forms in the bag itself.

After doing some research I have found that no one really knows how long that trash bag will take to biodegrade.  The reason…plastic has really only been around for the past 50 years or so, so it makes sense that no one really knows how long it takes.  Now depending on the bag thickness, it might develop a hole almost immediately since there is a lot of  mixing and turning that goes on in a landfill.  But if it’s a really good bag it might take a while for the sun and the rain to degrade the bag well enough that the elements finally get to the contents.  Only at that point will the “biodegradable” stuff start to decompose.

Now I’m not saying that it’s not important to use biodegrable packaging, in fact I would perfer that you do but we have to think further the just the packaging.  We have to think about the facilities to sort the items and if the people that will be at the event have the right mindset and if they are informed as to how and where to put their trash.

When I was at the Earth Day celebration they had volunteers at each pre-sort location.  The volunteers were to help gently inform the participants which barrel their specific trash belonged in.  Without those volunteers most people would have just thrown their trash into whichever bin was closer to them.  That’s the kind of thing that you have to do when you are teaching consumers how to better treat their trash.

At my house we have a bin for veg and fruit waste, 2 bins for recycables and another for “other” waste.  The small 13 gallon trash can in our house gets used so little that we can go for almost 2 weeks without emptying it.  We have a 30 gallon trash can for trash pick up that really only gets full every 2 1/2 weeks, but the recycle bins needs to be emptied once a week.

Yesterday I threw out the first piece of non-recyclable plastic that we have used in months and unfortunately there is plenty more where that came from.  I spoke about it a few days ago but we decided to join a food program called Angel Food Ministries and where as the program is great and you get to eat good food for a very reasonable price, everything comes wrapped in plastic.

I’ll be honest with you and say that after I lost my job I took the first one that I could find and the difference in pay has left a HUGE hole in our budget so unfortunately I am going to have to make a plastic sacrifice to be able to feed my family.  It’s only 1 piece of plastic a day that we are throwing out so it’s much less then the average family, but it still makes me sick to my stomach thinking about how far we had come in the past 10 months just to take steps in the wrong direction.  But I keep looking up and I continue to interview and I know that the Lord will bless me with the position that best provides for my family.

So in closing, if at all possible pass on the plastic bag.  Whether it’s the plastic baggie for your leftovers or the trash bag in your trash recepticle.  We do it in our house, I know that you can too!

For those of you that follow my blog you will remember that I was trying to go all summer without turing on my air conditioner in my car…well I did it!

It ment there were a few close calls when I had to run out into an inpending storm to roll up my windows, and there was the time that I knew it was going to rain but I was dumb and only rolled up the drivers side windows so everything on the passenger side was soaked.  It also ment on those 100 degree days that I broke a sweat just sitting in my car on my 8 minute drive home, but I made it and the benefits were great!

Before when I used the a/c I would only get an average of 25mpgs without the a/c I averaged 32mpgs, in fact my miles per gallon went up so much that one week I even got 34mpgs.  So out of every tank I was able to get an extra 70 miles.  With my daily round trip being 16 miles that meant I was able to get appromimately 4 more trips to work, so instead of filling up once a week I started filling up once everyother week.

Now I know that I changed a couple other driving habits that also helped in the consumption of fuel.  I stopped running yellow lights, well tried to at least.  When I light would turn yellow I wouldn’t floor it to make it through and gently pushed on the break and coasted to a stop.  I also tried not to travel over 40 unless I was on the highway and then I would only go 55.  To me this was the hardest thing to do because I have a lead foot.  Normally on the highway I would be pushing 80 and on the streets 55 weaving in and out of traffic.  But as I watched my gas meter plummet on those days that I was in a hurry and decided to exceed the speed limit, I realized that it wasn’t worth it.  Not only was I setting myself up to get a ticket, I was also wasting precious resources…my money and the nation’s petroleum reserves.

I recently went to get my oil change and after spending $45 for 4 quarts of oil and a filter (OMG!) with oil prices like that we need to change the way we are thinking about our driving habits.  Can you shorten your commute?  Can you share a ride with someone in your office?  Can you bring your lunch to work so you don’t have to go somewhere and eat?  Can you push the accelerator gently and ease up on your lead foot?  All these things make a difference in the amount of gas we use, take a minute to figure out what you can do to help ease the oil crisis.

Tonight I was thinking of frugal ways to save the planet while buying dinner makings and as I perused the pasta section, spaghetti sauce came to mind.You can buy it at my grocery store in 4 different ways.

1. In a 2 serving plastic container

2. In a 4 serving glass jar

3. In a 4 serving aluminum can

4. In a 2 serving foil and plastic pouch

Now I bet you can guess which one I prefer, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.

First the 2 serving plastic container…I’ll be honest and tell you that I have bought this sauce before. It tastes much better then most of the jar and can sauces and you kinda get a 2 for 1 deal since you can use the plastic container again. But if you are on a plastic free quest, like me, this is not the answer. Not only is it made of plastic that helps to fuel our oil addiction, it’s a smaller serving that costs almost twice as much. Neither one of these things gives it high marks on my list.

Obviousily the glass jar is my pick for the most econimical and earth friendly but let’s talk about the other items first.

Aluminum is recycable, so if you are a diehard canned sauce fan this is not the worst you could do. It also comes in a larger size so you can get more servings out of the can, but iit doesn’t have a lid so you can’t store the leftovers very easily and the inside of the can is lined with plastic. Still not a great choice but not the worst one.

What is the worst choice you ask…the 2 serving foil package. Granted it’s pretty cool that you can warm your sauce in the microwave in it’s own pouch but gesh aren’t you about to pour it over hot pasta that will warm it up anyway? Personally I think it’s an ingenious design, but look at all the extra plasticy foil packaging that is left over. You can’t reuse it. You can’t recycle it. You can’t do anything with it but throw it away in the trash. This is a bad bad choice!

Like I said before, the winner is the 4 serving jar of sauce. The jar itself is recycable. It’s resealable so you can store the leftovers. It’s alot cheaper then the foil pouch and plastic container and as for taste it ranges from ok to really tasty. The other plus…you can buy several different flavors like garlic, mushroom, veggie lovers. So it means that you can get more bang for your buck and you are not stuck eating the same thing over and over again.

Leave comments on this question…What sauce do you buy and why? Could it be considered eco-friendly?

So today after months of trying I finally went to the Farmer’s Market, finally!  I spent less then twenty bucks on more then a weeks worth of fruits and veggies and the best thing is that I supported community farms and not the big industrial supermarkets.  I did go to the supermarket when I was done and to my surprise free-range chicken was on sale for $2.99 a pound, gosh that’s cheap!  So of course I bought as much as possible, unfortunately since I bought so much they wrapped it in plastic, more on that later.

Anyway…at the Farmer’s Market I bought butter beans, corn, tomatoes, peaches, apples, cucumbers and lettuce.  What makes me sad is that the market is only open for a few more weeks and during the winter I won’t be able to go and get really tasty fruits and veggies.  I don’t know what it is but produce from the grocery store really doesn’t taste as good as farm fresh produce.  It’s probably cause they pick it early to ensure that it won’t be bad before it gets to the store.  I can’t explain it but something happens to food when it’s picked before it’s ripe.

The only problem with the Farmer’s Market…it’s not necessarly organic but lately, since I have been shopping at the grocery store, I haven’t been eating organic and with food prices who can?

I know, I know…you should only eat organic since it’s better for the environment but when I started this blog it was supposed to be about being green and practical.  And since my food budget hasn’t changed and the price of food has, something has to give.  While I agree that using pesticides are bad for your body and for the planet, so is paying $3.00 for a head of lettuce when you are trying to feed 6 people on $150 a week.  The trade off?  The way I see it…I am not buying one of those unnecessary convenience bags of pre-cut lettuce, that not only has been trucked around the world but has also contributed to our petroleum dependency.  When I buy lettuce from the Farmer’s Market I am buying a product that has been shipped less then 100 miles and hasn’t been packaged unnecessarily, especially when I bring my own bag to carry it in!

Now more about being practical and saving the planet…there is a fine line that we walk to help keep our planet in better shape and not break our pocketbooks.  Recently I was laid off because of the down turn of the economy, I worked in the sports industry and when people cut back on buying extra things the people that make those things take a hit and being the low-man on the totem pole I was the first to go.  But it’s made me really think about what I buy and how I can buy smarter.  Luckily I was able to find another job almost immediatly, it’s making quite a bit less then what we are used to so what we are able to buy will change dramtically.  I’ve been looking into local CSA’s and subscription services.  We found a food ministry called Angel Food Ministry, where for $30 you can get a box of food that will feed a small family for a week.  Typically the amount of food in the box would cost me $65 to $70 at the grocery store.  You don’t have to qualify, it’s open to anyone and there are delivery locations all over the US.  If I remember right there were 10 within 5 miles of my home.  You have to pay for the food upfront and by a specific date and then about 2 weeks later you pick it up at a nearby church.

We have all been affected by the turn of the economy and over the next few weeks I am going to continue to talk about what we can do to keep costs down but make a real difference in the life of our planet.  What have you had to do now that food costs are rising and paychecks are shrinking?

I was feeling lazy the other day and since it was Friday and there were no kids around I didn’t want to cook.  So knowing what take out places use Styrofoam and which don’t, I dial my local plastic free Chinese restaurant and ordered dinner.  I pick it up and duh, I ordered soup so it came in a plastic container…no big deal I can use it again.  But then as I went through the bag and the little plastic packets of duck sauce, soy sauce, hot mustard and the sweet and sour sauce started to appear.  There must have been 20 of them, all for 2 people!

Do people actually use that much stuff on their Chinese food?  Do you know how much sodium is packed into one of those packets?  I don’t think they have an expiration date so they are full of preservatives, do you really know what you are putting into your body?  Think of all the little plastic packages that are being thrown out each day because of Chinese take out!

As I thought about all those questions I watched my husband tear into a couple of the hot mustard packets and gobble it down with his spring roll.  I mean if I got 20 packages and let’s just say for easy of math that 100 other people who ordered take out that night received the same amount that’s 2000 plastic packages that are going into the landfill just from one restaurant in one night!

I thought it about that number some more…if you do a google search for “Chinese restaurants, Germantown TN” you get 6 restaurants with Germantown addresses (there are countless more in a 5 mile radius but I’m gonna stick with ones in my neighborhood).  If we use the same math with the average amount of packets in a take out bag as 20 and the average amount of take out customers in one day as 100…heck let’s say 50 to make it more believable…and the number of restaurants in the local area as 6.  That would bring the amount of plastic packets given out to 6000 in just one day!  Now if your like me I put most of them in my refrigerator, so let’s say only half get used and thrown away that day.  That’s 3000 plastic pieces added to the landfill just from Chinese food take out and only from a 3 mile radius!

Think about how much Chinese take out is eaten everyday…OMG!  Think of all that plastic that is needlessly thrown away everyday because we are eating take out.  Not only are there the Chinese plastic packets but there are ketchup packets and dressing packets, mayonnaise and barbecue packages, honey mustard dipping sauce containers, plastic lids from the drinking cups.  Mc Donalds alone serves 47 million customers a day around the world, think of all the plastic lids that are thrown out each day.  That adds up to millions of pounds of plastic that is discarded from our eating out, no wonder our ocean is full of trash!

So remember this…don’t just go through life ignoring the stuff that surronds you, it all has to end up somewhere and plastic doesn’t just decompose overnight.  Do you really need a lid on your cup?  Or what about that plastic straw, can you drink straight from the cup instead?  When ordering take out can you say hold the condiments, I have my own?  Most Chinese food condiments come in glass jars it would be so much better if you bought it in a larger size and were able to recycle the jar later then needlessly throwing away plastic packet after plastic packet.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…Don’t just do, think first then do.

There is a new commercial out from Discover Card that makes me very angry.  I looked for it on You Tube and couldn’t find it but let me give you the jist.

It says that it’s not a big deal to spend, spend, spend.  I believe what they say is…We are a country of consumers and that’s not a problem.  The problem is that there is just so much stuff to buy.  But maybe if credit card companies were different it wouldn’t make a difference how much stuff we bought.

Of course they are pushing their new website and their “Bright Idea” campaign, but in my opinion they are pushing people to spend more money and not think about the consequences until after they “put it on the card”.  They are saying that since their company is going to “help” you pay down your balance smarter, that it shouldn’t matter what you spend since you will be able to pay it off how you want.

I don’t have any credit cards, anymore.  I am still paying off a small balance but at the rate I am paying it, it’s gonna take me more then a year and it’s gonna cost me $150 in interest charges.  I agree it’s easy to pay with plastic.  Even now with my debit card I sometimes forget to think about the amount of the purchase that I am making but now it comes out of my checking account immediately so there is no chance of me not being able to pay it off in a month.

I know it’s hard not to want the newest and greatest thing but just like all other purchases, it affects the world around you every time you buy something.  It had to come from some plant that is producing waste and possibly toxic waste.  It had to be shipped to the store where you bought it and that truck, plane or train was pumping out air pollution and burning foreign oil.  The item that you replaced or when the item has been used up, has to be thrown out and take up room in a landfill.  If it is recycable, it will probably be shipped halfway round the world to a developing country where there are not the same safeguards and they will more then likely be exposed to chemicals that will someday kill them or at least make them very ill.

We need to pay attention to all the purchases that we make.  It’s more then the money that it costs.  It’s about the after effects.  Always ask the question…what does this really cost?  And always remember…there is more to life then stuff.

In a small town in Germany called Marburg there is a heated debate over a new mandate requiring solar panels.

“The ordinance, the first of its kind in Germany, will require solar panels not only on new buildings, which fewer people oppose, but also on existing homes that undergo renovations or get new heating systems or roof repairs” says the Marburg Journal. There is even a hefty fine of $1500 for violators.

This brings up the question…Can the government require us to become green? Most cities has Municipal Codes that require many things, could those include green issues?

For example in my city, as I found out recently, requires hot water heaters that are in closets to have louvers on the door so the hot water heater can “breathe”. The hot water heater has been just fine in my closet for the past 15 years why now can I not put the regular door back on the closet? I’m sure that they have a good reason for requiring louvers, I’m sure it’s for safety but if they require that could they have required me to install a solar powered hot water heater?

Now I would have loved to install solar power hot water heater, I would not have blinked an eye if I would have been required to install one, but would my neighbors feel the same if they were in the same situation. The issue with installing one at my house would not have been my feelings but the lack of sunlight because of the large trees in my yard. They are great to keep the house cool but interrupt the sunlight enough that solar power cells on my roof would be rendered almost useless, this goes for my neighbors also.

To require solar power would mean the loss of a lot of beautiful old growth trees and not to mention the expense of cutting them down.

Personally I think that the Government needs to step up and fund more alternative power sources but I don’t think that they can require someone to go green. I think that it is a personal choice to decide whether or not they want to join in the fight to save the planet. Now of course I think that it’s terrible if you recognize the signs of global warming and don’t do anything about it, but hey it’s your call and your bad karma.

What do you think?  Can the government require you to be green?  Sound off and let me know what you think.

In one weekend Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G’s.  The first iPhone, introduced only 1 year ago sold approximately 5 million.  Sources say they could sell upwards of 10 million of the newest 3G phones, since they opened up their overseas market.

So my question to you is…where are all the broken, discarded or replaced cell phones going?  Apple doesn’t offer a take back program or at least I can’t find mention of one.  Are the people that spent $500 a year ago to buy the original, just tossing that one in the trash or are they being responsible and taking the old one to a recycler?

All electronics have trace amounts of toxic chemicals like lead or phthalates, a chemical known to have hormone disrupting qualities, even the energy efficient CFL lightbulb contains trace amounts of mercury. The problem is not the chemicals…the issue is that most consumers don’t know that they are there and what to do with the electronics once they have lived their usefull life.

Now let me say this, I think that the buying of cell phones is out of hand.  In my opinion there is no reason to spend $500 on a cell phone and less then a year later need to buy another one.  Now I know there are more bells and whistles on the newer phone, but why can’t the old phone just be upgraded?  This is not the consumer’s fault, it’s the developer’s fault.  We as consumers are pulled in by the new shiny things.  The fact that you can pin point your location on your phone is a pretty nifty or serf the web with lightening fast speed while you are sitting on the train waiting for your stop.  I am not suggesting that electronics are not useful and needed, I am suggesting that we need to make sure consumers are better informed of what’s inside those electronics and what happens to them when you just throw them away.

I talk about being better informed consumers a lot in this blog, but if we are not informed producers will walk all over us and we will buy just for the sake of buying.

If we were to just throw away all of our electronics, we would slowly poison the surrounding ground and water.  We would eventually have so much heavy metals in the soil that we would be unable to plant and grow crops.  Our children would not be able to play outside because of the risk of lead poisoning.  Our children are already getting fat, if they were unable to go outside and get some exercise think of what would happen.

It’s not going to happen overnight, plastics take years to decompose but the pressure of the landfill will eventually put breaks in the plastic or glass and once the rain gets in the metals will leach out.  We need to stop the throwing away of electronics not for our children but their children and generations to come.

Write to your electronics producer, encourage them to start a take back program or better yet an upgrade program that takes those old electronics and makes them new again!

While you are waiting for that to happen, don’t forget to recycle.  Most municipalities have a electronic recycling program, if not go to E-Cycling Central search for your state and get the name of a local recycler. Just don’t throw things away, you never know what they might do to the earth.

I’ve had a couple of people email me and ask when the plastic usage pictures and posts will be back.

Well let me give it to you straight…I am ashamed of my plastic usage so I don’t really wanna show you guys anymore.  But don’t fret, I will start back this weekend.

When I shopped at the granola store it was very easy for me to not buy plastic but now that I am shopping at my local big box grocery store, I can hardly find plastic free/less replacements for the things that I normally buy.

For example…when I shopped at Wild Oats they had great organic juices in glass bottles.  At Schnucks they have one or two types of juice in glass bottles but no one in my family would drink it and paying $4.50 for a pint seems a bit unreasonable.  So to not buy large quantities of plastic, we started buying canned juice from Juicy Juice.  It’s still expensive, not as expensive as the organic juice from Wild Oats but for concentrate it’s a bit pricey. But here is the problem…aluminum cans contain a layer of plastic on the inside so the contents don’t eat through the side of the can during their long journey to your table.  So whereas it’s better to buy less plastic there is still plastic involved.

At the granola store they would wrap my deli meats and cheeses in paper and at the grocery store they will not for any reason put the deli items into anything but their own plastic baggies.  I protested but after the look that I got from the deli manager, my protest did not go any further.  I can bring my own bags (oh! I have a story to tell about a BYOB convert!) but I can’t bring a plastic container of my own to put food into?  What’s up with that?  I’m sure that there is a Health Code or something but gesh, if I’m gonna spend $6 a pound for turkey I should get to have some say as to what I take it home in.  Anyway…I’ve tried to get away from eating luncheon meats totally but it seems that my 6 year old is on a PB&J protest (that I can buy in glass) and is refusing to eat peanut butter totally.  So at least for the rest of the summer I will have to buy the luncheon meat so that the poor child doesn’t starve. I do have one nice thing to say about the butchers at the meat counter at my local Schnucks, they have stopped using the plastic baggies to wrap the chicken and are only using butcher paper.  I guess my persistence with that department has won them over to the green side!

The one thing I can’t get away from is block or shredded cheese.  I know that even Beth at Fake Plastic Fish struggled with this issue too.  Since I don’t drink milk and most of my kids don’t either, we have to get our calcium from somewhere and cheese is it.  We have cheese on our baked spaghetti, tacos, enchiladas, chili dogs, turkey burgers and especially on our pizzas.  I can’t give it up but the worst part is I have no idea if the cows that produce this cheese are happy or not.  It’s definitely not organic like the milk and eggs that I buy so it’s even worse to buy it then I originally thought!  I’m going to the Farmer’s Market this weekend .  Yeah right, I keep saying that!  Pray that they have some happy cow cheese that I can start to substitute, at least then I would only be breaking one green rule.

Of course there is always the plastic wrapping from the turkey that I buy, but I don’t really count that as bad since I buy the turkey instead of beef since we all know what cattle does to our environment…don’t we?

There is a fine line that we walk between being green and living the way a normal consumer does.  I say it’s always worth doing!

Yesterday, Al Gore spoke to a group in Washington in which he calls for the United States to be generating all electricity from carbon free sources within 10 years.

I applaud his thinking but is it something that we can really do?

He believes that if we put for the effort that put us on the Moon only 8 years after Kennedy set that goal, we can also have all our homes powered by carbon free fuel.

He also points out that we are having to borrow money from China to feed our oil habit, a dangerous thing to do especially when it comes to issues of the planet.

Is it really possible to change our collective thinking in that short of time?  Can we go from oil hungry to carbon neutral before my youngest child graduates from High School?  Are the citizens of the US ready for a change that abrupt?  I believe with the current status of our economy and the glooming oil crisis, the answer is Yes.

Now it’s not just because I’m a tree hugging, Earth Day celebrating, green power buying eco-geek.  It’s because I believe that if we were to pull together on this we could change the economic and environmental crisis of this country. I also believe in this Country’s ability to effect change on the worlds stage, what a precedent this would set!

It’s not ok that we are having to borrow money from other countries so that we can buy oil to keep up with the demand.  It’s really not ok that we depend so much on OPEC that they can yank us around, mess with our livelihoods and help in the downturn of our economy.

We must come together and have our collective voices heard.  Take the time to really consider what your Public Official’s policies on the Environment and research if they actually vote that way.  It will take a Congress and President that see eye to eye on this issue to enact this kind of change.  Are you helping or hindering the process by voting for people that don’t have the same values as you?  Let your voice be heard now…don’t wait until November.  Speak to your neighbors and co-workers about issues like these.  It’s only in coming together in one voice that change this big will happen.

We owe it to our children.  Let’s not make them clean up the mess that we created.