Inventive Wrapping

Christmas is in a week, and we're all rushing to wrap up those perfect presents, so our instinct tells us to run to the store and buy a roll of Christmas-y wrapping paper or two, right? What about the old magazines and newspapers around the house? That last question wasn't as off-topic as you may be thinking! This year, I took one of my magazines, and wrapped all of my friend's Christmas presents in the pages and pages of double-sided advertisements. They were really effective, and all looked really unique! It was also a really good way to start conversations. Everyone was asking questions, and they love the idea. One of my friends even decided she would go home and wrap the rest of her presents in old newspaper and magazine pages!

Do you really need new wrapping paper? Try using your old newspaper and magazine pages to wrap some of your presents, even if it is only one or two. Every little bit helps!

"You've Inspired Me"

Have you ever thought that your endeavors to be eco-friendly are hopeless? That whatever you do, you're only one person? That what you're doing isn't being noticed? You're not alone. I've felt like that before too. But then I realized that it isn't about showing off and being talked about. Its about what you're doing. You're taking part in an eco-friendly action, and its good if people notice, but don't worry if they don't.

But do you want to know a secret? People DO notice. They don't tend to let you know though. Since I've been having waste-free lunches at school, using reusable water bottle, and making sideways comments about the wastefulness of juice boxes, I've noticed more of my friends using reusable bottles and producing less trash. If you keep working hard, you might just get lucky, and someone will tell you how they've been inspired by you. For example, when my mom was at a grocery store a couple of weeks ago (with her reusable bags, of course) and was in line to pay, the woman behind her was fascinated with her bags. She engaged in conversation with my mom, repeatedly mentioning how she'd been inspired to do the same.

Thats just one example of people noticing another's eco-friendly habits. Sometimes, a similar encounter can happen without the words though. If that woman had wanted to, she could of stayed silent, noticed the bags, and still have been inspired without talking to my mom. Its the silent inspiration whcich is helping these ideas grow more than anything.

I promise you, if you keep trying, someone will notice. Or maybe they already have! If you have any stories about an encounter with someone you've inspired or that has inspired you, I'd love to hear it! Post a comment or email me at beth@whymewhynot.org  .

Good, Better, and Best

<written in response to a comment on Marketing Messages asking about better solutions, thanks for the inspiration!>

As I was talking about in my last post, there are many ways to deal with being eco-friendly. Usually, there are a lot of eco-friendler solutions, but they all reach a different level of eco-friendliness. Take the example of fabric softener, which I was asked about in a comment on Marketing Messages. There are a lot of ways to go eco friendlier when it comes to fabric softener. One of the worst things you could do is always be buying small bottles with a lot of packaging and throwing the bottles away when you're done with them. Buying large bottles and recycling the containers is a good start, but how can we really start being better? 

When I think about eco-friendly alternatives, I like to think of a good, a better, and a best option. A good option is eco-friendlier than a typical option, a better option is even more eco-friendly, and the best option is the most eco-friendly solution I can possibly think of. Sometimes the best option has limits and restrictions, so I have to go for the better option. Thinking about fabric softener, lets look at an example:

Good: Buying refills in cardboard boxes and reusing the original container. That way, you're recycling the cardboard boxes and only using one plastic bottle.

Better: Dryer balls. These fairly small and bumpy rubber balls diminish the need for fabric softener altogether and also reduce your drying time. So all in all they use less water, less energy, no fabric softener, and over time they're cheaper! Shockingly, though, there's a better option...


Best: Don't use a tumble dryer! Use a washing line and take advantage of the outdoors! Hang your clothes outside until they're dry. Although sometimes unrealistic because of weather, time limitations, and countless other reasons, it is still the best option. It uses no energy, water, fabric softener, or money. 

Fabric softener is a perfect example for good, better, and best, because it shows a best alternative that can't always be used. Although that means we can't use the best option all the time, we can use the best option for the situation. My family recently switched to dryer balls because we saw the benefits and wanted to give them a try, and so far they're doing great! 

There are good, better, and best options to everything, we just need to find them. So next time you see something that is an even more eco-friendly alternative to what you have, think about it. Could there be something even better?

Marketing Messages

This week an article was brought to my attention about an alternative to bottled water. Boxed water. Boxed Water Is Better is a boxed water company that is trying to be kinder to the environment by making recyclable boxes for water rather than using plastic. These boxes are packed flat, therefore reducing the carbon footprint even more, and shipped to a filler. The filler then takes the flat packed boxes and prepares them to hold water and fills them with municipal filtered water which is sold at $1.50 per box.

Now at first I thought this sounded interesting, then I thought about it some more and realized that its a bit redundant. Don't get me wrong, its a wonderful, sustainable alternative to bottled water, but there are some other alternatives that are even more eco-friendly. What about a reusable water bottle? Just look at the price comparison:
Boxed water: $1.50 per box, multiple boxes needed!!!
Reusable Water Bottle: $10.00 (for a nice one) and you only need to pay once!!
So over time, a reusable bottle is cheaper. You can use it over and over. Your tap water is actually better for the earth than packaged water is anyway.

So the lesson here is that sometimes, even thought you're being told that there's an eco-friendly alternative, it might not be the best alternative. And I'm not trying to pick on this boxed water idea, I'm just using it as an example. Boxed water is my example, can you think of any others? Any ideas that are better, but not the best? Let me know!

Clearing Out the Closet

This weekend my family and I cleaned out our closets. We removed all the clothes that were torn, damaged, didn't fit, or that we didn't want any more. It was amazing how much I found that I'd forgotten I owned! So after finding long-lost loved items and deciding what I was ready to get rid of, I had to figure out what to do with it all. I started by reorganising all of my closet space to accommodate  the clothing I wanted to keep.

Next I had to look at the pile of clothing I didn't want any more. Wow, that one was big! I had a lot of old shirts that I put on my top shelf a while ago and haven't taken down, a lot of which are now too small. Some of these were in decent shape, so I put them in a pile to give to younger kids I know. Others had small holes, but were otherwise in decent shape, and I put those in the pile of fabric I have been collecting to reuse. There were also a few pieces that were not in decent shape to be worn, which will go in clothes recycling.

Thinking back to the clothes I put in the pile of fabric to reuse, I have so many options! Some of you will remember that I have previously made a pencil pouch, a flower hairband, a couple of kids' toys, and a quilt out of old jeans as well as a reusable toys out of an old cotton t shirt. I have huge amount of fabric to reuse, old jeans, bed sheets, t shirts... all to be cut up and turned into something new!

So I'm looking for suggestions! What could I make? Or even what you're making out of your old stuff! I'd love to know :).You could email me (beth@whymewhynot.org) or post a comment.

Pester Power

I already know that you read the title of this post and were confused and hopefully intrigued. When I was in the 4th grade, my teacher told us we should use Pester Power to make our families go green. What is Pester Power? Its when you bug people, usually your parents, to do something, which in this case was to recycle, compost, reuse, and the like. We were taught to bug our parents about being more eco-friendly every minute of every day so we could be more eco-friendly.

Pester Power is fine for 8-year-old kids, but as we grow up we can't be relying on our parents to make our whole families be green. We have to start taking responsibility, because how much of it do our parents really control? We have to do our part, not just leave it to our parents.

Going green isn't someone else's problem, its our problem. So tell me, what can you do? Not your parents, YOU. I'd be interested to know what you think.

The Enemy of Our Oceans

We use it every day in multiple forms. Bags, containers, bottles, packaging, pens, toothbrushes. Plastic. Eventually it ends up in landfill or in an animal's home, whether that home is the ocean or a creek or a forest. Although it could end up in many different locations, I'm going to focus on what happens when it ends up in the oceans.

Starting with the facts, plastic in out oceans kill over a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals such as turtles every year. 20% of plastic in the ocean is there because its been dumped off a boat of some sort. The other 80% is there because it started on land and made its way to the ocean one way or another. Most of the plastic in the ocean ends up in the North Pacific Gyre, known to many as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is an area of the ocean of the size of Texas that is literally covered with plastic. Thinking about the animals that die from consumption of plastic, there are so many! Turtles mistake floating plastic bags for jellyfish, and when they eat them, their digestive tracks are blocked and they can't eat, so they die. As for seabirds, they see they plastic from in the air, and they dive for it, and when they realize what they're eating, its too late! The plastic fills their stomachs and will eventually kill them. Some small fish may see tiny pieces of plastic bags and mistake them for plankton, and eat them. The plastic in the ocean kills them too.

But what can we do? We can start by using less plastic in general. My family has a lot of reusable bags that we take shopping with us, but sometimes we bring them in to unload the shopping from them and sometimes forget to put them back in the car, so regrettably have to get bags from the store. If possible, we always try and use paper bags, and either way we try and reuse them at least once before we throw them out. The thing with plastic is that no matter what, it won't biodegrade, the pieces just get smaller. So a reusable water bottle is a good start! If you follow the advice given in the Lunch! post, the trash-free lunches you make are helping out too! So much of what we can do to help save the earth in one area have a snowball effect that can be effective in other areas of eco-friendliness.

So what other things can you do to prevent plastic reaching the ocean or other natural habitats? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

**facts for this post taken from the Project Green Bag website. To learn more about plastic getting to the ocean, watch The Majestic Plastic Bag, a video brought to my attention by my brother, who was shown it by the Monterey Bay Aquarium education department**

Lunch!

Time to think about how our lunches are affecting the environment. My friends and I often pack our own lunches and bring them to school. My lunch goes in a reusable plastic box and if I wrap the individual items I use paper towels that I can compost when I get home. I tend not to have individually wrapped items. My brother and I usually choose what we want in our lunches on the weekends and pick up a box of brownies or cookies while grocery shopping or make something (my brother made snickerdoodles today). We also both have reusable water bottles that we use every day, so our lunches are generally trash-free.

Think about it. What do you pack in your lunch every day? Could you be any less wasteful? Do you use a new paper or plastic bag everyday, and throw everything away? If you do, it could be worth investing in a decent lunch bag or even just a sturdy reusable plastic box. I try my best to be trash free every day, but sometimes I walk past something in a store that I have a weakness for and will buy and individually wrapped something as a treat. I know I do it, and I try really hard to be waste free as much of the time as possible. It's really easy to do, and I bet it wouldn't be hard to try it.

Have fun with your trash free lunches!

Showers

Right now I'm going to start simple, with showers. Yes, I did just say showers. I'll admit, I am absolutely terrible at taking short showers. I'm one of those people who just can't take 5 minute showers. Not easily. Some people can do that easily, and I think it's amazing. I have many different methods of conserving water though. Sometimes its as simple as turning the water off while I condition my hair, other times I just have to make myself hurry up! Showers can waste a whole load of water every day, you probably use between two and a half to five gallons of water per minute of your shower, depending on the strength of your shower head. If you can shorten your shower by one or two minutes, then you'll be saving up to 150 gallons per month.

There are some ways we can help ourselves decrease the lengths our our showers. I've recently heard about shower timers, which are basically hourglasses set for five minutes so we're reminded of how long we're taking. If you're really bad at short showers like me, how about using a stopwatch to time the length of your shower and seeing if you can improve?  Its simple and easy, and if we keep trying then shorter showers will become habits.

Getting Started

We all say we want to live green, and to some extent, we all do. Sometimes all we need is for someone to give us ideas. My goal is to be that someone. I want to inspire people to live green, and give them the ideas they need to get started. I'm not teaching all this to you just so you can go and nag other people to live green. I would love for you to spread the word, but I want you to be an example of eco-living, not just an advocate We need start developing habits that help, not damage, our environment.


I've been looking at a few books that have been giving me some awesome ideas. My current favorite is Generation Green (http://www.generationgreenthebook.com). The Green Book (http://www.readthegreenbook.com/) has also been recommended to me.  The problem with some of these books, though, is that we read them and don't do anything about using any of the information, because its all just a bit overwhelming. If we do try and do anything, we often try to do too much, and when it all collapses, we feel hopeless and reduce our efforts. The trick with books like Generation Green and The Green Book is to take two or three tips and try to follow them. Once they're part of your routine, pick a few more to work on.


We aren't going to become green all at once, we have to work for it. But if we work for it, it is well within our reach.

Making a Difference

 So many people don't really think about the impact they have on the earth. I once commented to my friend about how it was wrong  to throw her soda can into the garbage when the recycling can was right in front of her. Her reply? "I don't need to recycle it. I'm one person. I don't make that much of a difference." I say she's wrong. Everyone can make and impact. Imagine what it would be like if everyone took her attitude? We'd be killing our earth at a faster rate than we already are, and that would be bad, very bad.

We all need to start thinking about the impact of our day-to-day activities. I'm not saying we can't ever take showers or drive to school every morning, but I am saying that there are little things we can do. Think about it. If you realize at 7:00pm one evening that you hardly have any milk left in the fridge, do you really need to drive to the store down the street? Why not walk or take your bike? That way, you get exercise, and you're keeping your car off the road. When you go to the store, do you really need a bag? Even if you don't have a reusable bag, you can take the bags from the last time you went shopping to reuse. There are so many little things we can do! Maybe you live too far away from school to walk or ride your bike, but do you carpool? It's so easy, yet sometimes we don't really think.

So try it. Try thinking about the little things you can do in your life. Appreciate the things you take for granted. Make a difference.