Simple Green Ideas

Simple Green Ideas today is a little different.

I’m going to introduce a blog that I visited this morning from her comment on yesterday’s post.

Growing Snowballs

First four posts:

Knitting with Plastic Bags

Repurpose your excess Plastic into Party Bunting

3 ways to Produce Profit or how to use your Pumpkin

How to get More than you Paid for or don’t be a Tosser

The blog is full of great ideas for reusing, repurposing and multipurposing.

Just look what you can do with a pumpkin – image: Growing Snowballs

The Enemy – Plastic

Yes, the modern day enemy of the environment is plastic.

But we are lumbered with it, so what can be done?

Have a look at these videos and see what people are doing.

The recycling technology being embraced by manufacturers

More and more of us are recycling our waste at home in a bid to save resources – but could manufacturers do more themselves, by using recycled products as their raw materials in the first place?

The BBC’s Up Next team have taken a look at three very different products that in their own ways, do just that.

Check out the video clip on BBC (It’s not embeddable)

How To Recycle HDPE Plastic (High Density Polyethylene)

You can reduce polystyrene or styrofoam…

There’s plenty of information and videos on YouTube, go have a look, you just might find something that interests you.

Monday Moaning

This is not so much a moan, but a real bitch.

This post is about kids who have nothing, and I mean nothing. They live in a rubbish dump slum at Cateura outside Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay.

When I look at kids in the western world and all they have, then I am faced with kids who have nothing and make the most of it.

This music is rubbish!

Could this play music?

It’s made from rubbish, the stops are bottle caps…

What about these?

Violins…

Now watch this video.

Isn’t that awesome?

It goes to show that we in the west who have so much, really know so little.

You can read more about the Recycled Orchestra on Anita’s Notebook, it’s in English.

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Change the World Wednesday – 10th

Good morning good bloggers.

Getting my first coffee at 6:00 this morning I was reminded of Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam.

Yes, Oh God, it’s early.

Ready already for my second cup.

Update

My first beefless week was no sweat, I didn’t even miss it unless I thought about it. No beef in the fridge, no temptation. Even Lixo didn’t mind, he loves chicken as a meat supplement.

Last week’s challenge was about CDs and DVDs, etc, which is not really a problem for me as I don’t buy them, I download them.

I was taken by surprise in a comment on last week’s CTWW from Ecogrrl:

Cloud data storage

“Note – it’s important to remember that going digital doesn’t mean you’ve eliminated your environmental impact – you’re just transferring it to a different form – smaller yes, but still destructive. Internet use and storage takes up SO much – data centers are springing up all over my state of Oregon, on the eastern (dry) side of the state, where they are using up all the precious water to keep them cooled so that people can store their stuff online. There is definitely a negative to all of our internet use, so we need to think of the “invisible” storage of our digital files as well.”

I had never thought about that, less even known about it. Having given it some thought, the only online storage that I use is my blogs, images for my blogs, and a humble collection of mainly “Lixo” clips on YouTube.

I have no faith at all in this cloud storage nonsense. So I will never be a threat to environment and water usage there. But it is an aspect that one should include in the calculation of your water footprint if you store a lot of data on line as some people do. It would be worth finding out how much water is used to store, say, 1tb/month or year.

I use some CD ROMs for storage, more recently I have been using large capacity pendrives and I am currently exploring the value of investing in a USB external drive.

With a view to recycling, data/media storage, I found this idea.

CD holder toilet paper dispenser

So instead of buying dispenser packs of tissues, just buy a cheaper soft toilet paper for the same job. Cuts down on unnecessary packaging and production. Although we try to cut down on on the use of paper towels, etc in favour of washable reusables. If you’ve got a runny nose or a child with one, this could be useful.

Click the image for the challenge post

Let’s move right along, this week’s CTWW.

This week, test out Eco-friendly cleansers. You can buy “green” versions or better yet … make your own. Use Vinegar, Hydrogen Peroxide or search the Internet for other natural, homemade options. If you’re currently using something which contains toxins (typically identified by the long list of ingredients on the label and warnings about skin irritation, breathing problems, etc.), consider switching to a safer version.

 

OR …

If you’ve already made the switch to safe cleansers, please share your tips, suggestions and recipes.

Used scour pad

I don’t use much in the way of household cleansers. A simple scourer for the toilet combined with a hard brush does the trick.

Also, I reuse my scour pads from the kitchen, they get recycled to the bathroom.

*Little interruption here* Lixo has come in and  decided it’s breakfast time and I need more coffee…

There, Lixo has his breakfast and I have my coffee.

Smells sweetly of coconut

I have reduced my use of dishwashing liquid. Instead, I am now using a simple bar soap and finding it much more effective, lasts longer, has more suds and is considerably cheaper.

So those are my efforts for the challenge.

There are some cleansers, amongst other things on my Apothecary page.

If you have some ideas that could/you would like to be included there with a link to you blog, please leave me a comment with the link. I am always on the look out for ideas.

 

 

Change the World Wednesday – 9th Jan

I can’t do it!

I feel like I’m falling apart.

Wednesdays just aren’t Wednesdays anymore.

I need coffee!

I’ll rephrase that: I need MORE coffee!

I need a CTWW… just a little one.

Small Footprints has been absent since the end of November, hopefully she will return next week, then life will have some meaning again.

I did a CTWW on the 12th Dec, then I had a Christmas break, I did a NOT a CTWW post last week, but it only provided temporary relief.

This week, I’ll give you an idea.

Do you drink wine?

Then you’ll have some of these lying around…

Maybe not as many as that, maybe even more. Or do you throw them out? I save them for my neighbour, she’s working on a project. I don’t know what, but she will show me when it’s finished.

I didn’t realise, but there are a myriad of things you can do with corks, look:

Mini-pot plants for example

Such a simple and decorative idea.

You want some more ideas, then check out Addicted to Decorating, there’s oodles of ideas.

I love this idea from Sterling Wine, you can buy, or if you are handy with wood, I guess you can make.

I’d make it.

Or you can check out This Old House – 10 Uses for wine corks.

Or have a hunt around the web, try and google wine corks – images, there are heaps of arty-crafty and practical ideas.

The challenge…

Drink more wine this year; organic, of course.

or

If you don’t drink wine, bludge the corks off your neighbours or a local bar or restaurant before they throw them out.

Have a Happy New Year!

If you follow the challenge, you’re sure to.

Make you Fink on Friday

You’ve all heard about Rednecks, but have you ever thought they maybe the original recyclers?

Watch this short video…

Make you Fink on Friday

This is reblogged from: expertofnone

It’s a fantastic piece, as in fact most of her posts are, don’t be shy about heading over there to see.

Certainly makes you think.

“We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days”…

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this ‘green thing’ back in my earlier days.”

The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the ‘green thing’ in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn’t do the “green thing” back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the “green thing” in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the “green thing” back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family’s $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the “green thing.” We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn’t it just sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the “green thing” back then?

We didn’t have “green things” in my day

Bamboo keyboard and mouse

Going green with Impecca’s hand-carved bamboo keyboard and mouse

This keyboard is a little wooden, but it might be just your type.

Impecca’s KBB500 bamboo keyboard has a distinctive look, but otherwise doesn’t have many frills. Image: Andrew Cunningham

 

As computers, smartphones, and flatscreen televisions proliferate all over the planet, electronic waste is becoming an ever more serious problem. The US Environmental Protection Agency says that in 2009, of the 2.37 million tons of electronics that were thrown out, only 25 percent of those tons were actually recycled—and remember, this is before the new wave of tablets showed up and added millions more devices to the growing pile of tech in all our homes. Continued pushes to recycle old technology are probably the best long-term solution to this problem, but other companies are taking a more creative solution to the problem.

Source: arstechnica Read more

Old Books

Normally books can be read and reread, but there comes a time when there’s just too many, or they’re not popular anymore.

How do you get rid of them?

Can they be recycled, reused?

There’s an idea, and that can lead to other ideas…