Cha-cha changes

Now and then we all get over-extended, don't we? (That's me in a much happier space... Mexico... mere weeks ago. Que paso?) Well, instead of reaching the point of no return where I snap, say f#*k trying to do anything productive in the world, and wile away my life under a nice bottle of scotch, I've decided to call for some backup. So that I can pursue some related projects, keep my job, and hopefully my sanity, I have invited two "guest bloggers" to join me for the time being. May I introduce you to my guest blogging lasses: Molly, my 'lil sis (known here for her dumpster diving college days, video-making skills, and general backbone to the operation), and my friend Becky, (all-around lifestyle inspiration, commenter extraordinaire with her own blogging chops--remember her call to "Feck driving"?). They'll be adding their voices to the mix as they report from the front lines of their own efforts to make their lives more sustainable. Welcome, lasses!

Also, just cuz I'm feeling feisty, there won't always be a "tip of the week". Yes, it's paradoxical: the tips of the week will be occasional. There will sometimes still be broad general themes, but we might focus more on shorter entries, such as the one about the Lush deodorant, below. And aw heck, I might start getting a little philosophical on your arses from time to time. You know, talk about how backwards things are these days. Y'all can handle it, right?

Next post...coming soon!

Work has been particularly crazy lately...sorry for the neglect! Check back soon!

Be Unpackaged

Isn't it affirming when you see an idea you've had (but weren't sure about the viability of) put into action? Over in Clerkenwell, England a woman recently started a company called Unpackaged--which sells food and other necessitities, well, without the packaging. The idea is simple: You show up at the weekly market with your own containers, and fill them up to your heart's content. What's really cool is that in addition to the usual bulk offerings like beans, rice, nuts, teas, and grains, they've also found a way to sell package-free household cleaners, liquid hand soap, and toilet paper. So there IS a way--I knew it! I also love the section of their website titled "Evil Packaging", which is worth quoting extensively:

"The Problem with Packaging--Waste: Unnecessary packaging is a waste of resources at every level: to produce, store and transport, remove and to dispose of. Pollution: The two main methods of disposing of this packaging – landfill and incineration – are major pollutants for humans and the environment and release greenhouse gases. What about recycling? While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is just difficult and often impossible to recycle. Recycling is certainly part of the solution, but it will only work if we use less packaging in the first place and adopt more reusable ways of doing things- it is this ethos of reuse that Unpackaged is based on."

Sigh...Why do all the cool things seem to be going on in the UK? Anyone interested in getting the idea going here? Hmm? In the meantime, remember, we've got a viable unpackaged option too: the bulk bins of your local health stores/Whole Foods. Just remember to bring your own produce bags, or reuse the plastic ones over and over...

Unpackaged (via Treehugger)

Smell good AND be plastic-free

A couple months ago, I reported on a Canadian chick who's going "plastic-free in 2007". She's finding ways to shop for groceries and other necessities without feeding our plastic addiction. I got inspired to follow in her footsteps and try to keep myself fresh and dry without the use of plastic.

She offered the tip that Lush peddles deodorant not cased in plastic, so like an addict, I headed to the closest Lush store with much anticipation. I was not disappointed--I had never been inside one of their stores, and was super-psyched to see that most of their products are sold with no packaging! Yes, these are the things that excite me these days, people. The soaps and various "moisturizing bars" are stacked on top of each other, which gives the store an amazing aroma--surprisingly, not in an overwhelming way. The salespeople wrap your purchases in a little paper or small plastic bag, which I tried to refuse, but they convinced me that some of the products would crumble in my bag if left free-floating. (Next time, I'll bring my own). The point is, for the last couple months, I've been using this product, (pictured above), which is not only plastic-free, but also actually works! The added bonus is that it's also a natural deodorant, not a creepy, aluminum-based antiperspirant. But unlike the experience I've had with other natural deodorants (think Toms of Maine) that I have buried deep in my bathroom after failed (smelly) usage attempts, I didn't find myself alarmed halfway through the day. Although, I have found that there has been a week here or there where it seemed to work not quite as well. According to my knowledgeable "skin care coach", Nina Curtis (email me if you're in LA and are want to have the most amazing facial of your life--I'll give you her info), as women, our body chemistry changes throughout our cycles, so it is likely that a natural deodorant will work less well the week before your period. Not sure if guys' chemistry ever changes. So, my plan is to use my Lush bar most of the time, then resort to the old standby antiperspirant at certain times in my cycle. It cost $7.60, but has been going strong for 2 months and looks like it's going to last for several more, so seems to be a good value. Check here to see if there's a Lush store near you. Or, check out your local natural foods store for similiar products that aren't cased in plastic --such as the well-known "Rock" deodorant.

What to do with Fido's Poop WEEK

Of late, my nightmares are not made up of the usual, expected villains (you know--people chasing me, strange animals, old boyfriends, etc.), but rather are comprised of a chorus of voices asking one piercing question: "But what about my dog's poop?".
The question inevitably arrives at the end of a reusable bag pitch and is especially devastating because it's only asked after someone is totally on board with the reusable bag issue, but has one very real, smelly problem. Up until now, I've only been able to give lame, wishy-washy answers, like "Um, I'm still working on that one..." So I figured it was high-time to confront the issue straight on and do some serious research. And I'll just say it now: There is not one, easy, monolithic solution. But like many challenges we face, the answers are more like patchwork that take a bit more effort and thought what we've been used to (in this case, using the "free" plastic bags from the grocery store). Here are some ideas, with the goal of still reducing our overall disposable bag intake. They are listed in order from least to most radical...For those of you who aren't dog owners, please pass this info along to friends who are!

BECOME A BAG COLLECTOR
I'm learning that, like me, lots of well-intentioned people have been stashing plastic bags away in a drawer because it just didn't feel right to toss them. These already-in-circulation bags are a gold-mine for dog-owners! Tell everyone in your office that you're willing to take all those unwanted bags off their hands. If even a few people have a stash like mine, you'll be set for months...or who knows, years! And you're doing others a favor by making use of their saved bags, so that they can feel free to go reusable.

GET CREATIVE WITH YOUR PLASTIC

While many people are religious about reusing plastic grocery bags for various household purposes, we tend to overlook the other kinds of plastic bags that we end up with. Think newspaper bags, the plastic liners inside cereal boxes, the bags that wrap junk mail, bread loaf bags, toilet paper packaging. Lord knows we could probably heat our homes with all the packaging we end up with just after a trip to the drug store, so start salvaging those less-utilized nuggets of plastic gold. Reuse everything!

BIODEGRADABLE/COMPOSTABLE BAGS
There is an emerging industry of "bioplastics" attempting to address the petroleum-based (polyethylene) plastic problem. These bags are made out of various vegetable starches, oils, and soy. Their usefulness is that they biodegrade in a landfill, thus offering a solution to our more ubiquitous never-biodegrading plastic friend. The problem that "bioplastics" doesn't solve is the one of resource-intensive production. Like their polyethylene counterparts, they still seem to require large amounts of water and energy in their manufacturing. They might also increase mono-cropping and use of toxic fertilizers. And, just as we're seeing with the emerging bio-fuel trend, using food for non-food production purposes tends to drive up the prices of crops. Are the problems associated with them worse than with regular plastics? Probably not, but with all this in mind, I can't offer biodegradable bags as "the" solution for our poopy problem. But as a part of an overall "patchwork" strategy, they could ease your polyethylene burden. They are available at many natural food stores and can be bought here.

MOVE BEYOND THE BAG
Remember I said these ideas are moving toward most radical, so with that in mind, what about using non-bag pooper scoopers? This is especially for those of you with yards who don't have to tote the poop with you on a long hike. What about newspaper, old magazine pages, cereal boxes? If it's going straight from your backyard to an outdoor trashcan, there should be no problem utilizing some other piece of household garbage that was headed for the trash anyway, right?

COMPOST IT

This one if for those seriously committed to addressing the problem of animal waste. Yes, you can compost dog poop, but not with your food compost and not to be used on any plants you will actually be eating from your garden. Learn all about it here. On a side note, I need to point out that leaving poop on the ground wherever your baby happened to go is NOT an environmentally safe option. It will get absorbed into soil via rain or simply time, and we definitely don't want those microbes mixed into our water supply. Remember, this is just a local version of how e. coli gets spread by farm animals into our food and water supplies. But, composting it IS a good and simple solution, so let me know how that goes.

ADOPT ANOTHER DISPOSABLE ISSUE
As we've seen, there are definitely viable alternatives to using plastic bags for our poopy problem. But for most people, there will inevitably be some plastic bag usage involved. So while dog owners may not be able to go totally reusable on the bag front, all the more reason to get reusable in other areas. You could have a strict "no plastic water bottles" rule or be religious about always getting coffee in your refillable mug...Offset your plastic bag usage by reducing your eco-footprint in other ways, like drive 10 fewer miles a week. The possibilities are endless! (Check my archives for other ideas!). Let me know how these ideas work, and if you are taking other measures to address the poo problem.

Want to know more about "greening" your pet? Read Treehugger's ideas. There's info for you cat people too.

UPDATE: Here's what my dad has to say about his solution (that's his pup Ruthie, above--adorable, ain't she?): "What I do---in case you want to know---is on my runs, I am on the lookout for bags, and believe it or not, I always find some that are blowing around, stuck in fences, trees, ands so on. I therefore pick up Ruth's poop and take a tacky bag out of circulation at the same time." Go, Papa! Also, just read on No Impact Man's site that he picks up something off the top of a trashcan and uses that to do the business. If he can be "No Impact Man" and still have a dog, we can all find alternatives ways to scoop the poop!

Bolsas, bottles, and mangos

My trip to Mexico was by no means "eco-friendly". I took a variety of planes, buses, cars, vans, boats, and taxis to get to and around the rainforest and ruins of Chiapas. Travel is becoming increasingly recognized as a huge contributor to global warming, for obvious reasons. And I'm sure this is what people say about their Hummers, but damnit, traveling makes me happy like nothing else. Visiting other cultures invigorates me, rejuvenates me, and enriches my perspective on the world. Isn't that important? If I'm good the rest of the year, can I please keep my one international trip a year? Please?! As much as I've been skeptical about carbon offsetting--(I'm still not convinced it does much more than assuage guilt about our privileged lifestyles--please, someone convince me that it's worth it!)--I'm going to look into it to, well, assuage my guilt about my travel pollution. The other thing I have to come clean about is that for the first time since October, I drank out of plastic water bottles. Unfortunately, there was really no other choice. We had no means to boil our water and I'm not sure if it would have been wise to drink iodine-enriched water all week long. But a couple of the places I stayed had water available for tourists, so I was able to refill my bottles several times. OK, now on to the good news. While I was feeling travelers' guilt, I was simultaneously heartened to see some local practices that we could learn a thing or two from. Mexico gets it right in a lot of ways. For your consideration:

THEY USE COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHTBULBS

Lots of them. I would constantly look up and see them in hotels, bathrooms, and in the most random places, like this fruit stand near a popular waterfall. That's my traveling companera Lori eating a glorious Mexican mango. Why is CFL usage so widespread down south? Because they last longer and undoubtedly save much-needed dinero. It just makes sense!

THEY HANG-DRY THEIR CLOTHES

Clothes dryers are extremely rare in Mexico, as in other countries. In fact, even well off families hang-dry their clothes. It's so much fresher and adds some color to the backyard.

THEY RETURN BEER BOTTLES TO GET REFILLED

This is a huge one. The bottles don't get recycled, they actually get REFILLED (yes, after extensive sterilization). Refilling beverage containers used to be a common practice in our country too (more on this soon), and still exists in other countries out of economic necessity. People place a deposit on the bottles at purchase, and must return the bottle to not lose the deposit. This exists in some states in the U.S., but none that I've ever lived in...Gee, when I think of fall the beer bottles, over all the years...I would feel better about my own amount of imbibing knowing they had been reused again and again, wouldn't you?

THEY SEPARATE THEIR TRASH

I saw this all over--trash separated into "organic" and "inorganic" or paper and plastic. Presumably they compost the organic matter (food and paper), instead of sending it to a landfill. I'm going to look into this further to see what this program is all about. That's the remains of a mango going into the organic side of an airport trash bin. (BTW, that wasn't even my last mango before leaving the country. I actually cut one open right on my tray table before we landed in L.A. The flight attendants thought I was a crazy person).

THEY BRING THEIR OWN BAGS

Perhaps my strongest memory of visiting Mexico as a child is of women carrying their colorful bolsas at the markets. And while I did notice a plastic ubiquity encroaching on the country this time, I was relieved to see that reusable bags are still alive and well. Women visit the market every morning, and fill their bolsas with some of the freshest produce in the world. The platanitos, nopales, and yes, mangos definitely wouldn't deign to rub skin with plastic.

Are any of these practices a huge inconvenience on people's lives? Would any of them catapult us back to the dark ages? I don't think so.

Treehugger's Convenient Truths Contest

Just got back from Mexico...saw some amazing stuff, including many basic "green" practices that we, their northern neighbors, could learn from. I add the parenthesis because I'm sure most of the energy-saving practices I noticed are done out of economic necessity and because they just make sense, darnit, rather than out of any conscious environmental motivation. Will be reporting on those observations and my attempts to tread lightly while traveling shortly...

In the meantime, check out a video that my sister and I (that's us!) entered in Tree- hugger's Convenient Truths contest. It's a quick and simple exultation of--what else?--the virtues of reusable bags. If you like it, give us some love and rate it. And be sure to check out some of the other videos...Treehugger wanted to know what people are doing to fight global warming, and there are lots of great responses. It's encouraging to see how many people took up the call. Thanks to my sis Molly for doing most (read: all) of the work!

Me on Treehugger