The great cloth napkin manifesto

Since I've started this site, the most satisfying aspect has been to hear my friends get excited about one particular disposable problem, or to hear about things they were already doing to make their lives more reusable. My friend Megan has been a long-time user and champion of cloth napkins. And now, I have received her much-anticipated manifesto on the subject! I've been using a kitchen towel as my home dinner napkin, so now I'm totally inspired to go to a thrift store and attempt to make my own...Thanks, Megan! (That's her and said napkins at a little house gathering, and her buddy Tasha with her own napkin below).

MEGAN SAYS:
"I have a lot of habits that are bad for creation, but I have one that is good. I always use cloth napkins at home, and I almost never use paper towels. It makes me crazy that we use so many trees to make napkins, tissues and paper towels, when almost all of the uses for these items can be done easily with reusable cloth.

Cloth napkins are cool. First of all, they are like an accessory for your table, but not a dorky one, like placemats. There are hundreds of kinds of cloth napkins. I have some that I bought on sale at Anthropologie (striped corduroy, $1.25 each), some that I bought an estate sale in Washington DC (cotton, 25 cents each); and some fancy Irish linen ones (gift from my godmother). If you are really out to be a stellar re-user, you could buy some material at a thrift store and cut them up into napkins. That would be really cheap and very environmentally aggressive of you. So - cloth napkins - stylish, and easily obtainable. How can you resist?

Secondly, they are easy to care for, unlike, say, a biodiesel car. At my house, we use them for about a week (longer if we are lazy, shorter if we are eating a lot of messy food) and then throw them in with our regular wash. I keep some in reserve for when company comes over, but our everyday ones look, shall we say, loved. They have little faded stains and whatnot, but they are napkins. Not clothes.

To me, using cloth napkins is a no-brainer. It saves trees, it is (potentially) stylish and it is easy.


As for paper towels? I have one word. RAGS. This has to be the craziest thing corporate America has invented. Paper towel. Seriously. What is wrong with a torn up T-shirt to wipe your sink, or to clean your floor or toilet? How about a washcloth for a kid's face? Obviously, not the same piece of cloth for all those tasks. That would be gross. But you get the idea. If you have to clean up dog vomit, however, I think a paper towel is OK. I understand. That is nasty. The occasional paper towel can be a good thing. But the over-paper-towelfication of America is just stupid.

On the tissue front - I do actually have handkerchiefs, and I have used them when I have a runny nose. It's amazing - using cotton on your nose instead of crazy lotion-laden tissues (how do they do that, anyway?) is much gentler on your skin. The only thing is, if you have a really gross snotty nose you do need several handkerchiefs. Or you can be like me and hold out for a while and then cave and hit the Kleenex. But you are probably a better person than me and would never do that.

And do I really need to say anything about paper plates? I think not."

I heart the bulk bin

This weekend I got the chance to put my produce bags--AKA the best invention EVER--to use for non-produce items. Technically, they are made for grains too, so it's not like I'm going too far outside the box here. But it was quite satisfying to think about all the packaging I was saving by eliminating the middle man (the cereal box, plastic pasta wrapping) by bringing my own bag. Just like with produce, when I got home, I transferred them to a pre-existing plastic bag. I need to upgrade to those glass jar containers which I always thought were so old fashioned, but now I totally get. The bulk bin world is so exciting! I can't wait to return and fill my bags with more cereals, dried fruit, trail mix, beans upon beans...Get your produce bags (they're cheap!) and go bulk!

Reams and reams of trees WEEK

Back in "Let's stop flushing forests down the toilet WEEK", we learned that the paper industry is one of the biggest contributors to global climate change and environmental degradation in general. The problems are (at least) three-fold: First, virgin forests that help absorb Co2 and that support complex, biodiverse ecoystems are ravaged. Once that biodiversity is gone, it's lost forever--we can't just create a simulated perfectly balanced ecoystem by planting new trees. Secondly, the pulp-making process is highly polluting--releasing greenhouse gases, and poisoning water and air. According to the NRDC, in many countries the paper/pulp industry is both the biggest consumer AND polluter of water. Third, of course, is the problem of what happens to our disposable paper products after their short lives of usefulness to us. Again, according the NRDC, "Americans use an average of 741 pounds of paper, per person, each year." Most of that ends up as trash in our ever-expanding land-fills. We can't keep putting our rubbish in holes in the ground forever. (Funny, I wonder what the ratio of landfills is to in-tact forests these days. Has our refuse for unwanted, single-use items already surpassed the resources that gave birth to these disposables?) The ridiculous thing is, we can get so much more usage out of our paper products. You guys probably do a lot of this stuff already, but here are a few basic tips for reducing, reusing, and recycling our copy and writing paper at home and at work.

1. REDUCE
One of the gifts of the electronic age is that we can communicate, create, and stay on schedule without ever having to make hard copies. Take a second to think before you pull the trigger and print only what you really need! Too many times I've printed out a whole page for one small piece of information, like an address. If you mapquest something, write down the directions in your planner or on the back of an already used piece of paper. On a related note, did you know you can refill your printer cartridges for half the price of buying a new one? Visit Cartridge World (thanks, Green LA Girl) instead of throwing that cartridge away. They have Pasadena and Westside locations...if you're not in LA, they might have one near you because there are 400 locations nationwide. Yipee for saving money and not creating more plastic trash!

2. REUSE
This is a real revolutionary one! Instantly cut your paper usage in half by using BOTH SIDES of a piece of paper! That goes for notebooks and loose paper. At work, write on both sides of that legal pad. Fill your printer with paper that has only been printed on one side. Many businesses are designating a drawer in the copier and printer for this purpose. If you ever need to print something "official", just put in a blank piece on top. Also, make a stack of half-used paper that has been folded or is otherwise unsuitable to go through the printer, and use that as a writing pad. For years I've kept such a stack on a clipboard to use whenever I need scratch paper around the house. These stacks last so long, that I never have to buy pads of paper to use at home. It's also a fun jaunt down memory lane to flip through the used side--old college papers mixed with bank statements and drafts of cover letters for jobs I never got. I've also taken to saving envelopes in the same way, because I always end up writing on them anyway, so i might as well gather them on a clipboard.

3. BUY RECYCLED

When you do have to buy paper, buy 100% recycled with the highest post-consumer content you can find. I just paid Staples a visit and they have quite a variety of recycled paper in practically every form you can imagine. Reams, spiral notebooks, legal pads, file folders, envelopes, post-its (although the latter is suspect because nowhere on the package does it say what percentage is recycled--the better option would be to just stay away from post-its altogether and use pre-existing scratch paper, see above). From what I saw, the recycled stuff is a tad bit more expensive than the generic Staples brand, but pretty equivalent to other brands. And, since you'll be reducing your paper usage via steps 1 and 2, it will surely even out over the long term. Also, try to get unbleached paper when possible.

What are some other ideas? I know I'm forgetting stuff on this one...

New and improved!

I finally got around to some site maintenance and would like to point out a few new features, added for your convenience. First and most importantly, I brushed up on a little HTML code (I'm feeling quite techy about this) and figured out how to actually link to other sites within my posts. A whole new window even opens up for the link! I went back and fixed all the old posts, so if you were avoiding copying and pasting the URLs into the browser, you can go back and check out the links you might have missed. And of course, going forward, it will be easy to follow links, like a real, legit website. Very exciting. Next, as you probably noticed, I added a handy-dandy little counter that gives you a running tab of how many plastic bags are being consumed around the world RIGHT NOW! That's right, folks, we're talking real time. It's pretty crazy--even since I downloaded it yesterday, it's gone up 2 billion bags! I guess that makes sense, if you imagine all the people across the world at a grocery store at any given moment, and all the bags they each carry home with them (and then promptly discard). The third new feature is the sidebar "Search by topic", where you can do exactly that. If you want to go back and refresh your memory about all the tips of the week, for example, you can do it with a click of a button. Or look at all the posts that deal with plastic, that too. I'm still working on naming the categories and labeling each post, but it will be a handy little feature. That's all for now. As always, I'd love to hear any feedback you have about the site and about any changes you're making in your lifestyle.

Driving diet update: Get to know a coworker!

Ok, so after a week of feeling at a loss about how I can cut down my commuting miles without spending 5 hours a day on the bus, another option has presented itself: Carpooling! My lovely coworker Traci lives fairly nearby (Eagle Rock) but strongly believes in the cause and suggested that we give it a try. She doesn't mind swinging down a bit out of her way to Los Feliz to pick me up and the best part is, she drives a Prius! Not only are we taking one car off the road, but I get to share in her lower emissions glory. Geez, I couldn't ask for a better carpool buddy! So far she's graciously done all the driving since my MPG doesn't even come close to hers, but she says it helps alleviate her guilt about working on the westside. We've ridden together twice this week, and we're hoping to do it 1-2 times a week. It's much less of a hassle than you might think, (we just talk the day before and see if our schedules sync up) and chatting makes that hour go by faster and takes the edge off fighting the traffic. See if any of your coworkers live close or along your path to work and give it a try! Now if only there was an actual carpool LANE on the 10...

BYOB, San Francisco

In 2005, San Francisco was considering imposing a 17 cent tax on plastic bags (like many other countries and cities have done, including Ireland, which reduced usage by 90% after imposing theirs). Grocery chains opposed, and brokered a deal to voluntarily reduce plastic bag usage by 10 million bags. Well, saying please didn't work, and the grocers aren't cooperating by submitting vital info such as how many bags they actually do go through every year. So, now local law-makers have introduced legislation that would force stores to substantially reduce plastic bag usage. It's not really clear what that would entail other than the vague mandate to use "recyclable, biodegradable or reusable bags". Nonetheless, it's super-exciting that this issue is finally picking up steam so close to home! I say we beat 'em to it and get L.A. to ban plastic bags before they get around to it in July. This could be bigger than, er, the Dodgers vs the Giants! Who's on board?

Go here to read about what's going on in SF.

Could you go plastic-free?

Just as I was starting to feel perhaps a teeny-weeny bit smug about my disposable bag/bottle-free months, I came across a chick in Vancouver who is going completely plastic-free in 2007. This is hardcore: Nothing that contains even a plastic wrapper can make the cut. Think about that! Most packaged food is out, as are most toiletries, toilet paper and other essentials. And no, she's not going to starve or not wash her hair all year...she's seeking alternatives, which, thankfully, do seem to be out there. One of my next steps is going to be buying cereals, pasta, rice, snacks, etc from the bulk bin of my local nature mart (Whole Foods has them too), with my cloth produce bags, of course. Now I'm going to follow her lead and seek out plastic-free products like deoderant from Lush. Very inspiring! Check it out and follow her journey.