Becoming a Plastic-Free Household

One of the things I enjoyed most about my No Impact Week experiment was becoming more aware of how much of a negative impact plastic has on the environment and our health, and discovering ways to greatly reduce how much plastic enters our home and how much leaves in the way of trash or recycling. Even though recycling plastic is better than sending it to the landfill or it ending up in the ocean, ultimately it would be fantastic for less plastic to be used from the get-go.

My “a-ha” moment about plastic started while reading No Impact Man’s book week before last. This book appealed to me in a way no other book in this genre has. It was very readable, very approachable. I *loved* that the author and his family didn’t uproot from New York City to do this . . . they loved where they lived, so they (to borrow Tim Gunn’s phrase) made it work. I highly recommend this book; I borrowed it from the library and am tempted to add it to my Christmas wish list so I’ll have a copy I can write in [g].

After I finished No Impact Man’s book, I discovered the Fake Plastic Fish blog. Beth has a great FAQs that, among other things, explains why she started her blog, “what’s wrong with plastic, anyway?”, and “can’t we just recycle all our plastic?”. I’ve barely made a dent in all the info available on Beth’s blog and have already found so much that has been hugely informative and helpful.

One of the things I’ve been making use of on Beth’s site is a great list of changes you can make to become plastic-free. I referred to the list a lot this past week. I talked in my No Impact Week “Results” post (here) about some of the changes we’ve made. This post will talk about some of the other ideas from Beth’s list that caught my eye that I’d like to work towards.

(1) Use stainless steel containers with stainless steel lids or glass containers with glass lids in the freezer; not ones with plastic lids.

I didn’t realize glass and stainless steel storage containers could be found with something other than plastic lids!! For storing leftovers in the fridge, we usually use glass containers (some with glass lids, others with plastic lids). But for freezing foods, we tend to utilize plastic containers or plastic bags. Beth has a post here about Anchor Hocking Bake ‘n Serve glass containers with glass lids, and she has a post here about airtight stainless steel containers with stainless steel lids (I found the comments on both posts to be informative, as well). Both the glass and stainless steel containers are pricey, so I don’t know how soon we’ll be acquiring anything like this — I may end up putting a few pieces on my Christmas list.

(2) Quit using liquid dishwashing soap.

It’s hard to find a bar dishwashing soap! I looked around Etsy but didn’t find anything that was specifically for dishes. I did stumble across a laundry stain stick that can be used for dishes, but then the description also said the soap was harsh on hands — since I struggle with chapped hands in the winter to begin with, using a harsh soap isn’t very appealing. For now, I’ll continue using a liquid soap, and keep looking for an alternative.

(3) Quit using a synthetic kitchen sponge.

For the past six or seven months, we’ve been using some crocheted cotton dish scrubbers I received in a craft swap, and they work great! After months of abuse, we’re down from four to two, so I bought some on Etsy from this seller — she had the smaller size listed as “facial rounds” and also offered a round dishcloth in a bigger size. There are lots of crocheted dish scrubbers on Etsy but many are made with nylon, whereas I specifically wanted ones made out of cotton. If I ever get around to learning how to crochet, it will be so I can make crocheted dish scrubbers!!

(4) Avoid products sold in liquid form if a solid alternative is available.

~ I discussed shampoo bars, shaving soap bars, bath bar soap, and powdered laundry detergent on this post.

~ I’ve used baking soda (which I store in a glass container) as my underarm deodorant for well over a year now and absolutely love it. But I’d never thought about using a powder puff to apply it and had a “Doh!” moment when I read that on Beth’s list! I know from my own experience that baking soda is the best armpit deodorant out there, but I didn’t realize until reading this post on the One Green Generation blog that you can mix cornstarch into the baking soda to have an end result that would also combat wetness. Brilliant!! I’ll be giving that a try.

~ I’m still doing some looking around on Etsy to see if I can find a lotion bar that doesn’t have ingredients that will stain clothing. Between our dry climate and hard water, lotion is a must from head to toe!! I did find one place that offers to use glass jars for their liquid lotion, so that’s an option if I can’t find a lotion bar I like.

(5) Switch to refillable fountain pens with converters.

I’ll admit this appealed to the pen geek in me!! I remember at some point in junior high we had to write with fountain pens, the kind that had the disposable cartridges. I don’t remember why we had to, or for what class, but I do remember thinking the fountain pens were nifty. In my early 20’s, I had a boss who only used refillable fountain pens. So, fountain pens, for me = fond memories.

Looking around online for fountain pens was quite overwhelming, so I googled the brand and style Beth mentioned she bought and, lo and behold, they are aluminum rather than plastic, are very affordable, and come in some fabulous colors. This is the one I like, and it’s at the top of my Christmas wish list [g]. You have to be sure to get the refillable converter and the ink if you don’t want the disposable (plastic) cartridges.

Something I read during my fountain pen search is that you don’t have to press down as hard when using a fountain pen, so your hand won’t get tired as quickly. I’m looking forward to that, because my handwriting definitely suffers when I write for very long.

(6) Find ways to wrap gifts without using plastic tape.

Okay folks, I am so *not* a fan of paper gift bags — I’m a real grinch about them, in fact!! I honestly just prefer to wrap gifts. Beth has a post here showing a way to wrap with paper but without using tape, or you could wrap with fabric, use or make drawstring bags, go a step easier and put a piece of fabric around the gift (think of how you would do that with a bottle of wine) and tie a ribbon or twine around the top of the fabric to close the “bag”, or sew up some of these cute little gift bags that have the tie sewn right in. If you don’t sew, Etsy is a great place to find cloth gift bags (I just did a quick search there for “cloth gift bags” and came up with nearly 2,000 listings!)

I wanted to be creative with my gift-wrapping last Christmas, but we had a bunch of leftover, unused wrapping paper from the Christmas prior to that, so I ended up just using that. But this year . . . this year I will be creative!

(7) Switch toothpaste and toothbrushes.

Tom’s of Maine toothpaste comes in an aluminum tube that can be recycled (except for the plastic lid). Preserve toothbrushes are made from recycled materials and are recyclable by sending them back to the company (don’t worry, they aren’t recycled back into toothbrushes — there’s no “ewwww” factor about the recycled toothbrushes! you can read more on Preserve’s website).

By the way, if your local recycling center doesn’t accept #5 plastic (ours doesn’t), you can mail your #5’s to Preserve (it’s lightweight plastic, so not costly to mail) and they’ll use them to make the recycled toothbrushes. Read more about that program here. Until I can figure out how to make greek-style yogurt my own self, and can make hummus that’s as tasty as the brand I buy at the grocery store, I will be happy to send my empty yogurt cups and empty hummus containers to Preserve to recycle!! (I noticed today the hard plastic containers the sliced cheese we buy comes in are #5 plastic, so they’ll be sent to Preserve too.)

Between the changes we’d made in the past couple of years, the changes we’re making right now, and the changes I discussed in this post, we have a lot of the items on Beth’s list covered. That feels good!!

Results from “No Impact Experiment” Week

I’ve decided to wrap up my “No Impact Experiment” week a few days early. Things worked out perfectly for us to start primering and repainting our dining room and living room today, so we jumped on the opportunity. While I am still keeping the “no impact” ideas in mind, my focus for the next week or so will be finishing up the primering and repainting, perhaps steam-cleaning the carpets in both rooms while they are empty of furniture, and cooking yummy food and spending Thanksgiving with my family. Fortunately, I had drafted and have been tweaking my “results” post all week, so that’s made it easier for me to give it a final tweak and post it.

The goal of “Stop Making Trash” was a little unrealistic, *but* I was much, MUCH more thoughtful about not generating unnecessary trash, with the result being that I generated at least two-thirds less trash, including recyclables. (Only I participated in the experiment this time around because I found out about just a few days before it began. But I do want all three of us to participate the next time around, in early January, when we all have a little more time to plan ahead and truly focus on being as “no impact” as possible!)

TRASH: KITCHEN

I ate the same lunch every day, which equated to less food waste and less packages being opened than if I ate something different for lunch every day. Each lunch, I split a big ole apple with kiddo instead of giving him half and wrapping the other half in saran wrap for him to eat later (in other words, I ate more fresh fruit than I normally would, and didn’t generate saran wrap trash).

I avoided individually-packaged snack foods (granola bars, cheese crackers). When I had a sweet tooth, which was strangely not very often, I munched on some organic granola. When I craved a salty snack (that didn’t happen often either), I munched on some organic tortilla chips. There were a couple times I chose to have a roll of Smarties or a piece of Trident, but there were more times when I chose to not have them.

Hubby worked out of town for all but one of the nights I did the experiment, so the nights he was gone I purposely ate things for dinner that wouldn’t generate much trash. When he was home for dinner, what I cooked for us generated a bit more trash in the form of packaging, but all in all dinner trash was lower than usual, and that was definitely done as a conscious choice on my part.

I don’t usually use paper towels, other than when I fry (and I don’t fry that often to begin with), so I didn’t have paper towel trash. I do use saran wrap and foil though, and found myself, several times during the week, reaching for those, then stopped myself and figured out an alternative that wouldn’t result in trash.

As for generating trash in future weeks, we have a pretty full pantry, freezer, and fridge right now, so we will be generating trash as we eat up the packaged foods. But my goal, as we begin to empty the pantry, freezer, and fridge, is to replace those foods, as much as I possibly can, with fresh produce (preferably not wrapped in plastic!), bulk-bin items, and items packaged in glass so that we can reuse the glass containers. Now, since no one particularly likes someone else telling them how to eat [g], I know there are certain trash-producing food items that each of us will want to have available on a regular basis, so it won’t be an all-or-nothing approach around here. Rather, it’ll be more along the lines of, “Okay, we each have these certain foods we want to have around that generate trash, but mostly we’re fine with opting for foods that will generate less trash.” We’ll see how that plays out in the coming months!

I’ve been using cloth grocery bags consistently since last year, but I had never gotten around to making my own produce bags, so I’ve been using those horrid plastic ones at the grocery store. No more!! I ordered (and received today, talk about fast shipping!!) some organic cotton mesh produce bags from Reusable Bags. I used them for grocery shopping tonight and they are fabulous!! Very sturdy — I filled one with apples and filled another with sweet potatoes, so the bags were quite heavy, but they held up fantastically. I also bought a handful of small organic cotton muslin drawstring bags to use for bulk-bin purchases. I forgot to request no plastic/styrofoam/packing peanuts, so was tickled to see they didn’t use any of those things, or any other unnecessary packing materials, inside the box.

I am proud to say I have successfully quit drinking bottled water!! I can’t say I *love* the taste of our city’s water, but I actually am getting used to the taste of it. Included in my order from Reusable Bags was a Klean Kanteen for each of us, because we have a bad habit of buying individually-sized bottles of water for when we’re at the park or otherwise “out in nature” away from home. After reading the reviews for the Klean Kanteens on that website, I opted for the regular stainless steel versions (apparently the paint on the painted ones chips off easily) with the insulated sleeves (so anything we have the water bottles against won’t get wet when the bottles sweat). I was pleasantly surprised by how lightweight these are.

TRASH: PERSONAL HYGIENE

We switched from kleenex to cloth for our noses last year; however, when kiddo and I had some severe allergies going on several months ago, I couldn’t wash and dry the cloths fast enough to keep up with our runny noses so I bought boxes of kleenex . . . and now my guys tend to grab kleenex instead of walking to the bathroom to grab a cloth (I’m pretty diehard about finding a cloth, myself!). So, the remaining kleenex boxes are now in hiding [g], and I’ll snag the remaining yard of “to be made into hankies” flannel that’s in my fabric stash and get it made into hankies so we’ll have more cloths available for wiping runny noses when allergies flare up again.

As for TP, we switched to 7th Generation brand a while back and no one’s butts are complaining [g]. I buy the 12-pack of “big” rolls, which is the largest quantity available at the grocery store. Amazon sells a big cardboard box of individually-wrapped rolls (so, no plastic involved), but I read a comment somewhere that this particular offer is for the 7th Gen TP that feels more like the commercial-grade stuff you’d find in an office building bathroom (ie, not much of a step up from copy paper!), so, for now, I’ll stick with buying the 12-pack of comfy-to-our-butts 7th Gen TP from the grocery store. To further reduce TP usage, I’m going to start using a peri bottle to rinse after I pee — I did that when I had a urinary tract infection earlier this year and it was so much more comfortable than using toilet paper. I can use the flannel cloths to blot dry if I find that’s needed — they’ll just go through the washer with the towels like they do when we blow our noses on them.

I’ve ordered various things that, when received, will result in substantially less bathroom/personal hygiene trash. I want to mention that I only ordered replacements for products I would have had to buy at the grocery store within the next couple of weeks. There are still some other products I would like to find replacements for, but there’s not a rush to find them.

~ I claimed an old safety razor Rodney had on-hand, and ordered some razor blades for it from this eBay vendor — I opted for the box of 100 blades because there’s no plastic packaging (whereas the other packages of 5 or 10 blades I found were all packaged in plastic), and that many blades will last me (and us, if hubby should opt to switch to a safety razor) a l-o-n-g time.

~ Since I shave my legs and pits daily, I go through a lot of shaving gel. I’m going to try a bar of shave soap I ordered from Etsy seller GudonyaToo. I requested it be packaged as “naked” as possible (no packaging on the soap), and they’ve agreed to doing that.

~ I ordered a new Diva Cup and some cloth pads/liners (and the peri bottle I mentioned above) from LunaPads. I had used a Diva Cup for a while, then got lazy about using it and eventually got rid of it. This seems a good time to start using one again. Cloth pads have come a ways since I last used them — LunaPads’ design is pretty cool and I ordered them in an organic fabric that is cute. (If my booty was smaller, I would’ve ordered some of their new LunaPanties — that will be on my “to do” list when I can fit into a size medium!) I forgot to ask for no plastic/styrofoam/packing peanuts, so will be curious to see how much or little is included.

~ I ordered a shampoo bar, some bar soap, and some wooden, slatted soap holders (made by her hubby) from Etsy seller BarNoneProducts. I requested no plastic/styrofoam/packing peanuts; I didn’t request the soap be “naked” because I ordered several different kinds and wanted to be able to tell which was which!

TRASH: MISC.

We did a little bit of local (non-grocery) shopping this week and made a point to not use plastic bags.

We already don’t get much junk mail, but we do get more catalogs than I care to have, so I’m calling or emailing to opt out on those as they show up in the mail. In the past, I’ve utilized the Catalog Choice website (it’s free). I do try to remember to utilize bill envelopes for making grocery lists, etc., but I’d gotten lax about that, so this week was a good reminder to be more consistent about that.

I’m about out of liquid laundry soap, so I ordered some powdered soap (which is H.E.-washer friendly) from Etsy seller MapleHillFarm. I inquired about the option of no-plastic packaging and Lynn had no problem with packaging the soap in a brown paper bag, which she is agreeable to me sending back when I’m ready for a refill if I don’t use the bag for something else before then (I’ll transfer the soap to a big glass jar I already have as soon as I receive the soap from Lynn, that way I don’t have to worry about the bag getting wet or torn). I had also ordered a bar of bath soap, which I requested be sent “naked” (no packaging around it), and Lynn readily agreed to that request too.

Hubby and I agreed we wouldn’t miss getting the daily paper, so I cancelled our subscription. Far too often the papers are still packaged and unread when I get ready to take them to the recycling center, which is just an embarrassing waste of resources. If we decide we want a paper on a particular day, it’s easy enough to grab one at the nearby convenience store.

TRANSPORTATION

I generally make a habit of lumping errands when I make a list of what needs to be done for the week or weekend, but I had also gotten in the habit of doing errands on the spur-of-the-moment, which equated to lots of extra trips. We did have some spur-of-the-moment errands come up, but were still able to combine errands.

FOOD

Some of the discussion in the Trash: Kitchen section would fit here as well, so I won’t repeat that info.

I discovered our farmers market closed down at the end of October and won’t reopen until mid-May. That left me pretty stymied about coming up with a definition of “local”. For now, I’m simply going to define local as “grown in Texas”, and I’ll opt for those items as often as I can IF there’s not an organic option available from elsewhere in the States.

In the situations when I have to choose between local -or- organic, I will nearly always go with organic. Until the late spring, when our garden starts producing, and early summer, when the farmers market opens back up, there will be very little produce that fits in both categories. Fortunately, most of the organic produce we regularly buy is at least from the States. Granted, some of it travels pretty far to get here, but I’m just happy to have the option of getting it, because organic hasn’t been an option here for all that many years.

Kiddo and I tend to grab fast food or have a meal at a restaurant on the days when we run lots of errands if hubby is working out of town, but we didn’t get fast food or have a restaurant meal at all . . . and I didn’t miss it (especially the fast food, which I honestly just don’t love anymore). As a family, we enjoy eating out at one particular restaurant here, so I imagine we’ll continue to do that a couple times a month. We’ve gotten in the habit of ordering smaller portions, so that we don’t end up eating too much or having leftovers, and it’s a restaurant that utilizes cloth napkins, so there’s no paper waste in that area. Not to mention, the food is freshly-prepared and always tasty.

ENERGY

There weren’t a whole lot of changes to make in this area. We made some big changes with respect to our electricity usage almost two years ago, so really all I had to do this week was be more diligent in areas where I’d slacked off just a bit — keeping the thermostat a degree cooler, remembering to turn off power strips the tvs/computers/game systems/microwave/toaster oven/etc. are plugged into, things like that.

WATER

I didn’t keep track of the water I used, but I was very conscious of how much I was using every time I used it, and I did make a point to use less overall.

We already have a low-flow toilet. We catch rainwater to use in watering our garden, but that’s not really applicable right now since I just this week pulled up the last items we had in our garden; however, it’s very handy in the spring and especially in the dog days of summer.

We could stand to put some aerators on our faucets, and we really do need to switch to a low-flow showerhead, so those changes are on our to-do list.

GIVING BACK

I’ll focus on this category during the next No Impact week, if I don’t before then.

ECO-SABBATH

No Impact Man suggests having one day (or part of one day) a week when you use no resources at all. Because of the house projects we’re trying to get done by Thanksgiving weekend, I’m not sure if I can pull off an Eco-Sabbath before then, but I absolutely am looking forward to implementing this concept that weekend!! It’s been fun thinking of ways to spend my / our time on each week’s Eco-Sabbath.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Even though it didn’t work out for me to do a full seven days, I enjoyed the days I did do the experiment. It did require thought on my part, but was not as hard as I thought it might be, especially considering I only first read about it three days before it began!!

Generating less trash took some effort, but on the flip side it pushed me to go ahead and take some steps I should’ve taken before now: no bottled water, being thoughtful about food in general and snacks in particular (I rarely snacked this week and lost a few pounds!), finding alternatives to plastic packaging, and finding alternatives to disposable products, among other things.

I’m excited about the idea of going ahead and making use of what we already have in our fridge/freezer/pantry, and then making a diligent effort to *not* replace things like individually-wrapped snacks, heat-n-serve frozen food (I don’t mean veggies, I mean frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and the like), and boxed mixes (pasta mixes, cornbread mix, things like that) . . . and to start cooking and freezing dried beans so we can quit buying canned beans.

The money I spent to buy things that will generate little to no trash is not much more of an outlay of cash right now than if I had to go buy shampoo, shower soap, bottled water, disposable razors and shaving cream, feminine hygiene products, and laundry soap all at the same time. When you figure the water bottles, the (free) safety razor and blades that go with it, and the feminine hygiene products are things that won’t have to be purchased again for *years*, it becomes a cost savings. Not to mention the huge reduction in trash being generated while using all of the products I bought this week — now THAT is priceless!!

I do plan to continue to be thoughtful about the trash we generate, and I have a goal that we will produce even less trash during the January “No Impact” week!!

If you’re even a little interested in “No Impact” week, go read the How-To Manual (it’s not long) and get an idea of what’s involved, then plan to participate the week of January 3rd!! Participate in a way that works for you. For example, this time I didn’t take part in the “no shopping” aspect, because I wanted to start obtaining non-disposable and non-plastic products *and* I’m doing some Christmas shopping on Etsy [g]. But when January 3rd rolls around, not buying anything for a week shouldn’t be a problem for us, so I’d like to do the “no shopping” part during that week’s challenge. Another example is that walking/biking/public transporation is not a doable option for us right now, so I just modified the “transportation” portion of the challenge to be more thoughtful about grouping our errands together, and not giving in to unnecessary spur-of-the-moment errands . . . and I may handle that part of the January challenge the same way. Look at the experiment’s guidelines and use them as just that: guidelines! Make the challenge your own; look at the guidelines and decide what you CAN do, and then commit to doing those things when sign-ups for the January challenge roll around!! Those of us with kids like to encourage them to push themselves “just a little bit more” when they’re attempting to reach a goal . . . this is one of those times ALL of us can push ourselves just a little bit more!

Whew! This was one long post. For those of you who hung in there and read the whole thing, THANKS :). If you try any of the stores / Etsy shops I linked to, I would love to hear about what you buy and how you like it. As I try some of the products I’ve ordered, I’ll be sure to do the same.

Bookmarks & Candles

Like I could NOT post for an entire week! Jeesh, WHAT was I thinking when I typed that?!?!

I will have some great posts starting Sunday regarding No Impact week. I’ve drafted them and am adding a bit here and there as each day passes. In the meantime, I thought I’d share pics of some recent goodies I received.

These are the lovely bookmarks I ordered from Elsa Mora. (I put a black t-shirt underneath them so you can better see the detail of the designs.) Aren’t they just lovely?!!

This one below, I’m keeping for myself. I’m going to use my embroidery beading needle, which is very thin, and see if I can embroider my name on the empty part without damaging it. If it works out the way I’m envisioning, I’ll likely similarly embellish the other three bookmarks and gift them at Christmas.

Debbie brought by the beeswax candles I ordered for her fundraiser and, oh my, they smell fabulous!! I lit all four and they gave the house a very subtle honey smell — not something that smacks you in the face so that you say, “Oh, she’s burning a candle”, more like “Mmmmm, it smells a little like honey in here.” Very nice. I’ll be ordering some more pillars for us, and a few others to gift at Christmas. These will be my go-to candles of choice from now on!

Lastly, when I went out front this afternoon, I happened to notice this cute little flower had popped up in one of our windowboxes. I had removed all the dead flowers out of the windowboxes at the end of summer, but every fall there’s always one or two flowers that pop out and surprise us by their presence.

(Fly-By Post) Another Great Thing about Technology

At this moment, kiddo, here in Texas, and grown stepkiddo, stationed in California, are both playing the same game with each other (Modern Warfare 2, for those who are gamers) via Xbox Live. For those not familiar with Xbox Live (or similar game setups), that means their characters are interacting with each other while the two boys are talking with each other and strategizing via headset. Just one more reason you will never find me wishing for “the good ole days”, because in the good ole days two brothers couldn’t be that many states away from each other and still be able to strategize and work together on the same game at any given moment :).

Gearing Up for the “No Impact Experiment” Week

As I mentioned in my last post, the next No Impact Experiment week begins tomorrow, November 15th. I will be participating, but since I found out about it a little too close to the “start” date, I am not asking hubby and kiddo to jump in this time around (it really does take some preplanning). I’m going to do what I can myself, after the week is up I’ll keep the changes implemented that I feel like I can, and then when the next No Impact Experiment week rolls around (January 3rd), I’ll ask hubby and kiddo to join in (though I will give them more advance notice than I gave myself!!).

So, using the How-To Manual as my guideline, here are the things I plan to do this week:

Sunday: Prepare for Monday
Collect all of my trash for the day, including the things we usually take to the recycling center. For any meals I prepare that other people will also be eating, I’ll go ahead and include that trash with the trash I’m collecting. I will not be including compostable trash in this bag; that stuff will all go right on out to the compost bin (I’m not interested in having fruit flies in the house all week!).

Monday: Trash

• Separate yesterday’s trash into two piles: (1) stuff used for more than 10 minutes, and (2) stuff used for less than 10 minutes. Make a mental note of what’s in each pile, then toss everything back into the trash bag and set it somewhere out of the way until Saturday.
• Put together a no-trash travel kit for the week. For me, all I would need is something to carry water in if we go to the park, and to be sure I tuck a hankie in my pocket so I don’t have to use kleenex when we’re out and about.
• Stop Making Trash!! Keep a special bag for trash, including food packaging, I generate this week.

Tuesday: Transportation
Public transportation, bicycling, and walking are not options for us, so instead I will focus on combining errands. I tend to do this anyway, but we have gotten in the habit of doing spur-of-the-moment errands lately, so I’ll be more thoughtful about those and see if (a) they can be put off temporarily and combined with other errands on a different day, or (b) they can be put off indefinitely.

Wednesday: Food

• Determine what amount of miles I want to use for my definition of “local” foods. (No Impact Man uses 250 miles, and he explains in his book why he chose that particular number.)
• Choose 5 items we eat on a regular basis that are not produced locally and try to replace them with locally-produced ones, or replace them with a different item that is locally produced.
• Determine which packaged food products we use can be replaced with ones that don’t generate trash.

Thursday: Energy
We implemented a lot of energy-saving things a couple years ago, so, more than anything, I just need to tighten back up in areas where I or we have gotten lax.

• Beginning tomorrow, I will reduce my computer and tv usage. I plan to do quick email and Facebook checks each morning and evening, but do not plan to do any blog posts until this weeklong experiment is over. No internet surfing “just because”. I will be much more thoughful about what I watch when I have the tv on, and be aware of if I have it on just for background noise. I do have some dvds from netflix to watch, and have the choice of watching them on the tv or my laptop, but will save those to watch until I’m doing embroidery.
• Be more aware of what the thermostat is set on.
• Be sure things not being used are unplugged or the power strip into which they’re plugged is turned off.

Friday: Water

• Keep a record of my water usage for the day (personal use, cooking use, etc.) — general amounts, no need to measure.
• Quit with the bottled water. Granted, we do buy the gallons rather than individual-sized bottles, but we’re still toting a lot of plastic to the recycling center. Our local water tastes, um, not super yummy. Even when it’s filtered (we do have a filter on our kitchen tap), it still has a funky taste. As a local writer for the newspaper put it in a recent editorial, whenever someone new to town asks how long it takes to get used to the taste of the water, he tells them he’s still not used to it (and he’s lived here a long time!). HOWEVER, both hubby and kiddo don’t have a problem drinking the tap water that is routed through our fridge’s in-door dispenser, so it’s my turn to go over to the “dark” (funky-tasting) side and quit bringing those plastic jugs home.

Saturday: Giving Back
Make a list of charities/organizations I’d like to help out, write down for each one why I don’t feel I can help out, and then write down how I can address and remove those barriers. (Note: This is not restricted to just environmental-related charities/organizations.)

Sunday: Eco-Sabbath

• No Impact Man suggests using no resources at all one day (or one afternoon or even just one hour) each week. I’m not sure yet what we’ll have going on when this particular Sunday rolls around, so I’ll play this one by ear and use no resources at all for whatever period of time I can that day. [No resources at all means don't spend, don't drive or use public transportation, no electricity, don't cook, don't get take-out or any food that will generate trash, etc.]
• Reflect on the last week: what worked well? what was particularly difficult? which things would I like to permanently adopt?
• Compare last Sunday’s trash with the trash from this week. How did it compare?