At some point each day, I take a look at my ever-changing list of green ideas for this challenge. Sometimes it’s nice and long, with about 20 different things to choose from; other times, it looks like this:
- Construct a composting toilet
- Stop exhaling
And that’s when I start asking you precious, precious readers for help (and you always come through!). Anyway, there are some green changes I’m really not looking forward to, and these are the ones that always tend to linger on my list, haunting me until I finally give in. One of them is using a broom and dustpan instead of my vacuum cleaner (I’m still winning that battle, and my dust allergies thank me).
The other is, “Use that eco-scrubby-thing.”
I haven’t yet written about this eco-scrubby-thing, which is actually a scouring pad, partly because I bought it a while ago and forgot why it was “eco” to begin with but also because I accidentally took it to work with me and forgot to bring it home, which means I haven’t been able to test it out.
Finally, I remembered why it was environmentally friendly: the pads are made from recycled plastic by a woman in Winnipeg (you can also do this yourself using old mesh bags). Although plastic isn’t such a great material, it’s been reused and is better than the steel wool variety.
Yesterday, I remembered to bring it home, and with a grand “Ta da!” revealed the thing to my house guest, explaining that we could now scrub the grossness off my pots with less profanity — fun!
So from now on, I’ll be using these things instead of Brillo pads. And, if you’re still reading, the first three people who can tell me the number one environmentally friendly thing they always do but kind of hate doing will win a free multi-coloured eco-scrubby-thing!
Number 1 thing I do that I hate doing is clean the toilet with an old scrubbing brush instead of just throwing bleach in and letting it sit for a while. Ugh.
The one thing I hate doing the most is calling every place that sends me unwanted catalogs, flyers and credit card offers in an attempt to reduce all the junk mail I get. I spend what feels like endless hours on hold, listening to Barry Manilow-sytle MuZak, get transferred to three different departments, only to be told that they’ve already made up their mailings for like the next 4 million years, so please be patient with them while I receive 4,000 more catalogs. Junk mail should be outlawed!
Oh yah, #2 would be swatting at all the damn fruit flies that somehow manage to get into my “air tight” compost bucket under the sink. That sucks too.
My least favorite thing to do that I still do anyway is . . . walking into a bathroom where someone else has gone, but it wasn’t brown. I hold my breath, do my business, and grab a bucket of gray water. Which is almost as bad. Yellow or Gray? Yuck!
Kim
http://hedgeshappenings.wordpress.com/
My least favorite thing to do that I do anyway is washing out ziploc sandwich bags for reuse. Ugh.
Know what you need? Those little pan scrapers that come with the Pampered Chef stoneware. They last FOREVER, and with a bit of elbow grease and water, pretty much anything will come off your pots and pans. Since I got those, I haven’t needed a brillo pad, eco scrub, or brush at all. I know they’re plastic, but their life span is much longer than anything else I’ve ever used.
The thing I hate doing is carting all my compostables home from work to throw in the compost bucket at home…but my conscience always wins out. So what if my desk smells like a banana peel all day?
I hate the green bins. I know they are awesome, and I love that Toronto picks up green waste. It pleases me to see how much trash I’m diverting. But I get fruit flies in approximately 20 minutes as soon as I’ve put something in a new bag, and it’s gross. I’ll keep doing it though, both because I think it’s important and because we figured out how to keep raccoons out of our outdoor green bins — put bricks on top of them.
Have you tried microfibres, Vanessa? Maybe some woman in Winnipeg doesn’t use them but they last longer than rags and most eco-scrubby things, but they also pick up fine particles most stuff cannot to help with dust allergies, and can be rinsed or laundried easily quite a bit, making them more eco-friendly in the long run with lack of replacements.
My least favorite thing would either be using cloth diapers (which I actually like, I just HATE washing them!), or, as someone else said, washing plastic bags. Such a pain. But it does feel good to make small (really, very small, in the big scheme of things) sacrifices for the greater good.
Cloth diapers- hands down. Like LS mentioned, I love using cloth diapers. Love it. I feel good about it everyday when I realize how many diapers I’m not tossing into a landfill. Scraping my precious daughter’s “output” into the toilet, however, is completely gross. Especially now that she’s eating yogurt. I’m actually gagging a bit right now.
Also, I really hate attacking squash bugs in my garden with my hands. I am quite sure that some gnarly chemical pesticide would work wonders, but who wants to go that route? Really?
What’s a cloth diaper? Like a loin cloth? anyways I think the loofah idea sounds pretty cool. I’d give that a try.
I love those scrubby things. I’d buy them even if they weren’t a green thing, they work so well and are gentle on my pretty pots. And so colourful! love love love
I was thinkinig
if you HAVE to use your car, how about drive a bit slowly? I’ve read in somewhere that doing that decreases the inevitable damage
Plain old (hand) knit cotton dishrags work just as well as anything else I’ve tried, “eco” or not, and the neat thing is that you can make them yourself and they last forever. Seriously. We’ve got knit dishrags my wife’s grandmother made that are still going strong 10 years later.
My knit dishrag, and a tiny bit of soap are generally all I need. If stuff is stuck on, a soak and maybe some baking soda take everything right off.
The instructions to make your own scrubby pads are neat, but I don’t sew mine up. By just scrunching up an old mesh bag to scrub, I still have the option to open it up and rinse off all the grimy crumbs!
What eco-thing do I hate doing most? Right now, I’d have to say environmentally-friendly pest control – it doesn’t work nearly as well as chemically bombing the heck out of my yard, house, and dog would to get rid of ticks. *sigh*
What I hate most but do anyway… my keeper makes me proud, but it does not make me happy. Maybe I just need another month or two’s practice…
I have an eco-idea: do you knit or crochet? You could provide Christmas and birthday gifts to people by knitting chic scarfs and hats this year. There would be no sweatshops, no shipping. (This comes to mind because I have requested a painful Christmas gift from my mother: a third, final, and hopefully successful knitting lesson. I hate knitting, it really makes me want to scream, but I really want to like it. I’ll have to drink some spiced wine first and relax, maybe. I could make my own dishrags out of old sweaters, and I could make cool things for myself…)
NO- please don’t stop exhaling… I’d miss your daily blogging terribly
Here are a couple of small ideas but I doubt they’d generate enough words for a paragraph.
1. I’ve taken my most commonly used charges/adapters (cell phone, laptop, etc.) and plugged them into the same power strip. Then when I’m not using them, like during the workday, I’ve been trying to remember (habits are so hard to make) to just turn the strip off. Saves a few cents of electricity, prolongs the life of the adapters, and they’re not putting out heat all day (which they do whether anything is using them or not).
2. I’ve yet to try this but I think it could work. I’ve been thinking about partly closing the shutoff valves on every sink in the house, thinking that even fully ‘on’ less water will used.
Why did you take your dish scrubber to work?
I have a feeling that I might not be in the top three … anyway. Like Ousier who commented above, I use cloth nappies (diapers) and cloth liners. And I wash by hand. And, our poo gets used as humanure. This means that to get the cloth liners clean, I must first soak them, creating a bucket of poo-soup that after a mere 12 or so hours threatens to crawl all by itself to the “worm farm” where our bucket-dunny also gets emptied. The really gross thing is getting the cloth liners out of the soup before emptying the broth, and releasing the odour that has been hitherto sealed beneath the layer of scum – the fat of the soup.
Wow, that guy deserves 20 eco-scrubby-things!
bryan…. damn. that takes some serious balls.
vanessa, you need to throw a party or something, where like all the guests can’t come in til they bring awesome tips… why not get a solio (or other similar product) and recharge everything using the sun instead of electricity? or how about hand washing your laundry? or write whole foods a letter in regards to their ridiculous policy of validating parking?
good luck
Dishcloth or Sponge?
I have used a sponge to handwash dishes for years. There’s just the two of us and if I waited until the dishwasher was full, I’d be out of dishes, glasses and utensils. I tried microwaving a damp sponge for the recommended 2 minutes to k…
Obagi Blue Peel…
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you….
Hello Everybody
Just wanted to share my new experience.
If your system denies to run due to an error corresponding to lost HAL.DLL, invalid Boot.ini or any other important system boot files you can fix this by using the XP installation CD. Just boot from your XP Setup CD and enter the Recovery Console. Then run “attrib -H -R -S” on the C:\Boot.ini file and remove it. Launch “Bootcfg /Rebuild” and then Fixboot
Cheers,
Carl
I happened on this site by accident and have been laughing the whole time. I was wondering why they brought the eco scrubby thing to work too.