Getting Your Monies Worth…and Saving Resources

Yesterday my son threw away a ketchup bottle and a toothpaste tube.  The ketchup bottle had another serving it it, about 1 1/2 Tablespoons.  I grabbed it and turned it upside down on the counter and used the rest last night. 

I took the toothpaste tube and showed him how much product was being thrown away.

Americans throw away 1 BILLION toothpaste tubes a year, along with shampoo, conditioner, and lotion bottles. On average, they leave 10% of the product in them. Not only does this waste the earths resources, it wastes your money!

Recycling your used toothpaste container helps you go green because…

• It keeps usable materials out of the landfill.
• It provides resources to the post-consumer manufacturing industry, and requires fewer virgin resources for the creation of new products.
• It saves energy and water since creating products from recycled materials is less resource-intensive.

About 1 billion toothpaste tubes are sent to landfills every year, many of which are recyclable. Toothpaste tubes are generally made of with aluminum or plastic. Recycling aluminum instead of mining and processing virgin ore results in energy savings of up to 95 percent. The process of converting raw bauxite (the source of aluminum that makes up 8 percent of the earth’s crust) into aluminum is an energy-consuming one, requiring roughly 7.5 kilowatt hours for each pound of virgin aluminum. In addition, reusing aluminum means that less bauxite needs to be procured to create new materials: open-cast mining of bauxite leads to deforestation and destruction of ecosystems.

Plastic is not biodegradable, taking up to 700 years before beginning to decompose.Recycling plastics keeps this non-biodegradable waste out of landfills and can reduce energy consumption by 70 percent. Recycling paper products, like cardboard packaging, results in energy savings of 40 percent.

Cut open those containers with scissors, use the rest of the product, them wash and recycle it!

Also, use a Squeeze It to get more paste out of that tube!

Millie; Since toothpaste is highly toxic I use Neem Tooth Powder, it comes in a jar that I reuse.   It is FAR less expensive than toothpaste and whitens as well as being an anti-bacterial agent that promotes gum health. Their Neem Mouthwash is also wonderful and so are their lives plants and seeds!    Neem Tree Farms

More options for recycling;

Do you ever find yourself wanting to do the right thing… use less and recycle more, but find that your recycling system can’t quite accommodate your sensibilities?

Well, here’s a list that may help make life easier! Between curbside recycling, these 5 recyclers and good old fashioned waste not want not thinking, you can bring your waste quotient down to almost zero!

It may require a periodic trip to a local retailer or a few postage stamps, but when you account for how much trash can be diverted from the landfill or how much less smoke could be produced by incinerators, I’m sure it will be worth it!

1. TerraCycle – M&M wrappers, Starbucks coffee bags, toothpaste tubes, flips flops and more!

TerraCycle has teamed up with scientists and designers to figure out how to take almost any packaging and turn it into fashion, home and other products!

Through their Brigades program, schools, communities, groups can  collect all sorts of hard to recycle or normally non-recyclable products, send them to TerraCycle (for free), earn points, and know that their ‘waste’ will be recycled or upcycled into other useful products. The company manages to divert BILLIONS of pieces of waste from landfills and incinerators!

Candy wrappers, Colgate toothpaste tubes, brushes and packaging, Lay’s chip bags, coffee bags, Garnier product containers, and even flip flops…!

The full list is unbelievable. You can find it at TerraCycle Bridgades.

CD Recycling Center of America – CDs, DVDS, outdated CD software, ABBA, BeeGees…

Remember when CDs came with everything? That was so 1990′s. Today, millions of CDs and DVDs end up in landfills or incinerated.

The CD Recycling Center of America accepts and recycles discs, the paper booklet and any other paper or cardboard that comes with the disc. The CDs and DVDs are processed, the metal and plastic are separated, and the remaining plastic is used in automotive and building materials industries.

Not sure it’s worth the effort? Just collect your unwanted CDs and DVDS fro six months. Tell your friends you’re collecting and ship them off at once. It will cost you a few dollars at the post office, but think of how much waste you can keep from the landfill.

Send your CDs and DVDs to:

The Compact Disc Recycling Center of America
68E Stiles Road
Salem, NH 03079

Whole Foods and Preserve – Brita filters, yogurt cups

Yes, I know. Some refer to Whole Foods as whole paycheck, but if you can get past that, you should check out the Preserve Gimme5 recycling program. They have partnered with Preserve, Stoneyfield (yogurt) and Brita to collect yogurt cups and Brita filters for recycling.

I don’t know if you realize this, but most curbside recycling does not accept yogurt cups or other plastics with the number “5″ on the bottom. If you toss those in with the recycling, they will just end up in the landfill.

The recycled materials are turned into razors, very cool toothbrushes (the handles) and takeout containers.

Don’t have a Whole Foods near you? Check out this list of other Gimme 5 participating markets. You can also mail items to:

Preserve Gimme 5
823 NYS Rte 13
Cortland, NY 13045

Call2Recycle – antiquated cell phones, rechargeable batteries that won’t recharge…

Do you have old cell phones or rechargeable batteries to get rid of?

This is the one service, of those listed here, that I haven’t used yet. But, they provide pretty good detail about the who, what when, where and how. They offer a great deal of information about recycling, in general.

According to their website,

New batteries and stainless steel products are made from the precious metals recovered from used batteries. Cell phones are recycled, refurbished and/or resold. None of the broken down material makes its way into landfills.

Ready to drop off old cell phones and batteries? Call2Recycle has partnered with many well known retail outlets including: RadioShack, Ace Hardware, Apple and Home Depot.

You can find a location near you using the Call2Recycle drop off locator.

A Better Sunscreen- Totally Natural, Non-Toxic

I’m sure you have been following the info recently of how toxic sunscreen is.  Here is a link to an article published today in EWG’s Skin Deep Blog. 

Nanomaterials and Hormone Disrupters in Sunscreens

If you have not discovered Environmental Working Groups’ site then please take a look.  You can use their huge database of beauty and personal care products to check the ingredient and toxicity of almost any product you can think of! 

EWG.org/Skindeep

Several years ago I began looking for a non-toxic sunscreen when I was going sailing off the coast of Venezuela.  I normally do not use any but new my sun exposure was going to be intense.  This is the product I found and still use occasionally.

UV Natural

A sunscreen that not only protects the skin from the harmful effects of the sun but also provides hydration so that your skin glows with health and youthful vitality.

Want to know more?

UV Natural is a new skin product formulated from completely natural derived ingredients and Zinc Oxide to screen the sun’s harmful rays.

Light and pure, UVnatural is formulated to also moisturize and soften the skin. UVnatural products are Fragrance and Preservative free.

UV Natural products include:
• UV Natural Sunscreen SPF 30+ (water resistant)
• UV Natural Baby SPF 30+ (water resistant)
• UV Natural Sport 30+ (very water resistant)
• UV Natural Lip sunscreen (water resistant)
• UV Natural Sport Lip Sunscreen (very water resistant)
• UV Natural Sunscreen SPF 15
• UV Natural Sun and Body Oil

The UVnatural range of sunscreen products are listed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Which Green Choice is Better- Lighters or Matches?

My son and I were discussing whether lighters or matches were a greener choice.  It came up at a party we had the other night and people were divided on which choice was greener.

We recently stopped buying disposable lighters because of the plastic involved and my abhorrence for anything disposable.  We had switched to kitchen matches for lighting candles and/or the grill.  A friend pointed out that matches has fairly toxic because of all the chemicals used to make them.

This picture of a baby bird that had ingested a lighter did it for me-

After seeing photos like these of baby albatross chicks who’ve ingested plastic lighters, I decided that would never buy another one of those things.

Detail of photo from the series Midway: Message from the Gyre by Chris Jordan
Albatross chicks on Midway Island, thousands of miles from civilization, swallow plastic bottle caps, plastic toys, and plastic lighters. And even if plastic lighters don’t end up inside an unsuspecting animal, they’ll still wind up lasting forever in a landfill.

Here’s what I found out about wooden matches;   The wood comes from Aspen or poplar and is impregnated with ammonium phosphate and paraffin wax…. The heads are a mixture of potassium chlorate with animal glue together with inert materials to moderate combustion and minor amounts of red amorphous phosphorus and colorants.

I also learned from Wikipedia that “The striking surface is composed of typically 25% powdered glass, 50% red phosphorus, 5% neutralizer, 4% carbon black and 16% binder….”

Sounds like an awful lot of chemicals compared to butane. So much for that being a better choice.

So I dove in and researched the issue. I reached the decision that neither wooden matches or a disposable lighter were the answer.  Cardboard, book matches are too small, hard to use and still come packaged in plastic.

I decided that a refillable lighter was the way I would go!   I already use only beeswax candles and oil burners for lanterns, so considering that I would use a lighter mostly for lighting candles and lanterns, and for camping, this is what I will get!

IMCO Lighters–   IMCO is the second oldest operational lighter manufacturer in the world, second only to Ronson in the USA. In 1907 Vienna, Julius Meister founded the Austrian button and hardware factory Julius Meister & Co. “IMCO” was created from these initials. The factory initially mainly produced buttons for the military. After WW I, there was no longer a demand for these and so, from 1918 onwards, IMCO switched to the production of cigarette lighters. In the early days, these were made of empty cartridge cases. The shape of the cartridges could still be seen in the forms of the early IMCO lighters. The first IMCO lighter was developed between 1918 and 1919 and in 1922 the first patent was registered, No. 89538. Since then, around 70 different lighters have been developed and sold worldwide. The Austrian lighter industry entered the 20th century as market leader, for the flint lighter (“Auermet”) was also created by the Austrian Auer von Welsbach. Among the enormous number of firms operating today, there are sadly now only two providing Austrian quality in the sector.

IMCO Lighters Original Designs
Windproof Lighters with adjustable flame

The windscreens on the Super Triplex help light up on a windy day. Light them without touching a spark wheel. The Juniors and still work great outdoors since the base of the flame is protected. Great for camping, hiking, lighting cookstoves, pipes, grills, candles, etc. These are affordable and the only thing I will need to ever buy again will be lighter fluid and flints!

Ronson Lighters

Zippo Lighters

The IMCO is the one I will go with as I like their choices, durability and history!

Peppersmith Makes Chewing Gum Without Plastic

From My Plastic Free Life

Most chewing gum is made from plastic.  Don’t believe me?  Read the details in my 2010 post “Chewing on Plastic? Yum.”  Even “natural” chewing gums like Glee, which is made with natural chicle, also contain plastic.  And the few brands that seem not to contain plastic often come packaged in a plastic bottle or plastic blister pack.  Thankfully, I’m not much of a gum chewer.  But I know plenty of people who are (including the love of my life), so I was super excited to learn about Peppersmith plastic-free natural chewing gum!

They offer gum and mints in packaging with NO PLASTIC!!

FULL POST….

US Bottled Water Sales Hit New Record High in 2011

The debate we ought to be having;  How did we come to think that plastic waste-creating individual portions of water that we have to purchase every time we’re thirsty in public became a reasonable, acceptable alternative to clean, efficient public supply of water in every building in every town and city in the nation?

Liz West/CC BY 2.0

After serious declines in 2008 and 2009 bottled water sales in the United States have bounced back, in a serious way, hitting a new record high in volume in 2011.

New figures from the the Beverage Marketing Corp. (h/t National Geographic) show that bottled water sales were up 4.1% last year, versus just a 0.9% increase in bottled drink sales in general.

In 2011 Americans purchased 9.1 billion gallons of bottled water. Per capita consumption reached a new peak of 29.2 gallons (it was 18.2 gallons per person about a decade ago). The overwhelming majority (96%) of bottled water purchased in the US came from domestic sources.

All of that water didn’t add up to record sales however, as the major bottled water companies have been cutting prices through the Great Recession. 2011 revenue hit $21.7 billion, below the still record high of 2007.

The US remains the largest consumer of bottled water in the world, with China and Mexico in the second and third spots.

FULL POST….

Quick Orange Peel Vinegar Cleaner

From Homesteading and Survivalism Store

Orange peels, vinegar in a quart jar, let sit for 10 days or so…strain out the liquid and use as an all-purpose cleaner. Easy, cheap, natural, smells good