Join the Million Baby Crawl‏ and say “NO” to toxic chemicals found in household products

Thanks to Zach for letting me know about Seventh Generation's Million Baby Crawl‏ to Washington "to demand a law that will regulate toxic chemicals found in household products".

In their words:

The federal law that should protect us from health-harming chemicals just doesn't work. Since 1976, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing on only 200 of the more than 80,000 chemicals on the market. We need a stronger chemical law to keep our families safe and healthy.

If you want to read more about the specifics, go here. On the site, you can create a crawler of your own or, by all means, support my crawler here.

Here are some videos Zach shared with me about the cause:
Babies on a soapbox
Babies crawling to Washington

Is Gordon Ramsay Killing The Planet?

Okay, here's the deal, I love Gordon Ramsay. I watch all his shows, Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, The F Word, but there is something about all these shows that kills me. The amount of food wasted on these shows is crazy.

I mean I get that there's a certain level of quality expected from his kitchens. Still, I can't help, but hope that there's some poor families in the back digging into these 3 inch think cuts of prime beef that they throw out consistently because it has been waiting more than a few seconds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a vegetarian, but animals have died here. What a shame it is that they should be discarded like that, especially when there are so many starving people out there.

Of course, it's not just Gordon Ramsay but I don't see behind the scenes at a lot of restaurants so I have to point out what I see, but it is a general message for all wasteful chefs.

Earth Month is here!!! Celebrate with Wal-Mart

April is earth month and in celebration Wal-Mart has started making serious strides toward making eco-friendly products more obtainable for the public. As it has been, these eco-friendly products are either too expensive or too hard to find for most people to choose them over the more accessible products.

God Bless America but let's be real, if it's not easy, we usually don't do it. So, when Wal-Mart puts these things right on their shelves, it just doesn't get any easier than that. I know a lot more people will begin making the right decisions because of it.

I actually noticed these changes the other day at Wal-Mart when I went to find recycled toilet paper and was amazed to have come across many other green products stocked on the shelves. It was great. I found an article explaining Wal-Marts efforts more in-depth. I just hope that this leads to more stores following suit.

Earth Hour & Bethechange.org

Bethechange.org is a New Zealand-based organization, focused on making changes, large or small to help get control of our out of control climate changes.

Bethechange.org just sent me an email explaining that this weekend is an International Earth Hour. What that means is, at 8pm on Saturday, March 29th, we are to turn off our lights for 1 hour. As they state in their email:

"It's a symbolic action but we think it's a great way to raise awareness of
climate change. And send a message to our political leaders that we care."

Last year, 2.2 million people participated. So this is no little thing in case you're wondering if you're going to look like some idiot alone in the dark. According to them,

"This massive collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption by 10.2% for
one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for
one hour."

That's amazing! I'll definitely be participating. I hope you do the same. Please let me know if you do.

Paperless Billing & On-line payments

Paperless billing, for those who don't know, allows you to receive an email letting you know when your bill needs to be paid instead of sending a paper statement through the mail. Everything that they would send in the mail can be viewed on their web site so you can still see a break down of your purchases, etc. Thus doing away with all of the paper waste.

Once you receive the e-statement, you log onto the biller's web site and you can pay your bill right on-line, eliminating the need for stamps and envelopes. With most places now, this is a free service. I think I have one bill now that charges a $4 fee to pay on-line. I have not written that particular place yet but I have written Circuit City because I didn't see a way to do paperless billing on their web site. While I thought I must be missing it, because surely they do it, I was amazed to receive this response:

We are sorry we do not offer the option of receiving online statements at this
time. We do apologize for the inconvenience.

As a result, I paid my remaining balance and will not be using them anymore. I would hope you would do the same. We have to show these companies that we are serious about becoming more environmentally conscious because they won't pay attention until we do.

UPDATE: After I wrote Circuit City, explaining why I would not be using them anymore, they wrote back saying that

This option is coming in the near future.

Diapers-- my embarrassment

Everyone has their thing that they are unwilling to give up, whether it’s a long shower or your gas-guzzling car. Mine, and I’m truly embarrassed to say it, is disposable diapers. I know, that’s a huge deal and I feel bad, but I can’t see using cloth diapers. I do have my reasons, but I'm sure no one likes to use them so I'll spare you my excuses.

That being said, I have written Pampers (my brand) and asked about recycling their packaging. I then wrote asking about another matter, I forget what, and both times I received the same email in response. It was a link explaining what P&G products are doing to make their products more environmentally friendly.

So while I'm completely upset that they keep blowing off my actual questions, I'm glad to see that they're thinking about the issue. Their auto-response for the question must mean that they are getting asked this question often. All of which is good.

Relates Articles: Flushable Diapers

Toilet Paper & Paper Towels

Regarding toilet paper, I found this site, Toilet Paper World, that told me more about toilet paper than I ever wanted to know.

However, for a more pointed look at what I was trying to find about, which was the best recycled toilet paper, you should check out this toilet paper review.

If you want to know about environmentally friendly low flow toilets check out this site. They are pricey, but it's kind of neat to see what options are out there.

Of course, the cheaper, old fashioned way is to place a brick or a 1-liter, filled water bottle (you can fill with rain water for instance) in your toilet tank. I have done this and have not noticed a difference in the strength of the flush. This is an easy one people.

As far as paper towels go, I'll admit that I don't love the half sheet paper towels. I do see the pros though. So, if you have to use paper towels, use the half sheets.

Right now, we use cloth napkins and I save any old cloths that can't be salvaged and donated to use as cleaning rags.

Some history on me and my purpose

Okay, just to give some background on me and why I’m going green. I am a new mother, and though I was mindful of environmental issues before, everything seems so much more important now. I believe that when you have children, you have a responsibility to leave the world a better place than when you got here. Of course, you should do that anyway, but when you contribute to the world’s population, you are making a real commitment to the future.

Turns out it’s easy to go green when you grew up poor. My family was very big on turning off the lights to “save a buck”. We bought most everything secondhand and lived by the idea that you waste not, you want not. This is definitely still ingrained in me today. I love to go to garage sales, I’m a big wheeler dealer. I have always saved paper scraps, to my husbands chagrin (he thinks I’m a pack rat, which I’m not). I’m just mindful of wastefulness but never so much as since I had my baby. He is why I’m doing what I’m doing.