Green Daily

Earlier this month I asked everyone to join me in giving up plastic bags and remembering to bring a reusable bag during shopping trips. Last week I wasn't doing so well but I'm making the grade this week. I even earned some extra credit the time that I forgot my bag and carried my many purchases out cradled in my arms. I looked rather strange.

Today I wanted to plug some of my favorite reusable bags. There's no reason to buy a new bag when you probably have plenty of backpacks, shopping bags and pillowcases in your house already but if you want something special, you might want to check out the fashionable options below.

In the meantime, keep up the good work. Has anyone tried bringing their own bag to Taco Bell or other fast food joint? Not that I would ever eat at Taco Bell (nope, not me, not ever).

Last week eBay opened its brand new offices settled under the largest solar panel roof that San Jose has ever seen. The 197,000 square foot building was designed by Valerio Dewalt Train Associates. "Building 17" will house 800 employees from eBay's Pay Pal branch.

In addition to its impressive roof, many of the textiles from carpeting to cubical fabric are made from post-recycled materials. Lights will turn off if rooms are empty and shades will automatically close if the sun is too hot. There is even a large reflection pool outside that will help to cool the building as the water evaporates. EBay claims to have achieved a LEED's gold rating for their new office.

And all this time, I thought eBay was run by little men in my computer. Weird.

I had to laugh while scouring the internet today. I found a sincere post from Cheryl in Alabama, on Homesteading Today, who had started experiementing with letting her foul go free range. "The ducks, the geese and the chickens so far are reasonably mannered ... But the TURKEYS," she writes, " they get on the cars."

Apparently she tries to shoo them away with a broom but it does little to keep them off her automobile. I found this all very amusing as I have never raised turkeys. What struck me as even funnier than that was the fact that this is a common problem.

According to a study by McGraw-Hill Construction, the demand for green building materials has risen substantially over the past six years and is expected to worth as much as $20 billion by 2012. In addition, if current trends continue, more builders will be going green than not

One of the reasons that builders are choosing green materials is because with the housing market slowing, many believe that energy saving features will make the sale of a new home easier. Another factor is that buyers are looking for higher quality homes now and putting a small amount of money into special materials might get the house sold more quickly.

Ray Tonjes, chair of the Green Building Subcommittee for National Associantion of Home builders has declared, "It's official. Green has gone mainstream." But you knew that already, didn't you?

I just became a founding member of our local food cooperative. The actual store will not be opened until next year but I saw this as an opportunity to contribute to the direction of the store and maybe get my name on a plaque. I also happen to love co-ops. I love the look of the towering bulk bins and the mounds of fresh produce. There are usually plenty of tantalizing baked goods too. Finally, I am often introduced to new environmentally friendly and locally made products.

Food cooperatives came about in the 1970's although the idea of a coop has been around since the 18th century. Most co-ops are founded on the principle of bringing healthy, organic foods to their members at a fair price by buying in bulk. Many co-ops strive to fill their shelves with local products to benefit the community at large.

Coops have different requirements for membership. Some allow you to buy a share and others may require that you work a shift. Some coops invite anyone to shop and others are exclusive, allowing only members to purchase items. To find the co-op nearest you, check the directory.

I've never willingly eaten a bug. I'm not opposed to it and if you threw of bunch of large insects into a pot of heavily seasoned boiling water, it wouldn't be much different than eating crawfish ... but I still get the willies thinking about it. David Gracer wants Americans to get over those adverse reactions and embrace bugs just as they have the hamburger.

The nail polish in your collection might be outdated or perhaps you've decided that you no longer want to wear the stuff. Whatever the reason, instead of just throwing it in the trash, keep it around the house for some quick fixes and when the clear bottle is empty, recycle that bad boy.

Here are five ways that nail polish can save your life (or at least be re-purposed)!

1. Keys. Use nail polish to mark the keys on your key ring different colors so you can tell them apart in a jiffy.
2. Frayed ends. Every woman knows that nail polish will stop a run in her pantyhose, but did you know that it will end shoe lace fraying? Just dip the ends into a bottle of polish and allow to dry.
3. Carpentry. Painting nail polish on the threads of a screw before inserting will provide you with a tight finish.
4. Wart remover. I won't vouch for whether this is a good idea for your health, but supposedly painting nail polish over a wart will cause it to go away in a week's time.
5. Fill. Nail polish can be used to fill in small chips or cracks in ceramics, wood floors and plastics. However, for holes in your walls, reach for the toothpaste.

I watch a lot of home improvement shows and nearly every episode includes a bathroom demo and rebuild. Sometimes I watch in horror as beautiful sixty-year-old tiles are pried from walls and rain in clumps onto the tub and bathroom floor. The tiles are then shoveled out to a dumpster. It always strikes me as a big wast of potential. This is what sparked today's "five ways."

1. Pieces of broken tile can be placed in the bottom of flower pots to improve drainage.
2. You can also put then on top of the soil in your planters to create "pot toppings," giving your greenery a "finished look."
3. Glue a piece of cork to the back for a new coaster.
4. It will be difficult to get the grout off in most cases to tile another bathroom. However, the tiles can be pressed into fresh cement to dress up pavers and sidewalks.
5. Chunks of slate tile can make fun mini chalkboards.

Other ideas can be found over at Ellen's post, "Five ways to reuse: Broken dishes."

Yesterday a commenter asked about whether Ziploc bags could be recycled. I know that aren't recycled in my city and I'm going to take a stab and say that one of the reasons why is because they are made from more than one type of plastic which would make separation of the actual bag from the "ziploc" difficult and expensive. These bags also fall under plastic type number 4 which in general, is rarely recycled.

Fortunately there are not only plenty of alternatives to Ziploc and other sandwich bags but there are several ways to reuse them.

1. Sandwich bags can easily be washed to hold foods once again. You can even make your own drying rack. If you are uncomfortable reusing them to contain foods, they are great for containing your marble collection, toenail clippings or dryer lint.
2. By cutting a small hole in the corner of a baggie, you have an instant icing bag. I've done this before with great results.
3. You can clean them and save them up to make a wreath ... if you're into that sort of thing.
4. Cut the baggies into strips and crochet them into ocean critters.
5. Place a recipe card inside them while cooking to protect the paper from any splatters.

My yard is too small to even be measured as a fraction of an acre. My city lot is 30' by 150' and there is only grass in the back. I do have a lawnmower and it's one of those lovely gas powered monsters desperate for a tune up. It takes an hour to mow the law because it stalls all the time and admittedly, we let the grass grow too high.

But this isn't what turned me on to electric mowers, it was that according to the Environmental Protection Agency, a push mower emits as much hourly pollution as 11 cars; E-LEV-EN.

Enter the Neuton battery powered lawn mower. I'm salivating just thinking of it.

I've owned my home for over five years and I still get mail addressed to several previous occupants as this house was once a rental. It's rather annoying inscribing, "return to sender," on every piece of mail and if the sender didn't pay for first class postage, they will never know about the bad address.

There are ways, however, to stop the mail from even crossing your threshold. We've covered how to stop excessive junk mail addressed to you, but there are special steps that need to be taken to end service for previous occupants.

The other day I returned from the convenience store, put my newly purchased items away and headed to the back of the house to add two fresh plastic bags to the collection. It was then that it hit me that I had not one, but TWO contraband plastic bags in my hand. I turned my husband, let out an explicative and declared myself a failure early in the challenge.

Last week I invited everyone to join me in using reusable bags exclusively for purchases and saying, "goodbye" to the plastic bag. It's a habit that I have yet to acquire and I'm working hard to do so.

I was given few rules from the company that takes my recycling and didn't know how to avoid common mistakes. I knew that they take a bunch of my recyclable materials including plastics one through seven, cans, and paper products. When I ended up with a sheet of plastic with the number four stamped on it inside the recycle symbol, I plopped it in the bin. After two pickups, the workers seemed to be ignoring my plastic. When I asked during the following visit, the owner of the company told me, "we can take it but it'll just end up in the trash." Apparently, despite the markings, my number four piece of plastic was not recyclable in my area.

It's not just some plastics that end up in the trash after getting picked up from people's homes. Cardboard, metals and other items get tossed regularly. Small measures can be taken on your end to prevent your dutifully sorted recyclables from ending up in the landfill.

Sure you are probably familiar with the "3 Rs;" reduce, reuse, recycle. Did you know that there are actually 8? Me neither. Here are the five that I was missing.

1. Respect the earth. Look at your life like a camping trip and leave the earth cleaner than how you found it.
   
2. Responsibility for protecting the earth and its resources fall onto us.
3. Rethink the way that you have always been doing things and change for the better.
4. Refuse your wants and focus on your needs. New technology and fashion turn us into major consumers. Learn how to settle for last year's model.
   
5. Repair before buying new. Though it may be more expensive to pay someone to repair your electronics, the internet is full of "how to" sites that can direct you in how to make simple fixes. This will give you a great amount of satisfaction and save the world.

I try to buy local before I buy organic but when it comes down to organic apples versus apples from some unknown source, I'll take organic every time (well, unless they're $5 a pound and then I pass ... quickly). I do this automatically because I believe that organic is better for me and my family. The question is, how much of what I believe is fact and how much is myth? A recent article by Ronald Bailey would have me believe that nearly everything "good" about organic is a fallacy.