Keeping it clean - Challenge, Part I (glass)

What a month! Seems that all I have been doing is driving the kids all over town - from camp to swimming to the beach to camp again. I know all of this driving is not good for the environment, so I'm trying each day to park my car and walk in to get my kids so I don't idle for 15 minutes in the ridiculously long pick-up line. (Remember, idle = bad!)


I hope that you have spent some time incorporating green themes into your daily lives. As for me, I've been spending time evaluating "safe" cleaning products for my home. I've been testing out product lines such as Mrs. Meyer's, Ecover, Seventh Generation, Simple Green, 365 and a few others to see if they really get the job done. (I cannot comment as to whether or not they remove all bad bacteria from my tables, bathrooms and counters, but I can tell you if they a) smell good; b) leave smears and streaks and c) clean off debris and stuff from my dishes and clothing.)


My goal was to find cleaning products that are non-toxic, hypo-allergenic, dye-free, fume-free, cruelty-free, solvent-free, basically all the bad stuff FREE (like no VOCs, alcohol, etc.), but that do the job right. Actually, sometimes I like when there is a nice aromatherapeutic, fresh smell, like lavender, so the products I like may not be totally, totally free!


Before I share the results of my first Favorite Glass Cleaner test with you, I have to tell you that I do not have a lab in my house to scientifically test the products. Nor do I have the bankroll to purchase 25 different glass cleaners for the purpose of my experiments. However, I did test 5 products and used the same surface (my small, glass kitchen table) and the same white microfiber bar towels and paper towels.


The first products I tested were glass cleaners (you were thinking laundry detergent or dish soap, no?). Let me tell you why I decided to look at glass cleaners... Many years ago, I bought a cute little ironwrought table with a small round glass top and 3 cute little ironwrought chairs from the PierI warehouse for my first condo's kitchen. I figured that the table would last 5 years (I mean, who buys only 3 chairs for a table?!) and that we would buy a much bigger table when we had kids. Fast forward 14 years. The "little table that could" is still with us, but now we smush in a 4th chair! Even with placemats, my kids and husband leave sticky marks and food all over the glass top, and I need to clean it after every meal. Using Windex was starting to make my head spin, and not in a good way.


So, I started testing glass products and...drumroll please... the hands-down winner of the first ModernEcoMom Cleaning Product Challenge is: Seventh Generation's Free and Clear Natural Glass & Surface Cleaner. Yippee! Whooo whooo! You go, surface cleaner!!


This was no contest. Seventh Generation's Natural Glass & Surface Cleaner is the best. It rarely leaves a streak (if it does, it disappears in seconds), never leaves an odor, has absolutely NONE of the bad stuff mentioned above, and is sort of reasonably priced (about $4.69 or so). Please note that all "green" cleaning products are at least $.99 + higher than other more toxic ones.


My only problem is the packaging (yes, it is recyclable). The shape of the container looks like some of their other products (i.e. the shower cleaner), and I accidentally used the wrong one on my glass table. I noticed it right away, and now take the extra second to read the labels first before attacking my germy table.


You can find Seventh Generation products in many markets like Whole Foods and Henry's. Their web site, http://www.seventhgeneration.com/, has a store locator.


I will blog the results of more cleaning product challenges in the coming weeks. In the meantime, stay "glassy" my friends.



P.S. Check out Seventh Generation's fantastic book - "Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy Non-Toxic Cleaning" It's a great read.

P.P.S. For those Will Ferrell fans out their, my "stay glassy" comment comes right from Anchorman Ron Burgundy's newscast sign-off, "Stay classy, San Diego". Ha!

Vacation time does NOT equal trash time

After a nice family vacation in the finest (okay, only) 50th state around, it's hard to get the family back to the normal grind. But, since it's the start of summer, it's really not that hard!

Vacations are great - you get to laze around, read more books and mags, and really play with the kids. What's not to like? But, vacations can also create laziness - the bad kind. While away from home, it's pretty darn easy to slip into "non green" mode. You know what I mean- you stay in a hotel so you don't care about excessive water or electricity usage. You run the A/C full blast even when you're not in your room. You let the kids use a billion napkins at the pool or you succumb to paper plates and plastic disposable cups and utensils if you're in a condo. You make a lot of trash, but hey, so what? It's not your problem, right?

So, this year on our vacation we really made an effort to follow the same living patterns that we do at home (but with the added bonus of a mai tai or two on the lanai some evenings!). Since we were staying in the same place as last year, I knew I could actually measure (well, not physically weigh the trash and recyclables!) whether or not we were sliding into the abyss.

After one week of high vacation living (and daily servings of shave ice!), we only took 1 can of trash to the curb. A miracle. Last year during the same period, we were so full of trash we had to sneak some into our neighbors cans. Victory! And, we didn't purchase a paper plate or plastic cup. Our water usage was minimal, and our A/C and fan usage was dramatically lower.

I was so proud of us, but the best part was that no one thought it was weird. It's just something that's become part of our lives. Even our snacks on the plane were packed in reusable storage containers (and just 2 baggies!).

So, take it from someone with experience. Just because you spend a summer vacation in someone else's house or a corporation's hotel, it doesn't mean that the planet will forgive you for being wasteful because you're "away from home". You've worked so hard to change the way you live - why wreck that by making a bigger mess?

Now, I'm not saying you have to spend your summer holiday in an eco pod somewhere in the Amazon. Enjoy your vacation - wherever you go. Just remember to show Mother Earth some love while you're lazing around.

In the office - a mountain of paper

Whether you are working in an office away or at home, you probably spend a lot of time printing. A lot of you are starting to notice, if you haven't already, that you are producing an incredible amount of paper- a lot of it wasted. Maybe you need to print 100-page legal documents or new recipes or airline e-tickets. Doesn't matter. A staggering amount of trees have been chopped down in order to support our nasty habit of printing, printing, printing.

One solution is to print double-sided or to flip over and re-use old printed materials, and while this certainly helps ("way to go" for those of you doing this because it gets really annoying sometimes trying to figure out which way to re-insert the used document to make the printer print on the clean side, especially if you are in a hurry), there are still many pages printed unnecessarily.

I may have found a solution!

Modern Eco Mom idea: Use GreenPrint software

GreenPrint software (www.printgreener.com) lets you easily view documents so you do not print any blank pages. The license (yes, you have to purchase this program - about $35 or 40 for an individual- they offer volume discounts for corporate usage) also includes a .pdf writer which may save you from printing anything at all! You can trial it free for 30 days. I am loving it!

I believe it is only offered for PCs, but I'm sure that issue will be resolved shortly.

Check it out and save some trees!

Pour me another...

Before I begin discussing wine (not whine), I must first apologize for my constant bungling of the word "recycled." My right ring finger keeps wanting to add an extra "l" between the "y" and "c." Even when I proof the post, I don't always catch it. I think it's a sign!

Okay, now on to fun stuff... WINE. And, not just any wine- organic wine. What, you say? Has Napa gone mad? Why, I just love drinking in those pesticides with my pressed grapes?! Hah to you. Even winemaking has gone green. (Well, actually, organic winemaking is how wine is supposed to be made. People have been doing it for over 6,000 years.)

On European, Australian and New Zealand bottles (and even some American) , you might see the word "biodynamic" and not "organic," but don't worry. The concepts are similar.

Biodynamic wines are created using techniques developed by Austrian anthroposophist (say that three times fast) Rudolph Steiner. "They incorporate homeopathic treatments, as well as astronomical and astrological considerations, into the organic process." (source: www.organicwinejournal.com) I'm already intrigued.

Organic wines, as certified by government agencies, are created without the use of added sulfites. Some wineries take their organic winemaking one step further and choose to use alternative energy sources and remove chemical treatments from the process - they are referred to as "sustainable."

So...

ModernEcoMom idea: try organic wines

Why not try a delicious organic wine this weekend?

Here are a few suggestions:

Ponzi Vineyards - Pinot Gris, 2006, Willamette Valley, Oregon - $19.00
Ceago - Cabernet, 2006, Mendocino, California - $32.00 (Their Sauvignon Blanc, 2006, is $18.00.)

Or, you can review (and order from) a well-regarded importer, Organic Vintners. They can supply you with organic, vegan or biodynamic delights (go to http://www.organicvintners.com/ for more info). However, you're going to pay more, and risk complicating your new focus on cutting down CO2 emissions from purchasing wines that need to be shipped great distances.

In any event, I want you to raise a glass (of organic wine!) to yourself, you Modern Eco Mom you, for taking better care of this planet.

Sources:

www.organicwinejournal.com
www.organicvintners.com

Organic, vegan, recycled clothing... oh my

When it comes to fashion, baby, I'm a huge fan. I love to read about new styles, fabrics, designers... you name it. And, like my gal pals, I covet, but then rail against, the so-called "hot" handbags (which, I still call pocketbooks because my mom called them that). Why are they so pricey? I mean, really. They are all starting to look the same - Marc, Mulberry, Chloe, St. Laurent... my head is a-spinnin'.

And, now that you got me started on this topic, what's with all the new (read: expensive) sustainable, organic, vegan, waste-reducing clothing? What does it all mean? I know that Bono's company, Edun, produces cool fashions, and that it is "nude" spelled backwards, but that's it.

Clearly, I had much research to conduct. And, for the sake of my readers, I may have to purchase some of my research! (It is part of the job, folks. It is these types of sacrifices that I am willing to make for the betterment of our planet!!)

So, credit card at the ready, I started pouring through web sites, magazines, etc. Turns out, there is still quite a bit of confusion in terms of clothing labels. The U.S. standards are a bit flaky, and international standards aren't that much better. There are organic, vegan, sustainable labels. Recycled, waste-reducing, fair-trade produced...Want a bamboo tee-shirt? You can have one. Want a pair of jeans with recycled coke bottle caps for snaps - got it! Production processes to more safely harvest the materials, design, manufacture, package and ship are changing by the day.

After a short while of clicking, I found a great source: Lotus Organics (www.lotusorganics.com). The founders, the Lackmans, have been in the well-being biz for over 35 years. I figured they were safe to teach me.

Their blog: http://organicclothing.blogs.com/ is filled with amazing definitions, eco-fashion information and even a "clothing, fashion and fiber glossary the likes which you will never see (http://organicclothing.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/12/fashion_fabric_.html)

After all is said and done, there are a gazillion choices today in terms of eco-friendly fashion. Not all organic dresses are made from hemp and look like burlap sacks and cost the same as a year of Ivy-league college tuition.

It just makes sense to look at what we wear if we are trying to change the way we treat this beautiful planet of ours. Do we want to wear shoes made from malnourished and poorly treated cows? Do we want to wear tees made from cotton grown with planet-poisoning pesticides or without? Do we want to support a company that cares about the environment or one that just wants a bigger bottom line? (p.s. go to www.patagonia.com, one of the caring companies.)

We all have choices to make.

And, speaking of choices, let's get to a new MEM idea.

Modern Eco Mom idea: donate

Go through your closet and donate some clothes that are collecting dust! It's pretty easy. A good rule of thumb is if you haven't worn the item in a year, give it to someone who needs it! Go to http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/fifteen/used-clothing.htm for info on donating women's clothing; www.careergear.org for info about donating men's clothes and http://www.kidsdonations.org/ for info on donating kids clothing.

Rock on.

Bagging it - grocery style

The other day, I wrote about "green" guilt and how it hits me every time I go to the supermarket. Well, another Modern Eco Mom, I'll call her "V," wrote to share her solution. It's smart, practical, and very inexpensive. Here it is:

Modern Eco Mom idea: buy reusable food bags and keep 'em in your car

When V goes to the market for her weekly grocery buy, she brings along 4 big re-usable food bags that she bought at that same market. She fills those bags with her market goods, pays, and brings the food home. After she unpacks everything at home, she puts the now-empty bags back in her car. Brilliant. She keeps them in her car!! They easily slide inside one another for space savings.

But, wait, there's more. Maybe you do a giant monthly shop at your supermarket. Those re-usable bags won't necesarily provide you with enough storage capacity. So, V suggests that you buy a handful (maybe 3, maybe 4)of those green recylcling-type bins with strap handles. Keep them in your car trunk for super organization. When you head to the store for the huge shop, just bring in the bins, store them under the shopping cart, and place your items inside. Again, a great idea.

You can buy the reusable bags and bins at Whole Foods and Trader Joes, just to name a few. Some of the bags sell for as little as $.99 each. (Go to www.wholefoods.com and www.traderjoes.com for more info.)

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Modern moms around the world sharing their "seem small but make a big difference" ideas to help protect the planet.

Definition: recycle

Most of us know what this means - to reprocess a material into a new product. Some of you may live in towns that have adopted recylcing programs. You try to sort the glass, paper and metals as best you can. Well, thanks to those of you who are doing so because I just read that the average person in the US produces over 1600 pounds of waste each year - almost one ton. If you really, really try hard and just recycle all of those same glass, paper and metals, you will save waste by up to 75%. Yes, that's SEVENTY-FIVE percent. Staggering, no? And, it really doesn't take too long to do so. You may need to get a separate bin in your kitchen or garage to store the to be recycled materials, but it really is worth it. You don't even have to buy a bin - just use a box from the grocery store or from the mail. Just make sure any aluminum cans or papers are dry before you store them in your recycling box.

Thank you for trying! You can do it!

Resources:

www.wholefoods.com
www.traderjoes.com

Not for the idle...go mom go, stop mom stop

Well, I was down for the count yesterday. My old (clearly not modern) back went out as I reached down to pick up my 2-year old for a hug. Dropped to my knees as if Ali had KO'd me in the 12th round.


I tried to make the most of my "down time" (read: doing nothing but lying on the floor of my bedroom for the remainder of the day staring at the ceiling - which, by the way, needs to be painted) by trying to prioritize the next few blogs. I figured that we should talk about cars a bit, since they are one of the most detrimental sources of greenhouse gas emissions for individuals. And, as moms, a lot of us spend a lot of our days driving around and around and around.

ModernEcoMom idea: roll down the windows

Thanks to my nephew, J, I am including this simple, yet smart, idea. It's a no-brainer. When you're in your car and the weather is nice, turn off the A/C and roll down your windows. Without getting into specifics, this idea really does save gas. But, there is a caveat - when you're doing 45 mph or more (in the appropriate speed zones), roll up your windows as the drag created by the wind forces your car to work harder and negates the gas savings.



ModernEcoMom idea: stop idling


You know how you're waiting in line at school (in your car) for drop-off or pick-up. Maybe you get there early. Maybe you get there on time. Doesn't matter. There is typically a huge line with all the moms, dads and caregivers just running their engines while going nowhere. This is a real waste of energy.


To quantify, let's look at the numbers. The average US citizen produces 19.6 tons of CO2 emission per year. If you reduce your daily idling by 10 minutes, you can save 550 pounds of CO2 per year!


Now, just think what would happen if you helped your child's school institute a no-idling policy (uh oh, the activist that I didn't think was in me is now rearing her head!). Do the math, and you will see savings of thousands upon thousands of pounds of CO2. Yippee.


But, you do it first. Next time you do carpool, find a parking spot and walk the kids into school. It is more eco-friendly to start and stop your engine in these circumstances.


But, just remember that it's safe (and the LAW) to idle at a red light and stop sign!


Definition: So, what's a hybrid vehicle

I am fascinated by my girlfriend's Prius - the most popular of hybrids. It is cute (well, not convertible cute; rather funky cute) and super roomy. If it had 3 rows, it would be my next car.

I had no idea what makes a hybrid so special, so I started doing some research. Turns out, a hybrid vehicle is one that uses two or more different fuel or power sources. Most likely when you hear the word "hybrid," it is referring to a hybrid-electric vehicle, one that includes an electric motor (powered by batteries) and an internal combustion engine (requiring petroleum).

Some hybrids are classified as SULEVs (or, Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles) like Toyota's Prius. According to the manufacturer, the 2003 (and newer model Prius) produces 89% fewer smog-forming emissions that the average new car. And, the EPA estimates a combined city/highway fuel economy at 48 mpg. Even better, the third generation Prius (to be released in late 2008/09) may break the 70 mpg record!

Go to www.fueleconomy.gov for great information and side-by-side comparisons.

For the record, this is obviously one of those HUGELY expensive eco-friendly options, and I'm not about to sit here and tell you to switch to hybrids. However, it is absolutely worth your time to evaluate them when choosing a new car. (Plus, there are tax credits to be gained and even some special HOV lanes created for hybrid drivers.)

That's all for today. Hope this helps!

Resources cited:

www.fueleconomy.gov