Getting Clean and Green

My friend (and boss) Amy has begun using Shaklee green cleaning products in her home. She was worried about the amount of chems she was using around her adorable 4 year old son. Shaklee's stuff is natural, organic, and environmentally safe.

Turns out, Shaklee has been around since the 1950's. The company has been dedicated to natural methods and sustainable products. The company's products are the cleaning products of choice for a variety of environmental expeditions, including the Wild Dolphin Project. Get this:

"Shaklee is the first company in the world to obtain Climate Neutral certification and totally offset its C02 emissions, resulting in a net zero impact on the environment."

Amy likes how the products smell, and they do a good job. She is particularly fond of the fabric softener. She bought the Get Clean Starter Kit, which includes a bunch of products; dish soap, laundry soap, scouring paste, fabric softener, hand soap, etc. If you want to check it out, visit Shaklee's website. I am ready to make the switch!

Thanks, Amy, for the info.

The Great Trash Debate

Trash is the big topic in my two home towns. The Red Bluff Landfill is going to reach capacity in the very near future. It's phase two section will open at that time, which is supposed to last us until 2025. In Pahoa (Hilo) Hawaii, my other home town, the county wants to bring in a wheelabrator plant to incinerate trash and turn it to energy. It is meeting with lots of roadblocks, with arguments from the plausible (it will create more air pollution) to the ridiculous (with an incineration plant, people will stop recycling). Frankly, as far as the pollution is concerned, the trash run-off water seems to be a graver concern, and the pollution would be minimal, certainly far less than our active volcano puts out each day.

I wish that recycling was more of a priority to the average person, and that we could get away from all of our plastic use--plastic NEVER goes away. And it can only be recycled once, so those plastic grocery bags need to be reused--and reused and reused, as many times as possible. I refuse to take them at the store, but clerks always try to put stuff in them. I suppose they are easier to use than reusable bags or paper. I actually had clerks at Wal-Mart get frustrated with me, once for having to use my bags, and once because I refused bags and had her put everything back in the cart (I had left my bags in the car and bagged when I got out there). I have even had them put things with their own handles into bags for me--like gallons of milk (trying to get away from them too--plastic).

Big Island Hawaii makes recycling very difficult for the average person. You must carefully sort all of your recyclables yourself and drive them to the waste transfer station, but they don't take certain things (we tried to recycle glass liquor bottles. They would not take them). There is no home pick up (in the Puna district, anyway). People are lazy--we don't want to go to all of that effort, most especially since the government seems less than motivated to encourage it.

Consuming less, creating more

It is amazing to me, as I go about my daily life of information overload, the amount of advertising that I am bombarded with. I click on a news story, and before the story will play, a commercial does. I can't stand to read most magazines, since every other page is an ad--take a look at most women's interest mags for an example. I was at a friend's house, flipping through the Oprah Mag, one I don't normally read. Even on the pages of text are ads squashed on the far sides of the pages.

I think I am highly susceptible to marketing in general. I will try a brand or switch to a new one if I like the packaging, I love funny commercials, even if I abhor the product. It is sick. That is why I am doing the Compact. I have pledged not to buy anything new for the next year, with the exception of a few basics (food, medicine, toiletries, socks and underwear). I also will buy consumable art supplies when needed. But I really processed the problem of consumerism at our local Wal-Mart. Yes, friends, I shop at Wal-Mart more than my fair share--it has become the biggest industry in our tiny town. I was first amused, then annoyed, and then really appalled at the holiday time line set by our Wal-Mart store. I was in the store a week before Halloween, and they were setting up the Christmas displays. As the holiday season wore on, the number of glassy eyed, angry faces I saw meandering the aisles grew and grew. The Christmas carols, which I love, were being scoffed at as people shoved and yelled and shopped their way into debt, rather than enjoying the holiday. Now, here it is in the beginning of January, and you can buy all the Valentines day schmaltz you can carry.

So far, being a Compacter is rad (yes, I said rad. Deal with it). I have been more creative in the kitchen--old baby food containers are a great size for ranch dip to take to work with me, a container that mushrooms came in works great for a waste basket while cleaning veggies, etc. I am looking forward to my trip to the Hospice store this weekend. I want to find some shelves to organize my art supplies, and I am looking for yarn to continue my knitting habit (its only 2 skeins a week, and I can stop anytime I want). Most important to me, whether I can go a whole year without buying new or not, is that I am less wasteful and more creative with what I already have. Paid off credit card debt, here I come! Oh, and its good for the environment, too.

Knitting

I have been knitting like mad with the Knifty Knitter tools. I have made 3 scarfs, 3 hats, and a couple of bags now. I am getting a bit more adventurous with the devices and have made some really quality stuff. I am thrilled with the Knifty Knitters!

I found a way to create your own durable and reusable plastic grocery bags by knitting the ones that you get at the store. This blog has steps for making plastic bag yarn: http://hellejorgensen.typepad.com/gooseflesh/2007/02/plastic_bag_yar.html while others still have instructions for using heat to fuse bags into a durable fabric.

Plastic bags are such a wasted item in our culture, and I am pleased to see so many people joining the movement to reuse the ones that are already out there as well as use more sustainable alternatives so that we will not be adding more to the world. I am excited to experiment with such alternatives.

Hometown Holiday

Our town is really lovely in the holiday season. Since I was visiting my other hometown for most of December, I didn't really get to appreciate it until the last couple of days. We have a misshaped Christmas tree downtown that looks beautiful, in a Charlie Brown sort of way. All of the trees downtown are adorned with white lights, the lampposts in the Cone and Kimball plaza are wearing ribbon and light-up wreaths and store fronts are painted with holiday scenes. We were around for the Christmas parade, and that was great--the theme was The Twelve Days of Christmas, and so many groups really took it to heart with their entries. There were several musical groups, and even the low-rider car club entered. (Note: Photo is from www.downtownredbluff.com)

The season of mass consumerism has, for the most part, passed. I am interested in and pursuing a movement called "the Compact" through which you make the pledge to avoid buying anything new for a whole year. It has been neat learning of people's creativity with gift giving and their ingenuity for necessities. Of course, a variety of items are excluded from the Compact; food, of course, toiletries, and medicine. But even in little ol' Red Bluff there are a plethora of second hand stores and antique shops that can yield a variety of necessities throughout the year. I don't know how true to the compact I can be, but it will be interesting to try. It is an especially nice way to encourage myself to be crafty.

Speaking of crafty, I have begun using the Knit Wit and Knifty Knitter knitting devices, and so far love them. I have recently learned how to knit traditionally, but find it frustrating and tedious. I am using the Knifty Knitter loom to make a scarf for my brother (he got to be my new "technology" guinea pig) and while the weave is really loose, I am enjoying the process. I made one Knit Wit rosette, and it turned out poorly, so back to the instructions I will go, hopefully getting the hang of that.