Top 10 Eco-Tips for the Holidays

Top 10 Eco-Tips for the Holidays

Toys: Do they contain toxic chemicals?

Visit HealthyToys.org

Buy Nothing Day

Top Ten Green Mom Blogs or How to raise children and respect the environment

Here are links to several "green mom" blogs

Top ten popular green mom blogs.

10 Great Green Mom Blogs
Eco Child's Play

Sustainable Babyish is the Stylish Cloth Diaper That’s Also Very Green

Eco Children Everywhere - Miley Goes Green

Back to School Brandwashing: Freecycling for Picky Preteens

Great Green Goods

Recycled Bracelet - from Inner Tubes and Flip Flops

Back to School - Recycled Lunch Bags

Upcycled Coffee Cup Sleeves

Green Baby Guide

Savoring the Last Weeks of Summer: Carbon-Free, Low-Cost Entertainment for Kids

Little Water Wasters: What to Do When Your Youngster Doesn’t Understand the Meaning of Conservation

Building Green Communities with Like-minded Parents

Green Mom Find

Like A Big, Fluffy Hug

Not Just A Pretty Face

Supercharged Sleeping

Green Style Mom

Have to brag...
Blog Guilt

Friday Afternoon Club

Mindful Momma

Saving Face

Done with Dryer Sheets

Living Sustainably by Staying Put

Mom Go Green

baby's here announcements

back again

new favorite sunscreen

Nature Moms Blog

Acme Reusable Bags and a Pop Quiz

The Benefits of Green Smoothies

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Petite Planet

Which Toothpaste is Best for Your Child?

Teach Me Toothbrush Set

LA Quake, A Reminder to Get Shaking

Teensy Green

A Recipe For Those Stuck Indoors (Today or Any Day)

Managing Moments Giveaway!

Lunchbags For Everyone Roundup

Smart Car in Canal Park

Smart Car
Read AP story about Smart Car

Cell phone companies encourage electronic waste

I think the mobile or cell phone industry encourages people to discard their phones. We tried to purchase an additional phone for my mother at the beginning of the year because she was one of the people that we phoned lot and we wanted to save long distance charges and add her to our family plan. We were with Cellular One which was purchased by AT&T. At the former Cellular One stores were told that they didn't have anymore phones that would be compatible with our old Cellular One phones and that we had to purchase ALL new AT&T phones for the whole family. (We had three: my husband, myself and my daughter.)

We I asked about the electronic waste this would cause, I was told that the phone would be donated to soldiers. Okay.....so if the phone will work for the soldiers.....why can't they continue to work for us?

Every former Cellular One store we went to was "all out" of the old Cellular One phones and tried to sell us a new AT&T phone for the whole family.

Can someone explain to me why it was impossible to purchase a phone that would be compatible with the three phones we already had?

Discarded Mobile Phones Create an

Showing your toenails this summer?

Since it is summer, lots of women are wearing sandals. I put my sandals on for the first time this year last week. I would like to paint my nails, but I am not sure about all the ingredients in nail polish. This link from the Green Guide (Nail Care) give pointers on the least toxic ways to have attractive toenails.

Keeping deer out of our gardens

Deer are a problem for our gardens in Duluth. How do you keep deer out of your gardens?

How walkable is your neighborhood?

When my husband and I had to move for a job almost three years ago, we purposely chose a neighborhood that we could easily get to work and shop by walking.

Today on the National Geographic's website "The Green Guide," the blog "The Ecopolitan"
by Jay Walljasper is featured. He discusses the "walkablity" of your neighborhood. This calculation come from the site "Walkscore."

I plugged in the numbers for my neighborhood, it came out to 72 which means it is a very walkable neighborhood and it would be possible to get around without a car. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.


Now, if we would just buy a condo near his office we could have a walk score of 95 !

Pick your own berries this summer

Prof. Cricket loves any chance she can get to go outdoors. She would just love to be a farm dog and romp around outdoors all day long. This summer, even if you don't have your own garden, you can get out of doors and have some fun picking your own berries. Dessert never tasted so good as when you picked the berries yourself.

I remember when my daughter was little we picked berries with our church group. It was relaxing to get out of town (we lived in Seattle) and see the rural areas. Plus, it was an social event for our church group. Kids of all ages think it is great fun. Later, at the church, people made strawberry shortcake.

If you are near Duluth, Minnesota try Finke's Berry Farm. The strawberries are ripe at their farm in Carlton. Be sure to phone ahead. The farm is located at 2331 Co. Rd. 4. Call 384-4432 or see finkesberryfarm.com for more information. Raspberries will be ripe later in the month or early in August.

Get creative, join together with others in your area to have a jam making party.

Greens, radishes, spring onions, and other fresh foods are available at farmers' markets now.

If you are in the Duluth, Minnesota area check out the Association Sustainable Farming Association's website for a list of area markets, including locations and times. (http://www.lakesuperiorfarming.org/FarmProductsDirectory.aspx)


More information will be posted on the Slow Food Lake Superior website, http://www.slowfoodlakesuperior.org/.

Purchase grass-fed beef at a farmers market

Eat locally grown food.
This ground beef was purchased at the Farmers Market in East Hillside from Green Pastures. Green Pastures Dairy is located in Carlton, Minn. and the cattle eat grass.

It is kinda expensive, but most Americans eat too much red meat. I made hamburgers tonight. It would have been easy for my husband to eat a one-half pound burger, but I made him a quarter-pounder and made sure he had lots of extras to fill him up.

Learn more about grass-fed beef at Eat Wild.

Green Pastures will be having an open house on Aug. 2nd.





Here is their contact information:
Green Pastures Dairy
2353 Bromfield Road
Carlton, MN 55718
(218) 384-4513
cheese@greenpasturesdairy.com

We also sell our products at the Duluth Farmers Markets every Saturday,
from June through October.

Duluth Farmers Market
14th Ave. E. & 3rd St.
7:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Poison yards? Keep children and pets of the grass for their own safety

Prof. Cricket and I walk at least two times a day. I had her pose by this sign. I suppose I should be careful, it says to keep pets and children off because the lawn has just been sprayed with a weedkiller.

Do you really want you yard to be poisonous to children and small furry animals?

What do you do to keep your yard free from weeds? Please post your comments.

Save Energy, clean behind your refridgerator

When I was a kid, my mom told a story on herself. As a young women her refrigerator did not work so she called a repairman. He came over and vacuumed the back side of her refrigerator. She said she was embarrassed, but it did fix her refrigerator.

A refrigerator uses about 15 % of your household electricity.

A couple years ago I went to the Green Energy Fair in Duluth and I listened to a talk by Tony Mancuso. (He figures out lots of innovative ways to save energy for St. Louis County.) He also talked about how you could increase the efficiency of your refrigerator if you clean behind it, and he had some examples of brushes you could use. So, I purchased this nifty brush that Prof. Cricket is posing by, but I never used it.

About a month ago our refrigerator started making all kinds of funny noises. It was very loud. So I spent a good hour using the brush behind the coils and especially the areas close to the floor and near the fan.

Now our refrigerator isn't making any more funny noises and it is quiet.

Here is a link on how to clean the coils for your refrigerator
http://www.ehow.com/how_2026039_save-energy-fridge.html

This above example talks about removing a plate. I did not do that.

Here is another blog, Brave New Leaf, with a post about how to clean the coils:
http://www.bravenewleaf.com/environment/2008/03/scary-and-new-c.html

Alternative gift registry for weddings, babies, etc

This is from New American Dream
Why Alternative Gifts?
Do you want to plan an event that emphasizes time spent with loved ones and de-emphasizes store-bought gifts? Do you want to give a special gift to someone you love that focuses on the bond you share, rather than something that costs a bundle and may not be what they really want?
We all love giving and receiving gifts; it’s important to our culture and good for the spirit. When the gifts we buy don’t match our values, however, they can distract from, rather than deepen, the meaning behind an event, despite the best intentions of those involved. The cost to gift-givers—not to mention the environmental impacts—also adds up quickly.
Fortunately, for many brides, grooms, parents-to-be, and other gift recipients, less truly is more. By encouraging non-material, second-hand, homemade, and environmentally friendly gifts, we seek to continue the proud tradition of gift-giving while helping celebrants focus on what matters most: a joyous commemoration with loved ones that honors the important moments in their lives.
Creating a registry and choosing a gift, of course, is highly personal. We have offered a number of green suggestions, but celebrants can fill in their own ideas and link to products outside this site to offer the widest and most meaningful gift selection possible.
To get started just click here to create a registry, or click here to find your loved one’s registry.

Electric Cars You Can Buy Now

Electric Cares You can Buy Now

http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/105265/5-Electric-Cars-You-Can-Buy-Now

American's first carbon tax

My friend Wendy, sent me this information from the
Post Carbon Cities Weekly Blog

America's first carbon tax
Published 21 May 2008 by ABC News "Science and Society" blog (original article Not content to wait for federal carbon regulation, San Francisco's air quality authority is putting in place the U.S.'s first carbon tax. They decided on 20 May 2008 to place a price of 4.4 cents per ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere -- which is not much, as some have pointed out, but a start.

Save the Internet

To reduce waste stay organized

Staying organized is a challenge for me. It seems I have a million things to do. When a person is so busy it is easy to want to eat out, and eat fast food.

I rarely eat at a fast food joint.  I want to eat healthy food and I don't want to create more waste.

Last night were busy and my husband was very hungry. If I had been better organized, I would have had something good ready for him to eat, but I didn't.

He wanted a burger. The last thing I want is a fast food burger. We did decide to go to Taco John's. I think I haven't been their in years.

We both ordered salads. He had a taco (hamburger) salad; I had a chicken salad.  I was disappointed in myself be it was served on disposable plastic plates with plastic forks.

We thought it would be more healthy if we ordered one root beer and one water and shared. Well, the root beer came in a plastic cup and the water came in a Styrofoam cup.  A couple of years ago I gave up Styrofoam. When I mentioned the Styrofoam to my husband, he seemed perturbed. I think he wishes I would loosen up a bit on my standards.

I noticed they also had paper cups. I suppose if you order water you get Styrofoam so it doesn't screw up their count on sold soda pop with the supply company.

Today I brought my own cup to a coffeehouse.  I could have done that yesterday if I would have known that it was going to be in Styrofoam.

Energy Fair in Wisconsin, June 20-22

Don't miss the Midwest Energy Fair June 20 thorugh the 22nd in Custer Wisconsin.

http://www.the-mrea.org/

Energy Fair Keynotes & Workshops

Keynotes

Friday, June 20 - Jason Walsh,

Green For All Jason Walsh serves as the National Policy Director for Green For All. Green For All's goal is to help build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Jason was previously State Policy Director for The Workforce Alliance, a national coalition advocating for public policies that invest in the skills of America's workers, where he worked on a range of federal and state workforce development legislation, including the Green Jobs Act.

Saturday, June 21 - Jim Hightower

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the forthcoming book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

Meet Jim, and sign up for his newsletter The Hightower Lowdown at his website.

Sunday, June 22 - Eco-Municipality Expert Torbjörn LahtiTorbjorn Lahti is the project director for Sustainable Robertsfors, a five-year sustainable community demonstration project. He was the project planner for Sweden's first eco-municipality, and is co-author of The Natural Step for Communities. Lahti will also present an extended workshop at the Energy Fair for individuals interested in a more in-depth study of eco-municipalities.

Interested in eco-municipalities? Purchase The Natural Step through the MREA Marketplace.

Duluth Hospital serves good food "organic" food

Duluth hospital serves good food


"We're starting to see the health-care profession is starting to take food nutrition seriously," Harvie said, beyond just having dieticians advise that people eat nutritiously. "They're trying to change the food system, the way our food is produced and distributed."As more hospitals demand organic and locally grown foods, suppliers are beginning to offer it, he said.Branovan has witnessed that happen.

Click here to go to the Duluth News Tribune article by Patrick Garmoe

Please leave a comment if you have stayed and St. Luke's and what you thought about the food.

Chickens in the City?

Today, Memorial Day, I broke a couple of my own rules. I shopped on a national holiday and I purchased a bunch of non-organic food. (We were going to have a cook-out with our neighbor, but it is raining. I am going to make bison burgers. Which I will post about some day to talk about the benefits of this type of meat.)

I went to Whole Foods Co-op at 4 p.m., but they had closed a 3 p.m. So I went to Super One Foods. I almost purchased some of the regular eggs, but they had some eggs in a see-three plastic egg crates that were "cage-free," so I purchased those instead. It bothered me that the egg crate is made of plastic. When I got home the crate said that it was made from recycled plastic.

Here is a chance for you to learn about the benefits of having chickens in your backyard for eggs.

A group of people in Duluth are trying to pass an ordinance allowing for the raising of chickens in the city limits of Duluth, MN.

"Duluth City Chickens: A group advocating for chicken raising in the city of Duluth,MN"

The mission of the "Duluth City Chickens" is to promote responsible urban agriculture by establishing clear legal guidelines for raising chickens within the city of Duluth.

Supporting language

As modern large-scale agriculture becomes unsustainable (due to the rising cost of fuel, the need to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases, etc.) and as the safety of our food supply becomes less certain, people throughout the world are turning to urban agriculture (including the cultivation of vegetables and fruits, and the raising of poultry for eggs and meat) as a way to increase food self-sufficiency. By recognizing the advantages of ensuring that people living in urban areas have the legal right to raise their own food, it is in the best interests of the residents of Duluth that we establish clear guidelines for responsible urban agriculture.

Read more at Duluth City Chickens

Cooking meat on Memorial Day?

Go ahead and celebrate Memorial Day with a cook-out on the grill. Then, next Monday, consider eating less meat.

I'm not saying Prof. Cricket needs to eat less meat. She is a canine after all. But I think Americans eat way too much meat. You will be healthier if you find other forms of protein; and so with the earth.

Some say "A meat-eater on a bicycle leaves a bigger carbon footprint than a vegan in a Hummer!"Did you know...

-Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than automobiles. Cows raised for beef, in particular, emit massive amounts of nitrous oxide and methane.

-Animal waste and feed cropland dump more pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined.

-Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets - nearly half of the world's grains & soybeans are fed to animals.

Meat Out Mondays
Eating meat is something many of us grew up believing was the best thing to do to get protein. It is hard a habit to break, and I am not asking Prof. Cricket to participate, but I use recipes from Meat Out Mondays. My favorite is sweet potatoes topped with black bean chili.

Your choices on Memorial Day

What will you be doing for Memorial Day weekend?

Will you travel?  

If you do travel, how much gas will you use.

If you don't travel, is it because of the price of gas?

Will you have a cookout?

What type of meat will you eat?  How do you think your choices of meat affect the environment?

Church members work together to prevent water pollution from the runoff of parking lot

With beautiful Lake Superior in the background members of the First United Methodist Church in Duluth, Minn. swept of the winter's collection of sand, gravel and salt.

Even the bags used to collect the debris were recycled.

This April members of the First United Methodist Church aka "The Coppertop," wore work clothes and brought brooms to the Sunday service. It was time to sweep the sand, silt and salt off the church's parking lot before the spring rains sweep away the grit thus adding it right into Lake Superior which, by the way, the city uses for drinking water.

The church's sustainability committee thought up the idea. The sustainability committee met and worked on a weekday evening to get a head start. The following Sunday members grabbed their brooms and joined in. A dinner was also provided. It was stressed that anyone could join at the dinner, you didn't have to participate in the sweeping.

The activity succeeded in stopping some pollution and demonstrated to the congregation that we are able to take steps on our own to help the environment. It was also an educational activity for anyone attending church or reading the church bulletin or newsletter.


Visit this site to learn more: Lake Superior Streams.

Clothesrack saves energy

Today was the first day of the year that I wanted to use the clothesline. It must really be spring in Duluth because when I went outside the neighbor was scraping paint of his house to prep it for paint. The flecks were flying, so I decided to put the clothes on a clothesrack inside to save some money and energy.

Leave a comment if you use a clothes rack inside of the dryer.

Tomorrow is Endangered Species Day, See Minnesota Endangered Species Day events

I picked up the paper today and looked at the photo of the polar bear. Polar bears will now be officially listed as an endangered species. To me this is different than the wolves, or the bison.  In many states humans purposely killed those species. I think it is sad, but some humans still don't feel bad about driving out a species that endangered their way of life...like raising cattle.  Many ranchers hate wolves.  In he state of Wisconsin, many years ago, humans purposely killed as many as possible.

The bison were killed for sport.

What is different is that no one is purposely killing polar bears. There is no bounty. There is no group of sportsmen taking glee in killing. There is really no individual to point the finger at.

Reading the story on the front page made me feel hopeless. What can we do?

Read what No Impact Man has to say.

If you live in the southern part of Minnesota here are some events you could attend:

Friday, May 16, is Endangered Species Day.

Minnesota Endangered Species Day event

Upper Missouri River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge

US Fish and Wildlife Service

51 East 4st Street

Winona, MN

507-452-4232

You can enjoy biking and canoeing and watch bald eagle or search for prairie birds and plants. The refuge is an angler’s paradise, waterfowl hunters dream and birdwatchers bounty. 

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge

US Fish and Wildlife Service

3815 American Blvd. East

Bloomington, MN

952-854-5900

Visit the refuge in the heart of the Twin Cities, where you can hike, bike, canoe and much more.  Learn about the 6 endangered, 4 threatened and 4 candidate species in Minnesota. 

Sherbune Refuge

US Fish and Wildlife Service

17076 293rd Avenue

Zimmerman, MN

763-389-3323

The refuge is 50 miles northwest of the Twin Cities and has two scenic hiking trails.  Learn about the 6 endangered, 4 threatened and 4 candidate species in Minnesota.  

Disposing of dog doo

Plastic does terrible things to the environment. It never biodegrades. I do use plastic, and I feel guilty if I don't re-use plastic bags. I even save the plastic bags that frozen vegetables come in, or new product are shipped in.

When I walk Prof. Cricket I bring these bags along and recycle them by using them to pick up her dog doo. My friend says I am very dedicated because I even bring the bag back home and dump the contents into the toilet instead of throwing it into a trash can which then sends it to the landfill to become mummified in plastic for thousands of years.

It is not good for the environment to leave dog doo out. (Read my earlier post.) But it is also not the best to send it to the landfill.

If you follow my lead on this, please be very careful that you don't get any leaves, grass or sticks into the toilet. And you have a greater risk of soiling your hands doing this...so please wash your hands very carefully.

Mummifying our trash

Mummifying our trash
Landfills: protection by storage

When we talk about helping the environment often times we speak about recycling instead of “landfilling” our trash or garbage. This July, Rebecca and I started composting our food waste. Composting is a way of recycling nutrients back to the earth.
One of the display items we showed during our Green Team presentations this summer was a food waste collection container loaned by Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD) for special occasions like weddings, picnics and graduations. It really isn’t that special. It is just a large plastic garbage can lined with a biodegradable plastic bag. The container is returned to WLSSD and the food scraps are composted.
This project prompted an excellent question for Prof. Cricket from an Iowa woman. She asked, “Why don’t food and yard waste return to the earth in a landfill when they do in a compost pile?”
To understand why landfills don’t compost our waste, Prof. Cricket will give a mini-lesson in the construction of a landfill.
Landfills are actually like condominiums or tombs for our garbage. In the old days we had dumps. Anything and everything was thrown into a pile. Some places burned the garbage and others covered it up.
The problem was that there were no safeguards in place. Poisons could leach out of the dumps and into our water. Dumps were stinky places and often breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects and rodents. Today landfills are constructed. A lengthy process including an environmental impact study in which many experts such as geologists, biologists, social scientists and engineers scrutinize the effect of the landfill on the natural and social environment.
Landfills are lined with clay and plastic to prevent leachate or garbage-juice from leaking out. They are actually designed to slow down decomposition. A series of tubes and pipes are included underneath, through and around the landfill. These pipes collect the leachate to treat it so that it doesn’t containment water. Some of the leachate turns to methane gas and is vented through the pipes.
Each day the garbage at a landfill is covered with soil, which helps prevent odors and pests. This process is repeated until a section or cell is full. One landfill has many cells. When it is full it is capped off with clay and soil. It still needs to be monitored for future years.

Prof. Cricket wonders, “If a steak bone with meat on it is thrown in our kitchen garbage can, then to our alley trash can; picked up by our garbage truck and then transported and dumped into a sanitary landfill, which is later sealed and capped, will there still be meat on the bone 15 years later?”
An Anthropology professor at the University of Arizona, William L. Rathje, conducted several archeological excavations on landfills in Arizona, California and Illinois. This was named, “The Garbage Project.” He said of landfills, “They are vast mummifiers.” His team found readable newspapers, hot-dogs and a T-bone with meat and fat on it.
This archeological projected showed that a well-designed and managed landfill slows biodegration of some organic garbage to a standstill. Some never did start to biodegrade.
According to the EPA Americans throw away 25 percent of the food we prepare. This amounts to 96 million pounds of food waste. It costs us $1 billion.So while today’s landfill is a way to protect our water supply from dangerous pollutants and also prevent disease-carrying vermin. They aren’t a very good way to return organic materials to the earth.

Dogs' use of outdoors as bathroom affects our water

This photo is fromDuluthStreams.org

Until recently, the only reason I picked up Prof. Cricket's dog-doo was as a matter of courtesy for my neighbors. I thought it was unsightly, a hazard to people who might accidentally step on it. It wasn't until Marnie Lonsdale a Duluth, Minn city employee and Project Lead, City Administrative Lead, Stormwater Plan Links came to visit my United Methodist Women's circle earlier this year that I realized that dog waste is a health hazard. It gets carried by runoff water into everyone's water supply hurting humans, lakes, rivers and aquatic life.

"But wild animals poop in the woods in nature," you may say. This is true, but we human's have more pet population in a small land area compared to the population of animals in the wild. It is estimated that 40 percent of Americans own a dog. In Duluth it is estimated that 125 dogs live within a square mile.

Your dog's business is everyone's business
I am embarrassed to admit that I never saw the need to pick up dog doo in my own yard if I didn't feel like it. I thought it was my yard and my dog's business was no one else's business. I thought that the rain dissolved it and it "biodegraded" and returned to the land. I was wrong. Bacteria from pet droppings ends up in the water supply.

This spring I was walking Prof. Cricket when I met an elderly couple who were so upset by the the piles of dog doo in front of their house that they had shovels and were flinging the excrement onto the street. This was actually making the situation worse. Cars were driving over the excrement and it was taken by the water of the melting snow straight to the storm sewers and into Lake Superior.

It is important to pick up the dog doo to prevent contamination of water. But if you read Prof. Cricket's previous post about mummifying our garbage in landfills, you might wonder whether or not the dog doo biodegrades even if you use biodegradable bags. Biodegradable material relies on microbial action for degradation. Microbes require moisture, oxygen and elevated temperature for survival. Landfills are designed to exclude moisture and compaction reduces oxygen. A majority of dog waste bags end up in landfills. A brand named Mutt Mitt labels itself "degradable" and says, Mutt Mitts include additional degradants and will degrade even in a landfill.

Flushable bags
Some bags are designed to be flushed down the toliet. I would double check with the city or the person in charge of your spectic system before doing this. Here are some companies that sell flushable bags: The Flushable Bag™ and Handicapped Pets

Dog doo composters
If you live in suburbia you can even purchase an underground doggie doo composter. Check outDoggie Dooley , Pet D Posit or a City Farmer site


Different cities handle this question in other ways. Here are the options in Duluth: • flushed down the toilet (be sure to pick out rocks and sticks first) • put in the trash or • buried in your own yard. If you want to bury pet waste, make sure it is in a hole at least 6 inches deep, away from vegetable gardens and water sources, and in permeable soil (not clay). Do not add it to compost piles.

Honey Bees on Strike!?

Cartoon creator Mike Adams www.NaturalNews.com 

Why are the honey bees disappearing?

Can you be an environmentalist AND a tidy housekeeper?

I used to find it hard to be both an environmentalist and a clean, tidy housekeeper, but I am getting better.

It is so hard for me to throw away items that I think could be reused. The best way I have found to get around this is to do not bring "stuff" into the house in the first place. Maybe President Bush wouldn't agree with me, but I have cut down on shopping. If I don't bring it home, it can't clutter up my home or pollute the environment when I decided I don't need it anymore.

When I do shop, I try to keep the money going back into the local economy and have the least amount of environmental impact.

I am getting much better than I used to be. If a person is clean and organized in the first place it is so much easier to consume less and locate items you need. Two sites that have helped me get a handle on this are :
Flylady.net
Messies.com

Go ahead and eat out, just avoid disposable dishes

My husband and I don 't eat out that often, but last night we were both really hungry and he was craving a hamburger. He wanted a Wendy's burger. I am trying not to create a demand for mass marketed beef products. He told me if we went to Wendy's I could order a salad. He was correct. But I knew that it would be served on a disposable dish with disposable utensils.

We ended up going to Perkins. He got his hamburger. I order my salad.
It has been ages since we have been out to eat. We both got what we wanted. We didn't use any disposable dishes. I did NOT push my "no non-grass-fed beef" beliefs on my husband, and we left the young woman, (who is probably working he way through college) a nice tip.