Fancy Pantsy » going green

paper (free) towels

The Blogger — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:01:14 +0000

I have been feeling pretty guilty for a while about my use (and abuse) of paper towels. It is one disposable product I simply have been unable to live without. I use it for cleaning spills, cleaning counters, drying my hands, putting under food in the microwave, laying wet dishes to dry…etc…etc…and we go through at least a roll a week.

I have tried using dish towels instead, but we don’t have nearly enough (or anywhere to keep thick dish towels if we did have enough), and I simply cannot re-use a towel that has been left out after cleaning a spill or counter. I was somewhat successful at drying my hands on a hanging towel from the oven until I realized my husband was using it to dry the floor, and then re-hanging it. YUCK!

I have tried using J-clothes, but they are so flimsy they just don’t do the job.

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw a ROLL of 30 soft thick cloth towels at the supermarket. ( I cannot find them on-line to show you though I can tell you they had the word sushi in the name for some reason) and decided to buy them. I immediately replaced the paper towel roll with the cloth towel roll, and hung a bag in the kitchen closet to throw soiled ones in, and a tray on the counter to lay clean ones in.

It was so easy. For the first week or so, I grabbed them from the roll as always, gradually watching the roll get smaller and the pile in the tray get higher.

By the time I finished the roll, I was totally loving my cloth towels, and in the habit of grabbing them, using them, tossing them in the bag, then throwing them in the (non-diaper) laundry a couple times a week.

Now the roll is gone, the try is out, and we have been paper towel free for 3 week. Yeah Us!!!

Now, to figure out what to do with the three rolls of paper towel living under the sink…

In honour of Earth Day

The Blogger — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:15:11 +0000

A day late, I sent this e-mail to Gagou Tagou:

I wanted to let you know how much I love your baby socks (the ones with the plastic feet in them). They are the only socks that say on my baby’s feet, and many of my friends have agreed. I have several pairs and wash them every day since they are the only socks we use.

However, I refuse to buy anymore of the socks due to my extreme dislike for the packaging. The little feet are completely unnecessary, and take up extra room in my shopping bag (how many shopping bags do you think I really want to juggle, along with my baby, my older child, my diaper bag and my handbag???), and my garbage bin. I prefer to buy things that do not create unnecessary waste.

They also make unwrapping the socks take more time, and what mom to a baby has more time to spend on such an activity as getting socks out of their package?

I hope you will reconsider the packaging and start to just put them on the cardboard cards and skip the space taking, waste and work increasing plastic feet.

I challenge you to do the same, and take a stand against an environmentally unfriendly product you have often thought about and never done anything to rectify! Tell me about it here!

My first load of fluff!

The Blogger — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:42:03 +0000

Yesterday I decided to do my first load of fluff (cloth diapers)! It is all so cute, isn’t it?:

I am planning to start out with disposable diapers (since I have them already, and figure having a brand newborn is hard enough without creating more laundry) then start to add in the CDs at home, and switch to full-time CDing once the disposables run out. Now I am ready to start using them as soon as I feel up to washing them afterwards (and, ummm…have the baby!). These are BumGenius All In Ones (AIOs) and Mother’s Touch AIOs. I decided to make life easier for myself and start with my AIOs (they are like disposables, only they go in the laundry instead of the trash-no covers, no liners, no stuffing-though you can add a liner to any diaper if you want more absorbancy), adding in pocket diapers (which have a pocket you stuff with an absorbent insert) once I get used to the AIO’s and the habit of washing diapers.

BTW, if you were wondering about the nursery, the wall behind the basket is the nursery wall. I love apple greeen, and it goes well with brown (if we have a boy) or pink (if we have a girl) accessories!

Yesterday was my first day off work, and I spent it nesting. I did loads of baby laundry, and spent a 150 gift card at Wal-Mart. We now have ALL the baby things we need. If only we could get the damn computer out of the nursery so we could get it all set up. We do have the dresser/change table set up already, and I have organized all the drawers.

As for today, I have a chiro appointment and then a mid-wife appointment. After that, I plan to hit Coach as I have a “40% off one item” letter and a $125 gift certificate…so I can buy something pretty! I think I want a red purse, since red bags look awesome with jeans and are great for all season. I am eyeing this one:

P.S. If anyone is curious how I got the letter, I sent in my Hobo to Coach for repairs (it had some loose stitches on the handle) and they sent it back to me with a letter saying since they could not repair it to Coach standards, and that they were giving me 40% off any one regular priced item instead. I then took the strap from the Hobo to a shoe repair and had it fixed up to my standards (it looks great!).

Stuff I want for the bebe

The Blogger — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:34:59 +0000

Here are some of the things I have been eyeing for the bebe:

1) A travel system, or stroller and car seat that work together. We did not use one of these for the girl since my SIL gave me hand me down bucket car-seat and my MIL and BILS and SILS gave me a stroller, and they did not match. So, I used the bucket on its own to go to someone’s house, a restaurant, etc. When I went somewhere I did not want to carry the bucket, I popped the girl out of the car seat and directly into the Stroller or a Carrier. It was not big deal not having a travel system and worked out fine for us BUT since this baby is due in December in Toronto, I am a bit more concerned as I don’t want to pull baby out of a warm comfy car seat in the winter to put him or her directly into a cold stroller from the trunk of my car or have to open my jacket into the cold winter to get him or her into a carrier. I probably still wont get a system since I am planning to use my old stroller (a Peg in decent condition except a wheel that keeps falling off that I assume I can get fixed) and the new Peg Car seats don’t come in that pattern…so I am planning to get a Snap and Go to use with whatever car-seat I get in the winter until it is warm enough for me to switch over to my old system. But, in my dream world where I could justify spending money on a nice new stroller to match a nice new car-seat, I would be buying this Stroller and car-seat set:

2) This sling… Oh, it’s mine! Yeah! I love Ebay. I already have a Hotsling…but I lent it to D for her adorable new daughter Mikayla, and it just seems so wrong to not let her keep it. Anyway, since I got me a free Mei Tei and still have my Bjorn…I figure a baby-wearing aficionado like myself needs at least one new baby-wearing toy. I love Hot-Slings because they are so versatile. There are many different ways to wear a baby from newborn to toddler, you can breastfeed in them, and they are small and compact and easy to shove into a diaper bag or even a large purse. The Bjorn and Mei-Tei both have great usefulness (especially for long outings where you want to use both shoulders to carry the weight), but nothing beats a Hotsling (or similar pouch sling) for versatility and portability! I love how pretty yet neutral this one is!

3) Cloth diapers. It is something I have always regretted not trying with the girl..and now that I have become such a vocal self righteous greeny, I really feel like I must try the cloth thing. I have researched extensively, and decided on Mommy’s Touch one size AIOs. That means they are one size that adjusts to fit from newborn to potty-training (though I’ll likely treat myself to disposables the first month or so, when it is hard to even find time to pee let alone do extra laundry), and have no covers or inserts (though of course you can add an insert or liner to any cloth diaper to add extra absorbency if you need it.) They are about 20 dollars a diaper, so just this week I started buying several a month, to spread out the cost since I’ll need a stash of about 30 (which will still be less that disposables for 2-3 years I am sure!). As well, even though there are less pricey cloth diapers out there, I know for me if I have to mess with inserts, pockets, liners and running out of the right size…it will be a big waste of money for me since I just wont bother. Due to my inherent laziness, making it as labour un-intensive as possible is my best chance for success! Aren’t they cute:

4) A diaper bag. I am not sure what I will get yet, but here are some that have caught my eye:

Yeah, it is not a coincidence that they would match my stroller! I am totally feeling Lime Green for this little one…

Not bad, eh? Lucky for us, we are all set with crib (though I want a new mattress and wrap), change table, bouncy seat, infant toys, jogging stroller (a friend has one), stroller (though I really want a new one to match the car-seat), high-chair and infant food. Clothing I am not even thinking about since we wont find the gender out until after bebe is here (perfect for after X-mas sales) and until then I’ll just get enough gender neutral sleepers and whatever gender specific hand-me-downs I can finagle off friends and relatives to last until I am ready to go shopping.

A great article

The Blogger — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:18:52 +0000

Forces combined to lead me to want to post this article I read in the local paper today. Firstly, when I read it this morning I though how much better David Suzuki is at saying what I tried to say here (who else loves his commercials???). I remembered while reading it that yesterday, at the drugtore, there was a sale on water and I was annoyed at how much people were buying…cases and cases! Then, at the gas station today, while stressing about the cost of gas, I saw a girl throw no less than 14 water bottles into the garbage from her car. Not the recycling bin, but the garbage. I wanted to yell at her or maybe kick her, but felt I’d best avoid being known as the crazy green lady at the gas station. Anyways, here is the article, found online here:

Message in a Bottle

May 16, 2008- The water that comes out of most city taps in Canada is pretty clean. Yet many people prefer to spend money on bottled water, believing that it is somehow safer. Now we’re learning that the stuff in plastic water bottles may be more harmful than anything in our tap water. Bisphenol A is just one chemical that’s been in the news – and in many plastic bottles – recently. This compound mimics estrogens (human female hormones) and has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers and childhood developmental problems. It is found in clear, hard polycarbonate plastic commonly used in household and commercial water coolers and some reusable bottles, and it’s just one potentially harmful substance associated with plastic containers.

The presence of chemicals isn’t the only reason we should try to wean ourselves from the bottle, though. For one thing, bottled water is expensive, costing more than a comparable amount of gasoline. Unlike most nations on Earth, Canada has vast quantities of fresh water. Have we so polluted our water that we feel compelled to pay a lot for it? And from beginning to end (and for plastics, that end is a long time away), plastic bottles contribute to environmental problems. To start, the manufacturing process is a factor in global warming and depletion of energy resources. It takes close to 17 million barrels of oil to produce the 30 billion water bottles that U.S. citizens go through every year. Or, as the National Geographic website illustrates it: “Imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how much oil was needed to produce the bottle.” It also takes more water to produce a bottle than the bottle itself will hold. Canadians consume more than two billion litres of bottled water a year, and globally, we consume about 190 billion litres a year. Unfortunately, most of those bottles – more than 85 per cent, in fact – get tossed into the trash rather than the recycling bin.

The pollution from plastics affects our air, land, and water. Many plastic bottles end up in landfills or get incinerated, and burning plastic releases toxic chemicals into the air. Plastic that stays on land or that is buried can take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, it doesn’t completely biodegrade.

One of the most disturbing things is what happens to plastic that ends up in the oceans – which is about 10 per cent of all plastic produced, according to Greenpeace. About 900 kilometres off the coast of California, a massive, expanding island of plastic debris 30 metres deep and bigger than the province of Quebec swirls in what is known as the North Pacific Gyre. In a recent column for CBC’s website, writer Heather Mallick described it as “a hideous chyme stretching and pulsing in the sea like an underwater gob of spiky phlegm.” Plastic doesn’t biodegrade; rather, it photodegrades, which means that, under sunlight, it just keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. The tiniest bits of plastic, called nurdles, enter the food chain when they are eaten by marine animals and birds. Nurdles also soak up toxins, adding to the poisons consumed by animals and every creature up the food chain. More than a million birds and marine animals die every year from eating plastic waste or from becoming entangled in plastics.

If the environmental damage caused by plastic bottles or the existence of potentially toxic chemicals in the bottles isn’t enough to make you avoid them, how about some reasons that hit closer to home?

First there’s the fact that many bottlers get their water from municipal supplies. Coca Cola filters and bottles water from municipal sources in Calgary and Brampton for its Dasani brand. Pepsi’s Aquafina comes mostly from Vancouver and Mississauga. That’s right: they’re taking your tap water and selling it back to you at a markup that can be as high as 3,000 times the price you pay for it through your taxes.

There’s also a danger that governments may use the growing reliance on bottled water as an excuse to avoid their responsibility to ensure we have access to safe drinking water. The federal government must address any existing concerns about drinking-water quality with enforceable standards designed to protect human health.

If you’re worried about chlorine in your drinking water, put it in a pitcher and let it stand overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate – or consider buying a carbon activated filter for your tap. To carry water with you, fill up your stainless steel or glass bottle from the tap, and enjoy. Water is a precious resource that belongs to all of us. Let’s not take it for granted. And let’s not put it in plastic.

March 29th, 8pm

The Blogger — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:02:29 +0000

turn out your lights and play in the dark for 1 hour. all the cool kids are.

Shameless Promotion

The Blogger — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 04:13:36 +0000

Taking a moment to promote a new blog I am co-authoring with the wonderful C.K.

As you all must know by now, I have been making a lot of efforts the last year or so to be kinder and gentler to the environment. I’ve made a lot of changes, and I hope to inspire others to as well. I also have a lot to learn, and hope that this blog will help me come up with new ideas to make my life greener!!

C.K. and I are both City girls, me in Toronto and C.K. in Hong Kong. We will be blogging about environmental issues and new and exciting (or not so new and exciting, but worthy anyways!) ways we have found to be kinder to the environment while staying true to our stylin’ city girl ways. The blog is C.K.’s baby, but as soon as I saw that she was starting it I thought “I wanna green blog, I WANNA GREEN BLOG!” so I begged her to let me in on the action, which she kindly did.

Pop on by, take a look at Green is Her New Blog…and don’t forget to take notice of the awesome amazing graphics, all C.K.’s work. Good thing too, since I don’t have an artistic bone in my body! She created some truly fabulous doll icons for herself, and I!!

Here she is:

and me:

and expect to see C popping by as well,she is super green and an inspiration to us all. Hi C (not the drink, just saying “hi” to C’s adorable icon!!:

New Year’s Momma

The Blogger — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:27:22 +0000

Last night we had dinner out (sans the girl) with several couples, and then a small get-together with the adults and kids at a friend’s house. I was by far the most over dressed, but that is nothing new for me.

I tried out some dramatic smokey blue eyes:

To go with a striped sweater dress and boots:

and I enjoyed one of my favorite drinks:

As for New Year’s Resolutions, this year I am going to make them much more broad than I have in previous years, since tight ones never seem to be attainable anyways! I wish I had last year’s to go over, but they were on my now dead and gone first blog! Oh well, I do remember doing a tummy-roll was a goal of mine, and I’ve done that (who wants a video??). For 2008 I will:

1. Be more focused on my family.

2. Make healthy lifestyle choices.

3. Make positive changes with regards to my career.

4. Be kinder to the world and encourage others to do so as well. Starting here, with my blogger pal C.K..

Happy News Years Everyone!!!

My new favorite thing

The Blogger — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 03:57:00 +0000

A few months ago, I switched from my Nalgene water bottle to a Sigg one. I had read too many articles about the dangers of Polycarbonateto ignore even though I know very well that it may just be paranoid hype (are eggs good or bad for us?). Since I use my water bottle every day and suck from it constantly, I just figured better safe than sorry. After some research I decides a Sigg was my best bet and bought one. I am not sure if it is really healthier or not, but I do love it. It looks great, and the water tastes great too. I fill it with filtered tap water nightly, and I find that water has less of a chemical taste from my Sigg than it did from my my Nalgene. I took the Sigg to Disney World, where it fell out of my bag no less than 1200 times. It lived, but is really scratched up and dented and doesn’t really stand straight anymore. Last week I finally made it to The Big Carrot to get a new one. Lucky for me, they had the one I have been coveting in stock. May I present my new suck toy:

Lovely, yes? If you are gonna spend $34 on a water bottle, it may as well be pretty, pink and give some proceeds (and create some awareness) for a good cause.

P.S. I really really recommend reusable water bottles, be it hard plastic or aluminum or even steel or glass. The cheap one time plastic ones are awful. Not only am I concerned about the health aspects of sucking on flimsy plastic all day, but the waste is just enormous. Every time I go to the supermarket I see people buying piles of cases of bottles of water, and it hurts me to think how most of those bottles won’t even make it to a recycling bin. Disposable water bottles are a huge contribution to the world’s waste problems, and even reusing them is not safe. I am lucky to live in a city that has safe regulated water, and am glad to take advantage of that!

What does being green do for me

The Blogger — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:13:08 +0000

I was reading Southern Mom yesterday, and remembered a post I had planned to write, so I’ll do it now.

In the past few weeks, a few people have been snarky towards me about “being green” (not that I ever use that term in real life!!). I was at the supermarket and the cashier said she liked my reusable bags and asked about them. I told her I really liked them, it was convenient to use them and nice not to be adding to landfills. The lady in line behind be sneered “Nice Attitude!”. The cashier did not get it, and turned to her to agree, that it was nice that I was bringing my own bags. I had gotten it though. I had heard the sneer that really meant “Self-righteous b!tch”!!

Then, a few days later, I was buying my latte at Starbucks. While I was getting my drink, a lady looked at it and said “what is that?”. I told her it was a Non-fat De-caf Peppermint Mocha Latte! She said “No, not the drink, that thing it is in”. I told her it was a reusable coffee cup. She sneered “Oh, for the environment you mean?”, gave me a look, and walked out.

I have also read a few blog articles talking about how it is trendy to be green, in a “put down” sort of way.

So, a few things to get straight:

1. I know I am just 1 person and whatever I do is not going to change the world…but I also know that people add up and if people see what I do, and do it themselves (and I know of 2 people that have started using reusable bags after I did…maybe there are more I don’t know of), and then people see those people and try it and…well…you get it. I know I am in some ways a hypocrite, as for everything I do for the environment, there are other things I don’t do (like turn of the TV that I can still hear is on the in the other room right now. I know I should get up and turn it off). But reality is…the TV is on whether or not I use reusable bags. It is still better for the environment to have the TV on and no plastic bags in my garbage than to have the TV on and a garbage tin full of plastic bags. Doing a little is better than doing nothing. BRB, I am gonna go turn off the TV…

2. I am well aware it is “trendy” to be green these days, and will even admit that part of the appeal of being green for me is the trend factor (though it started when I started using the Diva Cup, which I started to use not for the environment or because iut is trendy-it isn’t!- but because the traditional alternatives were no longer working for me). I like to do what’s hip. Being green is hip, and has caught on to me. So what? It is not like I am killing baby seals because it is hip. I don’t do harmful things just because they are hip. But I feel no shame that environmentalism appeals to me partly because it is hip. It is a good thing for the world, a good thing for my life, makes me feel good about myself and makes me feel hip. Win-win! (P.S. is it even hip to say ”hip” these days? Should I say “cool”? How about “phat”? Help…I am a failure at being hip!)

3. I will also freely admit that anything I do for the environment has benefits for me too. I may want to be hip, and I may want to reduce my waste and carbon footprint…but I am not enough of a self-righteous b!tch to do things that would cause me true sacrifice or inconvenience. Here is how being green helps me:

Bags:I hated the way plastic bags took over my entire home. they were poking out of every closet, piled up in corners of the basement, stuffed in every crevice of my car, and piled up under my desk at work. Half the time I tried to re-use a plastic bag, I realized (often too late) that it had a hole it in anyways. They ere not strong and I often needed to double bag things at the supermarket or had them break on me in parking lots or on my driveway. The small handles would dig into my palms and hurt, and I could only carry a few at a time.

Reusable bags are neat and tiny and foldable. I have a static number of them and never get more so they are never cluttering my world. They all fit in one bag and take up almost no space in my trunk when I am not using them. They go over my shoulder and I can carry my whole grocery load into my house in one trip using them. They are very strong and sturdy, and I have yet to lose a bag full of groceries in a parking lot while carrying them. Reusable bags do far more for me than for the environment (or so it feels, anyways).

Cups:I drink a lot of coffee, and a lot of water. When I used disposable coffee cups and water bottles, it was gross. I was constantly looking for places to dispose of cups so I could fit a new coffee in my cup holder, and finding moldy old cups in the floor of my car. Empty water bottles as well rolled all over my car. It was a choice of having my car constantly littered with these things, or constantly seeking garbage cans and recycling bins. Far too often my water bottles went in the garbage as there was no recycling bin around, and they were driving me crazy. Having a reusable coffee cup I always keep in my car and quickly rinse between coffees is so much easier, and keeps my car so much cleaner (and fresh smelling) and for water I now use a SIGG bottle. I keep it full in my fridge, grab it every morning on my way out, and refill it with Britafied water every night. Way easier than always needing to make sure I have a case of bottles in the trunk, and disposing of the bottles before there is no room for me in the car!

Girly stuff:No more midnight runs to the drugstore or supermarket. I always have what I need, when I need it. I also prefer the performance of the reusable products, and enjoy that I don’t have to deal with overflowing garage tins and worries about clogging up the toilet at certain times of the month.