Eh…how to make a difference, with so many things in such a mess. My suggestion, because it’s easy enough to integrate, right now, into your daily life: think hard about the stuff you buy & use. Don’t just do what you always do automatically. Be a thoughtful consumer. I say this because plenty o’ studies have shown that in fact we do make most choices automatically. Ask yourself why you buy a certain brand of something. Are your reasons real & logical, or it is really just habit, or that you feel positive when you see the color of the box? You must make a conscious effort to think as you consume. Buy better, use less, reuse. The habits of enough individuals become the habits of groups. Make your own difference. Anytime an otherwise unglamorous action is executed while emitting the attitude that this action is both hip & cool, it becomes hip & cool to others, & that’s one way ideas spread & behaviors change. When we were in Mexico & Belize, I was so dismayed by the amount of trash, mostly in the cities. And where that stuff comes from is packaging around products that evoke American life. If you are using a computer, reading a blog, then you are probably closer to the front lines of societal change than is the non-computer user who gets his news from the Fox cable channel, his wants from commercials, & his supplies from Costco. Those kind of people are always the followers.
And as you go about your life, buying this & that, I want to caution you strongly to be ever vigilant against the “halo” effect. For instance, I was reading customer comments of biodegradable forks on Amazon & someone wrote of how she loved them & they were “even good for the planet!” Hello? What? A giant factory, truck & trains & planes & huge ocean going transports are not good for the planet. Still, isn’t that interesting that she made that comment. This is a good example of how we think we are making aware choices, then our brains get taken over by marketing & we didn’t even notice. Companies hire masterful copywriters to festoon their packages with pretty words. When you read what they have to say, listen for what they are not saying, & use their info as a starting point for a 5 minute google search. Many of these companies genuinely want to help the planet, but they are doing so because they anticipate making money in the process.
Did you know you can wash disposable plastic utensils in the dishwasher?
So true. BBQ season is here, perfect for forks you don’t mind kids losing in the yard. Sturdy plastic forks are fine for these situation, just don’t throw them away afterward. Put up a sign or spread the word that people should just lay them in the sink. Today’s plastic utensils can go thru the dishwasher with no problem. They don’t deform at all. You can use them for months or years. Really, why throw away a perfectly good fork or knife when it can be easily cleaned & sterilized time & time again?
Are biodegradable utensils so great?
You can now buy utensils made of
plant starch (one site lists it as “non-GMO corn starch”)
bamboo
You can also get plates made of
potatoes, vegetable starches & limestone – earthshell This company makes only plates & bowls. Upon reading their site we can see they are clearly positioning themselves as stewards of the planet & they make a very big deal of how harmless their products are. They also point out that they make everything in the US, from US materials, thus reducing the carbon footprint of having things shipped from China. Nice, but I still couldn’t find anything about where in the country they are. Ok for microwave and freezer.
bamboo – bambu veneerware This company has lovely bamboo plates, trays, utensils, & sporks. Everything is made of thin sheets of bamboo, which they point out is fast growing without artificial fertilizer, certified organic, renewable, & compostable. The price is good, unfortunately they are made in China. Not for microwave.
My current takeaway on this whole thing – plastic is still better than biodegradable.
Biodegradable utensils sound nice, very PC & green. In fact, despite that they are supposed to withstand temps up to 200, many people complain that biod utensils are weak, fold up in hot soup, & you can even bite off the tines of the forks. Also, most of the current crop seems to be made in China. How earth friendly is it to ship a fork half way around the globe, then use it once before tossing it? Also, they are biodegradable only in the loosest sense. Plates are different, but the utensils are particularly tough, & can take up to 2 years to compost in a home composting system.
I’ll contiinue to use my plastic picnic ware for now. A pack of clear, attractive, & very strong forks, knives, & spoons is available for very cheap at the local Fred Meyer. I have some I’ve used & washed for over a year. They seem untouched. For my BBQ plates, I use some of the 200 plates left from our wedding. They are made by Preserve. They make dinner & dessert size plates in an extremely sturdy plastic that’s made from recycled yogurt containers, & the plates can be recycled if you ever want to get rid of them. They are strong, come in nice colors, stack very flat for easy storage, & are dishwasher safe! (I love that last part.) We have been using ours for nearly 3 years now & they are fine.
Here’s a fun thing. Dutchtub. It is entirely portable, which makes for some highly entertaining photos on their website. It is a simple bowl design. You place it where you choose, fill it with water, light a fire in the attached stove, & wait for the water to heat. Pipes at the top & bottom allow the water to circulate as it heats. You use plain water, so no chemicals on your skin or waiting to be poured back onto the ground. I very much enjoy the colors, the simplicity of the design, the portability, the built-in BBQ. It’s right pricey tho. A basic model is $6000, which is the kind of amount you think hard about before spending. Still, tho, you get everything you’d want here. Extras could put you up to $8325, + $900 for a hand cart or $1500 for a car trailer if you can’t just tie it to the top of your car. But if you’re at all clever, you can fake many of the extras with stuff from your garage or the shops of pack rat friends. A chimney, for instance, is only needed in very windy climes. And the ashtray – just use an inverted garbage can lid, or some other metal tray. (To clarify – the ashtray is placed on the ground under the stove to catch ash. It’s not for cigs, not that kind of ashtray.) This is a lovely product, & if you were thinking of a hot tub anyway, then it might be worth spending extra to get something portable, & chemical-free.
Here’s a thought provoking little video of an asteroid hitting the earth. It definitely gave me pause. It’s worth a watch, but keep you finger on the volume button if the Pink Floyd starts to annoy.
I have a sadness at the recent death of writer Donald Westlake. He was 75, & apparently had a heart attack. His books have given me uncounted hours of pleasure & laughter. More info can be found here.
In my mind I see us all standing around at this post-election optimism party that we’re enjoying so much. We’re all smiling & chatting & drinking sparkly cocktails, & then some of us find ourselves raising our noses to sniff lightly at the faint breeze, & what we smell distracts us & soon we are not laughing quite so often or sincerely as others in the crowd. Something about the recent economic problems, combined with having our rights chewed thru post 911, & a whole lot of other things, is making many of us nervous in a thoughtful kind of way. And the next thing you know, you see one of your friends break away from the group he’s with & he sidles up to you. “I’m thinking of getting a 50 lb bag of rice & just keeping it in the basement,” he says. He looks at you to see how you take this.
Yes, Obama won. (Take a moment here to genuflect to your greater spirit of choice.) Yet despite the wave of nearly giddy hopefulness, I often hear people speak in quiet voices about how they dried their extra fruit this year, instead of freezing it, because it’ll keep if anything happens. There is talk of getting generators, or changing their cash to gold & silver. One friend just installed a wood stove in his house. They were remodeling, & they looked around & said, hmmmm….the new wood stoves are super efficient & if anything happened, we’d still have heat. There is a lot of that: “if anything happens….” Yet it’s clear from the actions being taken that “anything” could be more tightly defined as, the power is out everywhere, maybe for weeks or months & you can’t buy food in the stores. The magnitude of a situation that would result in no food supply & no power just makes my mind go blank.
On another front, “green” is becoming ever so hip. I knew things had changed for good when I saw an online site suggesting great green (recycled in this case), cheap gifts, & they recommended giving your child a large cardboard box. Really? I could hear my son now, “I said X box mom! X. Where’s the X!?“ Wouldn’t you pay to be a fly on the wall at a Toys-R-Us board meeting? I need to wrap this up & get back to work.
I recommended Freeplay last Xmas. Will do so again. Their products are:
Green – use no batteries
geekily cool – what’s not to like about a light that doesn’t need batteries? This just fascinates me.
great for after the apocalypse when extension cords become nothing more than fancy tie-downs for use on your dogcart
A superb emergency product that can be useful now in regular non-emergency daily life, especially if you have kids.
Our Freeplay Indigo lantern has a home on the corner of the kitchen counter, next to its recharger. Where it really lives is in my son’s hands. He carries it upstairs to light his fort/cubbyhole under the eaves, & he dearly loves to pull it in behind him when he spends time in the safe, close, warm dimness under our bed, where he can lay on the heat vent, protected on all sides by the long covers, reading his Calvin & Hobbes books by the light of this small bit of technology.(I’m getting us a radio for Xmas.)
The Indigo ($42) & the ML-1 Mini ($55). I guess they’ve learned to shrink the works & so they put out the Mini, which is 75% the size of the Indigo. These both can be charged with wall plugs, AND they can be effectively charged by cranking. I think I got mine for $39 at REI. Check around for sales. Might as well.
They have 2 functions:
READING/FLASHLIGHT: works for 40 hours on Mini & 35 hours Indigo, fully charged.
AREA LIGHT: adjustable from bright to dim. Mini: 100 hours on low, 8 hours on high. Indigo: 70 hours on low, 2.5 hours on high.
My Report: I have taken the Indigo to Burning Man twice now. In 2006 we were there for over 2 weeks. I never had to crank it, tho I did have to dig it from the dust a number of times. It ran the entire time on the charge I’d done at home. I know 2.5 hours on bright doesn’t sound like much, but the truth is that in the inside of a very dark tent, any light seems like a lot. I used the dim setting or the reading light & got along fine. Also it still works just as well as day one, & when you consider that day was was 2 years ago in kid years, which is about 18 years for a normal user, you’ll understand that this is not delicate or fragile at all.
Reasons I recommend it:
Works around camp just like any lantern, but since it gives off no heat or fumes, you can use it in the tent without the risk of finding out what it’s like to be inside a flaming marshmallow. I can still remember being out camping, getting ready to make the last restroom run of the night & my son asking, yet again, to carry the lantern, & I realized…he could! Ahhhh….
Excellent for kids! Again, no heat here. Unlike propane or white gas lamps, no heat at all so no risk of burns. Great for kids who like to hide under the bed, read under the covers, etc. If they leave it on, just plug in a recharge.
Portable nightlight for kids on vacation. Just leave it at the low setting, or within reach for them to turn on. Light for them when they’re in a strange bed, & it can be right next to them even if there are no plugs handy.
Good for int’l travel. It doesn’t matter if no one near you sells batteries. You don’t need them.
Freeplay also makes several radios. Some, like the one pictured, have flashlights built in. Handy as a one-grab item in an emergency. One model has shortwave, which Rodman tells me could be useful. I don’t know much about it. Freeplay also makes flashlights. We have one, & I have no complaints. But the lantern reading light on the side of the unit seems sufficient as a flashlight, AND the lantern provides ambient light, so I tend to recommend that as a more versatile product.
Bottom line:These are useful anytime, especially with kids in the mix. You don’t have to save these away for some emergency. But if the day comes that you lose power, even for an hour, you’ll be veeeery pleased to have these durable & elegantly efficient products.
This morning as I was taking Reid to school, he pointed to someone in an SUV & said that it was silly just one person would be driving that, & they must be wasting gas. (I’m so proud of Reid for thinking these thoughts, & having this awareness. I mean, come on, he’s seven. On the other hand it gives me pause when I realize how easy it is to train a kid to believe anything you choose. Think toddlers in tiny KKK outfits here. Kids are like silly putty, aren’t they?) It caused me to ponder the whole lamentable state of our environment. Oh, there’s so much going on, it’s hard to see how just us doing something better makes any difference at all. But we must have hope, & we can tweak our kids’ minds so using less & living lighter becomes their normal way of thinking.
How can you raise your kids’ awareness of the effects of their actions? I spend a fair amount of time talking with Reid about nature. We look at plants & bugs & discuss how things are connected. When you’re at a fair or carnival or other crowded event, you can draw your child’s attention to the overflowing trash cans & you can point to all the plastic water bottles that will have be buried in the ground, that same ground that is so friendly to plants & bugs. You can talk about how loose plastic grocery bags are used once but last longer than any of us will be alive. You can foster an atmosphere of inventiveness in reusing things.
All that is fine, & once you’ve brought a kid to such an attitude, it’s an easy step to get them to commit, in theory, to using less, but all your success will end right there if they think they look goofy. Kids are vain creatures with their own sense of style, & you have to keep that in mind when you want them to walk the talk. And so I segue to the report on my latest browsing of the ReusableBags.com site. I am absolutely pleased to report they have some new items that would be useful for parents, and appealing to kids, so we can teach the little heathens that they really don’t need plastic bags or throw-away water bottles. (The ReusableBags site has this scary counter on the home page, of plastic bags used this year. Sit there & watch it for a minute. Boy, do those numbers ever whip by!)
These bags are made by Envirosax. They are bigger than they look. If you go to the site, you can see other views, with kids holding the bags. They are definitely sizable. They hold twice what a plastic grocery bag with hold. You know those canvas shopping bags you never can find a place for in the kitchen because they’re so big? Forget about them. These dudes pack down small. Put in in your pack for when you’re out, or stuff one in the door pocket of your car. And….. they are darned cute. Made for kids but I know I want one. And think outside the box – you can use them in summer for beach supplies, carrying supplies to little league, whatever. The price is $7.95 each, & if you click on the picture, you’ll see a page with all the kid bags, plus more adult prints. Newsflash – if you click here, you’ll find MORE prints & colors!
For your non-spilling, hydrated child needs, I recommend the Sigg line of bottles. Metal, so none of that plastic leaching we’re hearing more about. Reid has a great metal Sigg bottle, with a glow in the dark skull on it. It’s lasted for an age! I need to buy a new lid for it. ReusableBags.com is the one stop shopping site. (Click the picture for the bottle page.) Other sites sell Sigg, but if you’re ordering from ReusableBags anyway, you might as well do all your shopping there & save on shipping. If you don’t find what you want, go here, to the sigg home page, they have a ton of different colors, designs, sizes, all the way from toddler bottles to 1.5 liter biggies. You can see the whole product line & order directly from them. On the subject of lids, from personal experience I recommend the “active top,” as seen in the picture. Yes, the screw top is more durable, but Reid would lose it in about 42 seconds flat. Also, the active top is leak proof, even when it’s in the open to drink position. Prices vary on size, but figure around $20 per. Seems high, but they just don’t break. The tops might break, but you can buy replacement parts separately, thus saving money, & keeping the bottle.
Lastly there is the Wrap-n-Mat. This is one of those bonk-on-the-head simple things, oh why didn’t I think of that? It’s a piece of fabric on one side, & a flexible plastic on the other side. You fold the sides in, then the top & bottom, & there is a little tab you attach to the Velcro on the outside of the bottom fold. This will get you around the daily usage of plastic sandwich bags. I know…it’s terrible to throw them away at the end of each day, isn’t it? But what can you do with a goopy sandwich bag? Dispite those little dowel rod dryers, they just don’t wash up well. Also, the wrap-n-mat acts as a place mat, giving your child (or you) a clean place to spread out your food. It sells for $6.95 each. That feels on the edge of being pricey, but they are double layered & the home page says it will keep your sandwich fresh for hours, which a napkin won’t do. They are so simple, I’m tempted to make a bunch myself. If you are similarly tempted, you’d have to know yourself & know if you’d ever really make them, or if the savings in time & parts & gas would make it cheaper to go ahead & order the darn things. Also I suppose one would have to make sure to get a non-toxic plastic for the liner. Yeah, might be easier to order. Whether I get one or make my own, I do think it’s a great idea.
And if you’re looking for a totally charming lunch box – here you go!
…or how to do the right thing by your karma so if reincarnation is true, you’re improving your chances of coming back as something better than a flatworm.
But first – a plug for my own little self. Gift certificates are old chestnuts as last minute gift ideas. You need to ask yourself, will your nuts be dry & unpalatable, or moist & tasty? This year, branch out from the all too easy & unoriginal Target gift card. Encourage your kith & kin to delve into their family history by helping them pay for restoration of treasured photos. Go to my site – www.familyalbumarchiving.com – & you can buy a gift certificate right there on the computer, all thanks to the magic of electricity. Prints, negatives, & slides are corrected for fading, etc, & they can get the repaired images on CD, as well as view, share, & download them thru a password protected web site.
Back before Burning Man I found the Spork, by Light My Fire.
I was all over that. Loved it. It’s quite an elegant design. And I continue to think that the Spork is a good choice when you want just the one utensil. Burning Man was a good example of that. Citizens there tend to travel with a fair amount of necessary tools actually on them at all times & with a spork, you carry one thing & you’re ready for eating, without having to go back to your tent & paw thru your junk.
Sporks Pros: there’s just one one piece. Pleasing to the eye. Comes in 3 sizes: for normal eating, longer for dehydrated food bags, & humorously large for use as a cooking utensil. Inexpensive. Cons: There’s just the one piece. You can’t cut things with it. If you want a hole in it, to hang it from a carabiner, you put it there yourself. GREEN BECAUSE: You could be using a spork instead of disposable plastic cutlery. So get with it. Carry one in your bag, put one in the dash of the car.
Upon my return, I kept the sporks in the kitchen drawer & pulled them out from time to time. Eventually I found the flaw, which is exactly the same as the main feature – it’s only one piece. Makes it hard to cut things, you see. And so let me now impress you with the Microbites set from Guyot Designs, another fine company. The Microbites are a set consisting of 2 pieces – a one-ended spork, & a spreader/knife. The original Utensil size is easier to handle for adult hands (the microbites size is great for kids tho), but then on the other hand, we all want tiny stuff for camping, so pick what works for you. Either way, you get an amazingly useful cutting edge, a usefully sharp fork, & of course the spreader, which can also be used as a spatula out at camp, since it can take up to 450 F. Guyot Designs makes some great products. I absolutely adore the squishy bowls. Get them. You will love them. You can invert them & lick them clean. Or have your dog do it. Not that I’m recommending anything of the sort. But still. The thing with the squishy bowls is that they don’t displace the shape of a normal bowl. Makes it easier to wedge them in packs. Also the folks at Guyot say if you ever decide you’re done with any of their products, send it back to them & they’ll recycle it or something responsible sounding like that. For all we know they just toss stuff in the dumpster out back but still it sounds good. And if it’s true, so much the better.
Microbites
Pros: Clever design snaps together so there’s only one piece to keep track of, if you can remember to do it. Also there’s a hole so you can attach it to something. You can cut things, just like with a normal knife & fork. Comes in 2 sizes, a small that will fit in camping sets or be good for kids, & a large for bigger hands & longer reach. Inexpensive. Cons: None so far. GREEN BECAUSE: See Spork green reason. Also they’re super durable so will last a long time. (Just think of all the plastic forks you’ll never be using!) Guyot will recycle them for you, should they ever break & become “trash”.
Squishy bowls
Pros: Excellent wow factor when you show it around. Fits anywyere since it squishes down. Doesn’t burn or frost your hands, since the silicone doesn’t transfer heat much. Dishwasher safe. Cons: None really, just make sure you don’t squeeze too hard when they’re full. GREEN BECAUSE: Like all these items, you re-use. So there you go. Less waste. Guyot will recycle.
On to my beloved Freeplay lantern. I have a small boy who diverts himself with little internal scenarios that involve making lots of rather wet-souding explosion noises. These imaginings frequently involve lighting in the form of my flashlight. This used to bug the heck out of me, because he always, always left the light on, & of course it died. I just kept batteries on my shopping list all the time. I’d heard about windup flashlights so I got online & did a little research. There were at that time about 2 options: windup & shake. Some company near me here in the Northwest makes a shake light. It’s big & heavy. You shake the barrel back & forth & a weight moves inside, charging it up. This works in the way that a candle works as a good light to wax your eyebrows by. Yes, it’s a light, but just. Windup lights were aplenty, but the first one I got was lame to the nth degree, cheap & with no good light. And then I got the Freeplay windup flashlight.
Freeplay flashlight
Pros: YOU CAN CHARGE IT WITH A PLUG. Really, it’s fantastic. Plug it in & charge it. It has a high & low setting & runs for a long time. And if it runs down, wind it for more light. Yea, sure, that’s how they all work, but Freeplay has it worked out so that you get a pretty darned good rate of return on your effort. Cons: it’s a bit heavy. Also slippery. They should make some more grippy surface. GREEN BECAUSE: No batteries. Say it again! No batteries! None to buy, none, to throw away.
Last year they came out with a lantern version which I LOVE! For about $30 you can bypass the myriad problems with white gas lamps. No more burned fingers, no more delicate mantles, no more running out of gas, no more doing without light in the tent because you’re living in a bubble of flammable done up in bright rip stop colors. The Freeplay lantern has an LED reading light & a multi-LED main light. You can adjust the intensity of the main light to whatever you want. This is actually a useful feature. Out in the dark, even the dimmest of lights is sufficient. And the brighter you make it, the shorter your battery life, so it’s nice to have a choice. But don’t take that to mean it’s a power hog. I’ve taken it camping for a over a week, & never had to wind it. Now that winter is here, child & I use it for puttering in the attic & reading under the covers.
Freeplay lantern
Pros: Again, YOU CAN CHARGE IT WITH A PLUG. So tho it works fine with winding, you’re not forced to it, like you are with the shake light. It’s great for kids – no hot surfaces, durable bulbs, water resistent, & you got that part about being rechargeable. Cons: Not much. The light can be a bit bright if you look right at it, but that’s the nature of LEDs. GREEN BECAUSE: No batteries. None.
I get sooooo tired of all those damnable plastic shopping bags. I always wish I’d brought some with me back to the store, but I rather dislike the texture of the plastic. Plus they break unpredictably. I know they’re thin, so it doesn’t seem like one would make much difference, but the speed at which they consolidate into an unmanageable slippy wad in corner by the potatoes reminds me that they do add up. And so I whole heartedly recommend the ultra compact shopping bags sold by reusablebags.com. They are so small you can easily stash one in your bag or the dash of the car. These are pretty cheap. PS – buy at the site (click the bag pic) instead of REI in the store. I saw a similar thing there for $17, for pity’s sake, & they are about $8 online.
Acme Bags
Pros: So compact you can’t rationalize leaving it behind. You save bags. Looks good. You can feel exclusive & superior in the store.
Cons: None. GREEN BECAUSE: No bags you have to recycle at home, take back to the store (you never do it, do you)
