I mentioned briefly after getting home from the farm this summer that I wanted to try to stretch myself a little more, sustainability-wise. We do lots of things to live sustainably, but after living nearly off the grid, my enthusiasm and imagination were sparked!
With a fire in my belly, I made a list of all the things I wanted us to start doing (or stop doing, as the case may be).
[Waste]
The first order of business was taking note of everything we threw away for one week to see how we could reduce our waste. We noticed that there were a lot of leftover metal scraps from when my husband decided to build something in our backyard. We weren’t just going to throw all of that away, so we decided to get help from garden waste collection birmingham service. Having great furniture around the house speaks so much about a person’s style, taste, and personality. While some people are content with simple and classic furniture, some just want to have fun with theirs. Chairs and sofas are furniture that needs to be chosen wisely. Not only should they fit your style, but they should also be comfortable enough for you and your guests. You might have some antique chairs that need a little makeover, or some sofas that need reupholstering. Whatever changes your sofas need, it should never cost you too much as long as you have the right tools, such as an upholstery staple gun. If you want best staple gun, the best staple guns available online.
Having a stapler gun around the house can be very convenient and will always be useful in a number of ways. A stapler gun is one tool that is important in carpentry, in handicrafts and yes, upholstery. It can also be useful in book-binding projects. But what sets apart an upholstery staple gun from an ordinary one is that it is powerful enough to drive in staples not just in fabric, but also in other materials such as wood, or even the stuffing of your sofa. It can also staple hard and tough fabrics such as leather and felt. Upholstering the old-fashioned way with nails and a hammer will have to exert from you so much effort and energy, while doing it with a stapler gun will make it so much easier for you. Who knows, you can even upholster two to three chairs in a day without breaking a sweat.
An fine wire staple gun basically has two types: a hand-operated and an electric stapler gun. Of course, it does not need to be said that electric stapler guns are easier to use that hand-operated ones because one does not need to use much effort and pressure into driving in the staples. All you have to do is plug in or turn on your electric staple gun, take aim, and pull the trigger to drive in the staple. Although they are easier to use, they can be a little bit more expensive than the hand-operated one. They also come in battery-powered and electricity-powered types. Should you want a more portable staple gun you can take around with you, it might be a better choice to pick the battery-powered. Some are even rechargeable, making them last longer and less expensive as you do not have to change the batteries.
If hiring someone to reupholster your chairs and sofas is a little out of your budget, you can easily learn how to do it yourself as long as you have an upholstery staple gun with you. The only other thing you need is an instruction book, and you are good to go. Once you know all there is about upholstering, you can easily buy unique fabrics for your chairs and have a decorating frenzy.
Compost! The majority of our kitchen trash was food waste, which I’d always felt a twinge of guilt about since we had a compost a few years ago (when we had a yard) and it was such an easy peasy way of throwing less biodegradable food waste into a landfill. We tried composting on our back porch two years ago, but it met a tragic (smelly, leaky) end. This time, we got a worm compost bin that we have high hopes for. It’s a little more involved than I expected, but I’m hopeful that it’ll be successful. If nothing else, Gabe has his first pet: worms. Poor Gabe.
Buy coffee wholesale in paper bags. We’ve bought our coffee from Trader Joes for years. It’s a great price for fair trade, organic coffee, but we’re left with a canister and nonrecyclable plastic lid every week or two. Although we seldom consider it, every time we open a food product that we purchased at the store we are taking advantage of thousands of years’ worth of innovation in food packaging. Whether it’s the cardboard box holding our cereal, the glass jar holding our olives, the paper sack holding our popcorn or the plastic bag our macaroni comes in, the way our food is packaged is tremendously important and plays a role in the lives of every single Australian every day. Learn more about the evolution of food packaging supplies by reading on below. The origins of paper date back to the days during which time 2nd century BC Chinese began to wrap their food in mulberry bark. This probably marked the first time in history that people chose not to eat their food as soon as they came across it, choosing instead to save it for later. The Chinese perfected an efficient process for producing paper soon after. Years later, in 1310, paper making took hold in England. This paper was made out of cellulose which was usually found in linen. You can get more info here about food packaging services.
In doing our waste inventory, I realized it was a regular source of trash. It was so easy to get a five-pound bag of coffee beans from Dean’s Beans (who have a swoon-worthy sustainability strategy) and the bag is just recyclable paper. Less waste, more delicious coffee. Why didn’t we do this sooner?
Start using the Diva Cup again. (What the heck is a Diva Cup? See what Caitlin wrote. She was far more frank and comprehensive than I could ever hope to be.) I know. I KNOW. The idea freaked me out entirely when I first heard about it 6 years ago. And I’ve never even discussed the topic on my blog because it’s so personal (and my family reads this blog), but I had to share. I used it for three years before Gabe (cannot say enough good things about it!), but have been off and on since. Now I’m back in the game. (Since we’re getting all TMI, you can read about Lunapads, too. I have some.)
Buy milk in glass jugs. Our grocery store carries milk from a local dairy in returnable glass jugs.
Cooking more and relying less on frozen, heavily packaged foods. Make granola, ketchup, applesauce, and yogurt. Gabe is obsessed with ketchup. Mike is obsessed with homemade granola. I am obsessed with granola and homemade yogurt. My plan is pick a bunch of apples from a local orchard and make massive amounts of applesauce to jar. Applesauce is so easy to make. The more I can make in bulk and freeze myself, the healthier we eat and the less waste I create.
Bulk food. Do it.
Find peanut butter in bulk. This has been on my to-do list for ages. Not sure what we’ll find – a giant tub? From the bulk food store in our own jar? Could I be any more hippie right now? Perhaps if I was looking for almond butter with chia seeds?
My goal for our waste is to throw away only one garbage bag of trash a month (we have about 4 now, I think). Still not as cool as the Johnsons, but we’re getting there.
[Energy]
Hang dry all laundry. I’ve hung Gabe’s diapers outside to dry for ages, but I’ve decided to stop using the dryer almost entirely for laundry. It only takes a few more minutes to hang it on our drying rack (or drape it all over our bikes, chairs, and ping pong table on the back porch) and it’s something I don’t mind doing. I’ll get another rack for the winter. Our heat comes out with a crazy amount of force, so I can dry clothes indoor in the winter. Of course, if I need something fast or am just feeling impatient, I’ll use the dryer.
No air conditioning unless it’s over 80 degrees inside our apartment (or if I’m feeling particularly crabby). Our apartment is generally around 78 degrees inside without air conditioning when it’s 90-100 degrees outside. It’s comfortable for us as the 20x30x1 size air filter helps keep the air fresh without us having to use an air conditioner which would most definitely increase out electricity bill. I actually like feeling the summery weather, and a couple of fans help to keep it comfortable. As does not wearing pants. Soon enough we’ll be turning on the heat, so I sort of want to soak up summer. (Bonus: our electricity bills have been lower!)
. . . . . .
I know these little things won’t change the world. I see the enormous amount of trash my apartment building generates every day and feel a little discouraged. What does one little family reducing its waste or energy consumption do?
But even if I am not making a massive difference, I am living my life more in line with my values, which gives me a sense of peace and knowing that I am not doing everything, but I can do some things. And we’re passing those values on to our son, which I love.
We do the peanut butter thing – both Heinen’s and the local organic food grocery store (the one in Westgate) have it – it’s actually cheaper at the organic grocery. I actually do quite a lot of this but haven’t done all of it because a) we have somewhat more limited options on the west side unless I want to trek to Westside Market regularly or another further-away grocery store and b) we have limited space for drying clothes inside (though I do use at least two drying racks, I just can’t do a full load on them). Compost, though? Yep. Lunapads? Yep yep. Gardening and canning our own jams, tomato sauce, carrots, and freezing our own peas, spinach, beans? Yep yep yep! Minimal use of a/c? Oh yeah. We usually have 4-6 bags of trash per month and our little berg just started #3-6 recycling, AND cardboard, so that should go down nicely.
Wow! That’s awesome!
I will confess to occasionally being really turned off by the compost stench, primarily when our neighbors send over their leftovers to add to our pile. While it is certainly a “gift horse, mouth” kind of deal, their stuff is always SUPER-ripe (they store it in old coffee cans until they remember to send it over the fence – ours can be a bit ripe but once you stir the pile, the smell goes down REALLY well). We reconfigured where our compost is this summer as a temporary measure while doing major landscaping, and it means our compost is RIGHT by the backdoor. We have had sooooooo many flies, plus the stench is hard to deal with as I’m pg right now. I will say that our garden is the envy of the neighborhood this year, despite the heat and drought – we invested in a good drip system just in time :) The compost has been getting from scraps to dirt in record time, too, and we’ve side-dressed a few plants that had exposed roots to give them a boost. We work ours in first thing in the spring, add some when we turn over parts of our garden as the summer goes on (after pulling short-season crops like radishes and spinach), side-dress plants as needed, and then work in whatever we have at the end of the fall (including leaves). Over the winter, we don’t add much to it until it’s above freezing though we save it in buckets (the freezing Ohio winters keep the stench down nicely ;). For renters out there, it might be worth looking into raised bed gardening as it requires less digging up the ground and can be taken out and reseeded with grass more easily. There is always container gardening, too, for that matter – just make sure you’re planting container-friendly plants (REALLY container-friendly) and watering regularly.
One thing our house has that I like pragmatically though the aesthete in me goes “bleh” is our ceiling fans. With the teeny tiny floorspace we have (our garden and house are the same square footage, around 900 sq. ft.), I have no idea where we would put fans to combat the need for a/c.
While a small part of me would like to make things like yogurt and ketchup, I already feel like my life is being taken over by vegetables and figuring out how to cook/preserve them/give them good homes. Adding another thing to my to-do list feels overwhelming. I should get back to doing granola though – we put it in yogurt ALL the time and it keeps getting more expensive. On the applesauce thing, you may find it hard to get local apples for a decent price this year as the warm spell we had in March followed by the cold snap in April screwed up a lot of the trees blooming when they were supposed to, so few got pollinated. Any other year, it’s an excellent idea though – sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Apologies for the lengthiness! Apparently I can go on and on about gardening – don’t know how many people I corner out in public and go on like this!
I never have flies or stench from the compost. Cover any food with leaves and they flies are not a problem, nor is smell.
If you have flies or smell, you are not composting right.
What do you plan to do with the compost? I have wanted to start one but I don’t have a garden yet… therefore not sure why I would compost.
We already hang dry almost all laundry. It makes clothing last longer too.
On the PB I have seen it at Heinen’s, and Fresh Market does have a grinding machine… but not sure if there are any locations near you.
yes, I was going to ask about the compost too!! we cook a lot and end up with a lot of related food waste, and have been wanting to compost for a while, but I’m not sure what I would do with it. we do have a yard but we rent, and while I would love to get into veggie gardening eventually things are just too crazy right now :)
Okay, ladies, so here’s my plan: the compost will be ready every three months. In the spring and summer, I’ll throw it in the garden we have at our apartment. In the winter, I’ll use it on my house plants to enrich their soil and maybe even transplant some of them. Whatever is left over, I’ll save for the garden. If I didn’t have a garden, I would take it to my parents house or even throw it in the woods somewhere! Ha. For me, the bonus is the compost and my real purpose for doing is to not have my biodegradable food stuck in a plastic bag in a landfill.
These are great goals! Way to make your home greener! I really want to try composting, but I’m afraid of grossing out my neighbors (I like in a condo complex). I know you live in an apartment, has this been an issue for you?
My friends own a house and their neighbors are grossed out by their compost – so you just can’t win! :)
But our particular situation is that we have a balcony that isn’t viewable by anyone else – so no one knows we’re doing it. (Though I do wonder if they would get grossed out if they new we were washing cloth diapers in the community machine. Shhh.)
I purchased the cookbook, Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. It has recipes for all your favorite “processed” foods. It has been especially helpful to us, since we live overseas. I love that you want to reduce the amount of trash you produce. Here in Ireland, we are required to recycle and compost. We have 3 rubbish bins: one for trash, one for recycling, one for compost (which includes dairy products, meat, bones, etc). You have to pay to have the trash bin picked up, so we compost and recycle nearly everything. I wish we could find peanut butter in bulk…peanut butter is not very popular over here.
When I lived overseas, peanut butters were only used in savory foods, never as a sandwich spread! It blew my mind. I love peanut butter. :)
Thanks for the book recommendation. And I think it’s fantastic what Ireland is doing. How cool!
I also recommend that book! I checked it out several weeks ago from the library and love it so much I’m going to buy it, along with the author’s other one called Can It, Bottle It, Smoke It. So many fun kitchen projects in both of those!
One question – is there a particular resource you used to learn about composting? I know I could Google it, but any recommendations you have would be great. I’d love to start a compost bin that could serve us for gardening next spring/summer but am not sure where to start.
dont know if you have Earth Fare, but some other crunchy hippy grocery store must do this :)
They had a grinding machine, so you bought your peanuts in bulk (already hulled) and then ground it there and it used a smoothie machine like spout to squirt it into your container. so you could use mason jars (pry want 2, so one can stay home when you go to get the new PB) and refill :)
I’ve used the PB grinder at Whole Foods a few years ago, but didn’t realize you could fill your own jars. I need to be brave enough to ask them!
How great that you’re doing all this! It’s inspired to be a little more conscious of where I’m being wasteful in our house…I do conventional recycle/reuse things, but I rarely go beyond that out of laziness/convenience. I’m going to make more of an effort, now.
Hey, recycling’s great! Not everyone does that. :) Don’t feel bad – there are certain times I use lots of convenience foods because I have less time to cook, etc. And having a newborn meant I didn’t care about any of this stuff. But just a warning – once you start to be aware of what you’re wasting, you miiiiight not be able to un-see it. Ha. ;)
I think you are going to change the world – I love reading about your green procedures and implement some at home (so look, you are already having a ripple effect).
Wow, thanks so much, Helena! :) That certainly makes me happy to hear.
Caitlin makes Peanut Butter at our house. We buy the peanuts in bulk and then she just uses the food processor. We just add a little honey, maybe a little oil ( I can’t remember exactly). It takes a little time in the processor to get to the right consistency, but it is pretty simple and delicious. Let me know if you want her steps!
Good for you guys!! I need to invest in a drying rack for diapers when the baby gets here. I do worry about all the pollen and dirt getting on our clothes if we dry them outside though.
Ashley, I LOVE this!! Thanks for the ideas and inspiration. I am working really hard on the buying bulk/meal planning/making more food at home aspect of this. It’s been a big planning process thanks to my perfectionist ways :) , but I think it will pay off. Also, I just saw this blog post about making stuff from scratch: http://nourishedkitchen.com/11-real-foods-you-can-stop-buying-and-start-making/
Love!
I think this is absolutely fantastic! You might not be changing the whole world, but you’re making a really positive step in your own lives towards better change!
At one point we all might be forced (somehow) to live more in that way. For example in South Korea you have to pay for bin liners, which encourages reduction of waste, and also encourages companies to use less packaging – as consumers don’t buy products with excess packaging! Genious hey!
P.S.I love reading your blog :)
For my family, we started hanging our laundry and it has saved us a lot of money. We also don’t use the dishwasher anymore.
A few years ago I went on a big reduce my waste, specifically plastic, kick. I had to cut back on it though because I ended up refusing to buy stuff. I would have a kitchen without any food in it and a bathroom without any products. I went WAY overboard. I have since relaxed and let myself indulge so to speak when at the store. I love making my own nut butters, my favorite is almond butter. I buy bulk nuts and throw them in the food processor.
I think we all want to save the world, but as long as we are each making an effort, I think it’s a step in the right direction! :)
We started composting earlier this Spring (luckily we do have a decent size backyard) and it’s been a lifesaver. With two people, we would unfortunately end up wasting a bit of fresh food (if we forgot about it, one of us had to work late, etc.).
We also started to buy into the Fresh Fork CSA pickup in Copley. It makes me proud to support local growers and meat producers as well as reduce our overall carbon footprint that comes along with purchasing food.
Whenever we do go to the grocery store, we try to go to local stores, like Kriegers on Graham Road, or this little Cornerstore Market place in Munroe Falls.
I hang dry most of my clothes (with the exception of underwear — we live behind a park — I’m not real keen on people potentially staring at them! LOL); but the one place where we’ve been an eco-fail this summer is the AC. Pregnancy is KILLING me with this heat. Even just the intense humidity we’ve had the last two days has nearly brought me to tears. So I’ve abused the AC thing a bit more this summer than we would have liked. But I’m sure things will be much different next year! :)
Great blog post! I love to see what others are doing to try and be more eco-conscious!
You are so ambitious and inspiring! Even though loads of others still produce too much waste, you are doing and even bigger part by spreading the word and giving advice on how others can save too! Buying in bulk is SUCH a good idea! For now we recycle, and have to separate our recycling and have to take it to bins across town, but when we have a yard of our own, I would definitely love to do a compost pile as well! Thanks for the great ideas!
Trader Joes (at least the one near me) just raised their coffee prices, so I have no reason to go there anymore for coffee. May I suggest buying green coffee and roasting your own? If you have a hot-plate just set it up next to a window to ventilate the smoke, put the beans over heat, stirring frequently, and after 15-20 minutes have the freshest coffee you’ve ever tasted!
Deans Beans is great, but the problem with buying 5 lb bulk bags is that by the time you’ve gotten to the bottom of the bag, the coffee isn’t quite so fresh any more. Roasting your own guarantees only the freshest beans all the time. Oh, and it’s less expensive to boot.
For something so earth friendly and crunchy, the name Diva Cup totally cracks me up … if you don’t know what it is, you’d never guess it from it’s name. hahaha. BTW, you inspire me to be kinder to our earth.
You’re such an inspiration. I love reading your blog. It inspires me to think of new ways to save.
http://thebeautywithinit.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/green-is-new-black.html
Love bulk nut butters since they’re usually freshly ground without any additives. When we lived in the NW, Fred Meyer and WinCo. Now that we live in the SE, it’s MUCH more expensive and I’ve only found it at the health food stores. As for containers, I’m not sure what the big chain stores do, but the co-op we went to in NM let you bring your own container. You just had to have them weigh it up front first (don’t want to pay for the container again).
Hi! I’m doing a project about reuse, and I wanted to focus of Trader Joe’s coffee cans because it seems that they aren’t recyclable, but I can’t figure out what they’re made of. Does anyone know?
Cardboard.