Today we’re going to look a little closer at one of this year’s green challenges for eco-families – stop buying bottled water.

WHY TAKE ON THIS GOAL?

There are dozens of great reasons why you should quit buying bottled water. However, since we’ve already gone over that at Growing a Green Family, I won’t bore those of you who have been around for a while. If you need reasons behind this goal read: Time to stop buying bottled water.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS GOAL:

I don’t remember ever buying bottled water regularly. I did buy an occasional bottle of water throughout my life, but not too often. About ten years ago I started using reusable coffee mugs religiously, and soon after I realized that buying water in a bottle was just as bad as coffee in a paper cup. This said, this was less of a goal of mine and more just how I always did things. For example, I consciously decided to use reusable bags, but I just never really bought water, so I didn’t have to make it a goal. 

HOW LONG DID THIS GOAL TAKE TO ACCOMPLISH?

Well, as noted, this wasn’t ever an official goal of mine. I rarely, if ever bought bottled water in my life, and now I don’t buy it ever.

However, I have watched other people go through a stop-buying-bottled water phase and also I did go through a stop-using paper coffee cups phase, so I’ve seen this process in action. It took me a few months to always remember my reusable coffee mug once I started using them. I’ve seen it take folks anywhere from a couple of months to a year to quit buying bottled water.

COST OF THIS GOAL:

SO inexpensive. In fact, if you accomplish this goal, you’ll actually save over $6,000 over five years! You’ll save that much even if you have to buy water bottles and even if you choose to invest in a water filtering system.

TIPS TO HELP YOU SUCCEED:

Get a water bottle you love – in fact get two or three per family member. This is a semi-costly start-up goal, because you’ll need to buy water bottles. Buying just one boring water bottle can be cheap enough if you get a weird cheap brand, however, I’m going to suggest that you buy quality water bottles, and more than one.

You may as well start off this goal with the best BPA-free, attractive water bottle possible. If you love your bottle you’ll be more likely to use it. You need two bottles (at least) because at first, it’s easy to leave bottles laying around – at work, at school, in your car and so on. See BPA-free water bottles for kids and BPA-free water bottles for adults.

Try out your bottle around the house first, where you also have glasses available. This allows you a trial run, to see how a specific water bottle will suit you.

COMMON TROUBLE SPOTS & QUESTIONS:

You trust your own tap water, but not water anywhere else – get a water bottle that filters water on the go.

You always leave the house without your bottle – hang a note on the door. Keep a bottle everywhere; one at work, one in your backpack or diaper bag, one or two in the car, and so on.

Bottles are too hard to clean – well, so is a world full of plastic, but… in any case, get a bottle that can be tossed in the dishwasher (most can). If you’ve got zero dishwasher, get a bottle with a wide mouth so you can fit a cleaning towel inside. Or find a bottle that’s made to be cleaned.

You don’t like that weird water bottle water taste – get a real stainless steel bottle. Plastic bottles and aluminum bottles impart flavors in water you don’t need to deal with.

You don’t like the feel of stainless steel on your mouth – yes, this was a real concern from a fellow blogger I know. She hated the feel of her lips on stainless steel. However, most water bottle companies, even the stainless steel ones, make attachments in BPA-free plastics so that you can skip the feel of metal mouth.

Water bottles are way too hippie - Not true. There are many stylish water bottles on the market. In fact, I reviewed a super bling bottle here before, perfect for the most stylish, un-hippie people.

You hate how water bottles sweat and feel too cold – Type “water bottle carrier” or “water bottle cover” into your search engine, and go nuts with the choices.

Water bottles always leak – Not all. Some. I’ve used MANY. Some leak, some rock. Try different brands.

My water doesn’t stay cold – Are you using glass or plastic reusable bottles? These won’t stay as chilly as stainless steel. Especially if you leave your water bottle in the sun (like in the car) for an extended period of time.

Bottled water is healthier than tap – My boyfriend mentioned that many health conscious people he’s met act like bottled water is so much healthier than tap; as if good health and bottled water go hand-in-hand. That’s so wrong. Not only is most bottled water NO different from tap water, but with bottled water you’ve got chemicals in the water due to the plastic bottle AND a seriously trashed planet too (only about 27% of all plastic water bottles get recycled). Tap water is very safe in most cases, and if not a simple water filter can ease your mind.

You don’t like that slight chlorine taste in tap water - Leave your water sitting in a container for a couple of days, and the chlorine taste will be eliminated.

TO SUM UP:

Really, I think this is the easiest goal on the “harder” list. This is one of those goals that just takes a little will-power. If you don’t bring a water bottle, don’t allow yourself to buy a plastic bottle. Just don’t. The learning curve on this goal isn’t as tough as say, going meatless or learning to compost correctly. It’s simple. Carry a bottle, keep a spare around, and you’ll be a-okay.

Oh, and for those of you with kids, this is an awesome goal. My son’s had reusable water bottles since birth, and he’s fairly oblivious to plastic water bottles now. Kids are easy going about reusable water bottles, especially if you get them an awesome bottle.

GOOD LUCK!

To end out December 2010 I posted 5 insanely easy green New Year’s goals for families who are newer to green living. Plus, we started looking at some harder green challenges for more experienced eco-families – a list that I’ll finish up this week at some point. However, I didn’t post my own New Year’s goals yet.

I don’t normally set official goals for the new year, because I tend to have ongoing goals. Still, I do have some green living issues I’ll be trying to work on this year. Most of my goals are actually left over from last year because I’ve been a bad slacker – meaning I didn’t technically accomplish everything I wanted to this year. Yeah, all green families have set-backs. Hopefully I can be better this year…

Buy less packaging related to kitchen stuff. I’ll still buy stuff like bread in packaging and soup in cans. Sometimes I buy granola bars in boxes and even Spanish rice in a box. Not cool. Especially when you consider that I can make all this stuff from scratch. Right now, just like last year, we have way too many packaged items in our pantry. I’ve cut back, but not enough. I’m really going to buckle down this year.

Getting out in nature more. Again, this is a left-over goal. We kind of did better this year, but not great. Two years ago Cedar, my son, and I used to go on a nature hikes all the time plus took daily walks around the neighborhood no matter what our schedules looked like. 2010 was hyper busy work-wise and my son was really involved at school, so we were both tired when he’d come home and we slacked big time. Even on the weekends we slacked. Partially because of our own lack of initiative and partially because my boyfriend’s daughters are way anti-exercise and anti-nature, but we like hanging out with them. Sadly, that means hanging out at home.

In my opinion, a major part of living green is getting the kids outside and active often, so I want to work on this much more in 2011. I think Cedar and I simply need to get to bed earlier on weekends, so that we get up and go out on weekend days, plus we need to make a list of cool places we’d like to go. Also, I think that while we will encourage the girls to go, if they resist, we’ll just have to be like, whatever, and go without them. If they want to sit around Cedar and I can’t use them as an excuse this year.

Cook more. I decided to go back to being a vegetarian this year. I didn’t eat meat for 15 years or so, and not eating meat isn’t a big deal to us, but cooking is time consuming, so we have issues. Often we stick to super easy stuff – rice, plain veggies, soup, etc. We need to cook more stir-fry, pasta and so on. Get creative, you know? Also, cooking more allows you to buy less packaging – which of course helps with my #1 goal above. I’ll post more ideas about this goal later.

So, these are my goals. All of them leftovers, which frankly gives me a little more ammunition to actually get on them this year. I can’t have another year of slacking.

What are your green goals for 2011?

So far we’ve looked at 5 insanely easy New Year’s goals for families who are newer to green living. Plus we started looking at some harder green challenges for more experienced eco-families. Next on our list is the goal of zero paper towels and paper napkins.

WHY TAKE ON THIS GOAL?

• Paper products use up entire forests – in total, 75% of the plantations established for paper and wood products in the last 20 years have been established at the expense of natural forests.

• Paper products create pollution; in fact, the paper industry is the 4th largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

• Paper products use excessive water and energy to manufacture.

• Typical paper towels are manufactured using chlorine, a known toxin which releases carcinogenic dioxins into the environment.

• Paper products account for 25% of landfill waste. In turn, landfills account for one third of human-related methane emissions.

• The majority of all commercial inks used in paper products are made with petroleum, a non-renewable resource.

The major reason you should give up paper towels and paper napkins is because on top of creating some serious negative environmental impacts, they’re unnecessary. This isn’t about something vital like food, shelter or clothing; it’s about a totally expendable item.

See many more facts about the damage caused by the paper industry.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH THIS GOAL:

I never had to switch from paper napkins because my own mom raised me with cloth napkins. I never assumed there was another choice – I figured people just used cloth napkins.I was wrong of course. All kinds of people use paper napkins, but I never have.

Paper towels were another story. My own mom bought them when I was growing up, then later I bought them. Everyone I knew used paper towels, and honestly, I guess I assumed they were a necessity. You clean with them, use them for plates, wipe up spills with them – you know, all the typical stuff.

However, around the time my son was born, I started wondering why I was using paper towels. For one thing, they’re expensive for a disposable item. Secondly, I was using cloth baby wipes, reusable coffee mugs, cloth napkins and other reusable items, so using paper towels seemed a little lame. We bought fewer paper towels or bought recycled, but I didn’t decide to quit using them until Cedar was about 6 years old – or a little over three years ago.

HOW LONG DID THIS GOAL TAKE TO ACCOMPLISH?

I quit cold turkey. One day I simply asked myself, “Hey, what if the store was out of paper towels?” I never bought another roll. Now, to stop buying paper towels is one thing. To quit the habit of reaching for a paper towel when you think you need one is quite another.

I had moments where I’d attempt to reach for paper towels, then I’d have to remind myself, oh, we don’t have any. Luckily for me, as noted above, we already used tons of reusable items – cloth napkins, reusable ice pop molds, cloth baby wipes and so on, so the transition wasn’t as painful for us as it can be for some families.

All in all, it took one moment in my day to quit buying paper towels, and a couple of months to stop missing them. This was, in my opinion, a super easy goal to complete, but I’ve seen families who have a hard time with it.

COST OF THIS GOAL:

It depends. Overall completing this goal will actually save you money, not cost you money.

This goal cost me nothing, but if you have zero cloths, it’ll cost you a little bit. I already had cloth napkins, as noted, and I spend very little on them when I get new ones. As for replacing paper towels with cloths, I pretty much used what I had around the house, which included stuff like…

• Old cloth diapers, old cloth baby wipes, old washcloths, old cloth napkins and old shirts (cut up) to clean with and wipe up spills.
• Decent kitchen towels (that I already had) for spills and other kitchen messes.
• Decent bathroom towels (that I already had) for hand drying.
• Plates instead of paper towels for snacks and such.

If you’re a paper freak right now, and have few cloth items, you’ll need to get some. I have a break-down for the costs of each…

What it will cost to switch from paper to cloth napkins.

What it will cost to switch from paper towels to cloth.

TIPS TO HELP YOU SUCCEED:

Go cold turkey. If you have any paper towels or paper napkins in the house, and it’s already in your nature to use them, they’re just too easy to reach for. If you don’t have any in the house, yes, you’ll be stopping to think at first, “What do I grab!?” but this is a necessary step.

Stock up on cloth before you quit. Make sure you’ve got plenty of options laying around and a good amount of cloth napkins. If you have nothing to substitute for paper, you’ll get frustrated. Next thing you know, you’ll be running to the store for paper.

Make a list of alternatives. What could you use if paper towels didn’t exist? You can easily use cloth to clean with and dry your hands, right? I know a lot of people who have quit or tried to quit using paper towels and the place they get hung up on isn’t with cleaning issues, but food issues. It’s sooooooo easy to grab a paper towel for your toast or use a paper towel to cover a bowl of soup in the microwave. What you should do instead is use a microwave safe plate to cover items in the microwave and use plates, not paper for holding food and snacks.

Keep some REALLY old cloths around for super messes. At first, everything might seem like a super mess when using cloth. But in reality there are messes, then there are real icky messes, the kind you think won’t wash out of cloth. That’s not true – almost everything washes out. However, to save your sanity, it can pay to keep some really old, almost dead cloths around for those psychologically bad messes.

COMMON TROUBLE SPOTS & QUESTIONS:

I’ve actually got an entire post with common arguments for paper towel use. If you’ve got tons of concerns about switching to cloth, then this post is a must read. Here are some of the most common questions and comments I’ve heard from people about paper towels and napkins…

You must not have kids – because I do and paper towels are a must!: I DO have kids. Three kids in fact, between my boyfriend and myself. My own son has almost never used paper towels and doesn’t miss them. He knows how to clean with cloths, use a cloth napkin and so on. My boyfriend’s kids are extremely prone to disposables, because their other household is big on disposables. However, when they’re here, they don’t have a problem using cloth. Having kids is a terrible excuse for using disposable paper products.

Paper towels are best for cleaning because they kill germs better than cloth: For one thing, germs are highly overrated. Secondly, it depends on how you clean. You can clean incorrectly with either paper or cloth. Learn how to clean correctly with cloth.

Paper towels help stop the spread of germs!: This is what the paper council would like you to believe, but it’s a lie. In your own home, the chances of spreading deadly germs via cloth are slim. If your family washes their hands properly, you can all use the same cloth hand towel. Make sure you switch them out a couple of times a week and wash them. In the case of illness, the Canadian Lung Association suggests that you  give the sick individual their own hand towel for the illness duration, but paper is an unnecessary step.

What if I want to quit using paper towels when I’m out and about too?: Use a hand dryer or try PeopleTowels, which are reusable, personal, carry-along hand towels.

How can you suck up the grease from bacon or other greasy foods without paper towels?: Buy some lint-free tea cloths and only use them for grease. However, with the insane health risks related to fried foods, along with the current obesity epidemic in full swing, I’m gonna suggest you quit frying foods. Bake, don’t fry and place food on a broiler to catch grease.

How do you dry produce without paper towels? I use cloths for most produce and a salad spinner for my greens – because I HATE wet greens in a salad.

How do you get lint-free glass without paper towels? Microfiber cloths or recycled newspaper both give you lint-free glass. Personally, I think lint-free glass is overrated. Seriously, when was the last time a friend came over and actually said, “Wow, I just love your lint-free mirror!” That’s never happened to me – even when I used paper towels.

Don’t cloth products take up a lot of time? You will need to wash cloth towels and cloth napkins which is more work than tossing paper into the trash. However, at my house we use a ton of towels and napkins, and we really only wash about one full load of towels per week. Also, to save time, we don’t really fold. We fold napkins in half and toss them in a drawer and we store our cleaning cloths, totally unfolded in a reusable bag I hung up in the laundry closet.  Using cloth takes about 15 extra minutes of my life each week to two weeks – it takes much longer to drive to the store for paper towels.

TO SUM UP:

Quitting paper towels and napkins is such an awesome goal for families with kids – just think, your kids could grow up and not even know that there’s an option other than cloth. If you’ve got questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to help. If you need more inspiration or stories, here are some other bloggers who have quit the paper habit…

• Clean Mama – other parents don’t need paper towels either!
• An individual who realizes, “Paper towels are not the lifeline I once thought they were.“
• Here’s an example of someone who drastically reduced their paper use, but didn’t like the cold turkey idea.
• Simple Organic – has some excellent tips if you’re new to cloth napkins. I.e. stuff I didn’t think about since I’ve always used cloth napkins.
• Sometimes you may have set-backs. Like this gal who quit buying, then bought more paper towels. Set-backs happen, so be prepared.
• One mama’s story about creating a paperless kitchen.

GOOD LUCK!

In the last post I listed 5 insanely easy New Year’s goals for families who are newer to green living. However, I know plenty of you are not new to green living. If you’ve got some eco-experience, as a family, then you’re ready for some harder challenges during the upcoming year.

Now to make these challenges harder, but still fair, I’ve only listed goals that my family has actually accomplished. This way, I can offer tips, time-lines and so on to help you meet these goals. If you’re curious, I’ll be posting my own NOT yet accomplished green goals later on, but these below, my family has gotten pretty good at. Also, I only picked goals that I think will make the most positive impact on the planet, but that are still doable.

Following are five green challenges you can take on as a family in the new year. Oh, and because I don’t want this post to get exorbitantly long, later I’ll link some tips to each, but for now I’m just going to post the goals and some basics about them.

GOAL 1 – Don’t bring home one plastic or paper bag all year.

If you’ve completed this goal already, consider trying to convert another family member or friend to reusables. The average person uses about 500 plastic bags per year, which uses lots of oil and creates tons of pollution. Plus almost none of these bags get recycled and many end up as garbage in the oceans or other public spaces. As for paper, in 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone according to Reuseit. Also, it takes more than four times as much energy to manufacture a paper bag as it does to manufacture a plastic bag. If you can convince just one person to make the switch to reusable bags, you’ve helped save a ton of resources.

GOAL 2 – Quit using paper towels & paper napkins.

If this is a goal you’ve already completed, consider attempting to switch to 100% recycled toilet paper or try to drop another disposable product you use, such as plastic baggies or foil.

GOAL 3 -Skip the bottled water all year long.

If you’ve completed this goal already, consider trying to cut out other plastic bottles in your life. For example juice bottles or soda. Buy in glass, make homemade juice or look for companies using recycled containers AND other ethical green practices to bottle their beverages.

GOAL 4 -Quit eating meat OR only buy sustainable meat.

If you’ve completed this goal work on other areas of your meals. For example, make all your bread this year from scratch, thus cutting out preservatives and packaging. Quit buying canned soup and jarred sauces and make your own. Or grow a garden and eat at least some of your own fresh organic produce vs. always having to buy it.

GOAL 5 – Go at least 50% organic with your groceries.

If you’ve completed this goal up the stakes and go 80% or even 100% organic. Many families do this, and while it’s hard it’s not impossible.

Coming up, tips that can help you complete each and every one of the goals above.

If you’re looking to go green this year, without a ton of fuss, you can! Many green goals take time, skill and willpower. However, there are also plenty of green New Year’s goals you can make that seriously take almost no effort, few funds and use up very little time.

Following are some of the easiest green New Year’s goals you can make for 2011. Commit to one or all of them. These are so easy, I promise, anyone can manage them, and although easy, these goals will still make a positive difference for your family and the earth.

GOAL 1 – Commit to a couple of organic food items: In my opinion you should buy as much organic food as possible vs. conventional, but I know that’s not a reality for every family. That said, it’s perfectly easy to purchase just two organic items. For example, this year choose to buy milk and apples in organic form – ALL the time. With this goal, it’s best to choose two food items your family eats often, over stuff you rarely eat. Maybe you’ll add more organics throughout the year, maybe not, but in any case, this is a good lesson about where to find organics when you need them. Plus this goal allows you to learn to budget for specific organics without too much pressure.

GOAL 2 – Wash your hands green: In truth, this is a four-part goal, but I swear, still REALLY easy. Washing your hand in an eco-friendly manner consists of…

1. Using plain old soap, not antibacterial soap.
2. Installing a simple (and totally inexpensive) aerator in your bathroom sink.
3. Use cloth towels, not paper towels to dry your hands.
4. Use bar soap or refill a reusable soap dispenser.

This is seriously a 100% simple goal that anyone can manage but simple as it is, it makes a large difference for the environment over a year. You ban chemicals, ban plastic dispensers (made with oil), save water and save trees. Learn all about washing your hands green and clean.

GOAL 3 – BAN store-bought ice pops! Small as they may be, store-bought ice pops add up to a whole lot of environmental problems. You’ve got boxes, wrappers and a mountain of sticks. Not to mention that most conventional ice pops contain gross high fructose corn syrup, nasty fake colors and of course, non-organic ingredients.

It’s not expensive or time intensive at all to get started with homemade ice pops at home. You need some safe molds (about $15 for two decent sets). If you have a blender great, but if not you can easily mix up ice pop flavors in a pot or other container. In the end you’ll even save money, because store-bought ice pop costs add up quickly. To get started with this goal, read the following…

• Benefits of Homemade Popsicles
• Non-Toxic Popsicle Molds for Homemade Popsicles
• 50 Amazing Homemade Popsicle Recipes & Ideas

GOAL 4 – Switch to a greener toilet cleaner: It’d be nice if you switched to all green cleaners this year, but sometimes that’s too much, so start small if you need to. Choose one toxic cleaner in your home, and quit using it. I suggest toilet cleaner. Most families I know clean their toilets more than other areas of their home. Plus conventional toilet cleaners are super gross and toxic. You have two choices here…

1. Use a sprinkle of baking soda and a dash of lemon juice plus a brush to clean your toilets.
2. Buy a green toilet cleaner. So far as store-bought toilet cleaners go, I like Seventh Generation Toilet Bowl Cleaner best.

GOAL 5 – Pick one or two stupid things you normally buy and quit buying them – forever:  People pay good money for all sorts of insanely useless items that cannot be reused or in many cases, even recycled. For example boxes of plastic drinking straws, for use at home (why!?). Or how about those tiny boxes of conventional single serve cereal for kids. Think about why you really need juice boxes or single serve medicine spoons, and if you don’t have a real reason, well, it’s not something you should be buying anymore.

Trust me, no one is perfect. I’ve bought organic granola bars in wrappers (in a box) and frozen organic veggies (in a bag) instead of fresh, but I’m working on cutting out this sort of disposable stuff. Pick just two bad products you buy and quit buying them. Later you can eliminate more, but two is a good goal to start with. If you need help figuring out what stuff to quit buying read…

• Ten incredibly lame disposable products to help trash your footprint.
• Learn to avoid commercialism.
• What if the store was out of paper towels?

If you’re looking for some more challenging goals, stay tuned. I’ll be back with some goals that are a bit harder for those of you who are up to it.

The best way to go when it comes to holiday greetings is to skip the paper and send e-cards, or make homemade cards with recycled paper you already have. However, since some people do like cards you can hold, here are some ideas…

Pear Tree Greetings – Pear Tree now offers fully recycled Christmas Cards made with 100% recycled material and that includes both the card and envelope. I like the ones below but they have a full selection to browse.

• Alphabatize Your Priorities Recycled Holiday Card
• Renewed Wishes Recycled Photo Holiday Card
• Flower Power Recycled Photo Holiday Card
• Christmas Two for One Recycled Holiday Card

Tiny Prints has beautiful holiday cards available from photo card greetings, to classic and contemporary designs, and even holiday cards designed just for kids and now 100% of their products and packaging feature eco-friendly recycled paper. Their paper varies though so make sure that you read the small print. Cards are made with either FSC-certified paper or at least 30% post-consumer waste. You can also customize print and photos on almost all cards. Below are some Tiny Print designs that will look amazing for the holidays.

Holiday Greetings and Stenciled Elegance

Ornate Birds and Colorful Creations – kids coloring cards

Festive Package and Snowy Sensation

Another good place to get cards is at Good Greetings, a company that uses 100% recycled, 50% post consumer waste paper for all their cards. They also use 100% digital short-run presses which significantly reduce paper waste and emit 90% less Volatile Organic Compounds. Nice! Below are three awesome holiday choices.

• New Years Garden Photo Holiday Card
• Pretty Christmas Vines Holiday Photo Card
• Red Christmas Flowers Holiday Photo Card

Night Owl Paper Goods is one of my fave shops. They make sustainable birch wooden holiday cards (shown above, that yes, you can write on) plus this year are offering a mixed sustainably harvested wood & luxurious letterpress PLUS cards made with letterpress scraps and eco-friendly, sustainably harvested wooden bits, and so much more. You can even order custom cards.

I hesitate to totally recommend this next card because it seems excessive but it’s really cool. Artecnica – Fairy Tail greeting cards by Tord Boontje – these are greeting cards that can stretch up to 6ft! Sort of like a sculpture / greeting card, Fairy Tail cards are available in 2 color combos: white/white or red/pink. Comes with a wood-free paper envelope.

Also check out…

• Green Field Paper Company has some cute recycled hemp and plantable paper cards just for the holidays.
• I like these basic Branch Note Cards – which I think are meant for spring, but I think they look winter-ready.

Later we’ll look at some easy homemade holiday cards you and the kiddos can make using recycled and natural materials.