I just recently heard of USAgain, a green company that collects used clothes and resells them worldwide. If you’ve just gone through last year’s school clothes, USAgain is the perfect way to hand off the too small everything.

USAgain sets up clothing drop-off bins across the country where you can easily stop and drop off no longer needed clothes and shoes. In total, there are more than 10,000 drop-off locations around the country, so there’s a kick-butt chance that there’s a bin near you. You can search for the closest bin using the search form at USAgain or contact them them with questions.

USAgain accepts clothes, shoes and household textiles of good quality, that are ready to be re-worn and reused. Household textiles include tablecloths, towels, bedding, blankets, bedspreads, etc. They DO NOT accept goods like mattresses, furniture, appliances, carpet, household items, toys or trash.

USAgain benefits your community in three major ways – for people, planet and profit. For people, they help contribute well-being by providing new clothes or used new clothes for folks in need, along with jobs. For the planet, they keep clothes out of the landfills and help conserve resources needed to trash or make new goods. Because the company is a for profit company, they’re helping to grow a more sustainable green industry, contributing to the local and state economy by paying salaries and taxes, and purchasing goods and services from other local businesses.

If you’d like to get involved, you can…

• Sponsor a collection bin on your property.
• Organize a collection drive at your school.
• Volunteer to help sort and distribute donations to local people in need.

On my post the other day about insulated lunch bags, reader Sabrina left an interesting comment. She said, “I have a concern about all of these products using PET. Doesn’t it contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals?” She then referred me to a link at Healthy Child Healthy World that digs into the issue of whether or not PET bottles are releasing endocrine disruptors.

The research on how PET may leach various phthalates is in the early stages and is inconclusive, but that’s beside the point. What Sabrina actually got me thinking about is safety vs. green living, and how they don’t always go hand-in-hand.

Sometimes better safety and green living co-exist easily. Take green cleaning products. Not only is it safer to make homemade cleaners because you cut out chemicals that can hurt your kids, but it’s eco-friendly as well. Homemade green cleaners are green because they cut down on massive amounts of packaging and don’t release harmful toxins into our air, soil or water.

Not everything is so cut and dry though. For example…

Child car seats are basically big hunks of plastic. Plastic, as we all know, is made with non-renewable oil. Additionally, I’ve never seen even one car seat (as of yet)  made with organic fabrics and few are made with child-safe dyes. Car seats are about as opposite of eco-friendly as you can get. Yet, obviously car seats are 100% safer than tying your baby down with a nice recycled box and some organic hemp rope – know what I mean?

Or take the lunch bag situation I mention above. Plastic coated lunch bags, vinyl, recycled plastic and other materials may contain more chemicals than an old fashioned organic cotton lunch sack, making them less green. But on the flip side, if you’re talking safety, organic cotton is a horrid insulator. Even with an ice pack melting all over your organic bag, you’re going to run into food safety issues, because clearly the bag lacks insulation.

We could even bring ice pop molds into the mix. You’ve got silicone molds, which I’m a fan of, but some people think aren’t safe. Or you could go with plastic molds, that may contain chemicals, but they will massively reduce your household waste over packaged ice pops. Do you go with the plastic ice pop molds to avoid waste or say to heck with it and buy the packaged ice pops?

I’ve owned lots of items that aren’t eco-friendly, but that are necessary. For example, my son’s two car seats, child safety products like door latches and non-eco-friendly band-aids (because good luck finding the greener kind at your local store). We’ve owned bike helmets and non-organic sports safety gear (like pads and such) and non-eco backpacks because the less eco one fit my son better.

Overall, it can be a little bit of a mess if you live in today’s world and you’re striving to be safe and green. You can’t always choose both.

What to do? 

I can only speak for myself, but I try not to dwell too much on what I’m doing wrong in the world of green. That’s a recipe for mental anguish that I don’t need. If we need something for safety reasons, and it’s not available in an eco-friendly version, I’ll still bring it into my house if it’s necessary.

Sometimes I feel guilty sure, but then I remind myself that we haven’t brought a grocery store plastic bag or roll of paper towels into this house in years and years. We always use reusable water bottles and we drink plain old tap water vs. using bottled or a plastic, non-recyclable filter. We don’t buy a bunch of consumer junk we don’t need and we  buy used before new when we can. We use green cleaners and PVC-free shower curtains and glass dishes over plastic. I don’t have the greenest car on the market, but I did get the most efficient I could and I keep driving to a minimum. If we can’t afford the greenest sunscreen – well, we do the best we can.

It’s the green actions you DO manage that make the biggest impact. Little things add up. In the end, I want safe and I want green. If I can only have safety, I deal with it and hopefully make green amends in another area of my world.

What do you think? Is it hard to choose between safe vs. green at times? Tell me in the comments and take the poll below…

]]> http://www.growingagreenfamily.com/greenliving-vs-safety/feed/ 1 http://www.growingagreenfamily.com/ten-ways-to-go-green-in-30-seconds-or-less/ http://www.growingagreenfamily.com/ten-ways-to-go-green-in-30-seconds-or-less/#comments Sun, 04 Jul 2010 07:11:09 +0000 Jennifer Chait http://www.growingagreenfamily.com/?p=4476

Think you don’t have the time to get green? You do! Here are 10 easy eco-friendly steps you can try that won’t take more than 30 seconds.

1. Recycle your old phone book: According to Waste-Free Mail There are enough phone books created each year to measure 106,700 miles when lined up end to end; enough to circle around the earth about 4.28 times! It takes just seconds to toss your old yellow pages in the recycling bin. The entire phone book is 100% recyclable and can be used to make new phone books.
2. Hang it up: After a shower, you’re clean (or so I presume), so hang your towel instead of tossing it in the laundry bin. Washing towels after one use is so overrated.
3. Wipe out your microwave: A dirty microwave has to work harder to heat food AND it’s totally gross! If it takes you longer than 30 seconds to do this, you’ve already waited too long.
4. Buy a recycled role: It takes less than 10 seconds to pick up a recycled package of toilet paper at the store vs. new toilet paper, yet this choice makes a big difference. Recycled toilet paper helps save water, trees, oil and landfill space. NRDC notes that if all households in the U.S. alone bought one 4 pack of recycled TP vs. new, it would save a million trees and eliminate 60,600 pounds of pollution.
5. Turn on the tap: It’ll take you about 30 seconds to fill up a reusable water bottle with good ol’ tap water vs. the 30 minutes it would take to drive to the store for a new case of bottled water.
6. Hit a button: Most computers uses 90% less energy while in sleep mode and it takes mere seconds to hit that button and save some energy.
7. Clean some rubber: When that long rubber seal on your fridge door gets all crusty and gross, the door doesn’t form a tight seal, won’t close properly and energy is wasted. It takes mere seconds to wipe this down with a cloth.
8. Cancel your catalogs: Amazingly, the average person in the U.S. use 700 pounds of paper products a year. Paper catalogs in the mail help contribute to this issue. Luckily, it’ll take you just 12 seconds per title to opt-out of mail order catalogs using Catalog Choice.
9. Pull the cord: During daylight hours pull up your blinds vs. flipping on the lights. I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve been in where the lights are on, the shades are down and it’s flipping daytime! Crazy? Yeah, I thought so too.
10. Turn off the shower: Not for good! Smelling nice is a good thing. However, if you turn the shower off just while you scrub the shampoo into your hair, you can save up to 50 gallons of water per year.

In the comments – add your idea – one easy green step for the rest of us.

Recycling should be a family affair but often recycling can seem very complicated to little kids. Take it from me; at age five Cedar “recycled” some of our silicone homemade popsicle molds claiming, “They looked recyclable!“  Reluctant adults in your home may actually not get recycling or they may be using their lack of know-how to get out of recycling.

Either way the following tips can make recycling easier for the entire household and if everyone knows how to recycle there’s no excuses.

Know the laws: You can’t encourage the family to recycle properly unless you know your local laws and policies about it. Locate your state’s government website and then type “recycling” into the search box once at the site or call your local garbage company.

Have a family recycling meeting: Which recyclables go in which bin, which stuff is actually recyclable vs. trash and which items can be composted, reused or donated before you recycle are key topics to cover with everyone. WHY we recycle is also an excellent topic. For little kids there’s no need to drag a meeting like this on for hours – just cover the basics.

Keep talking: In my experience it takes a while to introduce new green issues to the family. A meeting is good start, but with kids especially you have to keep talking. Work in little conversations about recycling. Kids may not get all of it in one sitting but eventually small conversations start to add up in their thirsty little brains. One excellent place to discuss recycling is at the grocery store. For example, when buying a product ask your child, “Do you think we’ll be able to recycle this? Or will it have to go to the dump?”

Hang a poster: You and the kids can make a recycling poster to hang up that includes visuals of typical items your home uses and can recycle – i.e. cans, glass jars, paper and so on. Search old magazines for images to use on your poster, take some photos of actual items or draw pictures freehand.

Have a dedicated home recycling area and then label it: Every home needs a dedicated home recycling center (but that’s a much longer post). For now keep in mind that a recycling center should be easy for kids to reach and not move around (like from the garage to the kitchen and back again). After setting up your bins label each bin with text for older kids and adults and little pictures for younger kids. Recycle Now is meant for schools but they have an excellent collection of recycling sticker labels you can print that would also work great for home bins. If you can’t find some waterproof recycling labels check out Planetpals for some free recycling clip art; print it; then affix pictures to your bins with clear packing tape.

Put your kids in charge: When you give a child responsibility in the form of “You’re in charge of making everyone do this” kids tend to take on a task with gusto. My son, for example, at six and seven years was in charge of lights (keep them off), reusable bags (don’t forget to take them) and checking the thermostats. He did other green stuff too – but these were his major, “In charge” tasks and he kept up with them perfectly. Now he’s a little crazed actually about lights being off actually – but I guess I’d rather have him crazed then not.

Make it meaningful – plan a trip to your local recycling center AND drive by the trash dump as well so your kids can see their actions in well, action. Visit a neat recycling website for kids or read a cool kid-friendly book about recycling; Recycle!: A Handbook for Kids is a good choice for younger kids, although it’s a little older so you’ll have to update your child on newer recycling issues.

How are you involving your kids in the recycling process?

I posted this a while back at another blog of mine. The client I was writing for shut down their network, but this post I really liked because it reminds me to be more conscious. That said, I’m re-posting it here with some extra numbers added…

As you go about your daily routines today and everyday, it might be good to stop and consider some important eco-minded numbers.

365 – Number of days we all have to make a difference each year, and yet…

137 – The amount of plants, animals and insects species we lose each day to rainforest deforestation.

147,000,000 – The gallons of gas per year that vaporize into the earth’s atmosphere due to shoddy or lost gas caps.

7 – How many trees the average American uses up in one year. Also, the number of greenwashing sins BTW.

4.6 – How many pounds of trash that the average American creates per day.

6,000+ – The amount of cash you’d save if you quit drinking bottled water.

3 – Percent of folks who recycle their cell phone.

2 – Percent of “green” products (out of 2,219 in the United States and Canada) found to be actually green and NOT greenwashing.

80 – Percent of people who think toxic cleaners are safe according to studies.

200 – Number of chemical compounds in household products that have actually been tested for safety OUT of 80,000.

8 – Percent of sunscreens found to be safe and effective.

55 – The percent of paper waste that Americans recycle each year. PAPER! I.e. easily recycled – just 55% – sad.

27 – The percent of disposable water bottles that are recycled in American each year. Not cool when reusable water bottles abound.

107 – number of ingredients in pesticides thought to cause cancer (so far) which makes organic food sound pretty darn good. (After Silent Spring, NRDC, 6/93)

600 – Number of plastic tampon applicators found on ONE beach during ONE beach clean up day (according to the NYT).

10 – The number assigned to the most toxic, least safe beauty and body care products by Skin Deep. You probably have some 10s in your bathroom right now. Why not check and see?

500 – The number of years that disposable diaper will sit in the landfill.

19,000 – How many pounds of waste the average elementary school creates annually due to lunch time trash.

18,000,000 – Liters of oil saved when a tax on plastic bags was introduced in Ireland (they reduced their plastic bag consumption by 90%).

1 – How many people it takes to start making a difference. Just one. That one person today could be you.

The most ambitious step when it comes to egg packaging is to skip it altogether. However unless you have your own chickens and can thus ‘grow’ organic eggs or have an excellent farmer’s market that sells bulk eggs (which you can place in a basket to purchase) you will have to deal with packaging. That said, your first step should be to buy organic eggs that come in easy to recycle packaging. Avoid those icky old Styrofoam egg cartons at all costs.

After making sure you get eggs in recyclable packaging you can still reuse the cartons a few times before you recycle. Here are 16 ways to reuse your egg cartons.

1. Seed starters.
2. Concrete slabs for the garden.
3. Paint trays – these are excellent for this because kids get lots of space to mix different paint colors up.
4. Totally AMAZING fairy lights – swoon!
5. Organize any old small item. Nails, earring, marbles, tacks, and so on. This list goes on and on.
6. Compost them.
7. Use a tool to get little kids to eat. If I were you, I’d make sure the cartons are spotless though, because leftover egg bacteria makes me a little nervous.
8. Make some adorable tulips or cute little bugs for the upcoming spring.
9. Create a recycled bulletin board.
10. Egg carton made stools – ok, this is a cheat because you’re not likely to make them, still it’s pretty cool.
11. A super fun egg carton camera.
12. I’ve heard around (more than once) that you can use egg cartons as wall insulation – say if you have noisy neighbors or a basement rock band. However, I’ve never tried this myself, and heard from a pal that they can cut echoes but not necessarily loud sounds so please test run this first if you’re going to make a lot of noise drumming or what have you.
13. Make an insanely cool outdoor table that eats itself. No joke.
14. Make a Mancala egg carton game – my son loves Mancala!
15. I also recently saw a pretty slick journal made with reclaimed egg cartons. You could probably make one yourself.
16. Dollhouse furniture – in this craft project the blogger used styrofoam cartons, but I think your furniture would look great made with cardboard cartons too.

I bet you can think of a lot of other projects too. Such as…?

Just a quickie tonight because I’m dead busy, but I found these adorable cereal box buildings and had to share. Technically, cereal is something you can get in bulk, thus eliminating the box altogether, BUT if you do buy boxed cereal, this is such a cute idea for how to recycle them.

Aren’t these sweet! The ones above are covered with paper of various sorts. You can also make adorable little homes then paint them as seen below. The entire step by step tutorial about how to create these cereal box structures is at Bella Dia. This would be a fun day to spend a chilly afternoon inside with your tot.

[images via Bella Dia]

In My plan to cut out excess packaging, I discussed my plans for cutting out excess packaging this year. However, first I need to know which packaging I have that’s excessive and can be cut, so a small green home audit about said packaging is in order.

I went through my bathroom and found the following packaging – along side each I’ve made notes about which I can cut and which I’m not so sure about.

Packaging in my bathroom:

• Organic Body wash – this was an unnecessary impulse buy and one I don’t need it and two I can cut it by using unwrapped bar soap, homemade body wash, or fill a reusable container with body wash at the natural food store.
• Organic Shampoo – I rarely use shampoo and don’t need a special kind so I can get a refillable bottle instead.
• Conditioner – I have naturally curly hair (blah) and use a super charged, really good organic conditioner. Since I can’t find a decent conditioner in bulk, I don’t know if I can cut this. One option is to make my own conditioner. I make hair masques, but I’ll have to look into conditioner.
• Organic face wash – I should make my own like I used to, but not sure if I want to. I like my current face wash.
• All natural facial grains – I LOVE these facial grains, but I can make my own in a reusable container, they’re not as good IMO, but close.
• Organic shaving cream – well, I could quit shaving, or figure out how to make my own. This is a bath product I haven’t ever tried to make though, so I’m not sure. We’ll call this a maybe.
• Razors – I use recycled razors from Preserve. Right now I like shaving, so I suppose I’ll keep them, but I don’t love how the Preserve razors work. My goal is to find an eco-razor I like better.
• Bath scrubby – I usually have a washable bath scrubby in the tub, most of the time made of natural hemp – right now though for the last year I’ve been using one made with organic cotton fibers. Since I use them to death and rewash, I’m not concerned.
• Lip gloss – OMG I have so much lip gloss that it’s embarrassing. I LOVE lip gloss, especially my Tarte lip gloss. I think though what I’ll do is just commit to buying new Tarte and one take along organic lip gloss when I run out, then recycle the packaging. Another option is to make my own lip gloss more often.
• Deodorant – This is one of the biggest baddies in my bathroom. I don’t buy organic or natural because I’ve never found one I like that works. Trust me, I’ve tried a ton too.  The perfect goal would be to find a healthier one that works in less packaging, but I’m not holding my breath.
• Cosmetics – I actually own very few cosmetics. I don’t really wear make-up much due to the excess packaging and time involved. I have maybe 4-5 organic products, but they were all sent to me by companies for reviews and all have recyclable packaging. However, it’s not like I’m out there buying cosmetics.
• Body lotions – I actually have two bottles of lotion right now, (impulse buys) which is not cool. I used to buy only bulk lotion. However, I think what I’ll do here is switch over to just using my organic soy lotion bars. I LOVE these bars and the packaging is not only reusable but recyclable.
• Face lotion – I hate my current face lotion, and frankly don’t use it much. It’s an organic brand that turned out to be lame. I would like a good face lotion, but I think I’ll stick with making my own unless I can find a brand I actually like that comes in recyclable packaging.
• Q-tips – not organic, and come in lame packaging. I’ve never seen them in bulk though, but I bet could find them in organic cotton. They’d still have the packaging though, but I use them for various things, so I’m not sure I’d give them up.
• Nail polish remover and nail polish – this along with the deodorant above is a big bad, but I like cute nail colors. Darn it. I need to switch over to just using more natural brands of both. Goal – better brands and just a couple of colors.
• Female products – I actually have various sorts; reusable pads, organic tampons, and organic pads. I should cut out all non-reusable pads, which I never used to use ever (not sure why I half switched? Lazy maybe). There are lots of options that are not disposable, so being lazy is a bad excuse.
• Hand soap – I always buy bulk soap and refill my refillable container, so I’m doing good here.
• Toothbrush and toothpaste – I only buy recycled toothbrushes from Preserve and I recycle them when I’m done. I’m not sure what to do about the toothpaste situation. I currently use Tom’s of Maine cinnamon clove paste with fluoride. I know the debates about fluoride, but I’m on the side of it’s better. I’m not sure if I could make my own. I’ll look into it, because it would cut out the packaging. However, one good thing is that the tubes are recyclable so maybe this is some packaging I could keep.
• Floss – my dental floss comes in plastic packaging and while I do toss it in the recycling bin, I’m not 100% sure it’s recyclable. I need to cute out floss packaging, but since I don’t know anything about it, I’ll need to look into it.
• Oils – I don’t use perfume, but I do use essential oils. The packaging is recyclable though, and I use them to make homemade beauty products, so I won’t be cutting them. Note, I rarely buy them.
• Hair ties and clips – I use little plastic bands and plastic hair clips right now if I want to wear my hair pulled back. I could quit that and just use a piece of cut hemp like I used to.
• Comb – I have a plastic comb, which will probably last many more years. I should buy a more sustainable, non-plastic version the next time I need one though.

Whew. That’s a lot of bathroom stuff, and I’ve got a lot less than most people I know, which is scary. All in all my audit revealed the following…

• There’s some non-reusable packages I can cut. Shampoo, lip gloss, body wash, and facial grains. I’ll need to get some refillable containers that are non-toxic for these products or buy less (like with the lip gloss).
• I need to research floss and see what’s out there that’s eco-friendly.
• My bathroom is pretty non-toxic overall. I use mostly organic products, but I could find a better, more eco-friendly versions of deodorant, cotton swabs, and nail care products.
• I need to do away with non-reusable female care products and plastic hair clips and bands.
• I need to find out if it’s possible to make homemade organic shaving cream.

If I do all this, it’ll save on lots of packaging and result in a healthier bathroom overall. Coming up soon, I’ll run green home audits for packaging in the kid’s bathroom, kitchen, and pantry too.

Now, is there any excess packaging in your bathroom that you could cut?