Happy Belated Earth Day!

So, yesterday was Earth Day, and in honor of that, I'm going a little greener.

Now, it's not Earth Day, really, that is making me go greener, but the whole pet food scare. After doing lots of research, it's disgusting what is "allowed" into our country for US to eat!!! Yuck! So, we are going organic for 30 days in this house, and we're going to see where we are at healthwise and cost-wise when all is said and done.

This grand goal includes eating organic, no fast food (pizza is excluded while we are moving this weekend!), and all household chemicals will be pitched! In addition, we're going to plant some trees in the new yard (this may happen post-30 days, but still!).

There are a ton of simple things that we can do every day in order to conserve and help Mother Earth. Here's a few of goals :

1. Wash EVERYTHING in cold water only. Despite what Mama used to say, hot water doesn't kill jack unless you have a special washing machine that has a "sanitize" cycle. Your washing machine water only gets as hot as your hot water heater, and I'm betting most of us don't have it set to "Boil", do we? After a little research, if you want to kill bacteria or dust mites or have allergies, you simply need to DRY your clothes and bedsheets on HIGH in the dryer for 10 minutes. 10 minutes versus gallons and gallons of hot water makes a difference!!

2. Use compact flourescent bulbs instead of your good old fashioned G.E. bulbs- they save a ton of energy. What that means is that if every one of 110 million American households bought just one ice-cream-cone bulb, took it home, and screwed it in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. One bulb swapped out, enough electricity saved to power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island. In terms of oil not burned, or greenhouse gases not exhausted into the atmosphere, one bulb is equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the roads. Holy Geez! I'm SOLD! Let's get those bad boys installed people!

3. Use rechargable batteries. Although they may cost more to buy, rechargable batteries will save you 10 or 20 times the original cost (by not buying new batteries over and over again), and not get thrown in the trash. If you're now buying a five-dollar 8-pack of batteries every month, that's a yearly cost of $60. After a little more than a year, your $75 initial investment in the rechargeable setup will be paid for, and the next 10 years of battery use will be free. Over that period, you would save $600! And it will be 1,000 fewer disposable batteries going into your nearby landfill or incinerator. Being the proud mother of a battery-consuming 2 year old, I can attest to how much money we have saved by purchasing the rechargeables. My goal is to upgrade to "C" and "D" batteries in the next 30 days. We've been recharging "AA" and "A" batteries for a while now and WOW- they last longer use-wise, too!

4. Stop using ziplock bags. This is a hard goal for us, as with a toddler, it's amazingly easy to use these little plastic devils. BUT you can't recycle them. Not yet. So each time I throw one out, I'm hurting the environment. So I'm off to buy some fun, smaller tupperware to put chips, cookies, crackers, etc. in and fun square ones for sandwiches. Not only will it make an impact on the environment, but after they pay for themselves, it will save us probably $10 every couple of months on baggies of various sizes. $60 a year times the lifetime of tupperware- Wahoo! We can plant more trees!

5. Use biodegradable doggy poop bags! Stop mummifying your dog’s poop in plastic bags that don’t biodegrade and use a compostable biodegradable BioBag that will compost in a matter of days. Unlike imitation polyethylene plastic bags that “degrade” into small pieces of plastic, BioBags completely biodegrade into rich compost. These dog waste poop bags are certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute, meet ASTM standards and are made from renewable resources. Eco-Products sells BioBag Dog Waste Bags at prices that are competitive with plastic bags. Now there’s truly no reason to be using plastic! Time to Poo-poo the old plastic poop bags!

So there they are, my Earth Saving goals for the near future.