FOUR EASY THINGS TO DO TO MAKE YOUR WASH DAY MORE EARTH-FRIENDLY

You can lower your wash day energy use and your carbon footprint, beginning today, by doing these four Earth-friendly things. And, the best part is that  you won't have to face any big struggle. I've done all this for months and years with great results. And I'm sure my laundry chores don't take much longer or more sweat than those of other people who follow the philosophy: “ I'm doing-what's-easiest-for me.” 

Stop using small to medium-sized plastic detergent bottles

One of the worst things that we've done to ourselves is to embrace the plastic age as if it were some miracle. It's not a miracle. It's a world-wide nightmare producing destruction of wildlife habitats and slowly poisoning everyone of us. The situation is really grave. Some studies show that there’s more plastic than plankton in parts of our oceans. So, reduction of our use of all kinds of plastic is an absolute necessity for both health and the ecology. And one of the worst plastic items that you can buy for home use is the detergent bottle.

Many people are buying small and medium plastic laundry soap containers several times a month. If plastic bags are a bad idea – which they are, those heavier plastic bottles are even worse. What's more, the liquid detergent in those bottles doesn't wash any better than the dry products and takes up a more space, on a wash-by-wash basis. Changing out from plastic detergent bottles to cardboard boxes or large plastic containers is a good place to start. You'll be doing Mother Nature, your own family, and generations-to-come a favor by refusing to buy small, plastic laundry bottles and keeping those items out of the trash, once and for all. And, if you want to, you can buy good laundry detergents in small or medium cardboard boxes. But, if you do industrial-sized laundry during the month, go ahead and buy the largest container - cardboard boxed or plastic - that you can find at the big box store. 

The plastic detergent bottles that you have right now can be easily recycled at home or given away to someone who'll use them. Recycle those huge plastic buckets  for use as a storage container for non-food items like for garden or barbecue tools. If you have some regular-sized plastic detergent bottles, recycle them as clothes pin holders or put small amounts of dry detergent in them so you won't have to carry about or dip into those larger detergent containers for every wash.

Hang some clothes on a line

Line-dried clothes smell better 

There's a big problem with tumble dryers that use electricity to generate heat. They require a lot of electricity and create a huge carbon footprint. How big are we talking about? More than you would imagine. One source says a tumble-dried load produces more than 5 pounds of CO 2 emissions when washed at 40°C. (That, of course, includes the major part that happened at the electric plant.) And, while gas dryers produce somewhat less carbon, the very best thing that can be done is line drying. And line-drying is doable most anywhere on a line or clothes rack. Not ready to hang up all the laundry? Then, start hanging up some part of it. It is super easy to hang up the towels and bed linen on a clothes line. Just doing this faithfully will eliminate several rounds of machine drying and save a lot on energy bills.

And, of course, with the mild to hot weather these days, the very best place is outdoors where the summer sun will dry them fast and leave them with a heavenly meadow-fresh odor. I hang up just about everything in the summer months, eliminating a lot of energy costs and enjoying the sweet smells of of line-dried laundry. Maybe, for some reason, you can't leave clothes hanging outside now or at other times of the year. Even so, you can hang up some lines, in the basement, in the garage or a breezeway and make good use of them. With a little ingenuity, even apartment dwellers can find space to line dry a part of their laundry.

Years ago, when we were kids and the family lived in an apartment, my Mom hung up the linens and towels all winter long in the kitchen to dry overnight. She had Dad hang the lines in such a way that we could walk around the clothes, if necessary. The small items were hung on a wood dowel drying rack near the gas stove in the living room. Most of the time, the laundry did dry by breakfast time. If not, she left them a few more hours. Slightly damp towels could be rehung in the bathroom, awaiting use there. 

While, these days, I don't need to follow closely the steps my Mom took to dry our laundry, I still swear by line drying. Thankfully, now, I have a nice outdoor area where I can hang up clothes and good drying weather almost year-round.

Wash the clothes with cold water

As you can imagine, the higher the water temperature of the wash, the more electricity you'll use. And, hot water wash is not good for clothes or for the ecology. The U.S. Department of Energy says that, in a conventional washer, more than 80% of the energy used for laundry  goes to heat up the water. So, save yourself some money and lower your carbon emission footprint at the same time. It turns out that cold water works great for regular loads. When you have oily or other stubborn stains, try a pre-soak with stronger detergent or stain remover and then use warm water wash.

There are plenty of special, cold water laundry detergents available that can wash your clothes beautifully without hot water. And most modern detergents, including the cheaper ones, work equally well on regular laundry – even if they don't say they're cold water products.

Run the washing machine to its full capacity

You'll get higher wash day efficiency if you load the machine to capacity rather than with just a few clothes. Fill your machine to its limits. For regular loads, you can use your eye to judge when the machine is full. Heavier weight stuff might need to be weighed – to know for sure. Remember, just one large load takes a lot less energy than washing two loads on a lower setting. If you need socks or underwear or a particular shirt for the next morning, wash it out by hand and hang it up somewhere where the air will get to it. It doesn't take long to do.

When I was a child, it was considered “good hygiene” to wash out your own underwear, socks, and handkerchief in the bathroom sink when you prepared for bed. I routinely did this and left the hand wrung-out clothes on a hanger on the back of my bedroom door. They could stay there as long as necessary to finish drying. Our towels were also hung on a towel bar on the back of our doors. Back then, it was considered unsightly to hang a lot of stuff around in the bath room. Although I don't do all of that, today, with just my husband and me at home, I think those habits were more than justified. When I visit in the homes of other people, I continue to do these simple things. And, if my hosts haven't put up hooks on the bedroom door, I hang up my towel and washed out underwear in the closet space that they've left for me. It keeps down on bathroom clutter and helps save on washing machine loads.

I GAVE AWAY MY MICROWAVE OVEN - WHYS AND WHEREFORES.

You may think that the microwave oven is your best friend in the kitchen. But, there's a dark side to your supposed friend. It's something like the Trojan horse of Greek history that looked like a gift, but brought tragic, unforeseen consequences. Here's the story.

Domestic microwave oven models were first offered in 1967. It didn't take too long before it became another item that brought "prestige" to consumer households who could pay what was initially a high price tag. Over the past decades, the much publicized microwave oven became much more affordable, and this led almost all U.S. householders to buy and use large and small units. And the younger generation probably believes that it's impossible to run any kitchen adequately without one. Hundreds of specialized cookbooks have added to the popularity of these ovens. It all seems to make sense – preparing and reheating food - in just a few seconds. It appears to be something that no "right-minded" man or woman would want to do without. But think again.

Big problems with microwave ovens.
First of all, it's been shown that microwave cooking breaks up proteins, vitamins, and minerals into much smaller molecules that the human body can't use as well for nutritional purposes. And its radiation effects create decomposed compounds that pose risks for cancer, reduced immune function, and impaired memory.

One study found disturbing changes in the blood of individuals consuming microwaved milk and vegetables for a few weeks. Study subjects ate combinations of the same foods cooked different ways. Those who ate foods processed through microwave ovens, compared with the controls, showed hemoglobin levels decreases and over all white cell levels and cholesterol levels increases. They also had important increases in leukocytes – signs of poisoning and cell damage - with the microwaved foods.

Second, these microwave ovens make up a substantial part of the cumulative problem of so much electromagnetic radiation in our homes, offices, and schools. It's the electromagnetic radiation that agitates the molecules generating an internal heat that "cooks" the food. At the same time, an unknown amount of the same radiation is escaping from the oven and going into the surroundings. That's why people with a pace-maker and pregnant women are supposed to stay aways from these ovens. The radiation leaks out of all of them – to some extent.

Another concern had to do with the fact that you shouldn't be using any type of plastic in these ovens. Plastic contains BPA and other substances that are released into the food with all that super heat. When the manufacturer says that it's microwave safe, that only means that it won't dissolve in the oven, not that it won't bleed toxic substances into your food.

 

The real deal - you really don't need it
Here, I'd like to tell you my experience and how I stopped being a convinced fan of  microwave cooking. Some months ago, my husband and I visited a friend for a few days. We cooked our food in her apartment. And with the first breakfast that we made, I noticed that the coffee was getting cold. I asked where the microwave was. She said she didn't have one. Well, I knew that my friend kept a rather Spartan apartment and had virtually eliminated all unnecessary items in it. But, I was amazed that she had no microwave. She told me about the negative health effects of having a radiation box in the home and that, microwaved food had a bad taste when compared with food cooked in a conventional way. More importantly, that it wasn't good for you, nutritionally. And that microwaving causes changes in the molecular structure of food, so that you don't get the same kind of nourishment from it as you would eating food cooked on a regular stove. While I was impressed by what she said, I didn't think enough about it, at the time, to stop using my microwave oven at home.

Some time later, I began to read about the negative effects of microwaves and that microwave cooked food was a health hazard. And after a time, I made a decision. I  gave away my microwave oven and bought a small, cabinet-top toaster oven to replace it. Now, several months have passed – sans microwave –and I'm satisfied that I did the right thing. Also the general quality and taste of our meals have improved – at least my husband tells me that. And, while, it may be due to any number of healthier changes in our lives, we both feel better, too.

Your chance to protect your family and the environment
You, too, can get along without that big monster hovering over your stove or hogging limited kitchen counter space. After all, those meals that you’re preparing for loved ones should be done in the best way you can. And, yes, things can get busy in the kitchen with everybody already hungry. But there are any number of ways that you can simplify your menus. Food can be served as salads or vegetables quickly steamed, in the conventional manner, during those hectic times. Tell your family that, yes, you're having to spend ten to fifteen minutes more in food prep time but that they're avoiding health risks and getting more nutrition in the process. Surely, they'll thank you for the extra effort made on their behalf.

And, why contribute to so many environmental problems created by the need for more and more electronic products? Just remember most families trade out out those big items - like microwave ovens - every few years or so. Our consumer-buying frenzy creates too much use of natural resources and leads to deadly levels of industrial smog. And it doesn't matter that the large part of that smog falls over Asian cities. It all comes back in the form of global ecological destruction - through acid rain and worldwide climate change.

Here's something that you can do right away. Take out your microwave and put it in the garage or in a closet for one month. Switch over to a toaster oven for warming your cooked food and heat up liquids in pots on the stove. Try this simple exercise. If it works for you, at the end of the month, I'm sure you'll be more than happy to give or throw away your microwave oven. At any rate, you will know that it's not such a good idea to use it and, if it reappears in the kitchen, your use will surely be less frequent.  

STOP USING THROWAWAY PRODUCTS, RIGHT NOW.

There are some things that we do without thinking because they've become a habit - at home, in the car, in schools, at our work places, even as part of our social life. They are so common that we don’t see them for what they are. We've even been made to believe that throwaway items are part of our "rights" to have an easier life and reduce unwelcome work. Well, think again. Those “disposable” products that you use almost daily have a rather small cost to you - or, at least, it appears at the time. But they have a huge cost for the environment and most will never be recycled, ending up at dumps where they take up space for years or centuries or getting incinerated where they poison the skies over our cities and farms. And some of them, especially the soft plastics, are a real danger to your health.

Say "no" to food-related plastics.*

Plastics are made from toxic substances that contaminate earth, air and water, both in their manufacturing and in their disposal as trash. Once created, plastics are non-biodegradable, and while they can be transformed, but they don’t go away. Only about 5% of plastics ever get recycled. Burning and putting them in landfills only removes them from our immediate vicinity, but their toxic waste will make it back into the environment. The presence of plastic trash around us, or anywhere they get to, continues to poison our air, water systems, rivers, and oceans. For everyone, plastics in the environment mean added risks of cancer and birth defects. For many species of animals and fish, it has already created much illness and is accelerating their extinction.

You'll want to have the least contact with soft plastics as possible. When people use plastic packages for foods, the chemicals tend to filter from the packaging to the foods they contain. It’s worse yet when plastic containers are heated in microwave ovens because that accelerates the migration of toxic substances.

The only way to reduce the damage that is done by plastics is to cut back on their use, and thereby, overtime, slowing their industrial production. You can do your part to overcome this problem by refusing to buy plastic products. That means trying to extend the lifetime of the useful existing plastic items that you already have and refusing to buy new ones, even if that creates some personal inconvenience. Start by saying "no" to throwaway products. You’ll save money, be healthier for it, and do good for the earth -- all at the same time.

- Tell the sales person that you want paper instead of plastic cups at the fast-food window. Stop going to places that only have plastic throwaway cups.

- Buy fresh food products, whenever possible, and carry your own paper or cloth bags to the markets. Ask the man behind the counter that you want your meat or cheese wrapped in paper instead of plastic.

- When you buy processed foods, search for those that come in glass bottles or metal cans. Buy larger-sized products so that the containers can be reused; recycle them when you're finished.

- Make sure your using as few cleaning products as possible. Look for large-size packages or containers for these products. That way you won’t have to buy so much plastic on a regular basis. Reuse or recycle all these containers.

- Don’t buy plastic bags or plastic wrap. Wax paper and butcher paper are excellent products for your temporary food storage and lunch bag needs. If you want neater packaging, you can use a bit of tape to hold the paper together.

- Whenever possible, use paper bags for the kitchen trash. Of course, someone in your family will occasionally come home with plastic bags. When that happens, reuse them for trash or as lunch bags. All extra plastic bags should be carried to the supermarket for recycling. None, except the dirtiest one, should go into the household trash. If you are required to use a large plastic bag for trash removal day, line your largest trash can with it, and make sure that is the only plastic bag you use during the week.

- Don’t buy plastic throwaway drinks. Always carry your own metal drinking container and water when you leave the house. When you have to buy or carry an occasional drink outside the house, look for the aluminum cans. Serve drinks from bulk containers or provide canned drinks at gatherings. Cans have a much better chance of being efficiently recycled than plastics.

- Don’t heat or store fatty or acid foods in plastic containers. You’ll heat and store just as well and avoid risks, using the glass containers that you've recycled

Say: "No." to excess paper use, too.*
Just a few years ago, almost nobody thought about the use of paper products in the home and office. We used a lot and wasted even more. Paper was cheap, and if anyone mentioned all that wood being used for paper, the easy answer was that trees were totally "renewable" resources. We know that that planned re-growth was mostly a fantasy and that our wasting of paper is inexcusable if we hope to save more of our forests. Clearly, it isn’t possible, or reasonable, to eliminate all paper usage in the home – we definitely need some toilet paper and paper for print outs from the computer. On the other hand, with a bit of effort, we can get “greener” on this issue and reduce our paper consumption a lot. Here are some of ways that you can cut back on or recycle paper products.

- At home, use dishes for food and not paper plates. Take your own dishes and utensils to picnics and other large-scale events. (You don't have to ask permission on this, just show up with your own and use them. If others don't understand, explain it to them.)

- Use rags and kitchen towels instead of paper towels. They're free or very cheap and completely re-usable. Kitchen towels don't need to be expensive or you can easily make them at home. Old newspaper is great for cleaning up spills and for cleaning windows glass and mirrors.

- Use cloth napkins and forget about paper napkins. Make your own napkins out of an easily washable fabric or buy small white terry-cloth towels – the kind that can be bought in bulk at the hardware store.

- For computer printing, be sure to print on both sides of your paper. Cut the paper in half if you needed only a small piece of it printed. Use the rest for printing or as note paper.

- Carry home and use scrap paper from work (or any other place where you can get it).

- Pay bills on-line (or by phone). Use email instead of writing letter and notes and get your news from the Internet rather than newspapers or magazines.

- Use washcloths instead of face wipes and cloth handkerchiefs instead of tissues. These last for many years. At home, use cloth diapers and plastic over-wraps. Paper diapers are justifiable only when the child is taken out of the house for several hours at a time. You can carry an extra paper diaper for quick changes.

- Carefully, unwrap gifts and save gift-wrap paper for future reuse. Also save cardboard boxes for storage or shipping containers. When possible, ship in paper envelopes instead of cardboard boxes and recycle crumpled paper as padding for shipping or storing fragile items.

- Save greeting cards and calendar art for craft use by cutting out shapes or pictures. And send e-cards instead of paper cards.

**These sections were adapted from earlier posts to Grandma Susan's Almanac Calendar, Dec. 2010.)

THINGS TO DOWNSIZE RIGHT AWAY: CASE #1 – LARGE, FLUFFY BATH TOWELS

Even if you haven’t gone through some major economic emergency that has forced you to reduce your former household size, you probably have some kind of plan to downsize and/or take the clutter out of your house. You know - in your heart of hearts - that having all those possessions is getting to be a burden and your soul longs for a lighter material life.

Downsizing seems to be about people's stuff, but it's really about their attitudes and values. And nobody says the process is easy. In fact, many people report a lot of emotional baggage around letting go. We, understandably, tend to identify with our possessions, so downsizing, for any reason, means a confrontation with who we think we are – our very identity. For example, many people with shelves and shelves (and walls) of books say that all those books mean something to them. Can that possibly be true? Of course, not. But their own identity is tied up with trying to be that person who would read all that (and more). You have to let go of that fantasy self and find a new one who says: “I’m only going to live so many more years, and the chances I read or need to look up something in all of these books is close to zero."

It’s the person that has to change. And, beside books, here's a list of other "sticky" possessions that most people find it hard to part with:

Collections of photos, mementos, and family "treasures"

Antiques and favored furniture

Clothing and other “creature comforts”

Stuff they thought they’d use in the future

On the brighter side, and if I’m reading correctly a lot of blog posts, many people report both happiness and relief when they get rid of clutter and downsize. Here's the nitty-gritty  - we all know that it isn’t good to hold on so much to the past, and things are a lot of our past. Too much energy is involved in maintaining all that baggage. And, properly done, we can let go of what we no longer need and create a better future for ourselves. So, I'm challenging you to take that step and make a healthy commitment to look ahead – instead of behind.

At any rate, it isn’t necessary to begin downsizing and reducing clutter with our very most treasured possessions. We can begin elsewhere. There’s a lot to choose from. In this post, I propose just one change that you can do today to declutter and downsize. And it doesn’t have to affect your identity or your creature comfort.

Case # 1 - The Large, Fluffy Bath Towel

Here, I talk about a creature comfort – the bath towel – and how I changed my attitude toward it over the years.

When I was a child, we didn’t have “nice” towels in the bathroom at our house. Well, most of what we had to dry ourselves with after bathing were called bath towels but, clearly, they were leftover items from years of use. My Mom, true to her past in the Great Depression and WWI, was thrifty and didn’t throw towels away until they were literally rags. Then, she used them for rags.

Tending to be small – just big enough for the purpose that they were intended for - our towels were thoroughly wet when you got through drying. That was a fact of life, and, as far as I could tell, no one seemed to worry themselves about it.  The towel, one for each of us, was hung up in the bathroom and used for a week – drying out in the approximate 24 hours between baths. We didn’t have a shower back then. When hair was washed, a second towel, often the dirty one from the week before that was still in the hamper, was brought into action.

Back in those days, regular people - those who weren’t "rich" - made no effort to put out matching towels and wash cloths. Maybe, in the living room or the bedroom, but the idea of bathroom décor just wasn’t heard of.

So, as a child and teenager, I had made comparisons and felt somewhat left out, seeing that our better-off relatives and friends had newer looking and comfier towels. Later, I saw sets of large towels with matching wash cloths in magazines and on the TV. They were ever so large and fluffy. That spelled out luxury to me.  I vowed that, someday, I would have sets of plush  towels and wash cloths that would grace my (dreamed of) large linen closet. And that they would be the heavy, fluffy type. I guess I bought in, big-time, to the media hype of having the "boutique hotel experience."

So, what happened over the years? Well, my husband and I finally got good paying jobs and the cost of cotton items got cheaper, due to foreign trade. Yes, and, for a long time, I prided myself on buying and using large, fluffy bath towels.

Years, later, came a life-changing set of crises – children then on their own, thankfully. At the end of all that, my husband and I were forced to move across country and downsize our living quarters. In the condo that we gave up – the one that I thought would be our retirement home for the rest of our lives - there was a sizeable linen closet and nice bath. So, bathroom decor, including nice towels, was, if not a priority, at least a possibility.

But, from there, my husband and I went to live in just one room in the house of a friend - along with a shared bathroom. So, a lot of downsizing went on. No furniture was taken with us, and only clothing and some personal items made it that far. Of course, I hadn't gotten rid of all of my beloved “creature comforts.” Yes, I had traveled cross-country with four of my largest and most plush bath towels along with matching wash cloths.

Also, at about that time, I began to adopt greener alternatives and started blogging about Earth-friendliness. So, a lot of things came under scrutiny. Those included washing procedures – energy-related things - like always filling up the machine to capacity, using cold water, choosing less harmful detergents, etc. I also found out that cotton, although the products are available to us fairly cheap, have a huge impact on water use and that the people who collect cotton and make the towels do so under terrible working conditions with wages that don’t even feed them well.

That’s about the time I began to look at my fluffy bath towels differently. They took up a lot of space in the closet. They took up too much room in the washer. They didn’t dry as fast as other clothes in the dryer. Also, I had, over the years, lost a lot of my former interest in matching towel sets. Bathroom décor no longer was a priority in my life.

That’s when I decided to change out my old bath towels for smaller, light-weight ones and give my old ones to a local charity. I found a couple of "downsized" towels at the thrift store and purchased another two - half the length and one-quarter the the weight of the older ones. To my surprise the new ones worked fine, and I’m happy enough using them - no regrets. So, now, I’ve solved one volume–related, material problem surrounding bath towels use. And, oh, I'm still working on some of the social and ecological ones.

By the way, I’ve yet to convince my husband. He still has his old towels. Anyway, he’s not likely to buy himself any new towels, and so eventually his towels will be lighter by wear, if not by intent. My pledge is that I’m not buying any larger, fluffy towels for me or for him.

So, this is my take on bath towels. You can get along very well without all those large, fluffy towels. Get rid of them and buy smaller, lighter versions. If you balk at buying more stuff when you already have towels, here’s an idea. Cut those big towels in half and make a pretty crochet edging around the “new” towels. I’ve wanted to that with my husbands’ towels and made my intentions known.  So far, he hasn’t let me do that.

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TAKE GRANDMA'S 100 THING CHALLENGE

Despite the materialistic hype that's pounding at us every day, having overflowing basements, closets, garages, and drawers doesn’t make us better or more attractive people. And, it won't make us miraculously happy either - quite possibly the opposite. I think a lot of us feel that in our bones, but where do we start? A book and blog have been written about this dilemma. It’s about the 100 Thing Challenge, and it tells us how one person pared down his worldly possessions to an amazing, minimalist 100 things. He says that he’s been convinced by his experience. Here's what he recommends to reach such a goal: "Reduce (get rid of some of your stuff); Refuse (to get more new stuff); and  Rejigger (your priorities)."

I bet you'll feel joyful and spiritually uplifted, too, if you take on your own minimalist challenge. This is, of course, a tough choice to make. Many, if not most, US households have so many extra things. So, paring back to 100 – even a 1000 - things may seem like a monumental task. It’s clearly a decision that shouldn't be taken lightly – especially when there are other family members who may not want to sign on to such an ordeal.

Grandma's 100 Thing Challenge

It’s a smaller challenge, by far, than living with only 100 things but I believe it’s something we all can do and feel good about. It makes minimalism a work in progress. So, start out slow and do a little at a time. That way, it won't be so much of a burden. You’ll know that you can halt the process if suddenly you see (or feel) the need. My challenge to you is to give up one thing - duplicated in function or unused in several months - in your home every day for 100 days. Then, if you like the results you can continue giving up some more things for another 100 days, and so on. Maybe, then, you'll find just the right number of things for you - 100, 200, 300, etc.

Whatever the number of things you can get rid of, you'll be living without that much household disorganization and have more time to do meaningful things for yourself and others. Like many others, the very clutter and dust-accumulation around may be so depressing that you go out to shop for new things or plan more vacation trips - just to get out of the house.

I believe that people find grace through balance, and we can only achieve this when we take control of our own lives (not having our belongings own us) and pursue what's really important. Possessions, beyond a bare minimum, just get in the way. Having a suburban McMansion, despite the TV and movie hype, isn't “living the good life”. When we endlessly acquire more things, including duplicating stuff in our homes, we never settle in and enjoy what we've got.

Over and over, we’ve mistakenly told ourselves that life wouldn’t be complete without this "special" thing we are buying. But just as soon as this thing is brought home and tucked away, we start out the next day to the mall or the big box store to look for the next "special" thing - in what ends up being a never ending process. We mindlessly seek that momentary reward of finding that next thing - whatever it is and whether we need it or not. With this kind of consumerism, we are the dog chasing our own tail. You can just stop that cycle.

This is what the 100 Thing Challenge is about. If you try for a certain period - say, two or three months - to not buy anything beyond your basic needs, while recycling and repurposing all you can, you'll have a great sense of liberation. You will find that very few things make the new purchase cut - a useful tool, a book, a good wine, a small gift for someone who needs cheering. And, hey, you don't have to ditch family photos and heirlooms. The very best can be incorporated, into your new, organized lifestyle or given to a loved one who promises to cherish them.

Grandma's take on this challenge
If you remember, I already recommended the wardrobe editing challenge. For me, personally, wardrobe editing meant paring back to a total of 50 items. I continue to practice the wardrobe discipline - just buying a new item - usually the thrift store variety - when I really don't like something I have or have worn it out.

I give back the no-longer wanted items to charity or tear them apart, to use as fabric strips (or yarn, in the case of sweaters) to make needlework and other craft projects. I must say that I've seldom regretted giving something away or had a hard time replacing an item that later I found I needed. My personal goal is to have only enough needed for daily life and make absolutely no frivolous purchases. That means taking home nothing that hasn't been considered for at least a week. I’ll cheerfully give up just about anything with only a few exceptions. My rule is: If I haven't used it in three months, I can probably live perfectly well without it.

So, here’s where I’ve started with my own paring down process. Everything is fair game right now, except:
- Stuff that’s my husband’s
- Some few books
- Good quality and super useful tools for crafts and for fixing things.
- Collections count as one item. If everything goes in one small case, I count it as one item. But I can and will edit objects from any collection that I have.

I’ll know I’m well on my way to winning this challenge when all my personal things, including clothing, fit comfortably into a tiny room room or one small commercial storage locker.

Steps to begin your 100 Things Challenge
Put one item in the Challenge Box every day for 100 days.
Things that are "just trash" need to go out and not be included in this box.
Start out with duplicated items. Then move on to things that haven’t been used in 3 or more months
Make a list of what goes in the Challenge Box and add boxes as needed.
Take a picture of each box as it fills up, if you want a visual record.

After 100 days, you'll have accomplished these things
- Big “give-away” pile for charity
- Plans and organization to have a garage sale. To make sure that most stuff goes, try labeling a majority of items with "Make me an offer." (You might try selling the really valuable things on EBay.)
- Happier for having a lot less to store and/or dust.
- A bit more money in your pocket or savings account because you are thoroughly aware of what it means to buy and hold on to so many useless things.

Where to from there
So, I hope you start out your minimalism challenge by choosing to get rid of 100 things. You'll find it's true that the less you have, the less you have to worry about. You’ll amaze yourself at how free you feel - no longer burdened by the need to organize, store and maintain all that stuff. Just keep on paring down and you’ll feel even better. And that relief can be extended to other areas - if you're both convinced and brave. (You might try a week-long camping trip to see if 100 (or even less) items are enough to live with on the short term.) Besides your belongings, you could then move on to other minimalistic challenges that can cover other areas that tend to complicate our existence and contribute to the carbon burden of the Earth, such as:
- New digital gadgetry
- Media consumption
- Costly dietary items
- Non-essential energy and water use
- Long-distance and long-commute travel

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HOW CONSUMERISM (STILL) TRIES TO FOOL US

What is consumerism?

From Wikipedia, we have this definition: “Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts.” And that’s the same mass consumption lifestyle that the majority in the U.S. practices or, practiced in the second half of the 20th century.

The consumerist system offers us promises: Having more and "better" things will bring us happiness and others will regard us as successful - maybe even envy us. So, the gist of it is: If we buy things – even those things that we don’t mostly need - like designer clothes and furniture, shiny new cars, expensive beverages and foods, etc., we will  feel happy and fulfilled. It's a hard sell. And who was out there was telling us that the happiest people are those who buy more and better? It was our old “friends” - our own commercial, mercantile society aided by thousands of ads from local sources, the mass media, and sometimes even “preached” from the pulpits.

Experts report that the average U.S. person faces three thousands ads each day. Most of the ads come from the usual three to four hours of TV watching, but add to that, signs and billboards, the faces of our buildings, and even the sides of our city buses, all urging us to buy, buy, buy….

Unfortunately, we – you and I - once went along with some of those ideas and got into a lot of trouble doing so, including debts, staying in jobs we didn’t like, marriage break-ups, foreclosures, etc. We found that each time we reached out to grasp just a little more, what we wanted always receded just a bit further out of reach. And, if we began to doubt in these illusions, we could always befuddle ourselves into a kind of psychological conformity with a never-ending supply of addictions, including smoking, drinking, legal and illegal substances, overeating, video gaming, and other vices - these things converting us into another sort of "consumers" .

The powerful even created an ideology of consumerism to scare us into conformity. They told us that continued economic growth (including job creation, in its moment) would eventually benefit everyone, and that no constraints to growth would have to be considered, including our natural resources. With more opportunities and greater technology, we would be able to overcome any momentary limitations, and that corporate rights to profits (otherwise known as a pro-business climate) supersede human rights, labor rights, and environmental protections. Somehow, private enterprise would find ways to overcome all our technological and resource problems. (And, even if it didn't turn out that way, we could still be entertained by the super-rich in reality shows. Afterall, it was our grandchildren and other generations to come who could pay the consequences. Right?) Remember how G Bush told us that, in the face of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, his patriotic duty was to wage an international war and ours was to continue shopping – at all costs!

But what about our “real” needs?

Of course, all of us have real needs and they include agricultural products and some essential consumer goods and services. And throughout most of human history, the consuming rich were few and "regular" people fought hard to fulfill even their basic needs. But at the turn of the 20th century, what with growth of US and European industrialism, came the "conspicuous consumption" of a whole class of rich people along with the emergence of some other major-league consumers, called the middle class. After WWII the American (Consumers) Dream came to include almost everyone. There was even the “War On Poverty”, a plan for the entire population to have their essential needs met - that and even more. The backing for the economic system that would end poverty, once and for all, was based on ever more complex technology and consumerism. That seemed to be our overriding hope, and we held on to it until the past few years when globalization, challenges to the middle class, unemployment and increased poverty pointed to a new societal phase where many people would again have to confront long-term hardship and scarcity. Also, by that time, we had become sadly aware of man-created shortages of water, clean air, fertile land, timber, etc. and the need to deal with immense quantities of trash on land and in the oceans.

How can we do to reduce the effects of consumerism?

In the face of the political and corporate interests that exercise so much power, we ask ourselves: "What can I do?" Too many people tell us that the answer is a resigned: “Nothing at all”. But that can’t be so. Individuals and groups can always take steps to change their own behavior with the hope that others will follow, sooner or later. First of all, we have to consider are our attitudes toward consumerism. If we aren’t too sick or too confused by substance abuse and other addictions, we should be able to deal with our reality. In the face of every single potential purchase, we need to ask ourselves, "Do we really need this? What do we already have that would serve the same purpose?" We need to see our lives as complete without a lot of material add-ons. We don’t need to “have” the best, quickest, or the fanciest. When we stop seeing the the things in this world and each other as commodities, we can then start using our hearts and minds for more enlightened purposes.

- Change your spending habits

Live simply so that others – people, plants, and animals, and generations to come - may have a chance to live. That means acquiring fewer material things and consuming less energy. There are books, magazines, Internet sources, and classes that can help us discover better spending habits. Follow the three-R’s: Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle. Buy products with less processing, less packaging, and that don’t hurt the environment.  Share your careful spending efforts with your family and neighbors. Don't be fooled into buying a bunch of things that are supposed to be "green" - many of them are just a trendier sort of consumerism.

- Organize and protest

Boycott services and products that harm our environment, society and people. Use your mouth, your letters, and your feet to march, when necessary, to protest wrongdoing. Tell others that you’re not being fooled again by a consumerist system based on unlimited financial gain, oppressive corporate law, and damage to the earth. Get together with others and talk about ways to be supportive of each others' efforts to make change.  Join political and charitable organizations that work for social harmony, resource conservation and a sustainable future. Oftentimes, the best place to start is in your local community. One project would be to make and distribute a phone directory of local small businesses that use and sell products based on quality and sustainability.

- Walk, bicycle or take public transportation

Cut back on your dependence on the car and on gasoline. Make use of public transportation whenever you can. There are a lot of short trips that could be made walking or bicycling. Staying in buildings, cars, and buses keeps us from contact with the natural world. Lower your carbon footprint by getting more exercise and experiencing nature whenever time and weather permit.

- Bake bread and eat simple, nourishing meals

Bake your own bread, using wholegrain flour (organic is best), and cook nourishing vegetarian or mostly vegetarian meals. It's a way of slowing down and celebrating life. When you can’t home-bake, then buy bread at a local bakery. When you eat out, choose 100% locally owned restaurants - not national operatives - that specialize in good, nourishing food at a reasonable price.

- Work less

In recent decades, the working poor and even better off groups, spend more time on the job. Most working people are overworked and exhausted. We don't need more things!  And we don't need to pay down all that debt we got ourselves into so fast. (Employers say they're waiting for the economy "uptick" to hire. We can wait for it, too, and pay the rest of our debts whenever it comes.) We've also got to save some money the best way we can for worse times that may appear down the road. Beyond that, we need to spend more time for our families and to do things more in line with creating a sustainable future. And every day, we should take some time for spiritual tranquility, meditation and prayer. This can be our motto: Let's work less, spend less, and be more alive, aware, and caring.

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TAKE POSITIVE AND PEACEFUL ACTIONS TO CONFRONT FOOD SHORTAGES.

TRY SWAPPING TO SHRINK YOUR WASTEFUL HABITS (WITH OTHER BENEFITS, TOO.)

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Preparing vegetarian meals.

UNRAVEL OLD SWEATERS AND KNIT NEW THINGS

If you’ve been to the fabric or craft stores lately, you know that good yarn is not cheap. A hundred yards of fine yarn may cost as much as 7 or 8 dollars. That's one hour or more of the official hourly minimum wage. So, even home production using store-bought yarn doesn't really qualify as an inexpensive craft. Nevertheless, most of us would rather have hand knitted garments and home accessories than manufactured ones. And while there may be fewer items in our closets, handmade items can be real treasures to keep for many years. So, it’s smart to save money and unravel the yarn from old knits to create new things.

Well, you may be asking yourself: “Just who wants to sit down and tear out old sweaters, afghans, etc for the yarn?” Well, Grandma Susan often recycles yarn by tearing out knitted items, and a lot of other people do, too. Yes, it often takes two, three or more hours of work, depending on the kind of knits you're taking apart. So, why even do it?  The answer:  it’s cheap yarn - free if it’s from your own sweater or one given to you or at a cost of only $1-3 at a thrift store. Besides, sometimes it turns out to be more interesting yarn than what we find at the regular fabric and craft stores.  It also points to a philosophical position. Why spend money to obtain what is already available to us at a fraction of the price and at a no-carbon cost to the planet?

Fifty years ago, a lot of women made their own clothes. It was considered a virtue. Why was that? We made our clothing because wages were low and US manufactured goods were expensive, relative to our income. At that time, imported goods were almost prohibitively expensive. Even for those of us who weren’t so handy with a sewing machine, there was almost always a good seamstress in the neighborhood who made us things at a reasonable price. So, what happened? In the 80’s and 90’s a lot of cheap imports began to flood our stores with clothing. R Reagan told us we were going global. We weren’t too sure what that meant, but among our many surprises, it meant that cheap imports would take away almost all our motivation to produce things for our homes, our families and ourselves.

Over time, we came to know more about globalization as we discovered and devoured cheap things from abroad. Unfortunately, in a few decades, that same process led to the closing of much manufacturing in the US. We were told that was also something good. US people were not meant to work in fields and sweat shops, like those poor people in other countries. Instead almost all US people could aspire to office and service jobs. So, every young person should gear up to get the new skilled jobs by going to college or technical schools. Education was to be the key to mobility in the new global order.

But then came the global recession, and now there aren’t very many skilled jobs to be found. Worse still, a good fraction of the population faces unemployment and underemployment. And the few jobs that replace those we lost aren’t paying much more than minimum wage. We are also being made aware that what was cheap overseas labor is getting more expensive. Apparently, those people, too, are hoping (some are fighting) for better wages. Also, the cheap oil that carried imported goods thousands of miles to our stores is getting costlier by the month.

So, once again, the cost of manufactured goods may end up being expensive relative to the average income. And what goes around comes around. We may again be producing food and goods in our homes and locally.  And people who have the time can use it to create worthwhile things. That’s the case in point, and many of us are pleased to produce a part of what we need for our families and ourselves.

My inspiration
Just a month ago, I visited an old friend who is a fine jewelry maker who combines natural and recycled elements in her creations. She told me about how she sells her jewelry in craft fairs all over the South West, and how she'd like to have some hand knit scarves to “show-off” her jewelry at the booths. She believed that a collection of colorful scarves would attract more customers to her booth. Also, she had had some losses from theft in past events and felt that the pieces would be more secure if they were firmly attached to knitted items. Knowing that I’m a knitter, she asked me to make her some scarves. I told her that I would.

And this past month, I sat down and knitted two scarves from yarn that I had on hand from previous projects. Later she told me about a really big craft fair coming up in the fall that features beautiful things made from recycled materials. So, that, too, became part of my challenge. I decide to make some scarves from recycled sweaters that I found at the thrift store. I’ve already unraveled one such sweater and knitted the first scarf. Now, I’m currently unraveling the second sweater and ready to work on the second one. And this is the inspiration for this post - making new things from unraveled sweaters.

Instructions for recycling yarn from old sweaters.
The process is relatively simple, although it will take some time. Be prepared to spend all of one morning or afternoon just unraveling and making yarn balls. The important thing is to choose the items that you wish to tear apart with care. Look for old sweaters that are in good shape and are made from fairly thick yarn. If the yarn is too thin, you'll need to knit together three or more strands at a time. That's not such a simple task. Also, you’ll be much better off, choosing a sweater sewn by hand, not by machine. Look at the inside seams of the sweater. If the seams are made with visible stitches using yarn, it’s got to be a hand-sewn garment. Hand seamed garments unravel in long, continuous pieces, and that  makes them fairly easy to take apart. You’ll lose a lot of time with a machine-sewn sweater making a lot of cuts, row by row and end up with many tie-ends. To make a nice garment, you need long strands of usable yarn not a series of tie-ends.

So, after you’ve located a great - preferably hand-sewn - sweater, get ready to unravel.

1. Locate the seams. Start with the collar. You can usually see the threads on the collar quite well. On one side of the collar seam, you’ll find a thread line. When you look closely, you’ll see that the threads form little V's along the seam. You have to cut and/or pull out the threads on the side opposite the V's to separate the pieces.  If you don't locate any  V's or can't pull out the seams in one piece, procede by cutting the seam threads as carefully as you can - just a fraction of an inch at a time - so as not to break the yarn in the sweater pieces. Use fingers, pointy scissors and a seam ripper as needed. You’ll also have need of a good light. The unraveling process is tiring on the eyes (and really quite boring), so if you become jittery, take a break. Continue finding seams and separating the pieces.

2. After the pieces are sorted out, you're ready to start the unraveling process. Most sweaters are knitted from the bottom up so you will need to start unraveling at the shoulders/neck and work your way down. You’ll probably want to cut off and throw away a few rows that are incomplete or hard to deal with at the tops of the sleeves and at the shoulders and neckline. If the collar is just a few rows long, it may also be a throwaway while the yarn from a larger collar may be usable. Examine each piece and try to find where the piece was finished. This is the starting point for unraveling. Be sure to ball up the yarn as you unravel.

3. The yarn will be kinky, but the process of balling up and reknitting should help straighten out the yarn. If you're still worried about the waviness of the yarn, you can stretch it out, soak it in warm water and set it out in an airy place to dry. You'll also need to ball it up again.

Notes
After writing this post, I remembered some important details about unraveling sweaters.  First, for hygiene sake, it's always best to wash any old knitted item in warm water and detergent before handling it. That way you can be fairly sure to have eliminated any harmful bacteria. Second, seam ripping and unraveling will produce a lot of fabric lint. Be prepared for the lint by doing the unraveling outside, on a porch, or in any room other than where you sleep. If you are in a closed room, you may need to wear a dust mask and be ready to sweep up and dust surfaces one or more times.


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A LOT CAN BE SAID ABOUT A GOOD SCARF.

CHOOSE WHOLE-FAMILY ACTIVITIES FOR AN ENJOYABLE AND EARTH-FRIENDLY SUMMER

During the cold months, it’s hard to think of fun family activities that don’t involve major energy usage. Everyone wants to be inside in a warm house, hurrying home in a gas-guzzling (some more, some less) bus or car, having a dinner, and getting into a comfy bed early. But, come summer, we can opt for other entertainment and at a lower energy cost. Some warm-weather vacation activities don’t call for any extra spending – just making a choice to expand your leisure horizons. Here are five whole-family activities that will can make your carbon footprint and your heart lighter this summer.

1. At home, outdoor get-together.
Plan for an earth-friendly, outdoor dinner with family and friends rather than going out to a restaurant. (You might want to announce your reasons for the dinner beforehand.) Serve a veggie-fest instead of the usual meat-heavy picnic fare. Your vegetables can be summer favorites such as corn on the cob, baked potatoes, eggplant, etc, grilled at the time or pre-prepared. Accompany the veggies with baked beans, whole-grain dinner rolls, and a curried egg-salad or pimento cheese. Use your ceramic dinner wear, regular utensils, and cloth napkins – no plastic or paper throwaways. And be sure to buy the beer in glass bottles - instead of aluminum cans - and serve iced tea, lemonade or fruit punch (no High Fructose Corn Syrup, please) in regular glasses - instead of soda pop in plastic or aluminum. Your earth-friendly choice of food and beverages will more than half the carbon usage of your meal. Also, skip those greasy commercial snacks and set out bowls of healthier munchies, such as popcorn, whole-grain crackers, and celery, carrots, and radishes with a tasty dip.

2. Reuse yard event
Remember the "three R's" of earth-friendliness -- reduce, reuse, and recycle. While most of us are reducing (our purchases) and recycling (our trash), not so many people are looking for reuses for no-longer wanted items. Here’s a way to highlight reuse among your family and friends. Plan a reuse yard event. Instead of selling or giving away stuff that’s not being used, host a neighborhood or church-based reuse event. Think of all the time people spend watching do-it-yourself programs where they see ingenious and stylish reuses. Your goal is to bring out that creative knowledge and spirit in the group. All the participants bring a small collection of things in good condition that they no longer use. When the group is gathered, each item is held up, one-at-a-time, and everyone is asked to tell how they would use it or reuse it. Sometimes, the best use would be its original function but not always. Brainstorming is encouraged. It's likely that people will come up with some interesting new reuses that the group would like to hear - or at least be amused by. Then have a vote on who came up with the most original or the most worthy reuse. That person “wins” the item and decides its fate – to be kept for personal use, given to someone else who wants or needs it, or put in a pile to be donated to a local charity.

3. Backyard overnight for your children.
A backyard overnight is a perfect, low-carbon vacation experience for young children and their friends. (Clearly, one or more watchful adults should always be present for the duration of the event. Grandparents can be encouraged to participate or even organize this kind of activity for grandchildren.) First, plan how you are going to sleep - in a tent, under a tarp lean-to, under the stars, on a porch, or in a breezeway. Then, arrange the outdoor evening meal as an adult-supervised grill-out, or easier yet, just open a large picnic basket filled with sandwiches and goodies. Check the weather the day before and have some anti-bug lotion ready. Think of an alternate area for "camping" if rain comes up.  Breakfast can be made of finger-foods and set out on a buffet, indoors or out, to be served after all the "mess" is cleaned up in the sleeping area.

Plan some outdoor games (no electronics) for entertainment before and after dinner. Among the games could be a group painted mural (crayons and colored pens are cleanest) on an old bed sheet or paper fastened or taped to a wall. The children should choose the theme for their mural. Another great backyard activity is a  scavenger hunt for things likely to be found in your yard or “planted” there especially for the event. Adults and kids would enjoy running an obstacle course. One obstacle "station" would be running, zigzag style around a course made up of a collection of large objects. Another could be a jumping station where players must jump over a rope 20 times. The same rope, when lowered a foot off the ground can be a crawl-through station. There could also be a penny tossing station where the targets are different sized cans or plastic bowls. The child who sets the "record" time finishing the obstacle course gets a prize.

4. Visit to the farmers' market
If yours isn't a farm or garden-raising family (where everyone knows a lot about producing and processing fresh stuff), you can still reap some seasonal benefits by visiting a large farmers' market. At the market, spend time observing and identifying what's in the produce stands and chatting with vendors about the products. Take your own large, reusable shopping bags for your purchases and have a camera ready to take pictures of the outing. Have each family member  choose and purchase at least one item that they like (that moment would surely make for a good picture). Later the same day, everyone in the family, including children, can look for recipes and help prepare a dinner based on market purchases.

5. Local volunteer work
Spend some of your summer mornings or afternoons volunteering. Through local volunteer work, the entire family can take part in healthy, socially conscious activitites. Where possible, choose active, body-moving activities over seated, in-office kinds of service. Volunteer ideas include stuffing boxes at a local food bank, cleaning trash from the side of a road, serving food at a local drop-in center, and taking newspapers and magazines and offering to read them to people in a nursing home. Another idea is to help your children and their friends canvass the neighborhood for items to be sold in a weekend yard sale (should be the same week, if possible) on behalf of a local charity. Be sure to let the neighbors know that you'll report back on the results of the sale and that everyone, children and adults alike, will sign the donation letter that accompanies the check.

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Preparing vegetarian meals.

 

Earth Hour has rolled around again. By switching off your lights, you show your concern for the protection of our planet. Earth Hour 2011 will happen, for the 4th year, on Sat. March 26 from 8:30-9:30PM, local time.

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CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITIES FOR A DOWN-HOME ECO-VACATION

Now, the idea of eco-vacationing may sound like something that only young people or the fanciful do, but I'm talking about something quite different. And, of course, I'm not envisioning  the eco-vacations that the super-rich and famous take to exclusive and exotic places. What I'm thinking about is the possibility that “everyday” people offer their homes in the backwoods or working farms as eco-vacation spots this spring or summer to others who want to try out a few weeks of simple living and physical work. I see these eco-vacations as a means to create links between similarly concerned families who wish to build kindred spirit and explore ways to build better communities for the future. (Beyond that, there may be possibilities for eco-rentals of currently unused cabins or farmhouses for people who want a few weeks or months to explore a simpler lifestyle on their own terms.)

So, who’s the potential eco-guest?
I think a lot of us could be eco-guests. Many people are dead-tired of their 9-to-5 jobs and look for a break from those surroundings. Also, you know, there are a lot of unemployed people out there, and many of them aren't, by any means, inactive by choice. A lot of retired people as well, I include myself in this group, are still healthy enough and willing to explore a different lifestyle. And, these likely eco-guests probably don’t have the money right now for a "traditional" holiday trip.  Beyond that, they and their family members may really want some other kind of vacation - one that would give them the opportunity to get clean air and sunshine and learn some down-to-earth living skills and ways to reduce their carbon-footprints. They could do all this and, at the same time, participate in real, physical work in homesteading, sustainable farming, and other kinds of green-living experiments.

What would the eco-hosts offer?
An eco-host wouldn't need to provide "eco-luxe" accommodations but rather have some feature, or features, of a simpler, down-home lifestyle that would be of interest to eco-guests.  Basically, it would be something like a simple "bed and breakfast" place to stay. That would entail a private bedroom to sleep in and a bathroom that wouldn't be shared (at least not by a lot of other folks), and a special work project or two that other people could participate in for a few weeks or a couple of months.  The hosts would offer family-style lodging and companionship and teach the skills for the work or project to be carried out, as required. The guests would pay (or not) a low-cost board and do some work, the general kind and quantity to be determined by all parties beforehand. All the details could be discussed by email, phone, or face-to-face, according to the requirements of hosts and guests.

You can design your own kind of eco-vacation.
Now, this eco-vacation wouldn't have to be - probably shouldn't be - some wilderness or extreme survival experiment. Obviously, those projects exist but what I’m talking about here is quite a bit different than that. There are many areas of the country that offer clean air and real outdoors beauty, and this can be restorative for city folk. The fact is that, on average, Americans spend more than 95 percent of our time indoors, separated from nature. On the other hand, not so many of us want to live in tents and make campfires (for more than a few days at a time), and are poorly prepared, or hardly in the frame of mind, for some kind of survival school. In my opinion, what most eco-guests are wanting is the opportunity to learn more about the practical arts of simple, self-sufficient living, including gardening and building eco-sustainable homes and communities.

So, the eco-vacation that I urge you to consider here - to offer or to join-up – isn’t some kind of predetermined scheme, but rather the opportunity that you can dream up that would help you, your family, and other people explore a more satisfying and environmentally-friendly way of life.

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EMBRACE A SIMPLE HOME