A few years ago, I send off a form letter from Greenpeace to Kimberly Clarke, asking them to stop using old growth forests in their toilet paper. I got a reply (which I totally wasn’t expecting) that explained they had to use the old growth forests to make the toilet paper soft enough. I was astounded. To me it’s like saying ” I need to cut your son’s arm off to make myself a hat. It has to be his arm because that is the fashion right now”. I Need totally screw up the ecosystem so that you can wipe your butt with something that feels like kittens!?! Come on.

Toilet paper made from recycled paper can be soft and smooth as well. We buy Atlantic Brand, April Soft from Grass Roots. It comes wrapped in recycled paper rather than plastic and I really can’t tell the difference between it and other toilet paper. I just discovered, however that not all recycled TP is created equal. I forgot to pick some up at Grass Roots, so I bought a different brand( Seventh Generation) at Organics on Bloor. I was very excited because I thought Grass Roots was the only place to get recycled toilet paper without plastic (except for Karma Co-op which I have never been able to find the entrance to). Anyhow I bought 4 rolls and told the owner I would mention it on my blog. Unfortunately it sucks. It’s thin and scratchy and I’m afraid we are all going to get chaffed bottoms. If that was my only experience with recycled toilet paper, I wouldn’t be as happy about using it.

About 3 weeks ago now I got 9 inches cut off my hair to donate to the Cancer Society. I went through the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. I chose them mostly because that had very clear concise instructions and a free mailing label to send the hair.

It felt like a drastic change to me, but very few people have noticed. When I told my 7 year old niece, she said “looks the same”. Well little lady, it’s not, it’s way shorter and layered for the first time in my life, unless you count when we just randomly cut off my dreadlocks. That resulted in kind of a layered look, but this is different because it’s “professional”.
Anyhow the point, really, was to donate to a good cost and not have any garbage. I went to an Aveda Salon, called Hair by Nature and had my hair cut by an apprentice for $10.  Her name is Alexis, if you are interested in getting a cheap hair cut. She was good and I like my hair cut but she didn’t read any of the instructions that I brought her and when she picked up my cut off pony tail at the end it came out of the bag. The instructions state a few time “make sure the pony tail is secure.  We suggest putting a second band in the middle before cutting it off. We will not accept hair if it comes out of the pony tail.” My belly was doing flip flops about it so I called Pantene. The first time, I waited for about 5 minutes and then was disconnected from their end, so I called back. After waiting another 5 minutes, I heard” Hi, this is Dan how can I assist you?” So I said “Hi Dan, I recently cut…” and Dan said “hello? hello? This is Dan, can you hear me? Hello? I can’t hear you so if you can hear me, I’m very sorry because I have to disconnect now and you will have to call back.” Ugggg! So I called back and waited another 5 minutes. This time I got a very friendly woman with a southern accent. When I said, ” Can you hear me? ” she said, ” I can hear ya clear as day, honey, and I’m shore glad ya called!” I explained my predicament to she put me on hold to double check. When she came back, she Thanked me for making such a big sacrifice, and told me to do the right thing and send it on in! Phew! I know that (in the words of Sook-Yin Lee, from her band Bob’s your Uncle) “hair is just dead cells emerging from your scalp”, but the hair cut was a bit more dramatic than I expected. I have sported a bald head quite a few times throughout my life, so I thought it would be no biggy, but it took me 6 years to grow my hair from shaved to my elbows and I had become quite attached to it. Needless to say I sent my hair on in and I am happy that it can be used!

Last Weekend my favorite brother-in-law scored my sister and I passes to the clothing show. It was a bit overwhelming but I found 2 great green designers-ecofriendly, environmentally sound, trash free and stylish! I didn’t buy anything from wither of them but would like to in the future. The first was Bee Organic from Athena Designs. Simple comfy organic clothes with beautiful bees silk screened on to them.

The second was Passenger Pigeon. They have gotten a lot of good press, especially from the Now Magazine, and I understand why. They use organic cotton and hemp, manufactured without sweatshop labour. They reuse other stores packaging and send things off in cardboard boxes they find on the street-my kind of gals. Also their designs are beautiful. The prints look kind of Victorian but when you look closer you see, windmills, solar panels, bicycles and even garbage. My sister really wanted me to have the garbage dress, but I couldn’t justify spending money on clothes when I already have so many and so little space. I did buy Kyle an organic Bamboo t-shirt with a really cool tree design on it, but I can’t remember the designers name-shoot. The shirt only says HT, which is the company that makes the plain bamboo tees.I also got Aurora an organic cotton T-shirt that says “Tree Hugger”.

I had our home made toothpaste in a glass jar, but Kyle was concerned about germ mixing if we were both dunking our toothbrush in. I have always been lax on things like that because I think of the multitude of other ways our germs are mixing, but to make him feel better, I put it in a plastic squeeze bottle. It was good solution in theory, but we had previously used the bottle to store home made salad dressing  and had taken on the flavour. I remember the salad dressing being tasty but it’s not so delicious to brush your teeth with. So I had to ditch that batch and make a new one. It’s in another glass jar with a spoon beside it for us to use. The good news is the second batch is even better than the first and it no longer seperates.

I finally bought a keeper and I am mostly happy with my purchase except that it came in plastic! There is a little pamphlet explaining how much waste menstrual products usually cause and how the keeper is the most environmentally friendly choice because you can use it for 10 years and it is biodegradable. I doubt the plastic it came in is though and I bet there’s even more of that in landfill. I really don’t understand because it comes with a beautiful cotton carrying case- why not just sell it in that?

We usually buy Tom’s of Maine toothpaste because you can recycle the tube. It is difficult to wash out though and we are still left with a plastic cap, and of course, recycling is no the best either. I tried making my own tooth powder (on National TV no less) and it was disgusting, so we continued using Tom’s… Recently I came across Adria Vasil’s toothpaste recipe. I finally tried it and it is so good that even Kyle uses it! Yaaay. So now we just have the glycerin bottle and the mint bottle, which will do us for at least 10 years, I think.
Oh and we still have Aurora’s toothpaste tube, but she doesn’t use as much as when hers is finished I’ll look into making some for her too.
**** Adria’s recipe doesn’t make very much and I also found it to be so minty it hurt a bit so I adjusted it. It could be because of the kind of mint we have. Anyhow here’s my recipe:
6 tablespoons baking soda (whitener)
1 pinch salt (mild abrasive)
4 tbsp vegetable glycerin (to create the gel)
5 drops of a minty organic essential oil

We are list makers. We make daily to -do lists (on scrap parer that has been used on both sides and then the white parts are cut off and saved for list)with tasks that rarely get finished on the day they were meant to. For weeks, “make samosas” was on the list everyday and we finally did it! We were sometimes buying samosa at Sobeys deli and putting them in our own container, so the only garbage created was the sticker, so we are not really cutting back on heaps of garbage, but we are also saving money and we have more control over what exactly gpes in them.

We used this recipe, but baked them instead of deep frying. They were delicious. Now we are going to experiment with different fillings so the samosas can be more of a complete meal- we will add chick peas or lentils and other veggies.

We also tried a new recipe for veggie burgers. It comes from the Lean, Lucious and Meatless Cookbook by Bobbie Hinman and Millie Snyder. We used black beans instead of kidney beans and baked them instead of frying them. Actually, “we” didn’t, Kyle did while I was out at a clothing swap (another great way to be trash free). I have to admit that we used canned beans. A few weeks ago I soaked beans and cooked them to make Cajun style burritos, but I forgot to rinse them at all so the beans are so gaseous that we can’t even eat them- they hurt our bellies so much. We are using canned beans for a bit until I get my brain back.
ON a side note, there is a public transit strike on in Toronto right now, so we got to the clothing swap the greenest way ever- walking. It was an all day adventure as it took a bit over an hour to walk there and two hours to walk back- 3 adults, 2 babies, one stroller, two carriers and a lot of clothes. I think we had less on the way back but I can’t be sure.

Aurora now likes Oak Manor organic bulk rice cereal! She ate the whole bowl and wanted more! She also likes avocado and sweet potato-no packages there either. I knew she was a “tree hugger” at heart!

A few weeks ago I met my brother (who lives in Midland) at IKEA for a fun family outing. He thought it was hilarious that he was meeting his anti- consumer sister at a big box store. Well, I’m not anti consumer. I have to admit, I love to shop! But, I do think it’s important to know what I am buying and try to make smart choices. Money is power, in more ways than one.

It is getting harder to make smart choices now that it is so hip to be green. So much is just green washing. My brother-in-law ( I usually say my favorite brother in law, but then I realized I actually do have another bro-in law and I don’t want him to be offended) just showed me this chart and it made me very sad. So many organic and fair trade food companies are actually owned by big bad corporations. I knew Converse was bought by Nike and Burt;s Bee’s is now owned by Clorax, but this chart shows that green washing has gotten way out of control.

The day after I saw it, I bought some EARTH’S BEST diaper rash cream for Aurora. The stuff I really like is made by woman in Guelph and she has had some sort of family catastrophe and is not in production right now. So I bought the Earth’s Best even though I knew they were owned by Hienz and I really shouldn’t have. First of all, there was a little styrofoam piece on the top between the cream and the container lid:secondly it doesn’t work very well, and thirdly the lid spontaneously popped up after 3 or 4 uses and won’t close now. That’s Karma for me!
Now to take Green washing more literally, I bought a very expensive mop ($70 after taxes and “shipping”) from Green for Life . I haven’t used it yet and was a bit disappointed that it came wrapped in plastic. I got a sweater stone from the same company and it also came wrapped in plastic. Anyhow it was too big to ship so Cassandra personally delivered it, which was awesome. She’s also really nice. I’ll have to let you know how I like the mop once I actually have time to use it. It seems to me that there are so many things to worry about when trying to shop conscientiously that most people drop one or two- and for some reason the issue of waste and over packaging almost always gets dropped. Even David Suzuki admitted to using disposable cups and food containers sometimes because “there are bigger issues to deal with.” It was kind of funny since he just finished giving a speech about how everything is connected and our society’s problem is that we forget that. Hmmmm Mister Suzuki, I think I found your one fault. That’s OK- you’re still my hero, but I do wish you and the rest of the world cared a bit more about trash!

So it’s been over a month since I’ve blogged- Sorry! Same old excuses- I’m looking after the baby, chasing sleep etc. etc. Ahhhh sleep, some day I will catch you again. If I was smart I would be sleeping right now, since the girl is, but instead I’m here! I’ve been away so long that I only just noticed….

1. Word Press has changed it’s format. I wonder when that happened?

2. All sorts of cool people have been doing similar projects and linking to me. Check it out:

http://notbuying.blogspot.com/2008/04/du-skmta-med-mig-aprillo.html Kopstopp

***actually I don’t really know if this one is saying good or bag things about me, as it it in Swedish (I think), but I think it’s pretty awesome that someone from Sweden is talking about me!

http://www.therubbishdiet.blogspot.com/

http://tiffanyhilman.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-waste.html

http://theuselessconsumer.squarespace.com/blog/2008/3/14/oscar-the-grouch-is-going-to-fall-in-love-with-me.html

http://commonplacesketchbook.com/?p=69

http://michellesreality.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/two-posts-in-one-thanksupdates-and-enviro-blogs-ive-been-loving/

Last week, our young film maker friend Mr. Meriwether, came by again to film us for his documentary. I call him our young friend though he is only a few years younger than myself, because when he first contacted us I envisioned him as being middle aged. Any how I was feeling quite sheepish about being filmed because the other people he is filming seem to be so much greener than we are ( one of them is Joel Saltin)

Anyhow the first thing we did was go for a walk with Aurora to buy a diaper bag off of Craig’s list, and it turned out to be not what I wanted at all, but I felt all silly so I bought it anyway, and now I can’t resell it! Aurora sucks on ADVENT silicone soothers because she refused the natural rubber ones and her thumb and I was tired of being a pacifier. We buy a lot more packaged things now and put a lot out to recycle- sigh. He caught us, on camera, making spanokopita with phyllo pastry that came in cardboard and plastic.It just made me aware of all the things I want to be doing but am not doing as much of due to lack of time and sleep. He also filmed our bed time routine, which made me paranoid that people would see it and criticize my parenting skills. I’ve gotten lots of criticism on the garbage project and that is one thing, but parenting is a whole new bucket of worms, and I just don’t want to hear what other people think about how we’re doing (unless it’s praise Graham (Meriwether) seems to think we are still on the right track though and he was in awe of Aurora (our little charmer). Anyhow he’ll be back again in a few months and hopefully we’ll be a little more rested (fingers crossed) and a little more green….although ….I told Graham, on camera that we weren’t going to do any packaged baby foods, but already Aurora hated the bulk rice cereal but loved the packaged oat baby cereal…so we’ll see. My Dad says she is not a tree hugger, but I think she will be. She is just too young to make informed decisions right now

Many people have been asking me how our garbage-free lifestyle has changed since having a baby. Of course having a baby changes everything, but it doesn’t mean you have to just give up. Here’s a chart of what makes us green and what gives us the blues.

Green	Blue
We use cloth diapers and “natural infant hygiene”We also use wash cloths and natural wipe solution instead of disposable wipes.	-a lot more laundry due to diapers and accidents on towels, sheets, my pants etc.-dryer use
We have been able to get most items that we need from Craig’s List, second Hand stores or hand-me- downs from friends and family	-some times people save the original packaging and pass it on to us
Our garbage production hasn’t increased much, but our recycling has.	-We don’t spend as much time looking for package free goods. If we feel the baby needs something, we’re more likely to just get it in a package after looking at only a few stores.
We still save our bath water to flush the toilet and have also started a bucket in the kitchen that we fill when waiting for the water to heat up and we use it to water plants, rinse the sink etc.	-Due to sleep deprivation, I’ve had a lot more accidental garbage because I haven’t checked carefully enough and I always forget to ask for drinks without a straw at restaurants.
- When we order pizza, we order from a place that doesn’t use the little plastic holder uppers, so all we have is the box to recycle	- We order more pizza than ever before and we now often get pre-made rice milk or juice instead of making our own.
-now that we have a baby, we have a new life for our socks that can no longer be darned. I cut of the toes(which is usually the darned holey part and make little leg warmers for her.

Rob Grand has a really great post about being a careful consumer, now that green is hip. I find it harder to be careful in my shopping now that I have a wee one. I am more susceptible to marketing ploys, as I have less space in my brain-it’s all for the baby now!