First – a round-up for the kiddos…

This first video is hands down my most favorite recycling video for kids, by kids (ok older teens) of all time. These kids are so flipping funny and so on target with the music and how the video was cut. I laugh every single time I watch it.

What tofu does when you walk away… I love this video – it’s pretty silly. My son liked it, but then he’s a strange kiddo. If you’ve got a wacky kid they might like this too. Or you can simply read more about kids and tofu.

Last up, a video for little ones that explains recycling in terms they can totally understand.

Grab your kids and enjoy – later I’ll post a round up of some of the more adult-minded green videos from THF’s past.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

From least to most popular green sin:

Recklessly use the printer — 2% of all votes

Don’t buy recycled office paper — 2% of all votes

Don’t recycle anything — 3% of all votes

Never buy organic foods — 3% of all votes

Still use detergents with phosphate — 3% of all votes

Don’t bother getting off junk mail lists — 4% of all votes

Buy a lot of stuff I may not need cause I love to shop — 4% of all votes

Refuse to carpool to work — 6% of all votes

Use Raid on spiders — 8% of all votes

Eat convenience foods with too much packaging — 12% of all votes

Drive an SUV (choice added by reader) — 15% of all votes

And the Biggest Green Sin was . . .

Leave unused appliances/chargers plugged in all day — 36% of all votes (That’s also the one I voted for.)

It’s good to know so many of you are recycling! That choice received very few votes. If you need to work on not leaving unused appliances plugged in all day, try a power strip AND check out Jennifer’s post — One Small Step: Solve One Green Sin (At Least Partially).

As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve been writing about these green sins all month. Here are the posts in case you missed them:

Never Buy Organic Food

Driving an SUV

Reasons to Carpool

Raid on Spiders

Using Dishwasher Detergents with Phosphates

Recklessly Use the Printer

Why Buy Recycled Paper

If we left out something you wanted us to cover, let us know. And please look for the new poll very soon.

Are you surprised by the poll results?

Image via stock.xchng.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

We used to be able to look at a container, note the recycle logo and feel happy. Now there are some terms thrown in that might throw you.

Pre-consumer: When a package says “Pre-consumer” it’s referring to the actual waste made during a manufacturing process. This means no-one used the item ever, but it was recycled into something new. This is not the best situation because it creates energy waste that benefited no one. Such as the thick Sunday paper no one buys. It’s not used, but it did take energy and trees to make

The good news is that at least it’s being recycled. Other items that end up as pre-consumer are items never meant for consumers. An example is trimmings from when a company makes envelopes or notebook paper.

Post-consumer: As you might have guessed, post-consumer is material that is used by consumers before being recycled. So say you did buy that Sunday paper, then you recycle it, that’s post-consumer material now.

The same goes for any object, not just paper. It could be a plastic container, a glass milk jug, any item. Now, it’s better to buy post-consumer because obviously we’re reusing items to a greater capacity. That said, currently humans barely recycle – honestly we as a group of humans on the planet recycle far under 50% total of what we could. It’s terrible. So, pre-consumer is still far better than nothing. But if you have a choice choose high post-consumer material products.

I hope the terms today and yesterday help you on your recycling journey. It’s nice sometimes to have everything laid out.

To learn more read:

• US Postal Service Helps You Recycle
• School Waste Reduction
• Who Said Plastic Bags Are Good for Nothing?
• Trash Control
• Two Weeks Worth of Reuse

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Recycling:  We all know what recycling is… or do we? When it comes right down to it, recycling means we collect materials that CAN actually be used again. A material must be able to be turned back into raw material and then into something new, or there’s no point in even trying to recycle an object.

Juice lids are one example. We can toss them in a recycle bin, but they can’t be re-made into anything, so we haven’t really recycled them, have we? To be sure that your recycling efforts aren’t for nothing, the first step is to only buy products that you’re positive can be recycled.

Reuse: Reuse is part of the recycling process (see above) however, reuse is also something we can do with objects that cannot be recycled.  Reuse means that we reuse an item, either for the same tasks or objective over and over, or that we think up a new and useful use for said object. Let’s use those juice jar lids from above again. Now we can’t recycle juice lids – can we re-use them? Why sure we can. Here are some of my ideas:

• To mix paints in (for a picture, not a house obviously).
• Make a big checker board out of recycled paper and paint some lids black.
• Hold beads that you’re working with to make a necklace.
• Turn them into dolhouse furniture – a sink, a fountain, a little stool.

What else can you think of?  

Tomorrow we’ll look at two more recycling terms.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Today we have a really fun blog to feature, Keeping the Castle. If you haven’t visited Keeping the Castle before it’s a great place to gain home inspiration. Blogger Maricar focuses on all the little (and sometimes big) issues that matter when running a home smoothly. Plus her blog is a very soothing blue color – it always makes my senses happy to visit.

Today Maricar has a great green post up – Green Interiors: How to Turn Junk into Home Decor. If you love homes and green, then this post is for you. Maricar fills you in on how you can transfer the term, “Junk” into fab recycled home finds. Lots of great tips on where and how to look for cool found objects as well. Visit Maricar’s post – who knows, maybe you’ll find some cool uses for all that garage sale stuff you have in the back of your closet.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

25 Alternative Energy Strategies from a green blog I was just introduced to, Wise Living Journal. Very homestead related, which I adore.

Hilary over at Eco Friendly Driver is in a mood this week (that’s ok, so am I). She’s got some cool rants about why people can’t just work together to get one flippin’ safety bill passed and all the whining GM is doing lately about the Volt auto.

Keetsa has the scoop on eco-friendly buses.

If Valentine’s day leftovers have you asking,”How can I reuse or recycle chalky candy hearts?” Well, How Can I Recycle This? knows the answer.

The Not Quite Crunchy Parent has a great list of item names you may see in cosmetics and body care products and what they mean. Good if you’d like to have cleaner, greener, personal care.

And last but not least, Eco Child’s Play has an outstanding looking book that all green (and somewhat hippie) mamas need for their kids.

Enjoy.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

It’s refreshing to have a break from thinking about green-living so seriously.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Natural burials with biodegradable coffins and no embalming have been popular in Britain for many years, and now green cemeteries are popping up in states like New York and California, among others. For more details, see this CNN article.

The Green Burial Council maintains a list of approved providers who will facilitate green burials with conventional cemeteries in eight states. These providers can also assist people interested in being buried on their own land.

So, what do these biodegradable coffins look like? Eco Coffins offers cardboard coffins in natural, creative or custom. The poppy coffin falls in their creative category.

Here’s a natural version:

Or, if you want a sleeker natural coffin made of recycled paper, you can go with Ecopod:

Obviously, burial is a very personal choice. It’s also something many people, including me, don’t really like to think about. However, as the option of natural burial becomes increasingly available, it’s something to consider.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

So then, Peter, left this comment, “You are wrong! Aerosols are currently easily recycled – in the UK 95% of local councils accept them in the recycling scheme. Incidentally most aerosols contain around 25% of material that is recycled.”

Which of brings me back to my point that I personally have had aerosols turned away by recycling centers. I usually just don’t buy them. Still, Peter’s comment, was good because it got me thinking. I haven’t looked up aerosol laws in a while. So I did. However, I only looked up U.S. laws.

The Consumer Aerosol Products Council has an entire page about recycling aerosol products. Of course, they would, it’s to their benefit. Still, they’re claiming that almost all aerosol items are recyclable. They also note that not all centers do take them but that, “You can help by encouraging your community to accept empty aerosol cans along with other metal containers.” Which is a good point,. In the places I’ve lived that won’t accept certain items, if enough people made a fuss, the centers would have to eventually give in to consumer pressure.

If your local center won’t take your aerosol cans try this locater form to find a center that will. The Steel Recycling Institute notes that many aerosol can end up as rejects because they remain partially full, or they’re outdated. There’s pressure on recycling centers to empty cans and attempt to recycle anyway. The EPA offers scattered info on aerosol cans noting that household cans should be recycled but not all centers accept them. They also have a good section on cans that contain pesticides, noting:

“Recycling of aerosol containers is increasing dramatically and represents a significant potential recycled resource given the large numbers of units produced each year (approximately 3,000,000,000 aerosol containers of which 10% hold pesticides). Aerosol pesticide containers, however, are not now recycled to any appreciable extent because of the nature of the current safety and label instructions that require disposal of these containers. Failure to follow label statements for registered pesticides is a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Changing these label instructions to permit recycling of aerosol pesticide containers would allow such recycling programs to operate and reap significant environmental and economic benefits.”

So, it sounds like people are working on the aerosol issues – but we have a way to go.

For kids:

Roscoe’s Recycle Room is a site just for kids from the The Steel Recycling Institute. Perfect for kids who want to learn more about recycling steel products.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

It wasn’t a long conversation but Shai; one of the b5media team members got me thinking about how no one can be green all the time. Frankly, you’d have to a hermit in a cave to achieve perfect eco-sensibility and as I’ve mentioned before simply by being born you’ve used too much energy and you can’t take that back.

I’ve gotten emails from people asking me how I find all this green stuff so easy. I don’t; green is hard. We all get frustrated when trying to go green and we all have things we could do better. There are a lot of die-hard green resources out there and when everyone looks so nice and green (Tree Hugger comes to mind) it’s easy to say that green has too many expectations. I hate when people give up trying to go green because they can never live up to someone else’s standards. Don’t be the person who gives up.

I’ve been told that I have crazy green standards. Not true.

Honestly, I think I have reasonable green standards. In case you think my standards are impossibly high I thought I’d share some of the ways I am currently evil to the well-being of the planet.

1. I forget to recycle toilet paper rolls. My recycling is not in the bathroom and I just forget. I try not to but I have thrown some toilet paper rolls away this year. They add up.
2. I LOVE coffee. My local grocery store does not sell Fair Trade so I have to drive a bit to get some. If I happen to run out of Fair Trade coffee and I’m on a writing deadline then I will run quickly to the store and grab some plain old coffee. I always feel bad, yet I do drink it.
3. I like cherry Pepsi. Do you know how toxic this junk is? Seriously. It takes all this energy and chemicals to make this crap and I will drink it sometimes.
4. I own both an obscene amount of books and art supplies. We unschool so we do use the art supplies and books but we could cut down.
5. Twice I got really frustrated with all the junky little toys that people give Cedar — like happy meal toys, cereal toys, and so fourth. He didn’t want them so I gathered them all in a bag and threw them out. I didn’t try to recycle them, give them away, or anything I just threw them out. Twice.
6. I don’t always use recycled ink cartridges because I don’t think they work as well — I did a test and it’s true but still what’s more important the planet or me being picky about ink.
7. This is really bad and almost too embarrassing to admit but for the sake of this post I’ll say it… I own a can of… Raid. Yes. Raid. Do you know why. I am deathly afraid of spiders.

So deathly afraid that once when I was 12 years old my mom and siblings went to the beach but for some reason I stayed home. While they were gone I saw a spider in my bedroom — a big hairy brown Oregon spider. I ran down the hall and to the living room and basically curled up waiting for someone to come home and save me. The whole time I thought the spider was coming for me. It’s irrational but that’s how I am. I’m still like this.

When I had roommates or lived with my ex I had back-up. Now I live alone with just my son. He’s no help so if I see a spider I have no choice but to stand really far away and spray it dead. Truth is, even getting close enough to spray them gives me an almost heart attack. I’ve tried to use a vaccum cleaner with a long hose but I always think the spider is still in there and will climb out. Nothing works.

Raid is my biggest green sin. I’m completely against it and what’s in it. It’s evil — like me when I use it.

Now, am I really evil. I doubt it. Can people help the planet even if they fail to be perfect? Yes, absolutely. Even though I may do some things that are less green I will still talk all day long about living more eco-sensibly because I do know about green issues and I do care about them. Do you think that makes me a hypocrite? Maybe you do.

My point is, that in today’s world, with all that we have, all the temptations, even the greenest green eco-talking people have a few sins up their sleeve.

What’s one of your eco-sins? How bad do you feel about it and does it make you think twice about supporting green living efforts?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family