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.

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Way to send the message home right? I love it. Also, it’s made with organic aloe vera juice so your bubbles will be just as ethical as your actions.

Get some Save Water Soap at Plum Party Supplies.

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What measures do you take to conserve water?

I’m not listing each answer, but here are some highlights:

• Most popular answer (aside from “At least 5 of the above”) was turn off water while washing dishes and brushing teeth with 15% of the vote.

• Eating little or no meat claimed 7% of the vote. It takes a lot of water to get a package of beef to the store. . .

• Compost instead of using the garbage disposal and wear clothes more than once both came in at 6% of votes, while taking fewer showers/baths received 5% of votes.

• And it seems most of you do a mixture of all the choices with 46% of the vote as “at least 5 of the above.” In retrospect, that choice probably made this poll confusing to interpret. I won’t do that again.

And a different sort of poll –

Here are the most read water posts at Tree Hugging Family in July:

Green Product Review: SIGG Water Bottle

Green Product Review: Klean Kanteen Water Bottle

Dishwashers Use Less Water

Easy Toilet Leak Test

10 Handy Water-saving Tricks

As Jennifer mentioned, we’ll sprinkle in more water posts throughout the year. And if you have some students in your family, please don’t miss all the Back to School posts at Tree Hugging Family throughout August.

Image via stock.xchng

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in August 2008

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In any case, since this is water month, and I’ve been water slacking, I figured I’d bring up our one and only issue with these molds. You still have to use a decent amount of water in order to get them loose enough to pop out.

We considered some solutions:

• Fill a bowl with water and loosen all the ice pops at once – the problem here is that you can’t just leave open ice pops in the freezer. They get icky.
• Fill a cup with water when you want an ice pop, place ice pop mold in cup, and wait. Um, kids don’t do well with waiting for an ice pop when they’re hot.
• Get a blow dryer – see if that works. Well, that’s an energy drain for one. Two, mixing electricity and watery icy pops seems slightly dangerious. Three, like I really want to buy a blow dryer.

SO – right now, what we’re doing is when Cedar wants an ice pop, he grabs one and holds it under running water for a minute. One to two minutes of running water for an ice pop seems so wasteful to me. However, on the upside, we’re not tossing out all that plastic trash from store bought pops, also we use up all our produce on pops, so we waste less food.

Still, I feel a little guilty. Any solutions people? Do you think the pros of homemade ice pops outweigh the cons of this water waste?

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Want to water less? Of course, you should never water your sidewalk or driveway, but other than that:

•Reduce evaporation by watering before 10 am or at night.

•Also, avoid watering on windy days.

•And choose plants appropriate for your climate. SavingWater.org has a detailed Plant List that includes drought-tolerant trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses and more.

•Use rain barrels and rock gardens.

Jennifer wrote about this same topic a few months ago. Check out her post for more.

How do you conserve water in your lawn and garden?

Image via stock.xchng.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in July 2008

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• Save Water In Your Yard & Garden
• Water Use Earth Day Project for Kids
• Five ways to conserve water in less than one minute
• Bathroom H2O Habits
• Greening the Bathtub & Shower
• How Much Do You Know About Water Use?
• Custom SIGG Bottles

Hmmm, it seems like we’d have more water posts than this. Well, you know, we tend to categorize stuff oddly. Ah well. Enjoy the water posts above.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in July 2008

[image via stock.xchng]

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I learned a few things when I took my test. If I “let my yellow mellow” I’d save 10 or more gallons of water a day. And if I didn’t eat meat or dairy, I could reduce my water use by hundreds of gallons a day. It takes 1,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef!

Learn more and take your water footprint test at H20 Conserve.

Logo via H20 Conserve.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in July 2008

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This month, we’ll discuss water savings in the bathroom, kitchen, lawn and anyplace there’s water. Some topics include gray water, rain barrels, rock gardens, low-flow shower heads, leak checking, water bottles and more. I think we might even talk about composting toilets!

Since summer is a lazy month of trying to keep cool, we’re giving you a break from a green challenge. Yet, we want you to chime in and tell us about your water conservation efforts. You’ll have plenty of chances to do that in comments, but we also have a new poll in the sidebar: What measures do you take to conserve water?

Jennifer and I really appreciate the avid reader poll participation these last two months. It’s fun to check in on the results. As always, feel free to add your own answer if you don’t see the one that applies to you. And remember, the poll is anonymous.

Is there a special water savings issue you’d like to read about this month?

Image via flickr.

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• Water at night. Or you could water in the early morning, but usually nighttime (devoid of sun) gives you less evaporation time, which means your water goes further.
• Lose some grass: Reduce your lawn size by a decent amount when possible. Rocks, a patio, or drought resistant flowers use less water than your thirsty lawn.
• Be extra careful when positioning your sprinklers. The sidewalk doesn’t need watering.
• Mulch to prevent some evaporation – mulch holds water, sort of like a sponge.
• Use a water saving hose head and hose timer.
• Use rainwater you collect to water instead of new hose water. Seriously, anyone can collect and use rainwater. It’s really simple, and easy to use if you build a rain barrel with a decent spout.
• If you live on a hill, use a water efficient spray nozzle on your hose, and water upwards from the bottom of the hill. Lawns that tilt make it easy to have run-off water waste.
• Plant like with like – for example in the veggie and flower garden, it’s not smart planning to plant a bunch of drought resistant anything around a plant that needs more water to thrive. Plant thirsty plants together.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in May 2008

[photo via stock.xchng]

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Assuming you’re clean after a bath or shower (let’s hope) then there’s no good reason not to hang that towel up, let it dry, and use it again. At my house we go about a week, sometimes more, with the same three towels – one for Cedar and two for me (my hair is long I gotta wrap it). This small step saves time, energy, detergent, and water.

If you have a good argument against this practice go ahead and let me know why. I’m interested.

[shoddy, fuzzy towel photo via Jennifer's personal "I'm practicing with the camera" collection]

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