Lead Bags

Hello,

My name is bwings and I use cloth bags when I shop.

Actually most times I simply use the stroller but when I'm without the beast I try to always have cloth bags on hand. Not only are they eco-friendly but they are easier on your hands when you carry home heavy groceries. I carried home 30 lbs of groceries a month back and my fingers weren't incredibly mad at me for it.

So imagine my surprise when among my e-mails I discover this inquiry from Happy Hippie.

Dear Hippie Mom, I have been using my reusable grocery/tote bags when running my errands in an effort to be more green. I admit sometimes I fail when I forget to take them in the store or place them back int he car or stroller. But I would say I use them a good 90% of the time. Here is my concern. I recently heard someone say they had seen a thing on tv claiming these bags have an unsafe level of lead in them. Before giving up and going back to plastic or paper, I decided to check with you and see if you have heard anything? Thank you so much.Trying to stay green :)Happy Hippie

Well Happy Hippie, my initial reaction is this must be a rumor started by a method similar to the 'phone game'. We all know the phone game, one person whispers one thing in another's ears and the message is passed on until it returns to the initiator as something completely different. I envision this moment something like this:

Instigator - "Oh, you use cloth bags?! Why bother?!"
Hippie - "It's better for the environment and isn't that much trouble."
Instigator - "Better for the environment? Pft we're going to hell in a cloth handbag!"
Hippie - *eyeroll and walks away*
Instigator turns to his friend and says in a joking fashion, "I bet you she'd use plastic if she knew the bag had lead in it!"
Instigator's friend doesn't have a sense of humor and takes the joke seriously and BANG instant rumor.

Honestly, that's how I see a lot of these rumors starting. BUT nevertheless it's a statement I hadn't yet heard and so now I shall do what I can to seek the truth. Cloth bag conspiracy or legitimate concern?

As I did my research into this one I found that the facts were there but there was certainly a bit of twisting. Yes there are in fact bags being discovered to have lead contaminations in them. However, and I can't stress this enough, this was in polypropelne reusable bags (plastic #5) not cloth bags. So, in short, cloth bags are still safe as far as this particular concern. Three cheers for cloth vs. plastic winning yet another battle.

Now for the scary facts as they have been presented to me. It is true that some reusable bags have been found to contain lead. These bags with lead were found to have 194 parts per million. This is below the government standard of 300 ppm. But above (nearly double) the standard allowed in children's project which is 100ppm. {Don't let your children play with your plastic bags it um...er... well it says it pretty much everywhere that plastic bags aren't play things!} 


Good news, as I've already stated, the reusable bags in question were polypropolyene (number 5 plastic). It is my not-so-expert opinion that if you are already making a step towards a greener world by using a reusable bag, switching from a plastic reusable to a cloth reusable isn't that far a leap. However, if my not-so-expert opinion is incorrect then I have some data for you. The Tampa Tribune purchased some reusable bags from popular locations and commissioned lab tests on them for heavy metals. Feel free to examine their results.

For now I shall victoriously overpack my strollers and carry cloth bags.

As always, I enjoy your e-mails happy hippie, keep it green, you friendly neighborhood hippie mom.

K1P1 - Click Click

Hello,

My name is bwings and I resolve to knit!

One of my 365 things for 2011 was to learn to knit. I went out last week on a mission for the appropriate supplies. Organic cotton yarn and bamboo knitting needles. I was surprised to find that the bamboo knitting needles did not cost me more than the plastic ones would have. Snatching up a set of bamboo needles I turned to examine my yarn options. I wasn't in a craft store and unfortunately there weren't many options. Given that I'm going to be making things for my daughter acrylic was the best option based on it's machine-washable quality. I grabbed up two large balls of acrylic yarn in two different shades of pink and proceeded on my merry way.

Given that I didn't find an eco-friendly yarn I thought of a way I could balance it out in my head. Simple, find a way to knit things out of some not-so eco-friendly material. Therefore expanding the life of the garbage and upcycling. Like using old tattered plastic bags as yarn and making a tote. But first I'd have to learn how to make yarn out of the plastic bags. That was easier than coming up with the idea. A quick search found not one but two sites with lovely ideas detailed for you. I'm sure I could find many more. I did some browsing and found a few more cute ideas. One of which was this portable yarn holder set-up using recycled containers.

So what about the question of eco-friendly yarn for next time? Another search a few days later found a few options.

• Repreve - by Unifi was once featured on the discovery channel. It's an innovative 100% recycled polyester yarn made from both post-consumer and post-industrial waste. There is a long list of brands that are already using the like-wool material in their clothing. 
• Blue Sky Alpaca's - Has a large variety of self-sustainable yarn such as Alpaca-silk as well as reycled and organic materials like organic cotton and recycled silk from saris. 
• Eco2Cotton - Produce yarn from recycling new, pre-consumer (post-industrial) cotton knit cuttings. These would be discarded during clothing design and are reprocessed and blended into fiber to be re-spun into yarn. According to their statistics a t-shirt only contains 60% of the cotton grown to produce it. The rest is tossed out on the cutting floor. 
• Cornucopia - Yarn made 100% from corn.
• Bam Boo - Yarn made with Bamboo
• Soy Silk - Yarn/Silk made with soy. 

For now I will work on my needlework and drop far few stitches before I invest in a more pro eco-friendly yarn.

Your friendly neighborhood hippie mom. 

Green Pearly Whites

Hello,

My name is bwings and my daughter scrubbed the toilet....with my toothbrush!!!

No worries, we caught her in the act, she was only trying to help and the toothbrush was immediately placed in the cleaning supplies container. Of course this little cleaning endeavor on her part resulted in subsequent replacement of said toothbrush. Given my new efforts at greening the house I thought I should make any attempt I could to make this a green purchase.

I figure a toothbrush may be just a small piece of plastic but it's a household staple, one per person to be replaced once every 3-6 months! As I did with my artificial vs. natural christmas tree entry I will do the math, if everybody had a life expectancy of 85 years, 12 months in the year and a potential for a new toothbrush every 3 months (or 6 but we're going with the higher scary number) that means 4 new toothbrushes annually for 85 years. 340 in a lifetime per person and approximately 6,892,048,568 people in the world there is potentially 27568194272 per year and 2343296513120 per lifetime. I of course didn't subtract the 500 or so fuzzy teethed individuals who don't brush.

Some ways I could make my pearly whites a little more green (in a purely figurative manner of course) would be purchasing a(n):

• toothbrush made of recycled materials - Everything but the bristles can be made from recycled plastic. In some cases you can find toothbrushes made using recycled wood fiber, yogurt containers, flax and even dollar bills. Using recycled materials saves natural resources and uses less energy during manufacturing. Not to mention it's a clever form of upcycling. If there are no local recycling programs instated for #5 Polypropylene some companies will let you mail back your old toothbrushes to be crushed up for plastic lumber. 
• toothbrush made of renewable materials - Some companies use cellulose acetate extracted from cotton. This makes their toothbrush more bio-degradable. In fact, they claim it will degrade in the same amount of time it would take an oak leaf, 6 months. As compared to the thousands of years it would take a standard plastic to do the equivalent. 
• toothbrush with replaceable heads - As much as you'd still be changing the head every 3-6 months it'd be less plastic. It is estimated that you would have to throw away 14 - 42 replacement heads to equal the waste of 1 toothbrush. If you're looking at 340 toothbrushes in a lifetime that translates to a reduction in waste the equivalent of using only 8 - 24 in a lifetime! I actually had to do the math twice on that one as it's such a huge reduction! 
• electric toothbrush with rechargeable base or batteries - This is the least green of the green alternatives to plastic brushes. But one with rechargeable batteries and replaceable heads isn't too bad. 

The more dedicated hippie would rinse with tea tree oil and water and brush instead with the root of the Araak Tree. As silly as that may sound that root is pretty nifty. It contains natural nutrients like fluorine, silicon, vitamin C, sulphur, sodium chloride, sodium bicarbonate and calcium oxides. All of these things will whiten and strengthen your tooth enamel.


Unfortunately my local grocer didn't provide any with replaceable heads that weren't electric. I am certainly not in the market for an electric toothbrush at the moment so I settled for a regular toothbrush made of recycled materials for now.

Perhaps next time I will purchase one online. A quick search found these gems:

Acca Kappa Biocete Toothbrush - $6.50 - designed with natural bristles and a handle of biodegradable cellulose acetate. Only takes six months to biodegrade. 

Eco-DenT TerraDent Replaceable Head Toothbrush - $4.50 - $5.75 - Self-explanatory, only ever need to replace the head. 

Fuchs Ekotec Replaceable Head Toothbrush - (on sale) $3.74 - $5.75 - Comes with 2 replacement heads and then simply replace the heads. 

Radius Intelligent Toothbrush - $8.99 - An electric toothbrush with replaceable heads. The batteries will last over six heads worth of use (18 months) after which you can return the handle for recycling. 

Radius Source Toothbrush - $6.95 - Replaceable head toothbrush with a handle made from 100% recycled material - Half wood, half plastic but both recycled. 

Recycline Preserve Toothbrush - $2.99 - Made from 100% recycled plastic. 25-65% of that plastic comes from Stonyfield Farm yogurt cups. You can even send back the toothbrush to be recycled if you don't have a local recycling centre accepting of toothbrushes. They then grind it up to make plastic lumber for picnic tables etc. What I found cool was they have a thing called "Toothbrush subscription" where they will send you a toothbrush every x months (your choosing) to replenish and change your old one. I thought that was great considering how often I've looked at my toothbrush and asked myself, "Did I change that 3 months ago or 4?" 

Well, I'm going to go brush my teeth and go on a hunt for some more eco-purchases of the day.
Your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.

Return of the Rubber Duckie

Hello,

My name is bwings and I'm still struggling to remember what plastics are worse.

I doubt I'll ever get rid of all plastic in my household, but I would like to make an effort to rid myself of the most damaging. Since my initial post about PVC and BPA I've reduced the cans in our household in case of BPA plastic lining in the can. If they had some regulation enforcing companies to state what they lined their cans with I might continue to use canned goods. But for now the only canned goods in this house are to be canned corn as it's my fiancée's favorite. For now, if we buy beans, they will likely be canned as well simply for simplicities sake. However, we don't frequent the beans in this house so that should not be a problem.

So what is the deal with plastic? I know to avoid BPA and PVC but what labels am I looking for. Not everything that is BPA free will say so. Although I'm sure most will seeing as it's considered something to brag about in plastic departments. To remind myself I returned to the charts of recycling codes.

Click on picture to view chart

There is going to be a complaint about all types of plastics with leeching, bio-degrading etc. So for now, for my sanity and my families, I will focus mostly on those concerns that affect my health and the health of my family.

PVC (our lovely rubber ducky's skin) has a massively bad rep. But a little research would find that this is because of the plasticizers (mostly phthalates) added to soften the PVC and make it flexible. These additives can leach out into our food, mouths or ... other body parts, as they are common in shampoo bottles, shower curtains, food containers, children's toys and adult toys ...so to speak. This leaching is concerning as Phthalates have been linked to liver/kidney damage and tumors. They can mimic human hormones and hurt the environment. Studies have shown statistical association between allergies in children and indoor air levels of DEHP. This additive of particular concern, DEHP (Diethylhexyl phthalate) has, among other phthalates, been banned in Europe. In the United States it has not been banned but most companies have voluntarily ceased production of PVC toys using DEHP additives. An alternative to DEHP called diisononyl phthalate (DINP) has been found to have unlikely risks by the European Commission.

What, outside of Europe, has been done to reduce issues with PVC? As far as toys are concerned factories have started using DINP in lieu of DEHP although it is not required and so personal investigation into purchases would be necessary. There is a call for a ban on use of DEHP on shower curtains and a few other household items as the initial outgassing of the additive may cause medical complications. In November '05 Catholic Healthcare West signed a contract for vinyl-free IV bags & tubing. Several corporations including Microsoft, Wal-Mart & Kaiser Permanente have announced efforts in eliminating PVC from products and packaging in that same year. Japanese car companies (Toyota, Nissan & Honda) have eliminated PVC in car interiors in all models 2007 and beyond.

As far as environment is concerned I doubt I need to mention that plastic does not biodegrade in the environment because they are not digestible to microorganisms. If you toss plastic out instead of recycling it will simply be moved about by are or water and accumulate.  Animals can become entangled in some plastic litter or eat plastic mistaken for food and die.

So what have I done to reduce plastic in my home?

• Grocery bags - I take my stroller with me most times and instead of bagging them I put them in the carriage of the stroller. I am a vegetarian and so meat juices is not an issue here. In addition I have over two dozen cloth bags that I bring with me when I am without a stroller. I do bring home the occassional plastic bag when I'm low at home. I use them for kitty litter sometimes and also as my main form of garbage bag. A resolution in my house is to reduce our waste to one grocery bag a week. This has meant composting for the first time so we're still working on it. 
• I purchased a soap dispenser and buy my soap in bulk recyclable containers to reduce the amount of plastic containers. 
• I have been enforcing the bare bum or cloth bum policy when home. I still use disposable when out of the house or when we have a babysitter. But my daughter runs around disposable diaper free as much as I can. 
• I poked a bunch of holes in some containers and reused them as containers for her bath toys, so they get the proper drip dry anti-mildew action with the holes but I get to put them away and reuse a plastic container.
• I bought a wipe container and always bought refills thereafter.
  

I know I can only get better at this as I look around and see various plastic objects everywhere. But as far as the health of my family is concerned, it is my top priority. I will be even more mindful now of PVC (#3 plastic) and try to find out what ones are made using DEHP. I have stopped microwaving in plastic. I may still occasionally store leftovers in plastic but when they are heated I put them on the plate they will be consumed from. It might make more dishes for me but that is what a mother is for. Right?

Your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.

I was dreaming of a GREEEEEENNNN Christmas!

Hello

My name is bwings and I had a delightfully green Christmas this year.

Some things not shown in the video would be the hot air popcorn popper and a natural loofah as well as a loofah made using recycled plastic. I am not sure if it is common knowledge, but a loofah is in actuality a plant. Just as the marshmallow was originally a plant, a mallow that grew in the marsh. Now it is a sugar creation of pig tendons and flavoring, but it was once a native american favorite sticky delicacy from the marsh.

A loofah, luffa, or lufah is a tropical/subtropical plant of the cucumber family that is harvested before maturity in Asia and Africa and eaten. A loofah that is harvested after it's ripened is dried and used as a plant sponge for bath or kitchen, as a natural remedy for jaundice,  or to make the soles of beach sandals.
I am positively in love with my new loofah, ever since moving into this new place I found my feet got cracked and dry quickly. Scratching against my blankets at night and sending shivers down my spine. With the natural loofah it is more coarse and helps scrub off the dead foot skin *yummy*. I can use it and know that it's from a natural self-sustaining source rather than plastic/pvc created with harmful chemicals and sitting in a waste pile for years.


My hot air popper I have used almost everyday since I opened it. Not good for my diet as popcorn might be fat free but calories WOOOO but that's a discussion for my bridal blog. I have childhood memories of standing the correct distance from our popcorn popper and waiting anxiously to watch the popcorn fly out. I would be mesmerized by this and now so is my daughter. It's a delightful way to make popcorn, easy and PFOA free.

Shown in the video was a gift of Natures Gate shampoo & body wash. Their products have:

• No Phthalates or Parabens
• No Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulfates
• No Animal Derived Ingredients
• No Animal Testing
• No Synthetic Fragrance
• No EDTA (at least in the products I received) 

and in addition they, as a company, support Water Aid America which helps communities in Asia and Africa gain access to sustainable supplies of safe, clean water.

Lastly but most adorably the video shows how Asmerus, when wrapping my present, tenderly reused wrapping paper as part of his gift to me. Every year I salvage what I can of the paper to be reused the next year. I'm not anal when unwrapping, I don't carefully pull tape away from the paper so as not to make a tear. But after everything is done I will fold up the less tattered paper and put it in a box to use the next year. I save every bag and have reused some bags in this house since 2007. It would date back further but before 2007 I was between houses for 3 years. Having been nomadic for so long I couldn't sacrifice storage space on a moving trip to bags and paper. Selfish yes, but it was just not realistic at the time. Since 2007 we've been in the same basic location and so I have built up quite the collection of bags and tissue paper. I know Asmerus wouldn't likely reuse paper or bags were it not for my organized storage of such things. Alas I love him that much more for having done it just to make me smile.

The end of the video shows the aftermath and what remains. I am proud to say that of all that paper I removed all tape and recycled what I wasn't going to reuse. I was rather amazed with just how much reusable paper I got out of this years paper. I thought that a lot would have to be recycled based on how small our daughter was shredding them. But I ended up with a full box of reusable paper and not even an eighth of a standard recycling bag full of recycling paper. 3 full bags of cardboard though!!!

All-in-all it was a pretty green Christmas (lack of snow and all)

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That is all from your friendly neighborhood hippie mom for now. 

12 days of christmas

Hello,

My name is "bwings" and I'm making my list and checking it twice.

Going to find out what's naughty or nice eco.
As I'm sure you know, yesterday marked 12 days until Christmas. WOW, have you gotten the gift for that special someone on your list yet? Is there an eco-friendly hippie on your christmas list? Well if so, and you're stumped for ideas, I'm here to help you out. For the next 12 days (excluding weekends of course) I plan on presenting you with one green gift. Friday & Monday I'll make it a lovely double gift to make up for the lack of weekend postings.

To start off, seeing as I missed my opportunity yesterday, I thought I'd bring you two gifts to start with.

So, *clears throat* ♫ On the first day of Christmas a hippie brought to me a bobble water filter ♫ these are bottles are awesome for a person on the go who is on top of their water intake. It can be such a pain to have to refill the Brita water filter and then fill your bottle and rinse repeat. There is the obvious option of installing the water filter tap filtration. But that can be a bit pricey and my experience tells me if  you do not have the water presure to match you'll be waiting just as long as if you had the extra step.
The bobble water bottle has a built-in carbon filter with an electro-positive charge to attract chemicals and impurities. It's made from recyclable plastic bottles, BPA free, phlatates free and PVC free! I have not personally tried it but at $10.00 it is something I have been considering for some time. Maybe this year it'll be stocking stuffers for my hippie family.

Alright ....ahem *clearing throat* ♫ On the second day of Christmas a hippie brought to me 2 cangle earrings and a bobble water filter ♫ A cangle what? A cangle is Can + Bangle. What started as a family wanting to clean up their neighborhood of cans littering the roadways has become a family run business in jewelry made from recycled aluminum cans. Another item I have not currently worn but I have viewed their products online and the price isn't bad considering how much you would pay for factory made jewelry. This is essentially the same price for something that was handmade.

Happy shopping, your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.

Give us dirty laundry

Hello,

My name is bwings and I don't roll my clothes around in animal fat.

The Beast helping me with Laundry June '09

Maybe you weren't aware of this, but most fabric softener is made using animal fat from cows, sheep and yes even horses. That ought to capture your eye. I have heard of people eating cow burgers and leg of lamb but at the mention of a horse burger everyone gets angry. I don't pretend to be perfect, it's quite hard to know what is in everything we use. That is, in fact, why I started this blog in the first place.

To make the fabric softener they boil down the animal fat and mix it with ammonium among a few other chemicals and you create a compound to coat your clothing in fat and make them soft to the touch.

I just resolved to not use fabric softeners, I never did anyway but I would continue to avoid them. What they, can one do to soften their clothes if they were not to use fabric softener? From what I have read, aside from more naturally derived softener you can add vinegar to your wash. If you want soft and pretty smelling clothes you can also add some essential oils to the wash to aid in this. If you are seeking a natural fabric softener this blogger created a list of her findings. I have not personally researched those individual softeners so can not confirm how accurate her findings are. In other words, if you are seeking a animal friendly alternative you can use their list as a reference and then look into the product yourself to confirm. 

Aside from animal fat there is also the question of phosphates and EDTA among other chemicals in our detergents and softeners. A quick review, phosphates are a favorite diet for algae. The more Phosphates we add to the environment the more algae that is mass produced and the algae uses up all the oxygen thus killing the fish in the water. EDTA is found in so much! Shampoos, bubble baths, soaps, detergents etc. It bonds with metals increasing the mercury in fish and thus humans that do eat fish. 

Check your ingredient list, question statements like, "natural ingredients" and "Bio-degradable" for their are always lovely loop holes for manufacturers to use. For instance they can claim to be derived from natural ingredients when in fact it's just the water that these natural ingredients soaked in to make the scent. The rest of the cocktail is still EDTA and or phosphate ridden. 

And what about the container? I purchase my soap in large containers and refill my smaller container at home. It's a pain to always carry the big one around and I always manage to lose that little cover so it is not an option. But I ensure that the container I use is recyclable so I know when I am finished with them it won't spend hundreds of thousands of years in a landfill.

Remember that chemicals were used to create that smell you so adore, consider replacing it with essential oils or maybe just putting essential oils on your wrist and neck throughout the day. You don't need to soak your clothes in chemicals to smell pretty.

Lastly, when and where you can, wash your clothes in cold water and hang to dry or tumble dry on low heat. It will consume far less energy and save you money on your bill. If you are going to use cold water you might want to find a green detergent that is geared towards cold water.

That is all for today as I have a basket of laundry to fold.
Your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.

They have arrived!

Hello,

My name is "bwings" and I'm switching to cloth diapers....or at least my daughter is!

There is a lot of stink around the world about these diapers, pardon the obvious pun. Parenting is such a touchy subject and I don't pretend to be doing it the one and only way. I am going to do it the best way I can and leave you to yours. Removing parenting from the equation let's talk dollars and ecosystems then.

First thing I simply must share with you. It is apparently illegal to dispose of human feces, I couldn't find anything to support this but I have heard it and it does make sense. So why then, you might ask, are you allowed to dump tonnes of it in the landfills in little trojan horses of diapers? Quite simply put...you're not supposed. Do you use disposable diapers? Yes? Go fetch the bag or box it came from. Now turn it over and find on it where it gives you the instructions of using their diapers. Right there, in plain print that you never read because "Pft, I know how to use a diaper" it says, "Shake diaper contents into toilet before discarding"

WHOOPS!

Cloth diapers, what did our ancestors use?

First nations mothers would use milkweed and other plant life to wrap around their babies before strapping them to a papoose board.

Papoose Board

Inuit would use soft moss they had collected in summer months to line their babies clothes. Europeans in the 16th century used squares of cloth folded and tied around the waist with strings. The icky bit would be that rich children had a clean diaper a day anyone else changed once every 3-4 days (EWWW) Pioneers didn't have the best conditions either, they couldn't always clean their diapers and would just dry them for use the next day.

Cloth diapers have definitely come a long way since then.




Disposable Diapers, how long have we been tossing them out?

Disposable diapers largely get their finding from WWII. With women being thrown into the work-force they didn't have time to run around cleaning baby poo of clothes anymore. As they say supply and demand runs the economy and sure enough it wasn't long before they were established.

Marion Donovan & Boater

• 1942, during WWII a swedish paper company (Pauliström ) created the first disposable diaper using sheets of tissue inside rubber pants.  
• 1946 Marion Donovan developed a waterproof diaper shecalled the "Boater" using a sheet of plastic from a shower curtain and using plastic snaps in lieu of safety pins. 
• 1947 George M. Schroder invented the first disposable with fabric that was not woven. 
• 1949 Johnson & Johnson would introduce disposables to the United States. Others quickly joined the market as competitors. 
• 1956 Procter & Gamble {think Pampers}got a sniff of the subject [oh man I keep punning with you]
• 1959 Pampers had a name



Pampers 1961



Pampers vs Huggies

• 1961 pampers was introduced to the market almost twenty years after the first disposable diaper. 
• 1966 Sodium Polyacrylate (Super-absorbant material) is developed but not introduced.
• 1968 Kimberly-Clark {think Huggies} began beta testing
• 1978 Huggies is introduced to the market thus forcing pampers into a long and vicious battle for top diaper ever since. 
• 1984 Super-absorbent material sodium Polyacrylate is introduced. 

Cloth vs. Disposable the Big Debate!

Before I get into the logistics of Economics and Environmental factors let me spout off some fun facts.

The average time a baby is in diapers is 30 months. In that time they average 7,300 changes.
In 1955 it is said that 99.999999% of babies wore cloth diapers and 7% experienced diaper rash.
In 1991 statistics say that only 10% wore cloth and 78% of babies experienced diaper rash. OUCH!

Economics

Economically speaking it all depends on a lot of things. Diapers can cost up to $100 a month depending whether you are a name brand addict or a coupon cutter. It would also, of course, depend on your own level of hygiene but I'm not even going to think about that. *Shivers* Depending on how old your child is when you are using cloth diapers the same could be true for them. If you're using a laundry service for them it will balance out to be the same. And to wash them in the machine will cost a fair penny too. Not really encouraging as far as the money speaks. Although if you consider the rate at which you'd go through low grade disposable that might be cheaper then you might actually be saving money by going cloth anyway.
I couldn't do the math in my head but this lovely lady did and broke it down quite beautifully I might add. Her findings also lean towards cloth diapers being more economical. Although not by much if you are using a laundry service as opposed to washing them yourselves.

Environmental

Although there is a huge smelly mess of discussion about the impact of each on the environment, again with the unforgivable puns, to me it's pretty obvious that the cloth diapers are less impacting. The pro-disposable diaper argument is that the grey water caused by washing the cloth diapers is just as bad as the manufacturing and disposable of disposable. I haven't yet posted on laundry but I will say this, grey water impact can certainly be lessened depending on your detergents and water temperature.

An estimated 5 million tons of untreated waste and 2 billion tons of urine, feces, pastic and paper are added to landfills every year. It would take 80,000 pounds of plastic and 200,000 trees to manufacture disposable diapers for the United States alone!  "Bio-degradeable" diapers would have to be exposed to air and sun and in a landfill this is not very likely and thus would take hundreds of years to decompose only partially.

Untreated disposable diapers sitting in landfills risk contaminating ground water while the contents of cloth diapers get flushed down a toilet and then washed into grey water which will go into sewer systems to be treated at wastewater plants.


Conclusion


I'm not here to tell you how to raise your child, I am never here telling you which way is right or wrong in life. I am here only to draw conclusions on environmental impacts and express what I am personally going to do about it. Thus the blog about a mom going green. {there, I think I avoided angry mom mobs}

It is evident that cloth diapers are easily more environmental, but that was never a question for me. Assuming you are using environmentally friendly detergents and cold water {see tomorrow's post} you are not damaging the environment as much as you would be.

What am I doing about it? Well, I didn't use cloth diapers in the early part of her life because I am a working, stay at home mom. I would never have had time to get them clean as quickly as I should and therefore would have had maybe 20 odd dirty diapers just piling up, ewww. So for hygienic reasons I abused the earth as well as my wallet. My daughter wanted to potty train at 8 months (bless her) and so at 8 months I did start shaking her turds into the toilet, even before knowing I was supposed to be doing it all along. I did this in an effort to show her where they are supposed to go. Now that she has mastered the potty I have purchased 6 pre-fold cloth diapers. These are less expensive as they are not as "high-tech" as far as cloth diapers come. I will touch more on cloth diapers in another post. But for now I should go wash the potty seat for it's next visit from my cloth diaper wearing beast.

Your neighborhood hippie mom

Water, water everywhere...

Hello,

My name is "Bwings" and I avoid bottled water.

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop for free. Oh, that's not how it goes? Well, it's sure how it is. Imagine, paying for tap water in a polyethylene or  polycarbonate container, the later being the worse. You could simply purchase a nice non-leaching bottle for a similar price and maintain filling it at home before your voyage. Would certainly be more economical considering.

Here goes the, "when I was young I walked uphill both ways" speech, but it is true. When I was younger, only 6 or 7 years ago, you could buy water out of a cooler for $1. I thought it a tad funny but considered myself as buying the container and not, in fact, the water. Although I knew it was wrong to do I'd continue to reuse this container for weeks. Looking back it makes me shiver a little at the frequency by which I used that plastic container as in comparison to the frequency that I washed it. *shiver* However, I digress, now when one finds oneself needing a quenching beverage outside of home, that same bottled water could run you $1.75! Sure 0.75 in 6 years doesn't seem like much....for general food. But for bottled water? Something you'd otherwise have for "free" at home. I put free in quotes of course because it'd come out of our tax dollars etc. but essentially to pay for bottled water, are you not paying for it twice?

That remains my biggest reason for avoiding bottled water. There are however the lovely alternative reasons for not buying bottled water. Some of these I don't buy into myself, no pun intended. But I am here to offer all the criteria for my decisions and so here it is.

1) Regulations - It is possible for your tap water (assuming not well) to be more tightly regulated than the bottled water you bought today. I say possible because not all bottled water would necessarily be as loosely watched as some others. However, tap water, by law, must be disinfected, frequently tested for bacteria and parasites and filtered to remove pathogens. None of this is required of bottled water. That does not mean they don't do it, simply that they needn't do it. Funny isn't it. Isn't it all tap water? Well...except for that spring water, mineral water, and/or water from the glaciers.

That is right, bottled water needn't be disinfected or tested as frequently, nor does it have to be filtered or tested for parasites. Yummy. But again, this doesn't mean they don't, simply that it's not enforced. One could argue that this is because it's tap water and already assumed (by the factory) to be regulated by the government. Why triple test what is presumed to be tested by the government already? Seems folly.

2) The container, that lovely, colorful (although often plain and translucent) container by which you transfer H20 to your body for quenching. It of course is our plastic buddy again. Although I am aware of glass alternatives. I don't likely need to go far into the plastic debate as it's all over the news. But to summerize there are the topics of BPA which is in the polycarbonate options. There are also heavy metals in plastic bottles that over time, regardless of temperature, break down and enter your body through that very source of thirst quenching fluid.

3) The icky studies performed by the National Resources Defense Council found that about 20% of bottled water tested contained known carcinogens or neurotoxins. 20% is a low number but it's a hell of a lot higher than 0%!

The study can be found online straight from the horses mouth. But here are the highlights:

Not even 50% passed! Close, but certainly not 50%

• Where is our water coming from? One alarming discovery by the NRDC was in Massachusetts  where there was a well designated as "spring water" sold under many labels. It was discovered that this well was in fact located IN a parking lot (oh it gets better) of an industrial warehouse facility (worst is yet to come) near a state-designated hazardous-waste site!!!! Did you just spit out your bottled water?! Feel free to dry off your monitor now. There's more. Several chemical contaminants were found in this water, duh, including Trichloroethylene (carcinogen), Dichloroethane and Methylene Chloride. The source was not identified and although contamination was found in 1993 through 1996 the company continued to sell the water! Dry off your monitor, the well is no longer in use thanks to a friendly whistle blower. But for 3 years the contamination was known and never addressed! 

Again, you can see the lengthy study for yourself and make your own judgement calls. I like to take everything I read with a grain of salt, research into it and then form my own opinion. So, in short, I would expect no less from people who read my blog.

However, I can assure you my honesty at all times and in the case of bottled water vs. tap water, I feel water can/will be contaminated regardless of source. I use tap water, filtered through a brita water filter. I avoid purchasing water bottles mostly because I'm cheap and less because of possible carcinogens. I can not deny the compelling study though and so I present it to you for your own judgement call. 

Tis all from your friendly neighborhood hippie mom.