Today is Earth Day so I wanted to cover some Earth friendly changes I have made in the past year. Since starting cloth diapering a little over a year ago, I have definitely become more aware of other areas in our life where we can reduce the waste, and reuse what we have. As Earth Day approached I was reflecting on the different ways that our family has made changes in the past year that are Earth friendly. We have done a good job of focusing on the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle principles and have seen a significant reduction in the amount of garbage we produce and sometimes we even skip garbage collection day! Here are 5 changes that we have made in the past year:
1. Cloth Diapers and Cloth Wipes
I guess this one is pretty obvious one since a lot of my personal time and blogging time is devoted to cloth diapers now. I estimate that using cloth diaper and cloth wipes on two kids for the past year has kept over 5000 diapers and approximately 6500 wipes out of landfills!!! I was amazed when I did the math especially because this is just one year. I of course love using my cloth diapers and wipes for a lot of different reasons, but reduction in waste is a big one.
2. Unpaper Towels
I did a pretty tutorial review on unpaper towels when I made a set for a friend but in reality, for myself, I just use cheap dish towels (approximately 9 for $3 at Wal-Mart). I keep them folded in a drawer and normally just use them once before laundering. They are great for wiping up spills, cleaning my girl's faces and hands after meals and just cleaning up any mess. I have noticed the paper towel consumption decrease drastically in our house and I don't even remember the last time that I bought paper towels (we do keep some on hand for grease spills or other things that you don't want to put in your washer). If you wanted to make your own it would be easy to just finish the edges (serge or turn and stitch) of some terry cloth, approximately 9x11 inches.
3. Reusable Sandwich Bags
This is a recent change for us but I really love it. After trying out my sandwich bags for the tutorial I made a bunch and now we use them for everything. The only thing I use zippered plastic bags for now is if something is really messy (e.g. peaches), things that need to be air tight or things that will go in the freezer.
4. Recycle
While recycling is not new to my family, this year I have spent more time checking to see if something is recyclable. In the past I knew my spaghetti sauce jar and newspaper were recyclable but now I am looking up items to see if they are recyclable, so we have drastically increased the amount of items that we recycle (its a good thing we have a new big recycle bin).
5. Reusable Shopping Bags
This is a new one for me and its the one I struggle with the most. Its not that have an objection to using these shopping bags, it's purely a matter of remembering to bring them to the store. This is definitely one area that I will be working on between now and next Earth Day.
To get your Earth Day started off right I am doing a give away for an Earth Day Starter Pack (not a real thing, I just made it up) that includes 2 cloth wipes, 2 serged "unpaper towels" and 1 reusable sandwich bag.
a Rafflecopter giveaway