Naughty or Nice?
It has been a while that I have posted a new page on this website. No doubt the pandemic has put a dent in the priorities of people including myself. I just did not think there would be much animo for exploring this stuff when our lives were so directly and profoundly impacted by all this. I am also not sure if this website really is the way to reach people, as I do not think is had made a real impact in people in terms of using any of the information they were given. But I am not ready to give up yet. I have in the mean time ( I said this before) signed up for a course at Coursera (at the U of M, for free) about Climate change and what one can do on personal, local and national/Goverment level. I learned some new things, but I already knew quite a bit, which was interesting to find out. when I am done I will summarize some important points. In the mean time I was thinking, It would be a good time right now to explore if I have been naughty or nice this year. so Let’s see……
Since I started with this website and sharing these resources I have made quite a few changes myself, inspired by what I learned.
By example:
signed up for an organization that plants trees every month all over the world where it is mostly needed
used orange peel as a sponge (works and smells remarkably well)
started using reusable bags for produce
soak banana in water and give the water to the plants as well as coffee waste water to plants and the waste water of the fishes. The plants are definitely doing great!
bought bamboo toothbrushes (my teeth are doing fine)
bought shampoo and conditioner bars ( Nope, did not do it for me personally) Also Tried to make shampoo with caster oil…. that was a disaster
bought reusable Q-tips. (No, did not work either well, but at least I now use Q tips made of paper)
Start using laundry detergent that is a dried sheet packed in a cute paper box, thereby reducing plastic waste. Works great. ( I tried to go without softener for a while but in the winter the cloth became very static so I do use that again, in a plastic bottle
Use the sheep wool balls for the dryer in stead of softener sheets. This worked well in the summer, but in the winter, I gave in again because of the static in the clothes
Bought environmentally friendly deicer for the car. It is so far not used.
Started using Ecosia as a search engine, which plants trees with the money that make from advertising ( It is not the best search engine, so I do not use it all the times, but hey every time I do, I help planting some trees)
Use an app to cut down on junk mail ( I think the result is mixed, I definitely still do get junk mail, but the volume seems to be down. )
Have become very quite a picky consumer when it comes to the environment,
Now for the naughty part…….( I do not claim this list is complete !)
I still use the dishwasher although I believe I could save water by washing by hand. I try every once in a while but I really do save a lot of time
I still buy quite a few products packed in single use plastic, which is the brunt of our waste as I compost and reuse recycle a lot
I still LOVE to and WILL travel ( as much as I can) once this whole mess is over…..
I still need to start buying my cloth at the resale shop
I still have to start purchasing and using the TERRACYCLE boxes to recycle a lot of items that are currently become garbage.
I LOVE to make crafts with Epoxy Resin, which I am not sure is entirely harmless
and….. and this is a hard one…… I LOVE GLITTER! I use it a lot in my crafts and have a bunch of it, some of it from the time the kids were little. Glitter is bad news!
Luckily, as they say in the article there are now alternatives that are environmentally friendly.
I guess what I am trying to say is that even if I have made several changes, there is of course always more one can do. Also, none of what I have done has been a sacrifice of any kind. And if I learned one thing from starting this website and which was confirmed by the course it is that there are SO MANY grass root initiatives small businesses that are working and succeeding with an environmentally friendly vision. Together we can do so much.
I hope to finish the course during the break.
I wish everyone healthy and safe holidays and on to better times.
Miriam
