Wasting food is not green (even if the mold is)

So John and I were having a problem that our fresh veggies and leftovers kept going bad in our fridge meaning we were wasting perfectly good food. Being my brilliant self ::stands in a victorious pose with super hero grin:: I devised a nice little system so this doesn't happen. Meet the board.



There are actually two parts to the board. The right size lists our produce so we don't forget about things until they are found rotting in the back of the drawer. The left side is for leftovers in plastic containers. Each container lid is numbered and the number, contents and date are written on the board.

This system also saves energy as we can see what is in the fridge without having to stand with the door open.

BYOT

Katya here, sharing a random thought I just had. If you're like me and never finish an entire meal at a restaurant, bring your own tupperware/reusable container for them to box it up in. This saves you from being responsible for a piece of greasy paperboard or some awful styrofoam, neither of which are recyclable in my area and probably aren't in yours either. Now if only I can remember to do this.

Get rid of bugs the cheap green way!

Katya here, making my debut post on the Mean Green Girl. Huzzah!

I live in an apartment so I have a bug problem. Some of the bugs are ok. The pillbugs are annoying to step on but otherwise harmless. The spiders are not poisonous and can live here as long as they stay out of my personal space. The ants and roaches are very unwelcome. But so is the bug spray man. He keeps telling me that the stuff he sprays is completely safe for me and the kitties, but then says he needs to know if I'm pregnant so he knows not to spray certain things. So I decided to tackle the problem myself.

First off, since I'm lazy, I double up. I took the vinegar/water cleaning solution mentioned in an earlier post and modified it. Most icky bugs (fleas, flies, spiders, ants etc) dont like peppermint oil. So I add essential peppermint oil to 1 part vinegar/3 parts water. I like to use 10 or 11 drops for every cup of cleaning solution. Now I have a fantastic all-purpose cleaner that is so safe I can even use it on the wooden cutting board. The peppermint oil helps dull the vinegar smell and the bugs dont like it, so they wont get into my kitchen. If I see an undesirable bug, I just grab my squirt bottle and attack them.

Another neat trick I learned is that ants hate cucumber peel. Every time I get a cucumber I save the peel. You can cut it into tiny pieces and put it into cracks where ants usually crawl in. This makes me really happy because I dont have to put anything extra on my shopping list.

I also read recently that roaches hate catnip. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm planning on making catnip sachets to put in cupboards. I've also heard that you can make a catnip tea, put it in a spray bottle and spray it into cracks or wherever your roaches are coming from. The kitties eagerly await the catnip spray.

5 easy things to do

Happy earth day everyone! This morning I was listening to NPR and one respondent to the show wrote in to complain that she was tired of feeling guilty for not being "green enough" in her daily life because she was "too busy". Bullshit. Do you have to be perfect? No! Do you have to live a trash free organic tofu eating life? NO! (Tough don't knock organic tofu until you've had some that John cooked)

You wanna know a dirty little secret? Probably the best thing you could do for the environment is DON'T CONSUME SO FREAKING MUCH! Seriously, that's it. Think about the things you use and buy. Do you really need it? Can you get it used? More durable? Do you really need that giant house that will take tons of energy to heat/cool? Do you need a huge SUV for your 3 person household? The population of the world is growing though the planet is not. We in the west have been taught that we are entitled to whatever we want whether we need it or not, myself included. Once you start thinking about these things its amazing how your world view changes.
So, thinking is not hard, we've evolved these amazing brains. Use them!

On that note, today I'm going to share some really easy things that you can do in your every day life, things that are so easy there really is no excuse not to do them. Also, please feel free to share your secrets to using less.

1) Ditch disposables at lunch. Even biodegradable "plastic"wear take energy to produce and ship and really only work in a compost environment. I just have two sets of reusable utensils and two cloth napkins in my desk drawer at work. Once I'm done eating I wash off the silverware dry it off with the napkin and then back into the desk with it. I can usually get 3-5 good uses out of a napkin unless I have soup for lunch, but that's just because I'm messy.

2) Just say no to paper towels. If you work in an office it is easy to keep a small hand towel at your desk (I hang mine from my chair's armrest). It takes a while to get used to leaving the bathroom with wet hands but even if you only remember 50% of the time, that's a lot fewer paper towels over a year.

3) Reuse, reuse, reuse! Don't Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew and Reuse to Make Things Last has a lot of really good ideas on giving new life to old objects. Turn old clothes into rags, which can then be used to replace paper towels. Nice bottles can be reused to store bulk liquids. Prescription bottles, which cannot be recycled, can be donated to local animal shelters for reuse.

4) Plastic bags blow so take totes with you when shopping. This takes a while to get used to but once you get in the habit the benefits really rack up. Some stores offer a discounts for people who bring their own bags, they hold more than disposable bags and are more comfortable to carry. If you buy dry bulk foods reuse the plastic bags especially since those bags usually aren't recyclable.

5) Raise your voice. Share your ideas on living greener with others, communicate with your representatives about your feelings on government policy, call people out when they need it, protest. Don't be passive, don't worry about offending people. This is important and people have to realize that. Bad Religion said it best "Our evolution didn't hinge on passivity so raise your voice".