The first brand we tried was Mrs. Meyer’s and we immediately fell in love!

The Surface Scrub was the first MM product we actually bought - in the Lavender scent.  Lea really liked it, but she is a big fan of serious scrubbing – she cleans a mean shower, let me tell you!  Personally, while I liked the scent, I am really not a big fan of powder cleaners, so I just couldn’t get behind this product whole-heartedly.  I even left it behind in our bathroom closet when we moved out – but maybe it will inspire whoever buys our house (please oh please, someone buy our house) to try green cleaners, too! 

After the surface scrub, we tried the Counter Top Spray (again in Lavender scent) – and this product I absolutely LOVE!  I love the scent, which is clean and fresh but not overpowering.  Surprisingly even Lea likes it and normally she hates Lavender or anything even remotely flowery smelling!  More importantly, it cleans great and doesn’t leave behind any nasty chemical smells or residue.  I love knowing that the ingredients are natural and safe for the environment.  I used this stuff everywhere – kitchen, bathroom, random cleaning – and it always worked great. 

In fact, we used this so often that we ran out soon enough!  But rather than buy another bottle of the Counter Top Spray, this time we bought a big bottle of the All Purpose Cleaner.  This option is so cost-effective, we just refill our spray bottle using a little bit of the cleaner and water, and it works just as well as the spray.  The All Purpose Cleaner has instructions on the proportions to use, and this way we don’t have to buy multiple bottles (that we can’t recycle here in Alaska).  I wish all the products I buy for home and bath could be refillable this way!

There has been some concern in the past about MM and parabens but they haven’t used them in their products since January 2007 which is great news!

When we moved to Alaska, we were concerned about whether we would ever find our coveted cleaner again – but lo and behold we found it in several locations including our grocery stores as well as the local feed store (sells dogfood etc.). The feed store sells more MM products than we ever knew existed, so score one for Alaska! We may not have recycling but at least we can clean green.

And what do I want to write about?  Why, what else but worm poop?

So, I was watching Live Earth last weekend (you all watched, right?), and I saw this great interview with the co-founders of Terracycle.  I have to say that I was MOST impressed by their ideas and what they are doing with their business.  Then I checked out their site and I am even more blown away. 

 So what’s this all about?  Well, here is what they do in a nutshell:

“At TerraCycle we manufacture affordable, potent, organic products that are not only made from waste, but are also packaged entirely in waste! TerraCycle Plant Food™ is made by feeding premium organic waste to millions of worms. The worm poop is then liquified into a powerful organic plant food and bottled directly in used soda bottles.”

(from www.terracycle.net)

Isn’t that amazing?  Not only great products for all your planting and gardening needs, but made completely from garbage with a negative ecological footprint!  They take garbage OUT of our landfills in order to create their plant foods and fertilizers!  In addition to recycling used soda bottles, the sprayers and lids for their bottles are leftovers from large companies that would otherwise go to waste. 

I don’t know why, but reading about what this company is doing just makes me so happy - it inspires me and brings me no end of delight.

I must admit, I don’t currently do as much gardening as I’d like to, so don’t use a lot of these types of products YET!  But I’m thrilled to know that they are carried by Home Depot and other large retailers, so we’ll be able to buy them when we move to Alaska.  I have big plans for gardening next spring/summer in the Land of the Midnight Sun – and you better believe that I will be using Worm Poop to help all my flowers and veggies survive the potentially deadly effects of my very brown thumb!

I’m also excited to read about their Bottle Brigade.  One of the hardest things for me to face about our upcoming move to Alaska (aside from the long, dark, cold winters and the potential for death by crashing my car into a moose) is the lack of recycling facilities near our future home.  It’s possible to recycle some things, but plastics recycling is one of the most difficult challenges for Alaska, which is currently not available up there.  But now that I know that I might be able to collect and donate at least one type of plastic bottle to this worthy company, I’m excited at the prospect of reducing some of that landfill waste – even if only on a small scale.  Hooray for innovation and recycling, all in one!

So – during this lovely growing season, think about reaching for a Terracycle product next time your leafy green things need a little help – rather than that other yellow-and-green product full of who knows what nasty chemicals!

happy worms + recycled bottles = happy plants + happy earth!

We are currently working to move from incandescent light bulbs to CFLs because they use substantially less energy than incandescents. We’ve been silently working on this for a few weeks now and as we try new things so do we learn!

I did some research and yes, CFLs have a very small amount of mercury in them – but not enough to make you sick. The mercury is contained as long as you don’t break them and if they do break and you clean them up properly you should be fine.

This fact sheet from the EPA says that the creation of an incandescent light bulb actually puts more mercury into the environment than what is contained in a CFL. It also has info on how to properly clean up a broken CFL light bulb. The amount of mercury in a CFL is roughly the size of the tip on a ball point pen – substantially less, even, than that contained in old thermostats. On a side note – I used to break thermostats when I was a kid so I could play with the mercury inside – ah the good ‘ol days of playing with toxic chemicals.

With the creation of incandescent lights emitting (overall) more mercury than a CFL I think we’re definitely making the right choice to change out our incandescents with CFLs. The reason incandescents use so much power is because they’re emitting more heat energy than light energy – CFLs generate very little heat and thereby are more efficient. You also lower your risk of incandescent light-related fires. My friend burned his house down with an incandescent light a long time ago and I also melted the hood of my frog tank with an incandescent so I know they can be pretty dangerous.

Here is another fact sheet on the safety of CFLs containing mercury. They’re perfectly safe as long as you don’t break them and you also want to recycle them when they go out years from now. Hopefully by then we’ll have decent recycling facilities for CFLs. Currently, if you just throw a CFL in the trash it’s going to a landfill where it will be broken and the small amount of mercury contained in the bulb will be absorbed into the soil. Currently IKEA is one of the only businesses who offer CFL recycling to their customers. YAY IKEA!

When we swapped out a three way incandescent with an equivalent of 75 watts CFL we noticed that it was a lot dimmer than our previous incandescent. We changed it out with an equivalent of 100 watts CFL and noticed a brighter light. Overall though it’s still probably going to be a little dimmer than an incandescent – that’s the price you pay for a more economical/environmentally friendly bulb!

For the brightness issue we learned that you really have to find the right wattage. If you’re using a 60 watt incandescent – go for a CFL that is the equivalent of a higher wattage incandescent. I *think* that when a light fixture says only use X watt bulbs they are primarily speaking about incandescent bulbs and it’s primarily because of the heat they emit and the large amount of energy they use. With CFLs you have to worry less because the equivalent wattage of an incandescent is lower. For instance, a 60 Watt Incandescent can be replaced by a 14 Watt CFL if the max is 100 Watts you’ve got a long way to go!

It is also important to get the right bulb for the right job – there are different CFLs for 3-way and dimming fixtures. This website should be able to help find the right bulb for the right job.

As part of our mission to change the lights, we have pledged to change out 10 incandescents with 10 CFLs this year thanks to the Environmental Defense Make the Switch campaign.

How many light bulbs are you going to switch?

Check out this cool table with stats on savings with CFLs versus incandescents from the Environmental Defense website!

Today though, I have been reading about carbon offset programs, primarily those from TerraPass.com and I found that our current home energy use uses about 19,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year and our car uses about 11,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. After reading a lot on the terrapass website it got me to thinking about our energy use. I went to our power company website and looked at our electricity and gas usage (because we’re paperless like that) and I was shocked to find that the numbers are going up!

Our goal is to work to significantly decrease the amount of energy we consume on a monthly basis.

Here’s what we can do:
change the lights to compact fluorescents
turn off the lights (good for me because I’m a cave dweller)
lower the thermostat or raise it depending on the season
abstain from using the air conditioner this summer – use ceiling fans instead
buy a new door (our current door to the back yard has a giant hole in it that lets a lot of cold air in and hot air out)
unplug electronics when they’re not being used

We’ll keep you posted each month with how we’re doing!