Mom Goes Green

A friend of mine, Vicky from Askthemama.com, recently ASKED ME a question… what do I recommend as a green alternative to commercial furniture polish?

The answer is worthy of a little sharing since furniture polish contains some nasty toxins.  Not only is it a petroleum distillate, but it also commonly contains nitrobenzene.  This chemical can irritate the skin, eyes, and respiratory tract.  Because it’s readily absorbed into the skin it can also affect the central nervous system… quite a lot to take for some shiny, clean furniture!

Just like my favorite multi-purpose cleaner recipe, you can whip-up a batch your own (chemical-free) furniture polish:

• ¼ cup of distilled white vinegar
• ¼ cup of olive oil
• 20-25 drops of essential oil (I recommend lemongrass, lemon or lavender)

Apply it like you would your regular furniture polish but, just like any other homemade concoction, give it a good shake before each use.  If you want to get even greener, use a piece of an old t-shirt for the rag!

As an extra bit of advice, did you know you can remove water stains from wood furniture with white toothpaste too!… ahh, the things we learn.

(And while I’m on the subject) when you purchase furniture try to be conscious to avoid certain hardwoods like mahogany, teak, rosewood and hemlock.  The harvesting of these trees contributes to tropical deforestation.  Instead, look for used, refurbished or antique furniture, or at least furniture made from sustainably-produced materials (e.g. plantation grown).

As is the case with every post about green cleaning, the worst part?… it reminds us that it’s time to clean(!), so whip-up a batch and let’s get started!

The Mom Goes Green family would like to wish everyone a very

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family        all wrapped up in each other. — Burton Hillis

This Christmas we want to wish you all of the things that bring you happiness.  Enjoy memories of the past, live in the moment, and have hope for the future.  May your New Year be filled with everything wonderful — health, happiness, laughter and especially love!

— Mom Goes Green —

As more and more families try to cut costs, more and more families are handling car maintenance at home as opposed to dropping by a local maintenance shop.  The most common task is changing your car’s oil, but… what do YOU do with your used motor oil?

You may have tried to store it in a container and slip it into your trash, unnoticed, but did you know:

A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water!!!

A bit of a disturbing fact!  The next time that temptation strikes, think twice and instead store your used motor oil in a safely sealed container and drop it at a local facility.  Most auto stores and repair shops will accept it, free of charge. And if you need help in locating a facility, simply check out Earth911.com and enter “motor oil” and your zip code.

I assure you, you will have plenty of choices and our fresh water supply won’t take the harmful impact!

November 15 is “America Recycles Day”… a day that “encourages more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment by recycling and buying recycled products” and “promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling.”

Are you planning to celebrate?!?!

Once again this year, as the Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair at our children’s school, I’m promoting this great day by encouraging the kids to submit their best recycling tips and the favorite ways their families recycle. I’ll compile all of their great ideas and turn them into a recycling newsletter that will be sent home to each family.  Some will even win cool prizes, like recycled drink pouch pencil bags and recycled newspaper pencils from Terracycle, reusable (yet recyclable!) BPA-free water bottles and 100% recycled content “green” notebooks!  I don’t doubt that the response will be amazing… kids always have the best ideas!

So, as we celebrate the day, let’s remember WHY we recycle:
•    to reduce pollution
•    to save energy
•    to help the environment
•    to save natural resources
•    to keep trash out of landfills

And here are some things to think about …

1. PLASTIC– it can take 20 years for a plastic bag to biodegrade and 250 years for a plastic cup!  Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour(!) but if every household recycled just one of every 10 plastic bottles, it would keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year!
2. PAPER – it accounts for nearly HALF of what is sent to landfills and approximately 1 billion trees worth of paper are thrown away every year in the U.S.!  Plus, recycling one ton of paper would save enough energy to power an average American home for five months!
3. ALUMINUM – an aluminum can is recycled and back on a store shelf in approximately 60 days, and just one recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to run a computer for 3 hours.  Last year cans that were NOT recycled and went to landfills were valued at $600 million!
4. GLASS – a bottle in a landfill would take more than 4000 years to decompose, but glass never “wears out” and can be recycled forever! The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can power a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL) for 20 hours.

Now is the time… TODAY is the day… let’s get to recycling!  As you can see, it makes a world of difference!

I’m thrilled and incredibly honored to announce that I have been asked to be a featured writer and contributor for Suze Orman’s latest and greatest online community, Money Minded Moms! I was blown away by the invitation but now, as the site launches… well, I’m even more blown away!

So, what IS Money Minded Moms, you ask?  (I knew you’d ask!)  Money Minded Moms is a place where you can interact with other moms and tackle all of our money issues, from smart saving, to investing, to tips for stretching your every dollar… and that’s where Mom Goes Green comes in!

You can read my first article, “Go green” AND “save green”: Dispelling the myth, but in a nutshell my contributions will be focused around actually showing readers all of the ways we can live green, keep our families healthy, and benefit the environment without sacrificing anything, including our money. Living green, environmental consciousness and a healthy well-being do NOT need to be a costly commitment. The only investment is taking the time to do the right thing!

The site is going to be truly spectacular.  Suze is amazing and inspiring, and to be a part of one of her projects… wow.   And she’s assembled quite a team.  You can check out all of our profiles here and see that I’m in wonderful company too!

As Mom Goes Green, this blog will continue and I will forge ahead with my mission, but Money Minded Moms will get the “money perspective” of all my greatest tips and tricks.

I hope you join me! We can have great discussions there too! And once again… that “honored” thing… oh yes… INCREDIBLY honored!

Recently I approached a few local drugstores and asked them what they do with their outdated magazines. (I was hoping to set up a program where I could pick-up those magazines or have them delivered to the paper recycling dumpster behind my kids’ school so they could earn money from the recycling company.)  Unfortunately I was told that they remove the covers, return them to the publisher for credit and are told they MUST discard them in the trash dumpster….OUCH!  TRASH dumpster, not recycling dumpster.

Sadly, this is the fate of many magazines.  In fact, about 60% of magazines remain unsold and are destine for this same misfortune!

I’ve also recently taken inventory of how many magazines make their way into my own household and, let me tell you… it’s time to make a change! We not only receive magazine subscriptions, but also print publications for every local organization we’ve joined… from the Zoo, to the Natural History Museum, to the Science Center!

There are definitely better options.  More and more magazines are becoming available in e-formats, digitally delivered right to your computer, iPhone or iPad.  Check Zinio.com or emagazines.com to see if your “favorite reads” are available.  For all those other publications, a quick glance inside (typically around the publisher’s information) will often turn up an option to actually receive the publication digitally… all you need to do is digitally subscribe!  And if you don’t want it, UNsubscribe or opt out!

I assure you, once you take a look at all those un-read magazines piling up, you’ll realize you can make a change too!

There are so many ways to go green, it can sometimes boggle the mind… but Mom Goes Green has always been committed to all the little things that, when combined together, make a “great, big green difference!”

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again… I’ve always felt that going green isn’t just about installing solar panels on your rooftop or buying a hybrid car… it’s about doing those little things in our daily life that can make a bigger and better impact.

One of my sources for all of these “daily life tidbits” is a fantastic little book called “The Green Book”.  It has shown me countless and simple ways to put conservation to work.  It includes tips for everything from home, to work, to school, to shopping, to travel…. all neatly and clearly organized.

And if you think the “little things” can’t possibly amount to much, read this excerpt from the book:

“You create 4.5 pounds of trash every day.  Over the course of your life, that will total six hundred times your average adult weight… in garbage.  Broken down, your torso would be paper.  One leg would be yard trimmings, the other food scraps.  One arm would be plastic with a rubber hand.  The other would be metal with a wood hand.  Your head would be glass, and your neck would be all the other stuff.  In the end, we will each leave a ninety-thousand-pound legacy of trash for our grandchildren.”

If you think you’ve heard this before, it’s because I did a giveaway of this book a few months ago, but it just so happens I have another copy I’d like to share with a reader… interested?  Well, just leave a comment here saying you’d like to win, or send a Twitter message that includes a reply to @momgoesgreen and a link to this blog.  Facebook friends can also leave a comment to be entered. The winner will be randomly selected on October 8! (U.S. entries only… sorry!)

Good luck!… and cheers to all the little green things!

Mom Goes Green would like to apologize for: (1) my absence and lack of new posts, (2) any recent test emails received and (3) to any subscribers who may have received an annoying amount of “test” emails!

Mom Goes Green has been updating and testing, but I promise to be in full swing in the next few days and back to the regular “green business” you’re looking for!

Thanks for your understanding! xoxo

So, we did it!  We made our first major energy efficiency investment by purchasing new windows for our home… and despite having spent some cash, I’m actually very excited.

Home heating can account for approximately 27% of our carbon footprint and 25% of a  home’s heat escapes through windows… pretty significant, I’d say.  Our installation technician told us that he’s had customers that literally saved half on their home heating bill after installing new windows.  Sure, the windows that had to be replaced were probably a disaster(!) but I’m excited to see what kind of savings are in store for us.  It’s hard to forget that heating bill of $533 not so long ago.

We always put the most productive heating and cooling tips in place, (for my best home cooling tips click here or my best home heating tips click here) but I believe this is the final significant step of putting it all into place. The windows are Energy Star, Argon-filled, Double Glazed Low E glass and although those are a lot of fancy-schmancy terms, their combined definition is “efficiency!”

With the tax credit we’ll receive and projected annual heating and cooling savings, I’ve figured that the windows should pay for themselves in about five years.   In addition, we purchased from a local owned and operated manufacturer so a minimal footprint was created to get those windows as well. I’m feeling mighty green today!

So, have you ever made a major replacement to “conserve”? What was the result? I’d love to know!

Okay, first of all, this is not my implication but this comes from an article I just read from author Steve Martin (no, not THAT Steve Martin!)… but it’s very interesting in that it refers to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology as tested by Vladas Griskevicius from the University of Minnesota along with Joshua Taylor and Bram Van den Bergh from the University of New Mexico and the Rotterdam School of Management.

It seems their research suggests that  “making environmentally conscientious purchase decisions can be seen as altruistic and as a result publicly enhance people’s status”… hmmm?… kind of interesting…

It made me stand back for a second and evaluate myself. And this is what I discovered:

• Recycling – everyone has a blue recycling can in my neighborhood.  Every “trash night” EVERYONE has the can at the curb.  No one knows if it’s full or contains just a dozen items… or one.
• Water & energy – no one knows except me… although the Cleveland Division of Water seems to want to tell me I’m a “super consumer” and I have yet to be compared to the “Joneses”… but only I know I’m conservative.
• Appliances – all of our appliances are energy and water efficient, but I have never introduced anyone to my appliances with a “look at these ‘green’ things!” announcement.
• Car – admittedly, I drive an SUV.  No, it’s not the greenest thing on the planet, but it’s what others “see”. I do my maintenance to keep it as efficient as possible and “it is what it is”.  I’m not in a position or a mind set to replace it and it doesn’t have bumper stickers announcing my stance on anything.
• Products – I buy lots of eco-friendly stuff, from body products to detergents, but they don’t really seem to attract any attention!
• Food – again, no one knows except me, the clerk at the grocery store or the guy who fulfills our CSA order, but I know that I neither stand in line at the store, waving my purchase, yelling “this is organic!” nor do I mill around the CSA pick-up hoping someone will notice me.
• Clothing – I try to buy organic cotton as much as I can, but I do admittedly have a number of tee’s that announce my “greenness” too… hmmm… show-offy?
• Shopping in general – well, I never accept plastic bags and always (ALWAYS!) tote my own reusable bags (but not THIS one!), so I guess that’s a little indicator of my “greenness”.

Self-evaluation?  I think I’m doing okay – green for all the right reasons, I’d say.  Nothing “too flauty”, nothing “look-at-me”… okay, except the tees… and my bags… oops…. and this blog!

So… how about you?