Why concentrated detergent helps

I’ve been sooo busy, so just a couple of quickie posts this week.
This one was also found in Redbook in January — an article that was surely based on a public relations effort by Procter & Gamble, about why smaller bottles of laundry detergent are a good thing.
PR notwithstanding, the statistics are amazing. By late [...]

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Talking trash

I was pleased to see, in the January issue of Redbook magazine, a list of eye-opening statistics about our trash, as a nation.
Their information includes:

4.4: In pounds, the average amount of waste generated per person per day in the United States as of 2001 (in 1960 we generated 2.7 pounds per person per day).
50%: Percentage [...]

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My new old lamp

About two weeks ago, Mr. Cheap and I were evaluating our living room and decided that what we want is less modern, more cozy. And especially, we need more light in a room with no overhead fixtures and some very dark corners.
Thinking about what would best replace one floor lamp and one table lamp that [...]

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Green film, green poo, Greenpa

Think Green, Live Green challenge: I’m no filmmaker, but if you’re handy with the videocam, here’s a chance to put your green life in action: http://verdavivo.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/think-green-live-green-challenge-2/
 
And you thought not using toilet paper was radical! Ha ha ha ha ha … Check out Greenpa’s “poopsicle” post for a really green bathroom routine: http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/2008/01/sigh-mel-brooks-found-out-too.html

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In with the butter, out with the butter tubs

We don’t eat a lot of butter or spread around our house, but we do eat some. Butter comes out of the refrigerator too hard to spread, and spread (which is arguably healthier for your heart) comes in tubs.
Some of the few plastic items we can’t recycle at our municipal recycling are yogurt tubs … [...]

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Pulling a fast one on phone books

I don’t know about you, but I use phone books.
Well, sometimes.
In fact, I used three this weekend. One to stand on while I did calf raises when I was too lazy to go to the gym, yet wanted to work out — the big fat book is good for that. And I used two of [...]

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Whole Foods gives plastic bags the boot

All right, I seldom can afford to do much shopping there (and the one closest to me is often too crowded to maintain the tranquil anti-grocery atmosphere that makes organic groceries so pleasant), but Whole Foods is doing something amazing: Eliminating plastic bags from its checkout lines by Earth Day, April 22.
That’s right, three more [...]

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Add it up: What living green saved us in 2007

Putting effort into conserving makes a BIG difference. Here’s how things added up for our family of three from our biggest ways of living green in 2007:

Hung laundry out to dry, spring through fall (October/November). In seven months, about 140 loads of laundry (conservatively) saved $69 and 630,000 watts of electricity.
Composted all vegetable waste. Two [...]

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Water chart & water-saving wish list

OK! Are You Going to Be This Way the Rest of the Time I Know You? not only likes to conserve water, too, she also is more talented than I and converted my water use chart into a jpeg for me.
Voila, the illustration of our water use the last few years! (We are billed bimonthly, [...]

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Saving water

No weekly wrap-up, so this will have to do.
The other day I came across this excellent post about ways to save water in your home.
We have implemented most of these ideas, although I really wish we had an on-demand/tankless hot water heater. It drives me crazy when I turn off my shower (especially when it’s [...]

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