Teaching Green

Workbook pages, dittos, xerox copies...paper, paper, paper!

Anyone who has a child in school knows about the deluge of paper sent home EVERY DAY. Honestly, much of it is needless. I'm not just saying that as the parent recipient of all this stuff, but as a teacher myself.

From the teacher's standpoint, we have all this great information to share. We don't want our students to miss a bit of it! I could honestly make a textbook sized handout of all the good info I find for my students. No one wants to shortchange education for green, so what do we do?

I teach at a high school and I try to reduce all the paper by emailing my students their homework as attachments. They type their answers on the homework and send it back to me- no paper! I also have a website with all the documents they can download and save. Added bonus for the teacher: your bag previously full of papers to grade is remarkably lighter and easier to carry (those of you who teach know about those heavy end-of-quarter bags full of papers!)

I would love it if my son's school would send the PTA letter by email, and post other information on their website. Hopefully, with continued nudging, this will be the case eventually. But in the meantime, we empty our backpacks right over the recycling bin.

Biodegradable trash bags

In the past year, we've really reduced our waste by composting, recycling, and making purchases that don't have excessive or non-recyclable packaging. I'd like to say we were like the writer for BBC News that tried her best not to buy ANYTHING plastic or packaged in plastic for a month...it's much harder to do than you think! But, in reality, we do still have some trash that can't be recycled. We've always used the generic white kitchen trash bags, so I thought I'd look into biodegradable trash bags.

First, I found biobag dog waste bags. They're around $5-6 for a box of 50. Kind of expensive, but I didn't want to put something biodegradable like dog poop in a plastic bag that wouldn't biodegrade. So I lucked out and bought some from drugstore.com when they had a sale. I'm pretty happy with them. I thought about the biobag trash bags, but it seemed pointless when the stuff in the kitchen trash is stuff that won't biodegrade anyway...so I bagged the idea (ha ha).

And then, when I was cleaning out the litter box (into a white trash bag), it occurred to me that I could use the biobags for this job. We use feline pine litter (love it!) and we have a fair amount of used litter each week, so I bought some kitchen sized biobags for the job. It makes sense since the pine litter will biodegrade. Overall, I am pretty happy with them, with the exception of their expense (again, wait for the sales) and they can puncture more easily than regular bags.

Hopefully these kinds of trash bags will catch on and eventually cost less, but in the meantime we'll continue to use them for our pet clean-ups. Do any of you have tips when it comes to biodegradable bags, or know of any other good brands?

Jumping on the bandwagon!

It seems everyone else is blogging about the past year, so I was thinking how we were living cheap and green in 2008.

I'm a big believer in baby steps and doing what you can. It would be great to be the perfect eco-family but let's get real: it doesn't work that way. But I do look back at seemingly small things I've done that have made an impact.

Probably one of the most noticeable has been our trash level. Months back I joined in on Enviromom's One Can A Month Challenge. I never expected to lower our level to only one can, but we did! It also led me to investigate composting, and to be much more conscious of buying products with less packaging.

And the up side to the bad economy was that we became more conscious of our driving habits and energy usage.

We have almost stopped using paper towels thanks to our super absorbent kitchen towels (think sham-wow) and by sheer luck, our trash pick up started picking up recyclables #1-7.

We switched over to low flow shower heads and put aerators on kitchen and bathroom faucets...and never noticed a difference in performance, just in our water bill.

Lots of little things, over a year...but it has made such a difference in our budget and in our impact to the environment. Living cheap and green is the way to go :)

But overall, I think what I am most proud of (and probably have never blogged about?) is that my son is picking up these little habits...and thinking about them. I am proud he rinses his cup and sets it on the counter for later use instead of using 5 or 6 cups a day, and that he turns the tv off when he's done watching, and puts recyclables in the bin.

So my assessment of the past year? Pretty good job...except I still haven't made homemade yogurt yet! (See March 24th's entry!) Sounds like I have a New Year's Resolution...

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

With work and the holidays, I have been neglecting my blogging, but hopefully I'll get back to it more in the New Year.

In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday!

Postcard update

I got the postcards in the mail about a week ago. They came faster than I expected and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality. They were like actual postcards- nice thick paper weight and shiny front picture side.

There was the pre-printed message I included, but also plenty of room to write a personal message too. So all in all, I am really happy with these cards and plan to do them next year too!

So, the only problem was...the stamps. It seems the only postcard stamps are tropical fruits. The stamps look like this:

Kinda weird for Christmas cards, but hey, I figure people will really only be looking at the picture on the front anyway! I think I will look into those make-your-own picture stamps for next year.

Can Holiday Cards Be Cheap and Green?

I struggled with the idea of holiday cards this year. By far, the cheapest and greenest thing to do would be to send e-cards. No photo cards to pay for, no stamps to pay for, no trash from envelopes or pollution/carbon from the transport of the cards from my house to all over the country. So the simple answer would be e-cards...right?

While e-cards are definitely the cheapest and greenest, I just can't do it. I LOVE getting cards in the mail. I LOVE seeing pictures of my friends and relatives' kids as they grow. I save those pictures every year. And I love hearing from people I don't necessarily hear from any other time of year. So how do I reconcile sending cards with my budget (I send out a little more than 50 cards...that postage adds up!) and trying to be kind to the environment?

Here's what I came up with. Postcards. I found holiday themed postcards at snapfish and York Photo. Not only does that eliminate the envelope trash (or recycling, we'd hope!) but the postage is cheaper. So I am happy with being able to share the holiday spirit while finding a way to make my greetings a little cheaper and a little greener.