How to Seal a Bag and Make It Air Tight

Our great friend Trayce sent this terrific tip over and I was blown away! Not only does this help to seal the bag but the most thrown away portion of a plastic water bottle, the cap, is functionally utilized by extending its lifecycle. If we all learned to think creatively like this we could save countless pounds of non-biodegradable waste from landfills.

Air Tight Steps

Cut up a disposable water bottle and keep the neck and top.

Insert the plastic bag through the neck and screw the top – to seal.

The bottle is made to be air-tight, such that water will not leak, the secret lies with the top and screw! This is a great idea to share, feel free to pass on the link and let everyone see how easy it can be to save plastic waste and save the items inside the bag for even longer! Thanks for forwarding on the great idea Trayce ♥love♥

Tap Water Just Got Tastier with PUR Flavor Options Water Filtration Systems

We all know that plastic bottles created from petroleum are harmful to the environment as they take centuries to break down (if at all), can end up leeching into the Earth or become stuck spinning in the middle of the ocean in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so tap water in a reusable bottle is certainly the responsible way to go.

Tap water alone can become boring and although flavored water is tasty, most water enhancements such as packets or already flavored waters add calories, sugar or both to the water we drink. Not to mention how much money can be spent on all those individual bits. So then what is a thirsty Greenie to do? Why they run right out and pick up a PUR Flavor Options Water Filtration System of course!

Filtering tap water with a PUR filter can reduce pharmaceuticals in the water supply by 96% (if they are present), not to mention various agricultural or industrial pollutants, chlorine, lead, rust and microbial cysts. Who knew there was that much floating around in our public water supply? Um, yikes! Not to mention that using a PUR pitcher instead of bottles means that up to 2,000 individual bottles are removed from the landfill per person every year.

Of course the coolest part of this little baby is the flavor cartridge. Instead of a small individual packet that is used and tossed each time, the PUR cartridge inserts into the lid of the pitcher. If flavoring is desired just click a button on the top of the handle while pouring and a squirt is added. But without clicking there will be no flavoring, leaving the option open for plain water as well. The cartridges are said to last up to about 75 eight ounce glasses so there is far less waste associated than with packets or bottles.

And oh yeah, it’s super yummy without adding any sugar or calories! The pitcher I got came with a raspberry cartridge, I also got lemon, but there are strawberry, peach and grape options available as well. I tried the raspberry right away (mine and Matt’s favorite so far) but wanted to try lemon too so I just popped out the cartridge, tossed it in the fridge (tip up) and poured a glass of lemon water. E-Z!

My only concern is that the items we must throw away are in fact petroleum based plastic -- the filter and cartridges. Additionally, sometimes the squirt of flavoring ends up stuck in the little reservoir at the end so when switching to a different flavor it needs to be cleaned out. In comparison to individual bottles or packets however the waste associated with this PUR Flavor Options System is minimal so I am awarding it a Four and a Half Green Leaf rating!

I am uber impressed with this entire system and our little family is happy to be drinking healthy water as well as helping to keep tons of plastic out of landfills. Nice work PUR!
♥love♥

What Impact Does the Phone Book have on the Planet?

As a prequel to this post I must say I love this world and the way things always seem to work out just the way they should. Most of the time the winds and waves of fate push us in the direction we are supposed to move so if we do not fight them we end up landing right where we should; carried by the natural way of things. When this type of thing happens it always makes me smile.

This morning I felt a strange need to go back over to read through the comments on Jason’s latest blog posting. It is truly rare that I do this on anyone’s blog, generally I leave my comment and go about my life until I see the next posting and then, repeat, but for some reason I felt compelled to be there today so I went with it and the end result, as referenced above, was a big smile.

One of the comments shared a couple links to the issue of the Yellow Pages and how the unsolicited delivery of them nation wide creates a huge draw on natural resources (sadly this person’s profile is set to private so I can not link back, sorry!). I had been considering what to write about today and bingo, there it was, a story I had forgotten about came rushing back. Here is what laura had to say:

“Arrrgh! Phone books came this week and I hung my head in shame. Not only did I get my shiny new set at work, but at home too. So now I feel like a complete drain on mother Earth. So I did a little searching online to see if this issue was being addressed by the sane.
EVERYONE please sign up to stop the madness! Go Paperless people! 540 million copies of these tree wasting bricks are delivered EVERY year in the US alone. The Google has it all kids!
Sign up to be removed from the mailing lists.
http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/
http://www.paperlesspetition.org/
I know that Jason's friends love the planet and thought they'd want to know. Heck, I might be the one catching up or should I say waking up.
Spread the love.”

I responded there to thank laura for the links and share a story about our own phone book delivery a while back. Matt and I were out front when the delivery person arrived. The books were not shrink-wrapped and he stacked them on the side of our front lobby. We, almost simultaneously, indicated we did not need one and thanks anyway but he could give it to someone else. He told us that he was not allowed to do that, he had to leave them or he would not get paid. We were stunned that trees were being chopped down for something we do not even need but at the time we had no idea what to do other than to take our copy back upstairs and recycle it with the paper later that week. We thought, who needs a phone book when there is Google or yellowpages.com these days? (The really important thing to note here is that I just went down to the lobby and there are still 32 various books just sitting there, taking up space and getting no use. Some have been there well over two months.)

Enter laura and the links so generously shared over at the Freshness Factor.

I immediately went to Yellow Pages Goes Green and began investigating. Turns out this grassroots movement is pretty alright! They indicate that 540 million yellow/white pages are printed each year (that is 1.79 books per every person in the United States) and their mission is to turn it around so these books are not simply left (unsolicited) but a consumer has to call to have one delivered if they want one, thus saving millions of tons of resources and emissions annually but still making the resource available to those who really want or need it. Clearly these folks felt the same as Matt and I about the advent of the Internet for providing information that meets our needs. After reading through all of the information on the website I was elated and signed up, hopeful it would make a difference.

Then it was time to visit the Paperless Petition link. I found this site to provide about the same information as the first and opted to use Matt’s information instead of my own so we would be doubly covered just in case. The cool thing about this site is they are able to support requests from Canada, the UK and Australia in addition to the US. International readers, this is the one for you!

I am not sure how effective signing up will be as we live in an apartment building and I do not know if this would be something my landlord would need to request but I figured it could not hurt to try anyway. Here is hoping that there will be at least one less book in all of the piles downstairs from now on. Please feel free to sign up if you no longer use the physical yellow pages. It takes just a minute and the planet will thank you.

As laura said “spread the love”.

UPDATE: Laura's profile is up but she does not have a blog so please don't spam her, thanks!

I Have Heard of a Vegan But What Is A Freegan?

Right off the bat I need to say that when I typed up the title for this post in Word I had to add Freegan to the dictionary, meaning that it is such a new word that Microsoft does not even recognize it. Of course what I discovered this morning is that even though Microsoft does not know what it is there is an entire world associated with and dedicated to this not new concept. With the country and economy in the state it is in I can definitely understand why it is gaining steam.

Yesterday while researching the Tiny Free House built exclusively from pallets I came across the word freegan a couple times while reading his blog. I did not think too much of it at the time but decided to use it as a tag for the post anyway. The fact that I was not entirely sure what it was though had been gnawing at me all night because I do not want to lead anyone down a misinformed path or put something out there that I am not entirely sure about so this morning it became clear that what I needed to do was dedicate an entire post to this one word.

Perhaps someone may say it is impossible to write an entire article or lengthy blog post on the basis of just one word. Well those people clearly do not know me and the way I do research! I discovered websites, blogs, articles, tips and even a wiki dedicated to this one word. If I were really ambitions I could likely dedicate three posts to it but I will leave that second layer of exploration to the individual discretion of each person reading.

So what is it already right?

Freeganism is about sharing. Freeganism is about community, freedom and generous social interaction. Freeganism is about dumpster diving, especially for food.

Wait, what?

On the website freegan.info the tagline states “Strategies for Sustainable Living Beyond Capitalism”. It is basically a conscious decision to remove oneself from the place of support for what companies stand for by boycotting the purchasing of products created by them. It goes for all companies. Yes this does also mean food.

Yesterday I discussed the fact that we would be utilizing free shipping pallets to construct our entertainment center and it opened up a can of freegan worms that, if we so chose, would propel us down the path of: no longer paying rent (either squatting or living in the “wild” purposefully), no longer paying bills (paying the heat bill encourages the production and use of fossil fuels and all that is associated with that concept), begin rummaging through dumpsters for food (waste should feed people, not be thrown away) and a literal myriad of additional ways to completely remove our foot print from the planet or provide positive impact only (composting, communal living, etc).

I am certainly all for people doing what they like and although I could never picture myself going down a completely freegan path, I can understand the inclination because just the research into the concept has caused me to think about the following:

☼ Buying only what we need to survive and using it to its fullest extent so as not to waste
☼ Living in just the amount of space we really need and conserving the resources used within that space
☼ Donating even more than we already do to charitable organizations (not just monetary but material as well)
☼ Repurposing materials for alternative solutions if possible
☼ When looking to procure or get rid of something check craigslist free in my local area first (for example Matt wants a bike so he has been on craigslist Boston to find one for free)
☼ Begin researching where my goods come from and noting what impact it has/had on the planet to not only construct it but to get it to where I am from where it originated
☼ Start clipping coupons for everything I buy
☼ Share as much as possible with whomever I can and accept when others do the same for me

What are some of the ways you could see yourself being free?