Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Do you know what's in your bathroom products?

I found this blog today http://www.thegreenestdollar.com/ . This is a really good blog all about living green and being environmental.  Part of me thinks why should I blog about this stuff when other people are already doing it and are doing it better?  I forget that I started it for my own growth as a greenie and track the progress of my going greenness :)

I'd seen this link years ago but forgot about it.  Its a site where you can enter various personal products like shampoo, deoderant, etc and they tell you how toxic it is, whether its been tested on animals and anything else you'd like to know about it on a level of environmental concerns.  You should check this link out!
http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/index.php?nothanks=1

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Caculator

Here is a fun little link you can follow to see exactly how much Carbon Dioxide you produce.  And what's awesome is at the bottom there is a link where you can sponsor planting of trees for a little under $3 to help off set you carbon dioxide emission!

http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-calculator.htm

Monday, November 24, 2008

Random Facts of the day!

-On average, each American uses/produces about 4.5 pounds a trash a day!
-Most food you each has traveled about 1500 miles before it goes in your mouth!
-It takes 150 years for a plastic bag to decompose! :(

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Vermicomposting and worm farms!

So one thing I've been learning about this week is vermicomposting and worm farms!  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have mine set up.  Eventually I'd like to buy the Worm Factory but until I can save up for that I am hand making one.  Ideally I would have liked to make one out of wood but I've been looking for old pieces of wood to make one out of but haven't found any so for right now I'm making one out of a plastic bin (plastic is evil :().  Its kind of cool because, well, watching one of Sustainable Dave's video I saw that he has some rats so he feeds them scraps that would have otherwise be thrown away and whatever they don't eat he gives to the worms.  I had already decided to have a worm farm and just yesterday a rat fell in my lap! Well, not literally of course but I got to work yesterday and my co-worker brought a rat to work and gave it to me!  (it was suppose to be snake food :/) so not only was a little life saved, but she in turn will help save the planet by eating stuff that would have been going to the land fill! Anyways...got off the topic of worm farms!   I'm hoping to go pick up my wormies within the next day or so.  I had been shredding some paper at my boyfriend's place and he told me he throws the stuff away!  Isn't it recyclable? He said it isn't (not sure thats true) but either way I have my own way of recycling it now! Yay! Not only can I use it for bedding for my rat (instead of buys stuff from the store which uses up un-needed materials and plastic, etc) but my wormies will need it to live in as well!  They will live in the shredded paper and eat it!  How cool is that!?!  I will post some pictures once I get my worm compost all set up.  In the mean time read this awesome article so you, too can have your very own vermicompost!  

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/41/1/Worm-farms-and-vermicomposting.html

Yay for new beginnings!

I'm starting this blog in hopes to continue on the path of green living.  I've always been a tree hugger at heart but got lost along the way but I'm finding my way home! And hopefully this blog will help me stay on that path!  Cable has been a big help with getting me back in the saddle again :P I just got cable for the first time in over 8 years (well, basically, I got cable for the first time since I moved out of my parents house).  And now we have awesome channels like the Green Channel, the Science Channel, and all The Discovery Channel.  I think its amazing that we have the Green Channel allowing all the wonderful environmental information reaching the general public that before hand may have never been exposed to.  One show that has become a favorite is "Stuff Happens" starring Bill Nye <3 Another inspiration has been Sustainable dave!  (you can check him out at sustainabledave.org)  So here's to Green living! :)