Simple green tips from Tea & Cookies

Found this post by Tea, a foodblogger from San Francisco, outlining the simple ways she tries to make her home and her life greener.

I like the post because it's not by a green blogger, so it's by someone who isn't, ostensibly, thinking about this all the time, and because these really are very simple ideas.

I'll confess it also caught my eye because she features the Pyrex bowls with lids picture here, and I registered for and received these same bowls for my wedding, and do indeed find them to be really useful and a pleasure to use. When I wash them I never feel, as I tend to do with more typical plastic Tupperware-style containers, that I haven't really gotten them quite clean enough.

Tea reminds me of something I've been meaning to do that I just need to do: Take my own insulated mug along when I treat myself to a soy latte at Starbucks. I only have about a million of them, since they are a very popular schwag item at conferences and such.

There are some things that Tea mentions that I've got going on: reusable shopping bags, reusable coffee filter and so on.

And one thing that I have trouble imagining myself ever doing: composting. I'm squeamish, I admit it. What about you? Any composters out there? Am I being a whiny baby?

Anyway: Nice, clear, simple tips. For regular people who care abut the environment. And unless I'm mistaken, shouldn't that be everyone?

Comments

[pamela hornik]

Good, simple tips. I have been meaning to compost all year. I finally remembered my bags today. Little things do make a difference. My sons school is trying to eliminate all plastic bags...

[Maia]

Hi there :) Found your blog from a link on one of my regular reading lists...

As for composting? I admit that I was initially squeamish, too. So what we did was reuse one of the large rubbermaid boxes we had in the basement, so that it can be mostly sealed (but still get enough air) and keep it outside. The smell isn't too bad even when you get the lid off, and you get used to it rapidly -- we've been composting for about a month and I'm over my squeamish.

Inside, so we're not running to the rubbermaid every two minutes, we have a large round tupperware (think the size of one of those giant ice cream buckets) that we put our compostables into and then SEAL it, until it's full and we then take it out to the rubbermaid.

It's remarkable how full our rubbermaid is already, and I'm loving how the amount of waste we produce as a household has decreased. I have a list of compostables that I'll put up at my blog, if you're looking for more beginner information :) I'm such a convert! (You can even compost coffee grounds -- and Starbucks will give you bags of them to start you off if you find your 'brown' and 'green' waste are off balance!)

Anyway, if you do want to discuss this more, just let me know. I'm always happy to help!

[Elisa Camahort Page]

Thanks for the tips Maia, I am checking out your blog now!

[Sarah Supernova]

Composting is actually quite beautiful. Get over the squeamishness and get back to the Earth. I mean, seriously. When you compost, you are LITERALLY CREATING EARTH. You're creating soil, which is the basis of all that we, as humans, need for beauty, bounty and survival.

Consider it like that!

[judith]

Composting doesnt' have to be very squemish. In my mind it's a lot less yucky than having food waste dirtying the bin. I too have a container inside (the "peely bin" I got from lakeland a few years ago) which I empty every couple of days. If you have plenty of space and several composters you can leave the compost a long time, so the yuck factor is limited to the fruit flies. When the composting process is going well, there is a hive of activity in the bin - you can almost hear it, and see lots of mini beasts. It actually gets quite exciting "seeing how the compost is doing". And when its done it feels amazing to feed your plants with it. I put the best stuff on my veg garden. I put the rougher stuff as a mulch around shrubs - over a period of time the worms do half the work for you.