LaurenandLloyd.com

where our wasted time becomes your wasted time

green

Environmentally Re$pon$ible

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We don’t go through tons and tons of batteries around here, but the remotes, the exercise bike my keyboard and mouse use them. Every time I have to change the batteries I always think, “We should really get rechargeables.” I went on the Sears website and they had a charger that could fit all sizes of batteries. When I went to an actual Sears stores, however, they didn’t carry it. *sigh*

Well, Wal-Mart eventually came through for me. I picked this one up for the very reasonable price of about 20-25 dollars. And the 8-pack of AA batteries rang it at about 12 bucks. Tonight I bought a couple 2-packs of D’s for…. 12 bucks each!!! Good grief!!! Being environmentally friendly is going to break the bank! They’d better last forever.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Earth. I really do love you.

insert 'charge' pun here

Oh, you too, Lloyd.

Recycling – Out!

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I had a surprisingly productive day. Our house has slowly been filling with recycling, and it was threatening to take over the kitchen and the basement. I got all the boxes broken down and consolidated, and everything loaded into the back of the truck. There were a couple of bags for Goodwill, too, and some things to deliver to Kate out in the country – all that adds up to a trip to Lincoln!

Junk in my trunk, really.

Why Lincoln for recycling? The recycling place in Seward is only open a few hours, three times a week. Our place also doesn’t take glass, so I think I prefer going to Lincoln. (I don’t have to sort out the plastics, either.) The thing I don’t understand is that there’s a sign on the bin that says, “Do not break glass”, but you have to drop the bottles in those holes from head-height, and they fall to the bottom, smashing. What’s up with that?

I don't have anything clever to say here.

To reward myself for being so environmentally responsible and saving the earth, I went and bought a bread knife. Wrapped in plastic.

It almost goes with my other knives.

Envirosax vs. Chicobags

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All bundled up.

I’ll admit that I’ve become a little obsessed about reusable grocery bags, but I heard the story about the place in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas that has all that plastic floating around and it creeped me out. (One million pieces of trash per square mile.) I already told you about the Envirosax, which I love, but I went ahead and bought some Chico bags to compare the two styles. Hopefully someone out there in intraweb-land may find this useful.

Envirosax have a lot going for them – they’re cute, have awesome patterns, they hold quite a lot of stuff, and best of all, the handles will fit over your shoulder. Lloyd and I do a once-a-week grocery trip, and can fit all our purchases in 3 or 4 bags. The down side – it takes me a little bit of time to re-roll them, but I might just be clumsy. I also had something punch a hole in one bag. (I patched it. No need to throw it out.) Here are some diagrams of how it rolls/unrolls.

You unsnap the straps, and it pops open.

It rolled faster than I could take the picture.

The sides are folded in thirds around the handle.

Yep.

Unfold the handle, unfold the bag- viola’!

A bag!

To re-roll, fold the bag in half, fold the handle down, fold the sides in thirds, roll like a little sleeping bag, snap shut. It takes longer to type the directions than it takes to roll it, but you can see how it’s a bit fussy. It’s windbreaker-like material, so it’s a little slippery. However, it’s a very sleek, compact package, and I always keep two in my tiny purse. (I ‘pimped it out’ with some elastic straps so they’d stay put.)

Two bags, a phone, a wallet, a camera, lip stuff, and a pen.

I haven’t taken the Chicobags shopping yet, but they are just the same size as a regular plastic t-shirt bag. The straps can’t fit over your shoulder, but I think the plus for these is the ease of putting it back in the bag. (It goes wicked fast.) To use the bag, just undo -the cinch cord, grab the bag and pull it out.

Open sesame.

It comes out inside-out, so shake it right-side out and the pouch becomes a little pocket inside to hold your keys or whatever. Here are the two together for size comparison:

Does size matter?

And just for kicks, a plastic bag.

Bad plastic bag! Bad!

So, overall, I like them both. The Envirosax will always live in my purse, but when I don’t have a purse, the Chico bag has a handy little clip that could attach to anything. They both pack up equally small. The fabric seems similar. The Envirosax holds more, but the Chicobag is so much easier to put away. They both get an A+ for gadgety-ness in my book!

(I also realize that now I have an over-abundance of reusable bags. Maybe I can give some away for Christmas?)

UPDATE: I recently ordered a Chicobag Vita, and was wondering if they made it out of a different fabric because it was so crinkly.  Looking back on this post, I see that mine used to be crinkly, too.  They soften up after a couple of uses.

Envirosax!

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Nine by six inches, baby!

So this is why we didn’t have groceries – I was waiting for my pretty bags to arrive!

A couple of weeks ago I was watching ‘Living with Ed’ (Ed Bagley Jr.) on HGTV.  He’s a tree-huggin’, energy-savin’, stuff-recyclin’ guy, and it makes his wife nuts.  I love the show.  This episode they were visiting celebrity homes and showing them little things they could do to make a difference.  They were at Cheryl Tiegs’ house and she had reusable grocery bag, but they didn’t show them in detail.  I looked for the on the internet, and found these instead.  In a fit of spending, I bought the whole pack.  You really need to go to envirosax.com to see all the collections.

They combine re-using with gadgety-ness!  On occasion I’ve walked to our local grocery store with a canvas bag, but these are much, much cooler.  They’re five cloth bags that each roll up to the size of a little egg roll, and they each hold as much as two plastic grocery bags.  I can keep one or two in my little purse at all times!  I’m so excited to get some food!  (I’ll run into a problem, though.  I actually do re-use the plastic bags by putting cat litter in them.  I’ll have to sneak some from the giant stash at school.)  I love you, Envirosax!!!

I could buy acres of food and stuff!!!

Yogurt Cups

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I’ll admit it, I’m a tree hugger at heart.  I collect stuff for recycling (though it sits around for months before we take it in), I try to be responsible in what I buy so it won’t make a lot of needless waste, and I watch lots and lots of t.v. shows about taking care of our planet.  I’ve needed a new toothbrush for quite a while, and I was perusing the many, many choices that our Wal-Mart has to offer.  (Wal-mart’s another place that gets me.  I use the self-checkout because the regular checkers only put two things in a bag, so you leave with a zillion bags.)  Do I buy cheap, as is my custom, or gadget-y?  Lloyd has an electric toothbrush that I’m jealous of, but I don’t want to get another of those expensive things. Then this caught my eye:

Preserve your teeth!

It’s a toothbrush made of recycled yogurt cups!  The package has air holes so you can use it as a travel case, and when it gets too old, you can send it back to the company (postage paid!) and they’ll recycle it again!  It’s fun to brush with because it has such a weird angle to the handle, and I highly recommend it.

For science!

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Which is which?

I began to experiment with Simlpe Green vs. water to remove the border adhesive.  Here you see a completely organized beginning to an earth-shattering scientific experiment.  What you don’t see is how I kept forgetting to go back and re-wet them since I was looking up useless things on the internet.  So, I wound up slopping Simple Green solution over the whole wall.  It was successful for several reasons: 1) I didn’t cover it with plastic wrap and leave it to sit for a whole hour, 2) I used a plastic scraper instead of a metal one.  Hooray!  The goal is to take it off a foot at a time.  At this rate, I’ll be done by Easter!

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