Growers and Grocers

Anyone who has watched Al Gore’s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth knows that it can seem incredibly disempowering to witness the massive destruction that global warming is inflicting upon the Earth. And the whole problem seems overwhelming when confronted with said inconvenient truths, but Mr. Gore gave us some actionable advice at the end of the film. Thanks in no small part to Mr. Gore (and with a special nod to the fashion industry), green is the new black. Add the web site How To Do Things to the list of growing Internet green living gurus.

The useful web site just launched its first Guide to Green Living with tips in a number of topics, such as spring cleaning, recycling and reusing, growing green kids (I hope they don’t mean that literally), earth-friendly gardening, and going green on the cheap. Most of the advice is really just common sense, but every little bit helps, especially its formulas for green cleaning.

In the cleaning category, there are instructions on how to make dish soap. The forumla is a simple combination of 2 cups of castille soap (which you can buy at most health food stores and even some progressive supermarkets,) 1/2 cup of warm water, and a couple drops of essential oils for a lovely aroma. Put it all into a bottle that is squeezable; use spent bottles from shampoos or other dish soaps. The site also shows other ways to make your own dish soap from things such as soap flakes or solid soap shavings–the latter is a clever way to use up those (previously) useless little nubs that are invariably left at the end of your bar.

I also like its idea for how to pack an eco-friendly lunch. I don’t mean to sound like Donna Reed here, but sometimes I pack a lunch for my husband and we’re always looking for a substitute for the ubiquitous and destructive plastic sandwich bag. That’s where Reusable Bags comes in. The company sells washable “wrap-n-mat” wrappers that fold up like an envelope and seal with Velcro. Along those lines, the article recommends not buying individually-sized packages of snack foods: they are more expensive and create more waste. This may be obvious to anyone who buys groceries, but it bears repeating. We switched to brown paper bags a while ago, but the site lists links to other snazzy-looking options such as lunch totes, bento box-style containers and more.