Earth Day is a lovely day. It is made even cuter since it shares my brother’s birthday. Yes, he’s older than the actual Earth Day event which means I’m getting wiser in the process. Green is great. The environment is very important and something I value tremendously. I do my part to live a green life, but there’s always room for improvement.
Having said this and maybe not selling you on my pursuit of green… I’m unwilling to compromise on a few things when it comes to saving the planet. First on my list is recycled paper facial tissues. Seriously, my nose would probably feel better if I used sandpaper instead. There’s a damn fine reason they invented facial tissues with lotion. I know the recycled paper ones are stellar since they don’t use dyes and comes from recycled paper. My office uses these and I swear it’s so people won’t steal boxes of facial tissue to take home.
Next up, another paper product… paper towels. Same sort of thing here except the recycled paper towels just don’t do the trick. It takes about four squares of a recycled paper towel to do the trick of one Bounty sheet. Nobody is paying me to say this either. I’m not really sure the benefit of wasting towels. It comes down to dying the paper. In my fair city I can put paper towels in the food waste bin. This means I have very little guilt about using the quilted towels with a lumberjack as a mascot.
Now to be fair, I will offer up a couple green products that totally rock my world.
1. Our Prius. Call it a wimpy car if you want. Continue to believe the car is unsafe in accidents. Fine, but the car is neither wimpy or unsafe. I’ve been in a lot of cars in my life and I will say it’s a fabulous car. I’m very pleased with our Prius. We’ve owned it for 16 months and the car teaches me new things about myself daily. The great part about the car is it values my safety with gentle reminders to buckle my seat, the car is in reverse, and to “add fuel” when low. The Prius is looking after me so other folks don’t have to. Prius, I love what you do for me.
2. Any Seventh Generation brand product, minus paper products. I am a fan of their goods including the laundry detergent. Washing clothes in cold water is fun for the whole family/planet.
3. Biodegradable “styrofoam” packaging peanuts. This is more of a love/hate item since I severely despise styrofoam. I avoid styrofoam at all costs and would like to introduce legislation requiring all products packaged in styrofoam to be labeled as such on the outside. As consumers we shouldn’t have to buy crap bundled in styrofoam. The biodegradable peanuts dissolve in water. How cool is that? The only issue is they’re not as rigid as the bastard styro-nuts which stick to your body until you quickly flick them away. I wish more things dissolved in water because we have plenty of water in my part of the world. Poof!
** Egan knows there are a lot more green products not mentioned here. However, no companies stepped forward to endorse this post. Egan is a cheap blogger these days. **
oh yeah? well i dry humped all the trees in my front yard. my neighbors seem upset for some reason. it’s not my fault i didn’t know that dry humping implies that i should have kept my clothes on
Have you ever put those biodegradable peanuts in your mouth? Freaky-deaky, yo.
In all this “go green” shit that’s going around these days, I realize that I do quite a bit of reducing reusing and recycling. But like you, there are a few things that I won’t really bend on. One of them is the new lightbulbs that we we should be using (CFL’s I believe they’re called). I seriously can not use them as they give me massive headaches. I will be stocking up on the incandescent bulbs before 2012 that’s for sure.
My niece’s birthday is on Earth Day, too. But I think ED is older than she is.
The thing I am least willing to compromise on is the length of my daily shower (or use a pressure reducing shower head). I do feel a bit (just a bit) guilty about that, so I’ve recently adopted the slogan “if it’s yellow let it mellow” for my toilet flushing practices. (BTW, I don’t share my bathroom, so nobody else has the “pleasure” of being greeted with the tinted water.)
I also use “the quicker picker upper” but I use my paper towels more like napkins. And if I get through my meal without a spill, I save the Bounty sheet for the next meal. When it does get dirty, it gets tossed into the garden compost. To clean up other messes and spills I use rags.
Don’t sweat your tissue/paper towel usage too much. I have about 30 trees to plant this week, so I’ll be making up for some of your paper consumption.
The Seventh Generation cleaning products totally rock. I started using them after I got the cats because I didn’t want to expose them to the toxins in the other stuff. And I’m with you on the paper products. My facial tissues must have lotion.
Thanks for the b-day shout out! You’d be amazed how far behind the “green movement” the south is… Green is still recycling papers and boxes…and spent bullets that missed the target.
I heart Earth Day and try to do whatever I can to be green. I agree with you on the kleenex though.
I wonder if furious ball got any bark where he shouldn’t.
Anyway, another vote for 7th generation. Love their stuff.
I’m all about the facial tissues with lotion. Being sick is already bad enough… the recycled facial tissues just seem to make it worse because not only do you have to worry about your snot being visible, you have to worry about the skin peeling on your nose and if it kind of looks like snot.
But yes, I’m all about living a green life too. I’d love a Prius!
I think it’s good to have things like Earth Day to bring awareness but we need to do it daily. The amount of recycling I do is sometimes over the top, and like you, there are little luxuries that I will not do without.
When I see rubbish dumped on the streets that end up in our waterways, empty bottles, plastic containers, wrapping and so on, it reinforces my belief that it should start with large organisations and the packaging they use. Living in a fast food society has certainly impacted the environment. We wrap everything in disposable packaging including natural resources like water. I could go on, but my head hurts this morning.
Totally with you 1000% on this post.
stop giving me car envy.
I LOVE Seventh Generation stuff and I too despise styrofoam. Why do we need it? Seriously.
furiousball – dry humped some trees to celebrate Earth Day? Sounds like a great tradition in the making. Do you really love Mother Earth or what?
SM – no, I haven’t put those biodegradable nuts in my mouth. I’m not sure what would compel you to do something like that. Those light bulbs don’t bug me so much, but they do tend to have a high pitched whine which can annoy. I wish it was easier to recycle them, that’s for darn sure.
Amy – 30 trees planted in your yard or elsewhere? What kind of trees will you be planting? I want to know because I love trees. How did your backyard turn out by the way? It’s widely known I’m not great about bathing, but I do tend to use more water than I should when bathing. Shaving in the shower isn’t the best use of water.
Kailyn – that’s a very good reason to use them too, pets. I’m just not huge on chemicals and have tried to phase them out as best as possible. Yes, lotion is a must with facial tissues. Without your nose becomes raw fast.
Big Bro – I’ve noticed how different recycling tends to be outside of Seattle and perhaps the West Coast. I was shocked how poorly NYC recycled when there in 2003.
Churlita – me too, I think Earth Day is great and raises tremendous awareness. It reminds me how important Arbor Day was when I was a kid growing up. I loved planting new trees to watch them grow.
Meno – I’m sure he did get some bark where the sun don’t shine. Avoid him, he chafes. Seventh Generation is really great product, here ye.
Felisa – maybe you can get a Prius as your graduation gift in a few years. That’s something to look forward to. Maybe you can put nice comfy facial tissues in your new Prius too. Don’t want those passengers unhappy.
Clea – you make a great point here. The packaging for some stuff here is insane and it’s for slightly different reasons. We are consumed by theft and health here. You can’t just put out plastic forks to be used. Those forks have to be wrapped in plastic. Don’t even get me started about places like Costco which wrap gift cards in copious amounts of plastic. Such a waste. We can recycle a lot here, but I’m okay with it. It makes me feel much more connected to the green movement.
QT – so you don’t like the abrasive facial tissues either? They suck ass.
Gwen – okay, I won’t talk about how great it is any longer. You’ll just have to drive one yourself.
JLee – I have no clue why we need it. I’m guessing it’s because it’s cheap. People like cheap shit. Styrofoam “mugs” at work cost three cents as opposed to the paper counterpart at eight cents. It’s about costs and that’s really sad.
To answer your questions, the trees are all spruce. Most of them are a white spruce, but two of them are blue spruce (the blue ones were an Earth Day gift from my bank). Yes, they are going in my yard. They are being planted to hide all the mess on the neighboring property. The yard will never be “done”. It is a constant work in progress. I have started taking pictures for a garden blog. I will send you the link when I get it up.