Sunday, February 10, 2008

Turning Green...

There was a reason I changed the color of my blog to green. I am very interested in becoming more environmentally conscious (without being a fanatic, not ready for that). But I think there are a few changes that I would like to make in the waste that our family produces. A couple of items come to mind..

Paper napkins. We go through a lot of paper napkins. I was thinking the other day about my grandparents. They lived next door to us when I was growing up. I loved how my grandmother set the table every night with her fine china, nice glassware and her cloth napkins. Each of them had an engraved sterling silver napkin holder. Not only was this elegant, but it was environmentally sound. No napkin waste. I hope to get a bunch of cloth napkins and holders to use on a daily basis. Not sure of the cost savings, but hopefully my waste will be less.

Paper Towels - It's along the same line. I can easily use cloths to clean up spills. They are relatively inexpensive.

Repairing instead of buying new. My husband went online to find parts for our gas grill that has been broken since the summer time. Total cost: $41.00 I like the savings, but what I like more is the fact that we didn't throw out something that could be easily fixed.

These are just a few things I hope to change over the next couple of months. I believe paper products are a great way to start.

4 comments:

Lilo said...

I know what you mean my paper towels. I don't use paper napkins but I go through paper towel like there is no tomorrow. I switch to using the cloth towels, but then I feel like I have to wash them right away and they keep piling up because I am lazy and I hate to haul my laundry to the laundromat.

Sharon said...

I would hate to have to go to the laundromat too. I had to a couple of years ago when our washing machine broke. The dryers never seemed to get the clothes dry. The upside though was that I could put multiple loads in at the same time!

Canadian Saver said...

For some reason I don't like to use paper towels, unless I absolutely need to (like for cat puke!). I try to use older towels or dish rags... I do buy it when it's on sale though...

One thing I'm trying to do is use canvas bags at the grocery store, I feel a lot better when I do that.

If you bought really dark cloth napkins and assigned one per person, I bet you could go more than one or 2 uses before you had to wash them... unless you served spaghetti on a regular basis ;-)

Sharon said...

Oh my gosh, how did you know we have spaghetti at least twice a week? I'm just going to look for inexpensive ones so that I can get a bunch (like 24). My son NEVER uses his napkin :(, so that's one less to wash. I was thinking of trying the dollar store.