Question Time - Grocery Bags

Joe never seems to remember to bring our reusable grocery bags with him to the store. They can be in his car and he will forget them. So not only are we paying 5 cents a bag but we are also not doing out part for the environment.

So I have to ask....how do you remember to bring your bags with you into the store?

Sh*t Box

This post will be about poop. No seriously (Sam you can thank me later).

Introducing the Sh*t box. A portable toilet for use in the great outdoors. Look it even has a lid and comes with poop bags, toilet paper and a carrying tote.

What more could you need? Well maybe one of those little green tree shaped air fresheners would do the trick.

Now the question that is on everyone's mind. Where do you go pee?

Green News

What is new in the world of the environment?

ECO-CAN - Funding is available for individuals and groups to participate in the EIA of Bruce Nuclear Power Plant

The Daily Green - Pool chemicals causing illnesses

The Greenpages - Sustainable community design

The Independent - UK's progress on greenhouse gas emission reduction

Reuters - House passes climate change bill

Not so Local at the Farmers Market

We went to the farmers market on Saturday and were surprised that the only good deals were on produce from the US. Regardless that there were fantastic deals on many delicious items we could not bring ourselves to even think about buying them. Why would we go to the local farmers market to buy produce from the US? Doesn't it defeat the purpose of shopping at the market? I go to there to buy from local farmers. Buy their produce that they are producing within our area.

Does any of this just seem odd to anyone else but me?

Weekly Eco-Challenge: Waste Streams

Well the results are in. We decided to follow the amounts we were producing over a 3 week period to help give us a good average of what we are producing. I found that we really watched everything a bit closer since we knew we were going to be measuring each waste stream. For example I shredded more paper to add to the compost rather than putting it in the bluebin.


So how did it pan out? Keep in mind that there are only 2 of us in the house.

Garbage - 9.4lbs = 3.13lbs/week or 0.45lbs/day

Compost - 14.4lbs = 4.8lbs/week or 0.69lbs/day

Recycling - 32.4lbs = 10.8lbs/week or 1.54lbs/day



We broke down the recycling even further. Of the 32.4lbs of recyclables we had over the 3 week period. 12.6lbs of it was plastics, glass and aluminum. The other 19.8lbs was cardboard and paper. Which makes sense considering how many flyers we get in the week. We do use the flyers a lot to help save money on groceries and household purchases so it is worth it for us to keep getting them as opposed to cancelling them. But I would say that if you do not need to get sale flyers that you look into cancelling their delivery if you want to reduce the amount of paper you are putting into the recycling stream.

How do I think we are doing? Well I think that we have been able to divert a significant amount from the landfill but I would like to see the overall amount of recycling decrease. What I mean by this is that I think we need to start looking at what we are buying and the packaging that it comes in. Less is more.

We plan doing this again in a few months to see where we are at and if any changes we implement are making a difference.

Plastic vs Reusable Grocery Bags

I was watching the news a few days ago and they had a segment on reusable grocery bags. In Ontario we now have to pay for plastic grocery bags if we want to use them. Finally! Now the plastics industry has funded a study to look at the health implications of using the reusable grocery bags. What were the results? Bacteria. Yep, bacteria in the bags from carrying food in them. Hmmmm go figure. Seriously, a study was needed to determine that carrying food in a reusable bag over and over again will cause bacteria to build up???

The recommended way to combat this bacteria is to wash your reusable bags. Easy enough. But what is funny is that the plastics industry is trying to use this study to show that people would be better off using the plastic grocery bags. Le sigh.

What I find to be ironic about this whole thing is that they did not mention (at least in the information I found) the plastic reusable totes that you can get to carry your groceries in. I guess they have some sort of superhuman power that allows them to repel all bacteria??? Or is it because they are made from plastic and it would defeat the point of the study for the plastics industry to show that the same bacteria found in reusable bags can be found in the plastic reusable bins.

Tip of the Day - Eco-Friendly Paint

We needed to paint a good portion of the inside of our house and decided to check out the Eco-friendly paint options. Man are there lots of them out there and I can see how easy it would be for people to get confused and frustrated. Some brands are even making it look like their paint is certified when really it is just a fancy symbol that they themselves have added. We weeded these one's out quickly and were able to focus on the paints that were actually available in Canada and were certified by a 3rd party.

So who were the front runners?

Benjamin Moore - Aura Line
Olympic - Premium
Sico - Chamois

Benjamin Moore was the only one of the 3 that offered VOC free base paint and tinters making it a true VOC free paint. The Olympic and Sico brands offered VOC free base paint but the tinters added were not VOC free making them in the end low VOC paints.

While we would have loved to get VOC free paint and go with the Benjamin Moore line we had to look at the cost of the paint. At nearly double the cost of the 2nd in line (Sico) we decided that it was just not worth it so we went with the Sico Chamois paint. We were getting a light tint anyways so we knew that the VOC's being added in the tint would be less than if we were doing a darker paint.

I think this is something to keep in mind when you are looking at VOC free paints. Are they really a true VOC free paint or is it just the base that is VOC free. If you are going for a dark colour you may want to just pay the extra money and go with Benjamin Moore to ensure you keep your paint as low VOC as possible. Regardless of what you decide these paints are still better than the "regular" paints on the market.

I have heard people questioning if the low VOC and VOC free paints are of any quality. We found the Sico paint to be exceptional. It went on really well and provided excellent coverage. Honestly it is one of the nicest paints we have worked with.

Our tips for selecting a Eco-Friendly paint include:
- Look for a brand that is certified by a third party (eco-logo, green seal etc)
- Watch for brands that are "self" certified
- Weigh your priorities, including budget
- Look for sales (we see them at least once a month)
- Use a paint calculator to determine how much paint you need for your project

Weekly Eco-Challenge

We have been composting for awhile now and I know that we are producing less garbage but I have no idea how much of our waste goes to composting vs recycling vs garbage. So we are going to find out. We have also been adding our paper shreddings to the compost so we have been diverting some of our waste from the recycling stream to the compost stream.

We plan on starting right after the weekly garbage/recycling day. We will measure (by weight) the compost bin, garbage bag and recycling bins each week on garbage/recyling day. We plan on doing this for at least 2 weeks so we can get a good average of how much goes to each waste stream during a given week.

This should be interesting and help to see if we have any room for improvement in any of these waste streams. It may also lead to us breaking the 3 streams down further to see where exactly our waste is going. But that would be a whole other weekly challenge.

What are you doing for Earth Day?

So tomorrow is Earth Day. I am amazed at the number of people who don't even know what or when Earth Day is. This year I have seen even less advertising (locally and otherwise) than previous years.

What are you doing to celebrate the day? I don't really know what we are going to do. We try to do things in our life every day that minimize our impact on the environment so I struggle to find something that is unique enough to say that we are doing it just because it is Earth Day.

My friend Sam decided to convey her message about Earth Day by drawing on the board walk.

I started thinking about what are the 'typical' things that people do to celebrate Earth Day:
- tree planting
- garbage cleanup
- commuter challenges

Okay I am struggling here. Why is it that all Earth Day celebrations center around tree planting and garbage pickups? Is it because these are the only simple/easy things that organizers can come up with so people will actually want to participate? I don't know.

Want to know what is going on in your neighbourhood? Check out Earth Day Canada.

Environmentally Friendly Baby Stuff

While the mainstream baby stores are starting to carry more organic baby items I find that the selection is still not that great. So I started to look around for more options in our area. Here is what I have found so far (both online and stores):

Baby Naturopathics - online - across Canada and the US
Baby on the Hip - online and in store (Toronto)
Bear Bottoms - cloth diaper service (KW and surrounding area)
Cloth Diaper Clearance - online (based in the US)
Cotton Babies - online (based in the US)
Diaper Days - online (Canada only) and in store (Guelph)
Ella + Elliot - online and in store (Toronto)
Essere Organics - online and in store (Oakville)
Etsy - online
Mom and Baby Boutique - online and in store (Brantford)
Mom Knows Best - online - across Canada and International
Parenting by Nature - online - across Canada and the US