Easy Green Happy Hour

How to have an easy green happy hour:

This worked really well because at our Whole Foods, you can buy wine, they will open it for you, and there is a really nice deck/patio thingy.

1. Invite people. Everybody picks a buddy.
2. One buddy buys drink, one buddy buys snacks. This way, you don't end up with 10 bottles of wine and no food.
3. One person brings picnic cups for everybody. (I have lots of plastic dinosaur cups -- they are a good size for a glass of wine, and it's not too hard to bring 10. Glass would be nicer, but more complicated.)
4. Compost all the food waste/paper after HH.
5. Recycle the (many!) bottles.

We did this last night, and it was really fun. It was also extremely stress-free and relaxing :)

Plastic Waste at Public Events

On Friday, my family went to a festival at the elementary school. A potluck dinner was part of the festival. Knowing this, we brought our own plates, cups and utensils. Bottled water was free at the festival (donated by WF. Why?) We filled up our cups with water from the fountain. That was no problem.

Last time we brought our plates, it was a big mess. This time was an improvement because I brought a plastic bag to put the dirty plates in. All in all, it was pretty easy. Blech factor? Not too bad. It just took a little thinking ahead.

Laundry detergent update:
A couple of weeks ago, I made my own laundry detergent. The results are in -- it works! Actually, C and I think it may be even better than the store-bought stuff. The clothes are clean, and they have an appealing clean (but not chemical) smell.

BBQ Etiquette & Dishwashing

Today we barbecued with the neighbors, and it brought up a few of the green issues that always come up with picnics/BBQs:

1. Should we bring our own plates/silverware or use the disposables provided by the host? (If I know ahead of time, I always bring my own stuff). I try not to make a big deal about it, but sometimes I really stick out.

2. What should we eat? Normally, we only eat "happy" free-range meat, but that is not usually the fare at a BBQ. We bring our own, but everyone shares. On this issue, I would feel sort of weird refusing to eat other people's food (but having them share mine...I'm not going to refuse to share it). What do you do? Maybe the health benefits of friendship outweigh the badness of the antibiotics etc. in the meat? I like to think so.

3. Recycling? Few people recycle at BBQs here. This evening we collected the recycling and brought it home. Some of it was already in the trash, but the trash was mostly styrofoam plates (pretty clean ones), so it wasn't really gross. C said "I'm really weird about this... do you mind if I recycle the bottles?" It led to a little chat about recycling, but no one seemed to think we were freaks or anything.

Any comments or suggestions? I'm curious to see what other people do. One thing that did cut down on the waste at this BBQ was the fact that it was almost entirely finger food. Now that's pretty smart. Not something you could do every time, but really handy, especially with little kids.

Dishwashing
Of course, once you bring those plates home from the BBQ, you have to wash them. BLAH! It's my most hated chore. We don't have a dishwasher, so we wash them all by hand. But if we had a choice, is that the best choice?

Dishwasher vs. Hand-washing
Treehugger posted about this a while ago and found that using the dishwasher uses less energy and less water (unless, perhaps, your dishwasher is very old). For this to be the case, you should not pre-rinse the dishes and should not use the dry cycle.

Hand-washing:
So what do you do if you don't have a dishwasher (or yours is not efficient)? How much water is used during hand-washing really depends on how you do it. There are 3 methods (that I can think of):
A. Run the warm water. Wash each dish with a sponge, rinse it off.
B. Fill a sink with warm soapy water. Wash the dishes. Rinse in another sink (or refill the sink).
C. Wet the dishes. Wash them with soapy sponge. Rinse in sink.

Method C is what my husband does. He is amazing at conserving water. I honestly do not see how a dishwasher could use less water. Method A is the method I use. It is a terrible wasteful method, but pretty fast, and I do not have to put my hands in funky water. Next time I wash the dishes, I will try method B -- the full sink method -- with a pair of gloves.

Another important factor is the type of dish soap used. Most dish soap is phosphate free, whereas most dishwasher detergent is not (point for hand-washing!). You can also avoid plastic packaging by using a bar of soap to wash the dishes. Just dab the soap with a wet sponge and voila! -- soapy sponge. I thought this was totally revolutionary, but then my husband told me that's what he grew up doing. (He's from Central America and thus is wise in water conservation and not wasting stuff.)

Any suggestions on dishwashing? What do you do?

5 bags down, new sins, BYOP

Today is day 5 of "unstuffing". I got rid of a bag of playdoh toys that I found in the bottom of the closet. Actually I got rid of about 2/3 of the bag, keeping the most fun toys to play with. More magazines -- I had no idea there were SOOO many magazines laying around the house. A puppet theater that I have had for at least 15 years and have never played with. This is a little hard because my mother gave it to me, but I've never used it. I have the puppets and my kids play with them all the time, but it's time to let go of the theater. Last but not least, a whiteboard. Don't need it. There's one on the other side of the easel anyways.

My MIL is watching the kids tonight, so C drove them there in the car and will bus/bike home. So, he's violating the terms of his car divorce, but it's a pretty good solution (I think). Tonight is the midnight full moon bike ride, so she is kind enough to watch the kids so we can go.

Less waste, but a giant pain....
We went to dinner at WF tonight. I love to go because the food is great and there is a playscape for the kids. We decided to bring our own plates from home (plastic) so that we would not have to use disposables. We brought our own silverware too. No problem.

What I had not really thought about was the return trip. With dirty dishes. Yuck! I don't mind bringing the dishes. I don't mind scraping them into the trash. I feel pretty happy sitting outside, being a good example. But putting dirty dishes into my bag to bring home was not the highlight of the night. I guess the overall good feelings I get cancel out the annoyance overall. Next time I'll have to thing of a better way to bring them home.

New sins
Apparently there are now 7 new mortal sins (not replacing the original 7 -- in addition to). One of them is pollution. Yeah for that! Other groups have talked about the importance of caring for the earth, and it's nice to see the Catholics join the party. Hopefully this will lead to more recycling. One time I had a job copying the church bulletin and it took ALL day because it was so many pages. Every church dinner (across denominations) I've been to has been served on disposables. Maybe now that pollution is a sin....

I've read lots of very negative comments about the new sins. Maybe the pope wants to clear room in heaven, because almost everyone I know has committed one of them. There also seems to be overlap (at least in the version I read). If one sin is creating poverty and one is excessive wealth, you don't really need another one that is increasing the divide between rich and poor, do you?