Be Green -- Do Nothing!

In The Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyczyn explains that when reporters come to her house, they want to see her doing tightwad things, so they frequently take pictures of her hanging the laundry. She thinks, however, that what is even more important are the things she doesn't do. For example, she doesn't buy fruit snacks (but that doesn't make for a very compelling photo op.)

Another piece of advice in her book is to keep reducing the amounts of stuff that you use until it's not enough. For example, do you really need 1/2 c. of laundry detergent? Or will 3/8 of a cup do? If 3/8 is enough, maybe 1/4 is.... Do you need to cover your whole toothbrush with toothpaste? Or is a "pea-size amount" (like the dentist says) enough? Or even less? My dentist told me that it's the brushing, not the toothpaste, that really matters.

To me, these two pieces of advice go hand in hand. Sometimes, to be green, or to be a tightwad, or to be both, we don't actually have to DO anything. We just don't do something:

• Don't go shopping. (This is an amazing time saver.)
  
• Don't change the sheets every week.
  
• Don't wash the towel every time you use it. You dry off your CLEAN body.
  
• Don't wash your jeans every day. Really. Unless you work outdoors or something, they're just not that dirty. If it doesn't bother you to wait two days, and no one notices, go for three...
  
• Don't go to the store for 1/4 teas. of a mystery spice; just leave it out.
• Don't make meat for dinner -- just eat side dishes. I was a vegetarian for over 10 years, and my favorite meal was Thanksgiving. Not because of the turkey -- blech! -- because of the sides.
• Don't take a shower before bed and when you wake up. Really. How dirty ARE you?
  
• Don't flush the toilet every time you use it. This is gross for some people. But how about this: if you take all your kids into a public restroom, do you flush after each person? Or does everyone pee and then you flush? (This assumes they are little kids and you go in with them. I personally think it's grosser to flush after each person. I just imagine all the bacteria flying into the air.)

Not doing anything can make a real difference. Here's an easy example:

Imagine that you normally change the sheets every 7 days, or 52 times a year.
You get radical, and decide that every 8 days is enough. Now you only wash your sheets 45.625 times a year (let's round to 45, because you leave town and let it go a couple more days.)
That's 7 fewer washes a year, saving 7 loads of water, the energy to heat it (if you're still washing with hot water), the detergent, and the energy to change the sheets.
Laziness pays off! Did it make a real difference? Did that extra day push you over the edge? Probably not.

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent Explosion

I'm proud to say that today I put a little "Grad" into the "Grad Green" and worked on my dissertation proposal. Yeah!

Since I have a child home from school sick, I thought it would be fun to do a little experiment. With 5 people in the house (and 3 of them 6 or under), we can really whip through the laundry. Today, we finally ran out of laundry detergent. We had been buying liquid detergent in a giant plastic container. I had already decided that next time, we would at least buy powdered detergent because it comes in a cardboard container. But I've been running across all these recipes for laundry detergent (I guess it's not really "detergent" -- it's soap), so I thought I'd give it a try. Maybe we can get radical and REALLY reduce the packaging (and the price).

Most recipes require washing soda, which I couldn't find, so I used a recipe that called for baking soda. It made a huge amount, so I halved it. Here's the recipe:
1 bar Ivory soap, grated (I used Kirk's castille soap b/c it's what I had. Ivory would be cheaper)
1-1/2 c. baking soda
1/2 c. borax (this can be found in the laundry aisle. The brand is 20 mule team)
16 c. water.

Boil 4. c. water then grate the soap into it. Dissolve. In another pot, boil 12 c. water.
Pour the 12 c. into the soapy water (I don't understand this step)
Pour in the baking soda and mix.
pour in the borax and mix.
Put all this into some kind of container. Use 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, depending on dirtiness of the laundry.

Okay. Not too complicated. J thought it was pretty amusing. The ingredients aren't toxic. It seems to make a bunch (even 1/2 the recipe!). I made the soapy water. It took probably 2 or 3 minutes. I still don't understand why you don't just boil all the water at once. But, here's the mistake I made. I thought the order didn't really matter. I had the soapy water all ready and was waiting for the other water to boil, so I just put in the baking soda and borax. THEN I put in the rest of the water. EXPLOSION!!! The whole thing foamed up, bubbled over onto the floor, all over the counter.... it was crazy. And pretty hilarious. J thought it was like a soap volcano -- which it was. Lesson learned -- put the water in BEFORE the baking soda (I guess that baking soda was the culprit in the foaming action).

The recipe said to put all this in a plastic container (before adding 12 c. of boiling water). I am (generally) a rule-follower, so I did that. Of course, the plastic container melted. So, don't do that. Keep it all in the pot until it chills out.

After chilling out, the mixture looks very weird. It has some white clumps at the top and the bottom looks like water. But I'm willing to give it a try. The recipe says to stir it up and make sure some clumps are added to each load of laundry. I'll do that and report back ASAP.

But now that C found washing soda at HEB, I'm going to give a dry recipe from Planet Green a try:
2 c. grated soap
1 c. washing soda
1 c. borax
Mix well. use 2 Tablespoons per load.