For Mother’s Day last weekend, I bought my mom a reusable Nalgene bottle. I told her I thought she could use it to take water to work with her, instead of drinking plastic bottled water. She seemed to like it, so I pushed it one step further and said my next goal was to get her and my dad to stop using paper plates at home. To that, she just gave an exasperated sigh.

I think we can all agree that when you feel strongly about something, it’s hard not to encourage others to see things the way you do. This is true of religion, politics, and many other things that spark impassioned debate. For me, it’s hard not to call out the people I’m close to when I see them doing something blatantly non-green. (I’m too non-confrontational to strike up similar conversations with complete strangers, but sometimes I want to.) For example, my parents use paper plates all the time, and it drives me crazy. What’s a tree-hugging daughter to do?

It’s the same with some of my friends. I bite my tongue when I see them using disposable plastic forks at lunch, or throw something in the trash that could easily be recycled. Which brings me to my question for you, wise readers: What is the right way to inform someone of the environmental errors of their ways? Obviously, we should not yell at people or belittle them; that would just harm your relationship and probably not result in the person changing their habits. But is there a way to encourage someone to live greener without sounding like a know-it-all or a loony hippie?

Obviously, none of us can have zero impact on the environment (unless you’re this guy), so those of us who care about the planet choose different ways to lessen our footprint. We do what we can, but none of us are perfect. That said, sometimes all it takes is a word of encouragement to get someone to realize they could be doing more.

What do you do when someone close to you is not living green? Do you confront them? If so, what’s the best way to do it?

I’m getting ready to move, which means I’ve started the unholy task of packing. Boy, do I hate packing. I do my best to keep down the amount of clutter in my home, not only because it’s eco-friendly to buy less stuff, but also because I cannot stand junk lying around. Still, it feels like I have a lot of stuff when I try to pack and move it all.

I was cleaning out a closet the other day and came across some cassette tapes from a certain few ’80s bands WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS. Admit it; you know you enjoyed some terrible music in your formative years, too. After I finished trying to remember the numerous dance routines I made up in my backyard to these gems, I decided I should get rid of ye olde technology.

Which brings me to my question: Does anyone out there know a place that will recycle cassette tapes? I don’t want to throw them in the trash, but I’ve looked online and I’m having trouble finding someone who will take them. I’m willing to send them someplace in the mail if there’s no place to recycle them locally. They’re not just tapes I bought with my allowance back in the day; there’s a few mixed tapes in there too.

While we’re at it, I also have a bunch of old floppy disks. Remember when computers had disk drives? Ahh, those were the days. Anyway, I’d also appreciate any suggestions on places to recycle those.

Okay, fine. I have Genesis tapes, okay? I liked “I Can’t Dance” when I was 10. You may now commence mocking.

It boggles my mind to think about how many diapers must be in our landfills. Every kid under potty training age, multiplied by how many diapers they go through every single day? I can’t even fathom how much garbage that must generate.

There are those who use cloth diapers, and there are a few diapers on the market that claim to be eco-friendly, but the city of Toronto has taken a different tactic to reduce the number of diapers in its landfills. It turns out the city will collect dirty diapers from households so they can be composted along with food scraps, yard trimmings, paper napkins, animal waste, sanitary napkins and kitty litter.

After composting, the mixture is spread out among local farms and parks.

Pretty cool, huh? Those Canadians. They have everything figured out.

Here’s an earth-shattering revelation for you: This recession is bad. Bad, bad, bad. People left and right are unemployed, some are losing their houses, and I don’t even want to think about the hit my IRA has taken. But there’s a silver lining to every cloud, and here’s one for you: Since we’ve been in this recession, people are buying much less bottled water.

I never understood the bottled water fad myself, and the environmental cost of the bottles is not the only reason. To me, bottled water tastes like plastic. And I don’t enjoy drinking plastic. My beloved aluminum Sigg bottle comes with me everywhere I go, and I fill it with tap water that’s been run through my Brita filter. It’s easy, it’s cheap, and no waste is involved except for the filter.

The bottled water market is down 1 percent, and it may not be just because of the recession. It’s possible that people have considered the fact that plastic bottles are not eco-friendly and have – wait for it – stopped buying them. Though it may not often seem like it, when you see SUV after SUV on the roads and all the overpackaged items in stores, being green is catching on. Let’s hope it’s not a fad.

In the bottled water case, it’s my opinion that the key to keeping plastic bottles from making a comeback lies in marketing. Nalgene and Sigg and even Brita should be focusing their marketing and advertising efforts on the green angle – as with many environmental matters, sometimes just bringing something to people’s attention is all it takes.  If these companies start pushing themselves as an alternative to wasteful bottles, perhaps reusable bottles will become the norm.

How do you think this trend can continue? How can we promote the use of reusable bottles?

These days, we hear a lot about people living outside their means. Most of the time, this refers to people spending more money than they bring in, and I think we can all agree this is a dangerous cycle that needs to stop. But there’s another kind of debt that is arguably even worse, and unfortunately, it can’t be bailed out.
 
A country officially moves into ecological debt each year when it has used up all the resources it can produce in one year, effectively rendering it dependent on other countries for food and energy. As of this past Sunday — Easter Sunday — the United Kingdom is officially in ecological debt, and we’re just a third of the way through this year. As you can imagine, as populations and consumption grow and increased pressure is put on ecosystems, this date — also called Earth Overshoot Day — moves further and further up the calendar each year. For the UK, it was July 9 in 1961 and May 14 by 1981. Last year, the United States made it to September 23 before declaring it Ecological Debt Day. In 2007, it was October 6 (which happens to be my birthday, woo-hoo.) I couldn’t find a prediction for 2009, but I’d bet good money it’ll be well before September 23.
 
It would be great if we could all set an environmental budget for ourselves and stick to it, just like we (should) all make a financial budget. Unfortunately, measuring your individual impact on the environment isn’t as easy as balancing your checkbook. You have to take into consideration the types of food you eat, the fossil fuels you use to power your home and car, the things you buy, the waste you create, how you dispose of it, and the countless other little dents we all put in our environment every day. It’s going to take a major lifestyle change for the majority of people, not to mention some serious government involvement, if we want to push our Ecological Debt Day back towards the end of the year where it belongs.

What do you think? What are some ways we can set environmental budgets for ourselves and others?

Earth Day is a great way to remind all of us to make our footprint smaller, waste less, and make other efforts to protect our planet.  But it’s not about one day.

Read more…

The other day when I talked about my disappointment with the change in Seventh Generation toilet paper, Mrs. Money commented saying:

“Have you ever thought about trying family cloth? I absolutely love it. The flannel feels so great!” Read more…

How exciting is this?  Tim from EnviroVogue was so pleased with the overwhelming response to the bag giveaway, that he’s offered a discount for Allie’s Answers readers.

For the month of March when you order three reusable EnviroVogue bags, you’ll get one free!  Shipping is free too!

Order three bags through the normal checkout process and add the fourth in the “Special Instructions” section.

From Tim:

“Be sure to enter promo code: AA-name of free bag in the check out process when you see the field called, “special instructions for merchant.”

So for example, if you wanted a free Leopard print design you would put in, “AA - Leopard”.

Thanks to everyone who visited our site!

EnviroVogue bags are are made from recycled plastics through fair trade labor.

Enjoy!

You know how I decided that I’ll only review products I like on Allie’s Answers, as per my review policy?

“I also don’t want to give eco-friendly products from eco-friendly companies bad reviews. Maybe I don’t like the way a new green cleaner smells, but you will. Maybe the stains on my couch are more stubborn, or the smell of dog feet is more potent in my house, so while I need to bring out the big guns, a mild cleaner would work just fine for you. If a company is making the effort to be eco-friendly, I don’t want to be negative about that, so my official policy is that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I won’t say anything at all. I’ll tell you about products I love, but if I don’t like it, I’ll keep it to myself.”

Well, there’s a hitch.  A product I have recommended in the past has changed and I feel like I need to say something about it. Read more…

Want to make an easy change in your daily routine and lessen your impact?  Read more…