I must confess that I stole that title from an article in our electric coop newsletter. There is something very appealing about the idea of doing "green" in an old, as opposed to new, fashion. If pressed to describe that appeal in words I think the best I could do is to say that sometimes there was a lot of wisdom in the way things were done. Take for example drying clothes on a line. It saves energy (clothes dryers are so intrinsically inefficient that there is no Energy Star rating for them!), gives one a chance to be outdoors and get some exercise, and produces whiter clothes (sun bleaches out some stains), naturally fresh-smelling clothes.
Maria's mobility I think is ultimately what prompted me to start reconsidering some of the products we have around the house. I bought a book entitled Green Housekeeping which I like in part because many of the suggestions seem to be grandma-style green. Some immediate changes were getting rid of the kitchen sponge out of sheer terror (read the kitchen chapter!), ditching the fabric softener for similar reasons and buying some vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and spray bottles for making cleaners. I boxed up all my old cleaners and gave them away on Craig's list and was happily surprised to have freed up almost an entire cupboard of extra space! I went on Amazon and found some greener dish, dishwasher and laundry detergents that are economical (in large quantities) and work well (an important criteria!). Other suggestions like healthier types of flooring are good to know in case we ever do renovations.
The initial time and energy investment in making the change seem to be paying off. Now I'm not so worried that Maria will accidentally ingest some terrible poison. And I can actually clean the bathroom while Maria is running around upstairs because I'm not concerned she'll be breathing in something harmful. I don't worry I'm going to kill all the good bacteria in the septic system. Every once in a while I'll discover some other habit or product I could change (like anti-bacterial handsoap, see below), but continuing in the new habits doesn't take extra time or effort.
Recently I read an article on the proliferation on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a problem which is due in part to overuse of antibiotics and might be exacerbated by antibacterial soaps. Mark loves our foaming hand soap dispensers but all I could find to fill them with was antibacterial soap... quite a quandary... domestic bliss with mutant-killer bacteria or domestic discord with a safer soap?!? Then (probably from the Green Housekeeping book) the idea came to put some Dr. Bonner's liquid soap (highly concentrated) and water in the hand soap dispensers. Happily it foams perfectly, sadly Mark doesn't like the pine scent. But hopefully he'll be able to live with it until this bottle runs out.
Another grandma-green sort of idea is to buy used... used clothes, used furniture, used whatever. The idea is that by buying used items you're not contributing (as much) to the demand for the production of these items, thereby saving resouces and energy. How perfectly this works, I don't know. It can take more time and effort to buy used, and that's the challenge for me. Here's an interesting take on the whole production/consumption cycle called The Story of Stuff.
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When Stephen was born, someone gave us 2 cleaners: a toilet bowl cleaner and a concentrated cleaner, which I mix w/water in spray bottles. I mostly just use these 2. I haven't been happy with how they clean the tub, though, so if you find any good tub cleaners let me know. We are still going to use scrubbing bubbles, and hope that it doesn't get into the wrong hands!
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