For my next few Green changes, I treated myself to a little shopping spree at Natural Selections. This awesome store (and website) features clothing and bedding made from organic fibers, wooden toys, bamboo kitchen items, and other natural products. It also happens to be about the only place you can buy clothes in Fairfield other than WalMart, and a nice quick walk for me (important on these single-digit temperature days) at only three blocks from our house. I haven't done a lot of shopping there because it's a little pricey, as so many Green products are. But for the most part my Green changes involve conserving resources and money, so I think it will even out in the end if I pay a little more for certain eco-friendly products. Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to shop.
Green change #17 — I wanted a new pair of thick, warm, comfy socks, so I bought a pair from India Organic made of organic cotton and bamboo, which seems to be showing up everywhere these days. Bamboo is an easily renewable resource (you know how fast it grows if you've ever grown a cut piece of bamboo in a glass of water) that can be grown without the use of pesticides or herbicides.
Green change #18 — Because of my aforementioned plastic freakout, I've been trying to avoid the stuff as much as possible. I've always bought hand soap that's biodegradable, cruelty-free, etc. BUT, my usual variety comes in a plastic pump. So I've decided to be brave and experiment with bar soap, preferably packaged without any plastic. I bought a beautiful Japanese ceramic blue soap dish for our upstairs bathroom, along with a bar of lavender soap from Pangea Organics. It's biodegradable and cruelty-free, of course, smells nice, and leaves my hands clean and soft.
The coolest part, which I didn't realize until I got home and read the label, is that the soap's packaging is made from 100 percent post-consumer paper embedded with organic flower seeds; I can plant the whole thing in my garden this spring. I love the idea that a product's packaging can be something useful and surprising in itself, not just more nasty stinkin' plastic for the landfill.
Green Change #19 — I've been looking for a water bottle that's not plastic. A couple people had recommended aluminum, which I thought I might find at Natural Selections. I didn't see any aluminum bottles there, but I did see (and buy) a water bottle that says it was made entirely from corn. I know Ethanol is supposed to have its own set of environmental issues compared to regular gasoline, due to the way it's processed; I don't know if my corn-based water bottle has similar processing issues, but the label says it will biodegrade in 80 days in a commercial compost system. I wonder how long it would take in a landfill — less than 1,000 years, I suspect!
The other cool thing about this bottle is that it contains its own water filter, so I can drink regular old tap water without worrying about it. I've been thinking a lot lately about the craziness that we buy bottled water because we're scared of what comes out of the tap. I like what No Impact Man said in a recent post: "Municipal water should be clean and free. If rich people [by which he means anyone who can afford to buy bottled water] don't insist on this by drinking it, it won't be."
I just love these posts. They're so inspirational to me.
Posted by: Lisa Kenney | February 18, 2008 at 01:49 PM