The Conscious Shopper: paper products

Showing posts with label paper products. Show all posts

March Extreme Challenge

>> Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Here's your extreme challenge for March:

Give Up Disposable Paper Products

If you've been working on greening your paper products since the challenge a couple weeks ago, now's your chance to push yourself to find your sweet spot.

You can take this challenge as extreme as you want, but here are a few suggestions:

Replace paper napkins with cloth napkins.

Clean with rags instead of paper towels.

Use kitchen towels, washcloths, and sponges in the kitchen instead of paper towels.

Use cloth bags instead of wrapping paper to wrap gifts.

Switch to handkerchiefs instead of facial tissue.

Try cloth wipes instead of toilet paper.

For one month, see how far you can go. Just make sure you:

Make a plan.
Write it down.
Post it somewhere you'll see it.

Here's what my family will be doing:

After last month's super extreme challenge, I think we're going to take it relatively easy this month. No paper napkins, paper towels, or facial tissue, and if we have any need to give gifts this month, I think I can commit to cloth. I might do cloth wipes sporadically, but I'm not going to force it on the rest of my family.

I think the biggest challenge here will be our spring break vacation later this month. We'll see how it goes!

Will you accept the March Extreme Challenge to give up disposable paper products for a month? Let me know in the comments what your family will be doing.

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

image by Margot Wolf

Easy Homemade Handkerchiefs

>> Saturday, February 13, 2010

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I was going to be making some hankies for my family to help us dispose of our disposable paper products, and I asked, "Anyone know what the best fabric for homemade handkerchiefs is?"

Brenda from Sense of Home responded that "the best handkerchiefs are 100% cotton."

Aha! We happened to have a bag of my husband's old 100% cotton t-shirts hanging around the closet, waiting to be turned into rags. Instead, why not make handkerchiefs?

My husband and I took turns cutting them up, and I'm not even going to bother hemming them. I'm going to blow my nose in them...they don't have to look pretty. And if they fray in the wash, they'll be easy and cheap to replace.

I've also read that linen makes a good fabric for handkerchiefs, so I thought I'd buy some linen and make a few prettier handkerchiefs, just for fun. But, phew, linen is an expensive fabric! So I'm going to wait until later in the month when JoAnn's is having a fabric sale, and then buy enough linen to make some bread bags also. Two birds, one stone.

But even without the "pretty" handkerchiefs, we are well-stocked in cloth tissues now. And just in time...I think I'm coming down with a cold.

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This post was shared in WFMW at We Are THAT Family and All Things Eco Carnival at Focus Organic

Three Reasons Trees Are Better than Paper Towels

>> Thursday, February 11, 2010

Trees provide shade.

Solar heat absorbed through windows and roofs can increase your air conditioner use. Incorporating shading concepts into your landscape design can help reduce this solar heat gain, reducing your cooling costs. - U.S. Department of Energy

Trees capture carbon.

Forests are the world's second largest carbon reservoirs (oceans are the largest). Unlike oceans, however, we can grow new forests. Planting new trees remains one of the cheapest, most effective means of drawing excess CO2 from the atmosphere. One acre of forestland will sequester between 150 - 200 tons of CO2 in its first 40 years. - American Forests

Trees are fun to climb.

Leaves, rocks, sticks, acorns, creeks, trees, and good old fashioned dirt will challenge children to create their own games and worlds of wonder. These simple, natural items are the building blocks of great play and countless adventures, and are there at the ready. - Grass Stain Guru

Who else cares about disposable paper products?

:: The Natural Resources Defense Council provides an extensive guide to paper products, including comparisons of different brands of disposable paper products.

:: To help you get over the paper towel addiction, give Skoy cloths a try. They're 100 percent biodegradable and last as long as 15 rolls of paper towels. (I've never tried these, but many people really like them.)

:: The New American Dream shows you how to Junk Your Junk Mail.

:: Having trouble finding FSC certified paper? Go straight to the source: The Forest Stewardship Council's retailer database.

:: Next time you have a package to wrap, reach for cloth instead of paper. Here's a guide to folding furoshiki style.

:: Crunchy Chicken hosts a Cloth Wipe Challenge every year to encourage people to switch to cloth "toilet paper."

:: Smart Family Tips shows you how to make your own cloth napkins.

:: SouleMama created a fantastic bag for storing hankies to keep them from getting dusty.

Why do you care?

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Photos by jenny downing, Adam Baker, and steve_lodefink respectively.

Challengicious Monday: Dispose of Your Disposable Paper Products

>> Monday, February 8, 2010

Mondays are challengicious at The Conscious Shopper. Here's your next trash-related challenge:

Dispose of Your Disposable Paper Products

To complete this challenge, you can...

BABY STEPS

Use fewer disposable paper products. Grab a smaller stack of napkins. Rip off fewer squares of toilet paper. Reach for a cloth towel before a paper towel. You know the drill.

JOGGING STRIDE

Buy paper products with recycled content. Look for brands with at least 80% post-consumer recycled content and that are whitened without chlorine bleach.

MARATHON RUNNER

Use cloth. Napkins and towels are an easy switch. Handkerchiefs are a little more challenging. If you're a super duper marathon runner, you can even switch to cloth "toilet paper." And don't worry - these changes will barely add anything to your laundry pile.

This challenge is specifically geared toward those paper products that you can't recycle: paper towels, toilet paper, and napkins. But hopefully, you'll also take some steps toward reducing your overall paper use this week since according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), "The pulp and paper industry may contribute to more global and local environmental problems than any other industry in the world." Use recycled, print less, print on both sides, and recycle when you're done.

Right now, I'm somewhere between Jogging Stride and Marathon Runner on this challenge. All of the paper products we use have recycled content, and we've made a good effort at switching from paper to cloth (we ran out of paper towels at Thanksgiving and still haven't bought more). But I plan to nudge us a bit further this week by making some handkerchiefs to stash in the bathroom. Anyone know what the best fabric for homemade handkerchiefs is?

For more specific information about how and why you should reduce your paper consumption, check out:

Will you take the challenge?

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image by Margot Wolf

I Need...Gift Wrap

>> Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I know my posting has been rather slim the past couple of weeks with the Thanksgiving holiday, and now my whole family has come down with a cold. Being sick is not good for the environment or the pocket book. I'm planning to head over to Target later today to pick up some drugs and some Kleenex (the recycled toilet paper is killing my nose). Sorry to everyone for the small backslide, but I have never been of the opinion that environmentalism should make you miserable.

So anyway, with the holiday season coming up, I wanted to make sure I got this post in about gift wrap. According to Earth911, "as much as half of the 85 million tons of paper products Americans consume every year goes toward packaging, wrapping and decorating goods. Also, wrapping paper and shopping bags alone account for about four million tons of trash annually in the U.S."

Just think about that huge mound of wrapping paper that tries to take over the living room every Christmas, and you'll understand why it's important to be conscious about your wrapping paper purchases this holiday season. So here are some ideas to get you started:

BABY STEPS

Make sure the wrapping paper you purchase is recyclable. Mixed content is difficult to recycle and will not be accepted by any recycling centers that I know of, so for example, paper with a shiny metallic, plastic, or waxy surface or glitter is a no-no. Also, in my area, only white paper can be recycled (including white paper that has been printed on), so any wrapping paper that has been dyed would be out for me.
Reuse gift bags. I think reusing wrapping paper is a little more difficult, so I'm including it as a step for the more gung-ho environmentalists below. But reusing gift bags is as simple as emptying the bag. I have yet to have to buy a gift bag for a baby shower gift, and I think I'll be good for at least 15 more friends' babies.

JOGGING STRIDE

Reuse wrapping paper. If you carefully unwrap your presents instead of tearing through them, you can successfully use the wrapping paper again. However, I think this would work better a) for adults than children and b) for gifts that trickle in like on birthdays or weddings rather than on Christmas morning. (Otherwise you'll end up annoying your family with your eco-obsessiveness.)
Buy wrapping paper with recycled content. This takes some advance planning however, since I haven't seen any stores carrying this yet. But if you Google "recycled wrapping paper," you'll find a bounty of beautiful papers to choose from. Also recommend this for scrapbookers.
Wrap gifts in newspapers, magazines, calendars, or maps. Small caveat here, though: When I was a kid, we always had to wrap our presents in the comic section of the newspaper, and I hated it. I always felt like my present came off looking cheap next to all the shiny wrapped gifts my friends brought. Umbra Fisk over at Grist gives the following suggestion to solve this problem: "The trick of making decent wrapping out of newspaper or magazines is in the choice of photo or section. I learned this from an actual Artist who wraps his gifts this way, I promise. A newspaper will yield interesting photos, or advertisements, perhaps even germane text, that will look slick and nice on presents if the following conditions are met: the attractive part of the photo is centered on the top of the gift in plain view, the paper is carefully wrapped, there is a separate gift tag, and bonus points for some ribbon-type of finish."
Make your own wrapping paper. Decorate recycled paper with stamps, markers, paints, etc. This works really well for gifts from one four-year-old to another, but for older kids or adults, see the caveat above.

JOGGING STRIDE

Wrap your gift in a gift. For example, wrap your gift with a towel or tablecloth that can then be used.
Wrap in cloth or use a cloth bag. But make sure you're giving the gift to someone who will reuse the cloth, and not someone who's just going to throw it away. If the gift is for a disposable fan, you'd be better off using wrapping paper that can be recycled, I think.

Tips for the Budget Conscious
Using paper you already have lying around (like old newspapers) is the most budget-friendly option, and that's the reason we always did it when I was a kid. But if you prefer your wrapping paper to look more traditional, I'd say reusing gift bags or wrapping paper is your best option.

Where I'm At
I still have a huge roll of recyclable wrapping paper left over from last year as well as the aforementioned gift bags (although most are not very Christmasy), so I'm set for this year. In the future, I think I'm going to go the newspaper route, following Umbra's advice to make it more attractive, and keep letting my kids make their own wrapping paper until they start complaining.

This is just what I thought of. Any other suggestions for budget-friendly/eco-friendly wrapping?

Photo by Manassas Cakery. It's a cake!

Put an End to Junk Mail

>> Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Besides my children's endless artwork,the other big culprit in my paper recycling bin is something that I cannot be blamed for in any way, and that really annoys me. But junk mail is not just annoying, it's bad for the environment. According to Treehugger, 100 million trees are destroyed to make junk mail every year, which creates greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 3.7 million cars.

With Christmas coming, the contents of my mailbox have doubled with catalogs and advertisements that I don't even look at before tossing them into the recycling bin. So it's time to take some action.

Here are some steps that I plan to take to solve my junk mail problem:

Send it back. Write "Return to Sender - Refused by Addressee" on the envelope and pop it back in the mail. This method will not stop the junk mail, but at least it sends a message that the solicitation was not desired.
Remove your name from the list. Register with the Direct Market Association's Mail Preference Service, which supposedly takes you off mass market mailing lists for up to five years.
Opt-out of credit card mailing lists. Call 1-888-567-8688. This service asks for your Social Security Number, but you don't need to worry about giving it to them since credit bureaus have access to Social Security Numbers already anyway.
Cut out the catalogs. Register with Catalog Choice, who will supposedly contact catalog companies for you. Unfortunately, the catalogs don't have to listen to Catalog Choice, so I've read that this service doesn't really cut out too much junk mail. The other option is contacting the companies yourself. Call the customer service number and request that your name be taken off their mailing list.
Put an end to coupon flyers and weekly circulars. Register with ProQuo, another online service that claims to cut out junk mail but has a much wider scope than Catalog Choice. Again, this may not work 100%, so you can also contact each company yourself and ask to be removed from their mailing list.
Pay someone else to do all the work. For $41, 41pounds.org pledges to reduce your junk mail up to 95%.
Sign the petition. Visit New American Dream to sign the petition requesting the creation of a Do Not Mail registry that would be similar to the Do Not Call registry created a few years ago.

One other thing to consider is that the fewer credit card applications that appear in your mailbox, trash can, and recycling bin, the less susceptible you are to identity theft.

I'll be working on this over the next few months and will let you know if my junk mail is actually reduced. And of course I'm challenging you to do the same.

Got any other suggestions for reducing junk mail?

Photo by Andrew Currie

I Need...Paper

>> Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I'm just looking for regular old paper this time. The kind that works great as printer paper but can also be used for drawing, doodling, painting or any other children's craft that you can think of.

The fact is that we use a lot of paper in our house. If you were snooping through my trash, you'd think I was running a business based on the amount of paper that goes into our recycling. But in reality, I just have two extremely talented budding artists (says the proud momma), and every evening I sneak into their playroom, gather up all the used pieces of paper, and make them disappear in the recycling bin.

Since we use a lot of paper, this is one area where my family can make a reasonably sized impact.

If you missed my post about why you should be more conscious about your paper purchases, you can review my Paper Primer here.

BABY STEPS

Print on both sides of the paper. Utilize your printer settings and print on both sides whenever you're printing a multiple page document.
Use the back sides of used paper for notes, lists, and drawings. If I forget to print on both sides, I pass the paper on to my kids, who are happy to fill up the back sides with their masterpieces.
Don't print it out. Do you really need a hard copy? Will a digital copy do?

JOGGING STRIDE

Buy recycled paper. The higher the post consumer content the better, and make sure it's bleached without chlorine.
Buy FSC-certified paper. Check out this guide by the Forest Stewardship Council to find FSC-certified paper producers.
Or buy both!

MARATHON RUNNER

Go tree-free. Choose paper products from alternative sources such as hemp and bamboo. Both hemp and bamboo are fast-growing plants that can be used to make paper products. Look online for tree-free paper sources. I even found one online store selling banana paper, coffee paper, and mango paper.

Tips for the Budget Conscious
You can get a case of 5000 sheets of paper (100% post consumer content, FSC-certified) from Staples for $51.99.

Where I'm At: I've been buying 100% recycled paper, but haven't given much thought to the FSC certification. That's something I'll be looking for from now on.

I Need...Paper Towels and Napkins

>> Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Okay, I realize I'm a little slow going on my paper changes, but slow and steady wins the race, right?

Today's subject is paper towels. If you missed my post about why you should be more conscious about your paper purchases, you can review my Paper Primer here.

And here are some facts from the ever humble Seventh Generation about recycled paper towels:

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 120 sheet virgin fiber paper towels with 100% recycled ones, we could save:
1 million trees
2.6 million cubic feet of landfill space (equal to over 3,800 full garbage trucks)
367 million gallons of water (a year's supply for 2,800 families of four)
and avoid 38,000 tons of pollution.

Now let's start making some changes:

BABY STEPS

Use smaller paper towels. Try the select-a-size type of paper towels, and use a smaller size when you can. Using smaller equals using less.

JOGGING STRIDE

Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time, reach for cloth first. Use a towel to wipe up spills, use a washcloth to clean up messes, use rags to clean, use cloth napkins. Give these Skoy cloths a try. The other 20% of the time...

Use recycled paper towels. Look for a brand with at least 80% post-consumer recycled content and one that was whitened without chlorine bleach. You can find "opinionated and unscientific reviews" of paper towels by Grist here.

MARATHON RUNNER

Use cloth 100% of the time. Stop buying paper towels. If you don't buy them, you'll find ways not to need them.

Tips for the Budget Conscious
The cheapest brand of recycled paper towels I've seen are Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value 8 pack for $7.99 (about $1.00 each). If you don't have a Whole Foods nearby you can get 30 rolls of Seventh Generation Natural paper towels through Amazon's Subscribe & Save program for $46.74 ($1.56 per roll). 30 rolls is a lot of paper towels though. Maybe you can work out a deal with your neighbor and split the pack.

Where I'm At: I'm in a 50/50 phase right now, but working toward 80/20. My biggest hang-up is using paper towels for cleaning. I tried using rags and didn't like it, but I know I've just got to get over it. Maybe I just need more rags.

I Need...Toilet Paper

>> Thursday, October 9, 2008

I'm changing my paper habits by starting at the bottom...my own bottom that is! (Ha, ha, you know a post about toilet paper has to start with a bad joke).

If you missed my post about why you should be more conscious about your paper purchases, you can review my Paper Primer here.

Or here are some other statistics about toilet paper brought to you by Seventh Generation (who is never shy about advertising how their products are better for the planet):

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 500 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissue with 100% recycled ones, we could save:
423,900 trees
1.0 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to 1600 full garbage trucks
153 million gallons of water, a year's supply for 1,200 families of four

So now that you know why you should change, here are some steps you can take to be a Conscious Shopper:

BABY STEPS

Use less of the toilet paper you're already using. According to Charmin, the average person uses 8.6 sheets of toilet paper per trip to the bathroom. Could you get by with 7? 5? 3? If you're using virgin toilet paper (which is very strong and absorbent) and especially if you've only gone #1, it really doesn't take that many sheets of toilet paper to get a good wipe.

Pick a brand with a conscience. Better World Shopper gives Cottonelle a B- and Charmin a C+. Quilted Northern and Angel Soft get an F. Climate Counts gives Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Cottenelle, a score of 58 on their 100 point scale, and Proctor & Gamble, the makers of Charmin, a score of 69 (that's actually a pretty good score).

JOGGING STRIDE

Buy recycled toilet paper. There are several brands to choose from: Seventh Generation, Marcal, and Green Forest, to name a few. I went with the Seventh Generation brand because I found out from Fake Plastic Fish's site that you can get your toilet paper delivered as part of Amazon's Subscribe and Save program for the reasonable price of $40.79 for a pack of 48 rolls of 500 sheets each ($0.0017 per sheet). Cottonelle from Amazon is $0.0024 per sheet. The Seventh Generation toilet paper is also individually wrapped in recycled/recyclable paper rather than plastic wrap, and it comes in a great big box with no plastic packaging in site. The toilet paper itself, to be honest, reminds me of the cheap toilet paper you see in public restrooms, but it's doing it's job and that's all that matters.

MARATHON RUNNER

Use cloth wipes. I tried this out as part of Crunchy Chicken's Cloth Wipes Challenge. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Since we're already using cloth diapers, I just moved the cloth baby wipes into the kids' bathroom to make them more accessible. I have two potty trained boys who only wipe for #2, and I actually found that the cloth wipes work much better than the moistened flushable wipes I was buying (as long as they remember to put the wipes in the diaper pail and not the toilet). I like the softness factor of the cloth wipes (as opposed to the rough recycled toilet paper), and washing the wipes was no big deal since we're already washing cloth diapers.

Where I'm At

Despite the roughness factor, I like the Seventh Generation recycled toilet paper, and the price is right. I'm also keeping the cloth wipes in the kids' bathroom for now, but once Third Son is out of diapers, I doubt I'll keep up the cloth wipes. Sorry, Crunchy Chicken, but I just can't bring myself to wash my pee-stained wipes with my regular laundry!

A Paper Primer

>> Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Here's something you may not know: "The pulp and paper industry may contribute to more global and local environmental problems than any other industry in the world," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

I had no idea. Paper seems like such a benign product! It's used for so many good things: making children's artwork, cleaning up messes, wiping our noses and butts...It's a natural, sustainable product, and unlike many other manmade things, paper biodegrades.

So what's so bad about it? In Garbage Land, author Elizabeth Royte explains:

"Virgin papermaking...depletes forests and their biodiversity, it uses more water than any other industrial process in the nation (more than double the amount of recycled papermaking), and it dumps billions of gallons of water contaminated with chlorinated dioxin and a host of other hazardous and conventional pollutants into rivers, lakes, and harbors....Each year, paper factories send 420 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrogen oxides, and other heat trapping gases up through their smokestacks (and emissions are expected to double by 2020). Along with the gases come 38,617 pounds of lead and 2,277 pounds of mercury and mercury compounds."

And according to the NRDC, "Most of the world's paper supply comes from timber logged in regions with ecologically valuable, biologically divers habitat."

I've been wanting to "green" my paper products for awhile now, so here's my checklist for good paper:

Recycled. There are two types of recycled content: post-consumer and pre-consumer. Post-consumer content refers to the paper collected from household and office recycling. In other words, the consumer has already used it once. Pre-consumer content refers to the extra paper scraps produced in the paper manufacturing process. The higher the post-consumer content, the better.
FSC certified. This means that the trees used to make the paper come from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and indicates that a forest is sustainably managed.
Processed Chlorine Free. This means that the paper was produced without chlorine. Chlorine bleaching produces dioxins, which are a toxic substance. (But don't think this means your paper is going to be grey. Most recycled paper is still whitened using other chemicals.)

Other thoughts to consider:

Reduce, reuse, recycle...in that order. I used to have the attitude that I didn't have to think about how much paper my family was using because we were recycling it all anyway. Sorry folks, that's the wrong attitude, and I've since seen the error of my ways.
Paper can only be recycled four to nine times. After that, the fibers become too short to be used again.
Recycled paper products are generally more expensive than their virgin paper counterparts. (This is in part due to government subsidies for the timber industry.) If you don't think you can afford to switch to all recycled paper products, I personally think it's most important to use recycled toilet paper, facial tissues, and paper towels because those products cannot be recycled. But that's just my opinion.
When you buy recycled products, it lets the paper industry know that you value those products, recycled paper products will become more readily available, and generally that means they will be cheaper.

The National Resources Defense Council provides an extensive shoppers' guide for paper products, and The Green Guide has created a "Smart Shoppers Card" that you can print out (on recycled paper!) and take with you when you go shopping.