Overshare

Hope you all enjoyed the interview with Eco Yogini yesterday. I especially love her answer about why she "overshares" about her experience with the DivaCup, among other subjects.

So in the spirit of Eco Yogini, I thought we'd have ourselves a little overshare session today. First, I'll share a few things, and then it will be your turn to share in the comments - something you've learned on your green journey that you think would help others to know or something you've been embarrassed to ask, now's your chance. If you're not keen on the idea of an overshare, feel free to comment anonymously.

Okay, deep breaths, I think I'm going to die here...

Menstrual Cups

It took me forever to figure out how to use my Keeper properly. Several months, honestly, before I realized that my cervix sits low so where the diagram says my Keeper should be is not where it is on my body. If you're new to menstrual cups, figure out where your cervix is and realize that every body is different!

Crystal Deodorant

Some days the rock deodorant works better than others, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with physical activity. Thankfully, even on those rare days where my pits fail the discreet sniff test, I don't think it's strong enough that anyone else would notice. At least my husband hasn't said anything.

Birth Control

We're still using condoms. I hate the pill and have contemplated the IUD but I'm just not sold on it. I'm intrigued by the idea of the Fertility Awareness Method (I even have the book on request at the library), but my husband says no way based on the fact that we got pregnant with each of our three boys without even trying.

Dandruff

A certain special someone in my life says he won't try the no poo method because of dandruff. Anyone have tips for natural remedies for dandruff?


Okay, your turn! Don't be shy! Don't let me be alone in this overshare!

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More on My Charlie's Soap Internal Debate

I received a response from Taylor Sutherland, president of Charlie's Soap, earlier this week (as I've said before, their terrific customer service is one of the reasons I've always liked this company). Here's what he had to say:

Howdy,

I've attached a note from Charlie that goes to the heart of why we're really hesitant to fully disclose all the workings of Charlie's Soap. Long story short, no one makes detergent this way. It was a breakthrough that has never occurred to the Big Boys so we just don't tell them. If they found out, we'd be out of business because they'd copy it and we wouldn't be able to compete. Butyl celosolve has been the subject of misinformation for years now. It rhymes with methyl and ethyl celosolve and those two are horrible to be around. The amount of Butyl that we use breaks down in the earth completely in a month (97.3% in 28 days) and is non-toxic based on a the recommendation by Duke University. The scale they use is that 50 parts per million in the air (a dense fog of pure Butyl celosolve) is the limit for being non-toxic. We use a tiny percentage in water. If you smell the product you're smelling a microscopic fraction of the 50 parts per million which is the non-toxic level.

On a personal note, we made Charlie's Soap to be safe not only on paper or for a government regulation, but because when it was created, we knew personally all the workers at the textile plant that were going to be using it. Being sued is bad enough, but being made a pariah because you made Mrs. Collins from down the street sick is MUCH worse. We made Charlie's Soap to such exacting standards of efficacy and safety for just that purpose. And 16 years (1976 to 1992) in industry work with no recordable safety incidents speaks volumes. These people were using it 25% strength all day long, hosing down machinery, scrubbing and rinsing. The were soaked head to toe all day long in Charlie's Soap. I personally was bathed in it as a young baby. My brother has MCS and actually makes the product getting raw ingredients all over himself and he's fine.

I hope this helps give you a better understanding just how safe Charlie's Soap is but also give you an idea of just how secretive we have to be, within the law, of course.

According to the document he had attached, here's what's in Charlie's Soap:

• The powdered laundry detergent (what I use) contains coconut oil based surfactants, sodium carbonate, sodium silicate, and soda ash.

• The liquid laundry detergent contains coconut oil based surfactants, sodium carbonate, soda ash, and water.

• The all-purpose cleaner contains coconut oil based surfactants, a natural solvent (this must be the butyl celosolve), sodium carbonate, soda ash, and water.

It also says that their products have been tested for toxicity by Duke University, for biodegradability by Japan Food Research Labs, and for effectiveness by SGS U.S. Testing Labs.

What I Think

I can totally see their point - as a small company, they're worried about losing market share to bigger companies if their formula is revealed. But from a consumer standpoint, how can I decide if a product is safe if I don't know what's in it? Because Duke University says it's safe? There are so many ingredients that companies claim are safe that independent researchers say are not. Think BPA. So how do I know who to trust?

The other problem is with the generic label "coconut based surfactants," which I see on all sorts of "all natural" products. I learned today from Jennifer the Smart Mama that sodium lauryl sulfate is a coconut based surfactant, and that's one of those ingredients that we're supposed to be avoiding. So it almost seems like companies are using the term "coconut based surfactant" to avoid admitting that they're using ingredients their customers might not be happy about.

What Now?

I'm always coming back to the same old questions about non-toxic cleaning products and beauty supplies. For now, there just don't seem to be products in those categories that meet all of my qualifications: non-toxic, affordable, and get the job done.

It's like with my whole shampoo dilemma: the non-toxic products that I tried left my hair a greasy mess, and I'm sorry but I'm no dirty hippy. But the Lush shampoo bar with sodium lauryl sulfate leaves my hair looking normal. And it's affordable and comes with zero packaging.

Or the makeup dilemma: the makeup brands that score really well on Skin Deep are way out of my price range. But I can find organic makeup in recycled paper packaging from my corner drugstore.

For now, does the answer have to be less toxic is good enough?

I'm interested to hear your opinions both on the Charlie's Soap issue and the wider non-toxic/less toxic dilemma!

____________________

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

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I'm Tired, and I Need to Vent

Sometimes the purpose of having a blog is to vent, and today I feel like I need to vent...

I've been using Charlie's Soap laundry detergent for four years - ever since we switched to cloth diapers. I've always loved it: It's made by a small company here in North Carolina, and when I've contacted them, I've gotten quick responses from the president of the company. I've been happy with how well it gets my clothes clean - with no added fragrance to cover up any lingering smells. It's a really affordable product - $.10 per load if you buy it in bulk (which is the same cost as making my own laundry detergent and cheaper than Tide, the last time I checked), and I know they're working on getting stores to provide their product in bulk bins. And I thought I knew what was in it...

Then a couple days ago I read a review of Charlie's Soap on Kitchen Stewardship, and Katie mentioned that the Charlie's Soap all-purpose cleaner contains an ingredient called butylcelosolv. This ingredient is not listed on the Charlie's Soap bottle as far as I know, but Katie emailed the company to find out what was in the product because she noticed that it stinks. They claim that butylcelosolv is a safe, non-toxic ingredient, but when I googled the term, I found some not-too-pleasant results, including this one from The Good Human.

I don't use their all-purpose cleaner because I make my own, but finding out that their "non-toxic and biodegradable" cleaner contains an ingredient that might not be wonderful made me wonder if there's anything in the laundry detergent that I should be worried about. The packaging of the laundry detergent says it contains washing soda, sodium silicate, and coconut-derived detergents and also says that the product is non-toxic and biodegradable. Because I like the company, I accepted that. But have I been a victim of green-washing?

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd stop using Charlie's Soap either way. Even with the butylcelosolv in the all-purpose cleaner - the jury seems to be out on how bad of a chemical that is. I've always been happy with Charlie's Soap, I think they're a great company, and I'm not super strict about possibly toxic chemicals in my life at this point. There's still sodium lauryl sulfate in my Lush shampoo. My make-up is a mess. I color my hair. Let's face it - in this category, I'm falling really short right now (though I'm making progress at doing better).

What's bothering me is that I'm really really really tired of having to try so hard. Why do I have to read the label on every single product I buy? Even for the companies I thought I trusted? And besides that, I'm not a chemist. I don't know very much about chemicals or how they react with each other or what by-products are produced when they're made. And for goodness sake, I shouldn't have to!

I am so tired of not being able to trust any companies and feeling like the only answer is to do it myself. I don't want to have to make my own laundry detergent. I don't want to have to grow all my own food or make all my own clothes. And I don't want to have to be a chemist and a botanist and a farmer and a seamstress and a gourmet chef on top of all my other roles in life.

I just want to be able to go to the store and believe that when a product says non-toxic or recyclable or organic or fair trade, it really is.

I'm reminding myself that my word of the year is PATIENCE, but sometimes patience can make a person really really tired.

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I'm sick...Screw the planet!

Anyone else feel this way?

Thankfully none of us have gotten the flu yet. But I've had a cold for four weeks and it sucks.

Today I forgot to eat breakfast (you can tell I'm sick - when have I ever forgotten breakfast?). I didn't remember until we were already out and about, and I just felt like, "Screw the planet. I'm going to Starbucks."

Here was my order, in all it's lovely overpriced trash-filled glory:

I think we all have days like this.

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Weekend Ramblings: More on Consumption vs. Happiness

Sometimes on the weekends, I ramble about thoughts I've been having that week. Feel free to comment, add to my thoughts, or disagree with anything I say. But please remember that I don't like being called an idiot, even if I'm being one. So keep your comments respectful.

Continuing with the topic from last weekend's rambling, I've been thinking more about consumption and environmentalism and how they relate to our level of happiness.

In his book, Colin Beavan spends a lot of time pondering his theory that we consume because we want to feel loved, and advertisements tell us that if we consume, it will make us feel loved and that will make us happy. But if the point is to feel loved, he queries, why don't we just skip the consumption and spend more time with people. Thus, Beavan concludes that if as a society we improve our social connections, we will feel less of a need to consume.

I agree with this idea to a point. But I also think there's some intrinsic pleasure in consuming that has nothing to do with the desire to be loved. An example:

For ten months while we were trying to sell our house, half of our stuff was staging our house in Maryland while the other half was in our apartment in Raleigh. During that time, I discovered how little we needed to get by and how much of our stuff was purchased not to fill a necessary role but to make our house look nice. It made me really think about our consumption habits.

But when we finally sold our house and got all of our belongings back together in one spot, it was like Christmas - only instead of getting new things, I was rediscovering old things. And once all of our furniture and decor was placed in a permanent spot, I looked around and felt a real sense of home - a sense I never got when our stuff was divided.

And even now, when I walk into the house, the first thing I think is, "My home is so beautiful," and I get this great feeling of satisfaction. The decor really shows off my style and tastes. Everything in the house is something I picked out, and I love it all.

So maybe I don't need all this stuff. But it still makes me happy.

Another example:

I have severe addictions to Diet Coke and chocolate. Sometimes at the end of a stressful day, I have an overwhelming urge to drink a Coke or eat some chocolate. I'm feeling unhappy, and Coke or chocolate are an instant pick-me-up.

Feeling like I shouldn't need to consume something to make myself feel happy, I've thought a lot about what role Coke and chocolate are really filling in my life and whether or not I couldn't get that same feeling from something else. But although I enjoy reading and music and crafting and yoga and even watching TV or spending time with my husband, they don't provide that instant feeling of gratification that I get from drinking a Coke or eating some chocolate.

I don't love the stuff in my house because I'm trying to make an impression on someone else. I love it because it's mine. And I couldn't replace the Coke or the chocolate with social experiences and get the same effect. So maybe consumption is not all about a desire to be loved.

What do you all think? Are there other reasons we consume? And do you think men consume for different reasons that women?

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Weekend Ramblings: Consumption vs. Happiness

Sometimes on the weekends, I ramble about thoughts I've been having that week. Feel free to comment, add to my thoughts, or disagree with anything I say. But please remember that I don't like being called an idiot, even if I'm being one. So keep your comments respectful.

This week I've been thinking about consumption and environmentalism and how they relate to our level of happiness. Mostly, I've been thinking about this because I've been reading No Impact Man's book, and that is one of his big things: we're consuming, and our consumption is destroying the planet, but it's not making us happy.

But I've also been thinking about it because my family does a lot of walking, and because the house we're renting is in an interesting location in Raleigh.

We live in a part of town that is being revitalized - some builders bought up all the run down or abandoned houses on a couple of streets and knocked them down to build new houses or restored them if they weren't in too bad of shape. What that means for us is that two blocks in one direction is a historical neighborhood filled with beautifully restored old houses running half a million dollars and up, and two blocks in the other direction are really run down (sometimes crumbling apart) houses and apartments.

We walk through the rich neighborhood to get downtown, to my husband's work, and to my son's school, and I love to admire the big old mansions, manicured landscapes, and (because we live in the South) furnished front porches. I love the idea of a porch where you can sip tea and swing and admire your flowers and call out to your neighbors as they pass.

But in the four months that we've lived in this house, I've never once seen anyone sitting on the porches of those big beautiful houses. Sometimes I pass people jogging on the sidewalk, sometimes there are other families with kids at the playground. I know they must hang out in their yards sometimes because they've got to put in some effort to make their yards so beautiful, right?

But I've never once seen anyone swinging on a porch, sipping tea, admiring their flowers, and calling out to their neighbors as they pass.

You know where I always see people out on their porches? Going the other direction, through the poorer part of town. They don't have lovely wicker furniture (sometimes just some folding chairs), they don't have beautiful yards (usually just a few overgrown shrubs). But they're always out there on their porches, calling out to us as we pass: "How ya'll doin' today? On your way to the library?"

I think most of those people on the poorer side of town would happily trade away those leisurely front porch chats for nice houses, nice yards, nice stuff, nice jobs. But what I wish is that we as a society could find a way to have both. To have beautiful houses with covered porches and swings and flowers, but also to enjoy our houses and porches and swings and flowers.

What do you all think? Is it possible to have both? Or do we have to work so hard to be able to have the nice houses and stuff that there's no time left to enjoy what we have? What do you think is the solution?

Photo by gailf548


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Weekend Ramblings: Time Magazine Got It Right...Almost

Sometimes on the weekends, I ramble about thoughts I've been having that week. Feel free to comment, add to my thoughts, or disagree with anything I say. But please remember that I don't like being called an idiot, even if I'm being one. So keep your comments respectful.

I have a bone to pick with Time Magazine. In their August 31st issue, they had an article called "The Real Cost of Cheap Food." Overall, it was a great article - kind of a watered down version of the documentary Food, Inc, and it shows how mainstream the food debate is getting.

But on the third page of the article, there was an illustration that drove me batty! The left column of the illustration was titled "Organic" with a picture of common items purchased at a grocery store and a sample receipt totaling $33.32. The same products, though conventionally grown, were listed in the right hand column with a receipt totaling $15.88. With these sample numbers, the article goes on to explain, the annual cost of buying the organic products would be $1,732 while the annual cost of the conventional products would be $825. "Is sustainability worth an extra $900 a year?" the caption queries.

Picture me reading this article a year ago before I greened my grocery bill: "What??!! The cost of organics is twice as much as conventional products???!!! Who can afford that? Not me!"

Except, wait a second. I have greened my grocery bill, and I now know that going organic isn't that big of a cost differential. So when I read this article earlier this week, my reaction was, "What grocery store are they shopping at?!"

It's no wonder that people assume they can't afford to go green when even an article that supports organic agriculture and ag reform claims that organic foods are so expensive.

If they had included my grocery receipt with the same items in this article, it would have looked like this:

• homemade bread containing all organic ingredients: $1.80
• 1 pound of locally produced, grass fed ground beef: $5.99*
• 3 organic apples: $1.80
  
• organic grape tomatoes: $3.99
  
• a dozen locally produced, free range eggs: $3
• 1 gallon of organic whole milk: $4.99

TOTAL: $21.57
Annual cost: $1,121

*The article includes chicken breasts instead of ground beef. I've never bought chicken, so I'm not sure how much it costs.

And that doesn't even include the fact that since I'm a vegetarian, we barely ever buy beef - beans are soooo much cheaper. Or that I wouldn't buy those expensive grape tomatoes that come in a plastic pint case because the regular or roma tomatoes are much cheaper and float around in the nude.

The article proposes that if we "factor in crop subsidies, ecological damage and what we pay in health-care bills after our fatty, sugary diet makes us sick, conventionally produced food looks a lot pricier." Great point. The cheap cost of conventional food leaves out a lot of factors.

But please, Time Magazine, don't scare people away from organics with such ridiculously high prices.

(And since I'm on a rant, I was also annoyed by the sentence "no one goes to farmers' markets for bargains" and the fact that the author didn't even touch on the issues with farm labor.)

Did you read the article? What did you think?

Photo by Kables

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• Weekend Ramblings: Big Business
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Weekend Ramblings: Housing

Sometimes on the weekends, I ramble about thoughts I've been having that week. Feel free to comment, add to my thoughts, or disagree with anything I say. But please remember that I don't like being called an idiot, even if I'm being one. So keep your comments respectful.


This week I've been thinking about where and how people choose to live. I don't mean like what part of the country. More like, urban vs. suburban vs. country. Big house vs. medium house vs. small house. Apartment/condo vs. townhouse vs. single-family home. Etc.

First some background on me:

I have lived everywhere. I have lived in small towns, medium cities, and large cities. I spent my childhood in the suburbs, my teenage years in the country, and currently live a mile from Raleigh's downtown. I've lived in small houses, large houses, dorm rooms, apartments, and townhouses.

My husband and I both spent most of our lives in small towns, and both of our parents currently live out in the country. When we lived in the DC suburbs, we constantly talked about buying some land in the country, building a passive solar home, and starting a small homestead.

Now we are in the city, and we love it. We love being able to walk everywhere and being so close to so many forms of entertainment. But when we visit our parents, our minds inevitably wander back to that dream of having some land in the country, and we end up in that never ending debate - buy a house in the city or the country?

It will be several more years before we'll be able to buy a house again, so I'm sure the debate will continue for awhile. But what we know for sure is that we never want to live in the suburbs again. We are just not suburb people. We love the buzz of the city and the tranquility of the country. We do not enjoy the monoculture of the suburbs. We do not enjoy long drives in traffic jams. We are not fans of McMansions, especially in neighborhoods where all the houses look the same. And we do not understand the appeal of carefully manicured lawns.

But I know that there are many, many, many people who choose to live in the suburbs. So I've been thinking about why. Why do people choose to live where they live?

Here are a couple of things that brought these thoughts to mind:

• No Impact Man wrote a great post about why he supports a less impact life, and in the original post, he wrote (among other things) that in the future he hopes to be able to say, "I am glad we've stopped building suburbs, which make people unhappy." Several people commented that they live in the suburbs and are very happy, so he scratched out that line.

• Grist points to a press release about a so-called environmentalist who has built a "6,700 square foot spectacular 'green' home."

• We got caught in a massive traffic jam out in the country last week, and we were stopped for an hour in front of a bunch of homes set way back from the road. And between each house and the street was about 2 acres of lawn. No trees, no landscaping, no gardens of any kind. Just lawn.

So here are the thoughts I've been having. Feel free to comment.

• What is the appeal of the suburbs? Why do so many people choose to live there?
• Can a 6700 square foot house really be called green? Why do people want such big houses?
• What is the appeal of huge lawns? Why do people like them?
• As we move toward more sustainable lifestyles, will our houses have to get smaller? Will our lawns have to get smaller? Or will innovation enable us to maintain our current lifestyles?
• How can we preserve what people like about the suburbs while still moving toward more sustainable lifestyles?

Photo by voxefx


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Weekend Ramblings: Big Business

Sometimes on the weekends, I will be rambling about thoughts I've been having that week. Feel free to comment, add to my thoughts, or disagree with anything I say. But please remember that I don't like being called an idiot, even if I'm being one. So keep your comments respectful.

My husband and I have an ongoing argument about whether or not an environmentally or socially responsible company should get big. My feeling is that when a company gets too big, it loses sight of its original goals and values. And when there's too big of a gap between the people at the top and those at the bottom, the people at the top care less about how their actions affect those at the bottom.

I sometimes talk about "evil companies," which annoys my husband. He argues that businesses either have to get big or die, though frequently that involves selling out to a larger company that might not share its values. I say, Why can't they just get big enough? He says that's not the way our economy works. Etc., etc., etc. We've had this conversation a dozen times.

Some examples of companies that frequently enter into our discussion: Burt's Bees sold out to Clorox. Tom's of Maine is owned by Colgate. Dagoba Chocolate is owned by Hershey. Chipotle sold out to McDonalds. Ben & Jerry's is part of Unilever. I could go on...

I've been thinking about this topic this week for a couple of reasons. One is because I was writing about saving money on organics, and unfortunately, I think one of the ways we will see price drops in organic foods is when big business really gets involved. Namely, Walmart. And as much as I'd like to see cheaper organics, that thought still makes me sad.

But the other reason I've been thinking about this topic is because I've read a few related quotes this week by big name environmentalists who surprisingly seem to side more with my husband than me. For example...

From Josh Dorfman, the Lazy Environmentalist:

As we transform our economy—which I really believe is what we have to do—into sustainability, I just think that these large corporations are going to be part of that change. They have to be. Some of them will go out of business, but most of them are going to be here and they have to transform. These are the steps corporations have to take to transform and sometimes it’s hard for us as environmentalists to operate in this gray area. We want to see the world in terms of good guys and bad guys, black and white, and that’s not a luxury that we have if we’re really serious about creating change that’s going to make a real difference.

From Jeffrey Hollander of Seventh Generation, on whether or not they will do business with Walmart now that he's stepped down as CEO:

[Up] until a year ago while we were in a very close dialogue with Wal-Mart and working to help them become a more sustainable and responsible business, we were not comfortable selling to them. But the progress that Wal-Mart has made in the past three to four years is astounding and absolutely an incredible inspiration for what’s possible of a large company. Does that mean they’re perfect today? No, but they have made more progress than just about any company that I can think of and that progress has led us to experiment with them in a small group of stores....

I don’t believe that we can solve the urgent problems that face us—whether it’s global warming, or whether it’s a crisis of fresh water or species disappearance—without aggressive leadership from the business community. Part of the role that Seventh Generation wants to play is showing business that being responsible is good business and being sustainable is good business, and that we can’t afford to have business stand in the way of the progress we need to make to become more sustainable.

From William McDonough, respected architect, designer, and author of Cradle to Cradle:

[Just] as industrialists, engineers, designers, and developers of the past did not intend to bring about such devastating effects, those who perpetuate these paradigms today surely do not intend to damage the world. The waste, pollution, crude products, and other negative effects that we have described are not the result of corporations doing something morally wrong. They are the consequence of outdated and unintelligent design.

And also from William McDonough:

"How can you work with them?" we are often asked, regarding our willingness to work with every sector of the economy, including big corporations. To which we sometimes reply, "How can you not work with them?"...

Eco-effectiveness sees commerce as the engine of change, and honors its need to function quickly and productively. But it also recognizes that if commerce shuns environmental, social, and cultural concerns, it will produce a large-scale tragedy of the commons, destroying valuable natural and human resources for generations to come. Eco-effectiveness celebrates commerce and the commonweal in which it is rooted.

Where do your opinons lie in this argument? Are big business and environmentalism at opposite ends of the spectrum? Or can they work together toward a sustainable future?

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Weekend Ramblings: Waste Disposal

Being a stay-at-home mom has many benefits, but intellectual stimulation is not one of them. I spend two to three hours a day cooking and cleaning and an hour or more driving or walking - in other words, a lot of time where my mind is left to solitary wandering.

Sometimes I wish I had some feedback to my wandering thoughts, so I thought I'd occasionally start doing some rambling on the weekends, just to get the thoughts out there to someone besides my husband and maybe provoke some conversation as well.

I would love to hear your comments, but I don't like being told I'm being an idiot, even if I am. So please keep your comments respectful.

This week, I was thinking about JessTrev's suggestion that the government should offer tax incentives for conscientious waste disposal, and also an article I read that said San Francisco was going to start fining people for not recycling.

It reminded me of a debate class I took in college where I debated about waste disposal. My argument was that a program should be implemented in Kentucky (where I was living at the time) allowing people a certain number of trash bags a week, and if they went over that amount, they should be fined. This kind of system would encourage people both to recycle and to use less in general.

But I lost the debate because all of my evidence to support my argument came from case studies and examples in California rather than Kentucky, and according to my professor, if you say the program should be implemented in Kentucky, you have to show evidence that it would work in Kentucky. Personally, I thought that was totally stupid because no one had ever proposed it in Kentucky so of course there were no studies showing how it would work there. But anyway...

Thinking about all of these things, I had the following thoughts:

• What if we were responsible for disposing of all of our waste? If something could be recycled, you would be rewarded for disposing of it, or maybe you wouldn't get anything, but if you had to landfill it, you would be fined.

• Would that kind of system encourage people to buy more responsible and quality products, since they wouldn't want to pay a fine?

• Or would people just end up illegally dumping a lot of things (which was one of the arguments of the other side in my debate class)?

• Would knowing that they were responsible for disposal encourage people to buy less in general?

• If people were responsible for the dispoal of their own products, how would that influence the marketplace?

• Should the responsibility for waste disposal lie with consumers or producers?

• If producers were responsible for waste disposal, would they just end up cutting corners, sending things to countries where there are less strict laws?

So these are thoughts I was having this week...Any comments?

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