Green with Children

Hair Clippings Saga, Part II

My hair clippings have shamed Dexter's hair clippings, currently sprinkled in my garden as an animal repellent. Mine are going a step further by saving the world's oceans and wildlife from oil spills.

Yesterday I got my hair cut at Fringe, the hippest salon in my little village of Maplewood. Fringe is the subject of many conversations at the pool and playdates--a little oasis of cool amidst the more rococo standard of beauty so prevalent in the Garden State. Gals said they were "green." Beyond using Aveda products, what else could a hair salon do to be eco-friendly? As it turns out, apparently there's a lot.

But allow me to digress for a second. The truly fantastic discovery about this salon for me was the playroom. For my kids. My children were welcome there while I got my hair cut. I think most of the moms reading this right now are staring at their computers, mouths agape with awe and wonder. It's simple yet remarkable.

I'm here to write about going green, however, not about falling madly in love with a business owner. My hairdresser said how supportive the salon was of the philosophies driving Aveda's business--fair trade, renewable energy, organic ingredients, etc., yada yada yada. We all know how Aveda is the paragon of virtue, and how great it all smells. Then she mentioned that they ship all the hair clippings off to a group that turns them into giant mats to soak up oil spills. What?

That I did not anticipate. Thousands of salons are involved in this project to create ottimats, invented by a hairdresser who saw how otter fur stuck to oil during the Exxon Valdez spill--and wondered if human hair worked the same way. What's more, the oil soaked into the hairmats can be wrung out and used, and the mats can ultimately be burned for energy as well.

Think of all the unwanted hair being swept from the floors of salons across America. Each salon and barbershop in America produces about a pound of hair clippings every day. Sure, a giant rug made out of human hair is truly repulsive to ponder, but so is an oil spill. It's not like we have to lay on it. We don't have to do anything but get a hair cut--a treat for most women I know.

The Matter of Trust website encourages everyone to get their salon or barbershop involved, with posters and an easy registration process.

I love how the most random encounters can expose you to truly amazing stuff. Excess Access is a ten-year-old organization that works with Matter of Trust to connect people who have stuff they don't need with people who need that stuff. That is almost as brilliant as putting a playroom in a hair salon.

© The Green Guide, 2008

| Email this post | Discuss this blog

Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk

Wal-Mart and Costco are changing the shape of milk jugs to save on shipping costs. The new containers fit neatly on pallets and don't need to be crated, so more milk can be transported in each truck. This lowers shipping costs by saving fuel.

Yes, of course it's the bottom line (aka greed) motivating this, not eco-consciousness, but who cares? Greed is the mother of American innovation. Maybe when exhibiting greed is green, we'll pick up the pace a little bit here.

Speaking of a groundswell of greening, somebody else is already using the name Mommy Greenest, so I have to switch it. Shocking, as it may seem, I'm not the only woman blogging about going green. I'm just the best. I'm now the best, however, with a new name. Green with Children. Learn it. Love it. Live it.

So, back to the new milk jugs. People are complaining about spilling too much with this new model. (Insert lame 'crying over spilled milk' joke here.) My older brother, a former bartender, emailed with some pointers:

"How hard is it? Actually, the secret to any difficult pouring situation is altitude. Eventually, the liquid will form a stream, just maybe not right away. If you're pouring from the side of a beer pitcher, say, if you do it slowly, it'll run down the side and dribble all over the place. But if you pour con gusto from higher up, there should be no problems."

Maybe my older brother wants everyone reading this to ask him for trivial advice like, "How do I pour?" If you have any other questions for him, just let me know. I learn so much from him. He's my idol. (I hope he reads that). So Wal-Mart shoppers, use Evan's tips and keep buying those jugs. Wal-Mart, sell the organic milk in those jugs!

My neighbor is going green too. While we were setting up the backyard for her daughter's fourth birthday party she laughed and said, "Wow, now you know it's a special occasion when you use the paper napkins instead of the cloth."

So true.

© The Green Guide, 2008

| Email this post | Discuss this blog (4)

Airing My Dirty Laundry

To green my laundry, I first started buying earth-friendly detergents, like Trader Joe's, Ecover, and BioKleen. (It was only after starting this blog that I learned about the environmental impact of our detergents and household cleansers.) In any case, I also buy powder instead of liquid to save water and shipping costs. Instead of chlorine bleach, I use oxygen bleach. Instead of dryer sheets, I use these lavender sachets from Trader Joe's. My clothes are as clean as ever, and they smell like I just walked through a French garden.

Next was the dryer. According to the Green Guide, line-drying a single load of clothes saves approximately 2.6 kWh of electricity and prevents 3.35 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

Like so many aspects of change, whether it's greening my laundry or getting back in shape, I think about what I should do for weeks or months (or years) before I actually do anything. So when my neighbor Sonya shamed me by rigging up her own clothes on the drying line before me, it was finally time to turn thoughts into action.

So I bought a drying rack at Ikea for $16.99, washed my whites, and got to work. It was a crisp sunny day and the novelty of the drying rack had me more motivated to clean clothes.

I learned pretty quickly that there is a reason the dryer was invented. Several hours later, our clothes were still damp. I had run two more loads of laundry while the whites languidly hung in the breeze. It became clear that I would have to get this process started first thing in the morning if I intended to dry more than one load of clothing in a day. Or, I could have the drying rack in my backyard every day the weather permits.

The whole experience got me thinking about feminism. Doing the laundry used to be an all-day affair. To dry outdoors, on sunny non-humid days--the best days--one had to be close to home. Dryers freed up great quantities of time for women by making laundry something that could be done efficiently, day or night. That gave us time to focus on other things, like becoming lawyers, scientists and elected officials who fight for environmental justice.

I'm not saying using a clothesline or a drying rack isn't a great way to naturally brighten whites, conserve electricity and even preserve the quality of our clothing. I just think we have to weigh the benefits. And I'm also not saying that there aren't other moms out there who are much more virtuous or better at time management than I am. 

Furthermore, thanks to our conscientious landlord, our dryer is energy efficient, with a moisture-sensor setting so it stops when it senses the clothes are dry. Maybe we use less kWh? (whatever those are).

Environmentally friendly laundry detergents? That's a no-brainer. I won't stop using my drying rack (I just spent $16.99 on it, after all), but I'm not going to commit to never using my dryer again. I have better things to do with my time.

© The Green Guide, 2008

| Email this post | Discuss this blog (5)