Sunday, October 20, 2019

Lose Your Lint Roller

My cat, Toby, likes to lay in our windowsill, which leaves a thick coat of hair inside our curtains - yuck!


Enter the standard sticky-paper lint roller. It takes two sheets just to clear a 4"x6" area, or 30 sheets to clean the whole panel. 

     
 Enter the lint brush. 



This particular lint brush is self cleaning. Simply toggle the button on the back side, which cleans the hair into a reservoir; it holds about 10 sticky sheets worth of hair, which saves you wrestling with tearing off multiple sheets.

When you're done, just dump the reservoir! 


You can find self-cleaning lint brushes for $9.
Or, dual-sided lint brushes for $6.
Or, sticky sheet rollers in multiple pack sizes, average $.05 per sheet.

Assuming you use 2 sheets a day for clothing, and 100 sheets per year for larger surfaces like couches and curtains, you would spend $41.50/yr on sticky rollers.

With a self-cleaning brush, you'll save $32.50 in the first year, 850 sheets of paper and plastic handles. 

Now you can spend that money on extra treats for your fur babies.



Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Reduce, Reuse... Reforest?

Most of my posts, and many of the conversations I hear, are centered around 1) how do we prevent waste or 2) how do we reuse the resources we've already generated?

Both are valid (and let's do that!), but let's also consider another angle: corrective action.

By adding more plants and trees, we can:
Replace what we've removed and compensate for the carbon dioxide we create just by breathing.


Per 8 Billion Trees, in 50 years, 1 tree:
  • Creates $30,000 in oxygen
  • Produces $35,000 of recycled water
  • Removed $60,000 of pollution from the air
Here are some ways to participate:

1) Get a houseplant, or 10! Did you know that NASA did a study recommending 1 plant per 100 sq ft to purify the air?

2) Switch your home or office paper to FSC Certified paper. This means that is is recognized by the Forest Stewardship Council as being sustainably harvested. They do other cool things like protect indigenous lands and old growth forests.  Just look for the green FSC tree logo.


3) Shop from companies that have a mission to plant trees. 8 Billion Trees is just one example of many companies that sells gift items like charm bracelets, reusable tote bags, and metal water bottles, while planting trees with the funds. Another example is Trinity Oaks who plants a tree for every bottle of wine purchased.

4) Get inspired by mass scale projects around the world. Like the Ethiopians who planted 350 Million trees in 12 hours, as part of an ultimate goal of 4 BILLION trees. Or the Indians who planted 220 Million trees in a day.

5) Then, plant trees yourself. On November 2nd, you can join others in the Seattle area to plant in 17 parks as part of Green Seattle Day. Or find many other dates and locations for events at One Tree Planted.

6) Get your company's support! Ask them to donate 2000 trees as part of a 1 Million tree effort to support reforestation after California's hard wildfire year.


Let's get to rebuilding! Or at least buying a houseplant. :)