Shhh... Victoria's Secret is out

I stopped into Vickie's this weekend (bras are one item I won't be thrifting), and was pleasantly surprised to see this sign. You bring in old bras to recycle and get a $10 credit towards a new bra. With the cost of VS bras, this is a decent discount of 15-20%.

VS isn't the only mainstream store trying to reduce the impact of your new purchases. Just a couple other examples:

• H&M will give you a discount voucher for recycling textiles of any brand.
• Madewell will give you $20 off jeans when you bring back old jeans, which they then recycle into housing insulation. 
• The North Face will give you $10 when you donate clothes or shoes of any brand, which the then use for disaster relief or micro-businesses. 

There are more and more programs like this popping up. While we still have too many new clothes and fast fashion items entering the system, this is a great way to participate in recycling, especially for those items that you want to purchase new.

Ham, and Brussel Sprouts, and Butterball, and Limes!

What do these things all have in common? They've all entered my home in nylon mesh bags.

These are not recyclable in some municipalities, but there are many ideas online for how to reuse these. The most direct reuse with no crafting skills needed at all is: Bring them back to the store and use them again as bags for your loose produce! 

But, if you want to get into crafting or upcycling, the most common idea I've seen is to form them into kitchen scrubbies. The patterns go from extremely easy to advanced: some are no-sew, some involve sewing, some involve crocheting. Depending on your skill and desire for pretty kitchen accessories will help you choose your method. My priority was EASY. :) 

I worked off of this tutorial. Laurie's scrubbie came out a bit more attractive than mine due to having bags of the same size and color.

First step: prep your bags by trimming off any tags and hardware.

Next, tie one end shut, and then flip the bag inside out so the knot is on the inside. 

Roll up and stuff a few other bags inside the first one. Once you have the desired size, tie a knot at the top of your first bag. Laurie left her top knot visible - I finished mine by sewing the "tail" flat, leaving me with just a ball. I also switched mid project from purple, to green and yellow, just because I didn't have enough purple and green yellow was the most attractive color combo I had available. Totally your choice if you are thinking of aesthetics, or pure functionality!

Last step: test out your new scrubbie at your next meal!

Postponed: 4 nylon bags into the landfill.
Saved: about $1

Every Last Scrap

I showed up at work this morning to find this empty box at my desk. My co-worker, who is an avid tea drinker and regularly has it shipped to her, had left it for me to see because of the awesome packaging!

 

What is all this "paper" shred? Biodegradable, renewal, corn mesh. :)

 

It turns out this is the scraps from when they make the tea bags! Not only do they use up all their production scraps, but they also don't have to use extra materials like bubble wrap or peanuts to pad their shipments. 

I don't drink a lot of tea, so I needed to read up a bit on The Republic of Tea to learn about their company. Besides having cool packaging, they also do a bunch of other great social good, such as donating proceeds to non-profits, and being a member of Ethical Tea Partnership, for environmentally and socially responsible tea production.

What can you do?

• Beginner: support companies like this that make the most of their production waste and shipping supplies
• Advanced: contact companies of products you love, who could improve on their packaging, to recommend changes

Healthy You, Healthy Oceans

Howdy ~ After several weeks of back and forth heatwave then chill, I think summer's finally here in Seattle. This means more outdoor activities and beach time!

I'm a super pasty white, so it's hard to be brave enough to do these things when I'll just get sunburned, and sunscreen is oh-so-yucky-greasy. After having tried several sunscreens that promise to be non-greasy over the years, I finally found one that I'm in love with: Australian Gold Botanical Sunscreen.

Not only is it truly non-greasy, but it also doesn't have the trademark sunscreen smell. Rather, it has a soft tropical scent (perhaps hint of coconut?) and dries to velvety finish.

So, not only am I loving this product for how it feels, but a trip to Mexico a couple years ago made me start thinking about sunscreen's effect on sealife.

Specifically of note is coral reefs. In the callouts on the back of the bottle, Oxybenzone Free = Reef Friendly. Oxybenzone has proven to be dangerous to coral, and this and similar ingredients have recently been banned in Hawaii. To pick a better product, look for mineral-based products with primary ingredients like Zinc Oxide. Another interesting note is "Non-Nano". This means the zinc particles are a little larger and less likely to be absorbed by both the coral and in our own blood streams. Apparently the FDA isn't recognizing non-nano yet, so you may primarily see this on products from Australia.

Fun fact: did you know that coral is not a stone or plant, but rather animal in the same family as jellyfish? They have a symbiotic relationship with algae, which they depend upon to get energy from the sun.

(Image borrowed from noaa.gov. Click to enlarge for text.) 

At $8 for 5oz of liquid sunscreen, this is a middle of the road price. For no extra cost over chemical sunscreens, it's an easy switch to protect our oceans.

Borrow

This one's for people with small dwellings (calling all you apartment renters or condo owners!), or people who just don't want to own things that they won't use regularly... have you heard of Tool Libraries or Libraries of Things?

These are community resources that allow you to borrow items from hammers and gardening tools to Cuisinarts for a small membership fee or suggested donation. Some of them also have work space and repair classes. In general, there is minimal cost to the borrower; some funds are recouped through late fees or charges for broken items, but otherwise they are funded by city or community groups and run by volunteers. 

(Image borrowed from www.resourcefulpdx.com)

Here are just some of the tool libraries in the Pacific Northwest:

Seattle Metro area
Capitol Hill, Seattle - 420 E. Pike St.
SE Seattle - 4425 MLK Jr. Way S
West Seattle - 4408 Delridge Way SW
NE Seattle - 10228 Fischer Pl NE
Tacoma - 754 S. 38th Street
Vashon Island - 18870 103rd Ave SW

Portland area
NE Portland - 5431 NE 20th Ave
Green Lents, Portland - 9215 SE Ramona St
SE Portland - 1137 SE 20th Ave

Even more libraries can be found at this directory. 

Potato Planters

Last year I started planting potatoes for the first time. I did OK, getting a couple pounds of potatoes from a couple plants, but this year I decided to keep with it and follow the YouTube instructions of planting in 5 gallon bucks to give the potatoes more room to grow.

I started with 2 planting buckets with from Home Depot, and HOLY COW am I growing some wildly huge plants!

This looks promising - I need another bucket, stat!

Last week, a gal from my Buy Nothing group posted an empty coconut oil bucket. (I'm curious about the need for 5 gallons of coconut oil. Does she make her own beauty products?) I snatched it up, and now have the base for my next potato plant.

Next step: recruit T, his drill, and largest drill bit to put some holes in the bottom for drainage. Don't have a drill handy? Stayed tuned for my next post on Tool Libraries.

Insert sprouted potatoes. If you start them towards the bottom of the bucket (just 4" of dirt), you can add dirt as the plant grows, and they'll grow up the hieght of the bucket. 

Water and wait. :) In a couple weeks, these little guys will be the giant bushes up above!

Free bucket for the win (and $6 savings)!

Beach Bottles

My parents have a beach house on Vashon, just a short ferry ride from Seattle. It's on a short strip of private beach, so fortunately, we very rarely see any trash on the beach, let alone piles like this:

 (Image from Timothy C, Trip Advisor)

To some extent, it makes us forget that this is a real problem on non-private beaches. But every once in a while, we get a reminder of how long our waste makes an impact. Playing with my dog, we came across this bottle:

Based on their website, it looks like this is the 1960s packaging!! 

This is a good reminder that plastic is designed to be durable and not degrade. What can you do? 

• Be sure to pack out your trash when visiting beaches and parks.
• Minimize your use of plastic, especially single use. 
• If you see something, pick it up!
• If you are inspired to bigger action, join a local beach cleanup. The Ocean Conservancy is a great place to get started.

Happy beach season, everyone. :)