Going Green - Shawnee,KS

well, im starting to be more concious of waste and how much paper i use, at work (preschool teacher)we used to go thru 5 rolls of paper towels a week with handwashing, soaking up spills, cleaning the table befreo and after lunch etc. Then i went to sam;s club and bought a pack of shop towels. we goe thru 1-2 rolls a week now, just for handwashing . everything else, we use the cloths for, and its teaching the children resopnsibility. i like it so much, that i bought some for home. the pack of 100 cost 12 bucks, and i havent bought a paper towel in 4 months. i just wait until i have a load of the dirty cloths, abd wash them sith soap and bleach. and now i dont have paper towels all around the house ( messy kids) and i have less trash in my bags and (the thing i love most) i dont have to dig all the paper towles out fo the recycling becasue people were to lazy to opent he compactor!!! lol good luck

good question! i'll be interested to see the answers!

we do cloth diapers, and make some cleaning supplies (but not all of them). also, we keep the thermostat high in the summer - so the air conditioning isn't running all the time. air off and windows open when we can. we put a little water heater blanket on the water heater - which is supposed to keep it from using more gas or electricity. wish we could do more... maybe a wind turbine on the roof someday!

I am happy to see that there are moms making an effort to “go green”. Going green is so important for our own well being and the earth in which supports our well being. It sometimes can be very challenging in our “instant, gotta have it, make it quick and easy” society we have today to go green. As moms we seem to be always running on empty so what ever is quick and easy will help us out more. I think it is so great to hear you are making your own baby wipes. I tired it, but when my children were small I was a mom running on empty. I did it for a month and reverted back to store bought. So you keep it up, you are doing a good thing. Many companies are “jumping on the band wagon” and are making it easier for us to move towards going green. Still be aware of the products you are buying thinking that they are green. (This goes for organic products too.) Question to how they are manufactured, (important!) and what is the company’s “green story” and their points to why they make a green product. I know, I know a lot of work but you will be knowledgeable in making the right choice for products. Faultless Starch in Kansas City makes a good earth friendly cleaner (like a comet type product, but no bleach) called Bom Ami. As a child my mom used Bom Ami so it has been around a long time. Even being in the KC Metro area it is sometimes difficult to find, but is worth the search.
I almost wish I didn’t see your post (but am thankful) because I am very passionate about this subject. I do think (and worry) about the effects of everything “man made” and what it is/might doing to our environment; from our household cleaners to our food; more for my children’s sake. Our children seem to be growing up with more health issues; asthma, autism, ADHD, allergies & food allergies… Why? (Okay I hit all the A’s I am sure there are more, but this is what came to mind) I think now we are more aware of health issue today, but never have I remembered growing up knowing any friends to have health issues. That is where the question stands; is it something we are doing to our environment? I think with moms like us going green we can put forth our efforts to do the best we can to help not destroy our environment by harsh chemicals, poorly manufactured items, chemically treated foods etc…
My advice: Be conscious to what you buy, where it comes from, what’s in the product, and how it is manufactured. These are key element moving towards the “going green” label and status. It is a lot of work but you do feel better knowing you are making an effort to make our earth a healthier place to live. Okay I will step down from my “soap box”.
Besides going green with household products, this summer I made an effort to buy locally. Inspired from the book by Barbara Kingsolver “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”. Knowing where my food items came from and how the items were treated put me at ease; it was helping local farmers and helping the environment; although this was a tough thing to do. Besides the farmer’s market, which Blue Springs has a very nice one, shopping the local stores I found that there are very few items that are considered local or locally grown, and when visiting Lawrence I bought many local items at The Community Mercantile (grocery store). They have fantastic selections of local (Missouri and Kansas) items, but expensive. This was a good trial, and has made me more conscious of the items I buy. One time before my local food efforts, I had bought dried apples that were pre-packaged, again for the quick and easy snack factor. They were organic but they were from China. Apples coming all the way from China bothered me a lot; especially with an apple orchard just down the highway.
I’ve rattled on enough, and not sure if my post is helpful; as I said I am very passionate about going green & buying local; and you got me started… =)
I want to thank you for your efforts, and thank you to all the other moms for making an effort and being knowlegable on “going green”.

Yes, I am trying to go green as much as possible!! Some of the worst things we use daily that are FULL of harmful chemicals and toxins and that is our personal care items and skin care. Anything we put on our skin to be absorbed are the worst of the worst!! If you want to send me your email address I can send you a lot of websites and documentation on these things. Included would be a list of the Dirty Dozen; a list of the top most harmful ingredients in our daily personal products. Also you can read, Not Just a Pretty Face, The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry by Stacy Malkan. It is quite an eye opener and talks about all chemicals in your house, not just personal items!
Fortunately, I work with a business that has toxin and chemical free skin care & mineral foundation!! And in Oct. we are launching a toxin and chemical free Family Care line with shampoo & conditioner, body lotion, shower gel, and soap bar!! I am so very excited about all this!! Just let me know if you would like any more info on any of the above fore mentioned!! Let me know if there is any way I can help! God Bless! ~J.

I clean my counters a lot in my kitchen, and I really hated spraying that bleachy Lysol kitchen cleaner so many times a day, so I switched to a vinegar/water/dishsoap mixture (many recipes online) and couldn't be happier with it. I don't feel like I'm bombarding my kitchen with harmful chemicals several times a day. I do use my leftover Lysol Kitchen cleaner when I get meat on the counter, but don't use it other than that. Toilet bowl cleaner (Method smells AMAZING) and Barkeeper's Friend (like Comet) are the only commercial cleaners I use now. And I only use the Bar. Friend when my kitchen sink starts to stain-- all other times, I use a salt/baking soda mixture (recipe online) to scrub the kitchen sink and shower-- works just as well as Comet for scrubbing! (the salt is a GREAT scrubber)

I also buy organic versions of the "dirty dozen"-- the 12 produce items that contain the most pesticide residue-- as determined by the FDA & US Dept of Agriculture. You can look that up online. From what I've read, you eliminate almost 90% of your pesticide intake from buying organic versions of just those 12 items! That was our first small step. (I've also read that studies show that veggie-washes DON'T reduce pesticide content b/c the pesticides are INSIDE the produce-- they take them in while they're growing)

The next step for us was buying hormone-free milk and cheese. Kraft has hormone-free block & shredded cheese. It's called "natural"- but you have to look for the little leaf symbol and wording that says "hormone-free" because they have some cheese that they call "natural" but does not have the hormone-free wording.

We also found a brand of milk in our grocery store that is not organic milk, but it is hormone-free, so it's only a few cents more per gallon than the regular milk. The one in our grocery store is from Heartland Creamery. (I have a friend who buys organic milk from Costco and says that it's about the same price as a regular gallon from the grocery store)

The other thing we do (not quite regularly, yet) is buy hormone-free beef. Usually, we use ground beef, so we mix it with hormone-free ground turkey, which is much cheaper, to help keep costs down.

I found that my daughters' health (ages 3 & 7) was the primary motivator for me to make all of these gradual changes. My daugher lost 6 teeth before she was in 1st grade, and I can't help but think that the hormones they're pumping into our meat and dairy sources are at least partly to blame. (I've also read reports that kids are reaching puberty at a much earlier age these days.) Since switching to hormone-free milk and dairy, she's only lost 1 other tooth (she's in 2nd grade now)-- which kind of worries me too! Anyway, it just worries me that while they test if levels of a certain pesticide are ok in one food item, they don't really test what happens when you combine a bunch of different foods with different pesticides in them. What is the effect when everyone eats a different combination of all of those things? And then when you consider that everyone's genetic makeup is different, that's a whole lot of unknowns. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but at least I feel like I'm making an investment in my daughters' future health. And since I'm not going whole-hog (I rarely buy organic non-perishables), I feel like I'm doing something significant for my family's health without having a huge impact on our budget.

Good luck to everyone in their quest for safer households & healthier families!! I look forward to reading what everyone else has to say.

PS-- the second-most pesticide-containing produce item is apples-- how much applesauce and how many apples do our kids eat growing up? Scary, when you think about it.

By no means am I going green, but I use straight vinegar to clean everything. The smell goes away when it dries. I clean: sinks, my tile & linoleum floors, counters, tables, windows & I use in in my washing machine instead as a fabric softener. The only other things I do are: use baking soda (& water or vinegar) to clean my bath tub & denture tablets to clean my toilets (toss 3 or 4 in & let them disolve then scrub).

God bless!

Oh Le Anne! You are so right! I work with an online wellness company that has been in business for over 24 years, so well before "going green" was popular. They have taken the best of science and nature and made the most amazing non-toxic products for your home and body. Please call me and I can get you the details. My number is ###-###-####. I have been a customer since last September and my children have been so much healthier. They didn't even get sick last winter when EVERYONE was sick! I love it!

You need to be super careful even with green products in the grocery stores, because those products are not typically anti-bacterial so they don't sanitize anything. The company I order from is awesome! All of their products are naturally anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, etc. because they use natural botanicals, citrus solvents, etc. They have approx. 400 everyday consumable products for your home, body, laundry, etc.

The products are SO safe that they don't even require child safety caps! They are also super concentrated so you purchase them less often saving you money and saving plastic in the landfills (if you don't recycle) however all the plastic bottles are recyclable!

Give me a call, I'd love to share it with you!

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I don't know, but I am SOOOOOOOO sick of hearing the word "green" I could barf!!! I wish everyone would just live their life the way they want to and not seek approval by what others are doing. Just do what's best for your family.

One thing I don't understand, is why in the world do recycled items always cost twice as much as other items? Hmmmm, could it be that it is such a huge money maker and these companies know that people will fall for the "it's good for the environment" speel, so they'll buy? I do know that vinegar is a good cleaner from eveything from your floors to your personal hygene.

Good for you! I too, started doing this after I had my son (now four!). We buy Shatto milk (local and hormone free) and will do w/o strawberries unless I have grown them or they are organic. Little pesticide sponges! I got this book called Green Clean. Tons of recipes for cleaning just about everything. I also buy mostly Seventh Generation and Method products. The 7th Gen toilet paper is not as rough as it used to be, and the bleach used to make regular TP is, let's say, and irritant! ;-) As far a cost goes, we use "subscribe and save" on Amazon.com and save a ton on 7th Gen diapers and wipes and TP and paper towels.

I have also noticed that while some of these choices are more expensive, it makes us more conscious of our spending habits. We are less wasteful as far as what we use and more aware of what we buy. We consume less, but what we consume is better!

Another source for local/organic food is Kansas City Food Circle. They have listings of local farmers, ranchers, etc. Once you start eating free range farm eggs, you will never go back to store bought. It's also great to support local farmers...
Cheers! B.

What is the company you are buying your products from? I am kind of half and half on natural products. I would like to go green, but sometime feel like it can get exspensive and takes a little more time, which I don't have right now with a 7, 4, 1 year old and working full time. It really is scarey to find out what is in some of our baby products.

Green products are key to a healthy life!

You must rid your body of toxic chemicals to be healthy!

What if I could show you a way to Go Green and do it wholesale? Never pay those higher prices again. Those high prices are the result of the “chain of mark-up”. We can show you how to get better safer products, for less money, due to consumer direct marketing, and deliver them right to your home.

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Oh I can't say I'm as super conscious about it as I ought to be...I tried the "green" products at Walmart...they were ok but if you read the backs of the labels they STILL warn to keep them away from children so I'm still struggling with finding cleaning products that I can actually entrust my kids with. I really WANT the to help clean and they really want to (at least for the moment..they are 4 & 6) so I want to capitalize on it as much as I can.

I did go more green with bath products simply because my youngest child has hypersensitive skin so we've been users of Vanicream and Cetaphil. I also discovered the wonder of good old lye soap at an Amish store this summer. Did you know you can use it to help the effects of poison ivy, sumac and oak as well as use it on your laundry? And on your laundry...OMG! Stains I've used Oxyclean and bleach pens on that didn't come out were suddenly clean and Whites have never been whiter!!! Our ancestors DEFINITELY were onto a good thing! LOL

The schools are doing a lot of education about recyclying so my kids are always on me about recycling plastic, paper, boxes, whatever...sometimes I have time for it, other times I don't but I have TRIED to come around. This summer I DID start using FIT on all my fruits and vegetables I bought at market. If you don't know, it's an organic substance you wash your fruits & veggies in to get the chemicals and wax off them. I have to say, I am now a convert. I bought strawberries at Wal-mart that were just horrible! I washed them with water and you could still TASTE the chemicals. My kids wouldn't even eat them...then I bought some FIT and washed them and there was no problem with them at all...no chemical taste whatsoever. I can't say I'm a convert to buying organic...I just can't afford the upcharge prices they put on things but I do buy more from my Farmer's market.