"Liquid soap on tap"

Matt and I are gearing up for Earth Day next week (more about our big plans later), and in the process we've discovered this wonderful company that takes environmentalism to a new level. They take old pop bottles and transform them into containers for hand soap, household cleaners and other products. Since the "Three R's" are listed in order of benefit to the environment (first reduce, then reuse, then recycle), I love the idea of reuse on a grand scale. Of course, if I find out that the company ships these bottles 10,000 miles for cleaning and processing, I hereby renege the company's aforementioned environmental wonderfulness.

Be sure to visit the company's website and sign the petition to bring their products to a Target or grocery store near you.

2009: International Year of Natural Fibers

2009 has been declared the "International Year of Natural Fibers." To celebrate and prepare, here are a few of my favorites, as well as a brief description of each, thanks in part to the folks at the Washington Post:

Hemp (My sister-in-law's personal favorite)
Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp? Come to D.C., and Matt and I will show you the real thing. The Founding Fathers (probably) weren't smoking anything; they were making use of one of the sturdiest materials around. That same sturdiness applies to hemp textiles. Hemp requires no pesticides to grow and yields three times more fiber per acre than cotton, making it a favorite among hippies and wannabe hippies (like my sister-in-law), as well as hipsters.

Bamboo
According to Eagle Scout Matt, bamboo is perhaps nature's most sustainable resource. He says it grows and grows and grows, all without the help of pesticides. Some bamboo even grows up to four feet per day! I've seen bamboo flooring and furniture, but I'm a bit leery of this next frontier.

Organic Cotton
Cotton ranks second only to corn as the world's most polluting agricultural product (Read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food for more on the evils of corn). It takes about 1/3 of a pound of chemicals to make just one cotton t-shirt! A lot of people must be equally horrified, because organic cotton sales are projected to skyrocket around the world, from $583 million in 2005 to $2.6 billion by the end of 2008.

Tencel
This one sounds a bit backwards, but tencel is actually a human-made natural fiber. It's created from the cellulose in wood pulp, which is harvested from tree-farmed trees. Just like it's less-environmentally-friendly ancestor, polyester, tencel resists wrinkles and is mainly used to make dresses, pants, coats and some jeans. If this means that a polyester-style pant suit will make a comeback, I'm not sure about tencel.

Best of the Rest
Some of the world's best fabrics have always been natural:
Silk (Thank you, Mr. Silkworm)
Wool (Thank you, Mr. Sheep and Ms. Goat, as well as your distant cousins Mr. Alpaca and Ms. Llama)
Linen (Courtesy of flax)
Ramie (Courtesy of an eponymously named flowering plant)

Blast from the past

My awesome friend, Anna, invited me to a Tupperware party years ago when I was still living in Minnesota. Before I left for the party, Matt said, "Get one of those pickle-holder things." Alas, the party had several innovative Tupperware products, but none of the pickle-dispensing containers both of us grew up with and absolutely loved:

I've been to a Tupperware party or two since then, and I walk slowly by the Tupperware kiosk at the mall, just in case. But I've never been able to find the illusive pickle-dispensing container. Until now. We finally found these Tupperware-brand containers the other day, and we snatched them up:

The most ridiculous part of all this (aside from obsessing over a pickle and/or Tupperware product for at least five years) is how much fun we've had with it! I think we have pickles at or before every meal now. We rearranged the refrigerator so the pickle dispenser could have a prime location. We made a special trip to the grocery store to buy another jar of pickles so our dispenser could be full, and we lamented when we realized that we would have to wait until it was empty before we filled it again (waitressing 101: never put new on top of old).

There is a down side to all this, though. I like a good obsession to occupy my shopping trips. I like to be perpetually looking for a specific something, even if (actually, especially if) it seems unattainable. Maybe my research for a new obsession can be my new obsession for now.

Barley has been FURminated

Sister Bernadette, the nun at work who takes care of our therapy dog, recommended this amazing product to me a few weeks ago. She said it was the best brush/deshedding tool she's ever used. Sister Bern doesn't usually lie (she took those vows, you know), so I got one for Barley.

Oh...my...gosh. I filled a plastic grocery bag with his hair! And Barley isn't a long-haired dog. I had no idea there was so much hair hiding underneath his topcoat! Hopefully, this will help with his perpetual itchie-skin issues. Hopefully, it'll help with our hair-on-the-furniture issues, too!

Check out the FURminator website to see it in action! Absolutely amazing.

November 4th is just around the corner.

If you're looking for a birthday gift for me, I think this game looks like the best thing ever. Maybe yesterday's post just has me in the mood to play around with some good (or not-so-good!) old fashioned opening sentences.

If I do get this game (I'm not sure if I can wait until November), I will play with anyone buy my mother. Sorry, Mom.

A diapering dilemma

Someone recently asked me if I'd done any research on biodegradable diapers. Her cloth-diaper service is shutting down after 20 years, and she's distraught over the thought of throwing disposable diapers in the trash. She asked if I'd heard of "biodegradable disposable diapers." I hadn't (again, no children), but I'm always wary of a disposable product that claims to be biodegradable. Matt and I watched one of his science shows a few nights ago (or, as Baltimoreans would say, we "looked at" one of his science shows), and some students were doing an archeological dig in a landfill. They unearthed a newspaper from the Nixon administration! A 40-year-old newspaper! What's more biodegradable than paper? But if a material isn't exposed to oxygen, it just won't biodegrade.

With no cloth-diaper delivery service and the distressing truth that something can't be both disposable and biodegradable, I ended our conversation feeling defeated. So I did some research. Maybe some of you with little boos have already heard of gdiapers. It looks like the old-school flushable liners my mom used to use, but upgraded so poo doesn't ooze everywhere (though the price seems pretty upgraded, too). Their promotional video alone is enough to guilt me into trying them one day:



I'm a bit out of the baby-product loop, though, so what does anyone who has changed a diaper this decade think? Does this look like a viable alternative, or the equivalent of snake oil for guilty parents? It looks like there are several similar options out there (Kushies Diapers, for example) though they all appear to be equally pricey.

Of course, there's always this less-conventional route...