Allegra’s tips for the environment.
Join a car co-op – sure works for me!
Join Freecycle.org to get & recycle an amazing variety of goods in your community.
Join Bookcrossing to recycle books.
Keep your spent batteries in a jar and then take them back to places such as The Source or, believe it or not, many cell phone kiosks in malls. At a pinch they go to the toxic recycling facility locally.
Stop using paper tissues. Recycled cotton clothing works great for hankies, ‘sexwipes’ (WAY nicer than tissues, blecch), cleaning windows and mirrors, etc etc.
For those still ‘running with the moon’ buy a cup instead of killing a sequoia with every period. Works great, and now that I know you can clean it with tooth whitening gel I’m the happiest woman on the planet.
Quit dying your hair. That stuff is gross, stains everything in the bathroom like a bastard, stinks to high heaven and is not nice for the water supply.
Quit using makeup. Almost all of it is toxic crap with horrific amounts of plastic packaging.
Learn to cultivate and save seed from heritage plants. I especially recommend corn, beans, squash, wheat, barley, hops, tomatoes, potatoes and medicinal perennials. Mmm. Beer.
Use vinegar to clean and deodorize things. It’s gross, but only momentarily and it doesn’t make horrible aerosols.
Or, take your spent batteries to church (well if you go to the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, anyway).
ICBC recycles disposable batteries, and encourages employees to bring them in from home. I doubt they are set up to take them from customers off the street, but if you know someone who works for the mothercorp, you could ask.
Vinegar is also useful in laundry to disinfect and remove odours. Helps remove mildew-like odours from towels/face cloths. Also use with whites, leave lid open after wash cycle for one hour soak — doesn’t yellow like beach and is safer for the environment.
I did not know that. Thanks Debbie!
I used to run a gallon of white vinegar and hot water through the washer as a cleaning cycle. Gets rid of soap crud and lint.