Waste
« Previous EntriesTissues Vs. Hankies: Gesundheit!
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009Hello 2009, I’m sick. It’s an interesting way to start a new year, slow and deliberate and sniffly… and it’s lead me to think about tissues & hankies. Again.
As noted many times before, I’ve already stopped buying disposable paper napkins and paper towels, and have replaced them with cloth napkins and reusable rags, with great […]
India Makes Tiny Choices!
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008During a recent trip to India, I was overwhelmed by the sad state of environmental affairs– the smell of burning plastic trash seemed to follow me everywhere I went, and particulate matter suspended in the air in Mumbai is so bad that folks often carry a hanky to hold over their face while they breathe. […]
Amazon.com’s “frustration-free” packaging
Monday, December 29th, 2008This week I was pretty excited to learn about some commercial heft being welded with good environmental results. Amazon.com announced earlier in the year that they were cutting out frustrating packaging by working with a number of manufacturers to eliminate the extra boxes and all the associated plastic clamshells. To prevent the frustration, they’ve eliminated […]
Easy Peasy Tip: Save The Wrapping!
Saturday, December 27th, 2008So it might have been more helpful of us to post this Easy Peasy Tip earlier, and it may be very similar to our Easy Peasy Tip from last week, but:
Y’know all that wrapping paper, gift bags, and tissue paper which just got exchanged during this holiday season? If you had saved it and folded […]
Holiday Recycling
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008It’s that time of year again, and a couple of holiday recycling tips have come by lately that I think are especially timely.
I’ve been collecting corks for a while now - at least since last year, when I learned about the cork recycling opportunities here, and found out about some of the repurposing opportunities for […]
DIY Recycle Bin
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008I don’t think I mentioned it here, but my dear little awesome Insight and I were in a fender bender a few weeks ago. We’re ok! the other guy is ok too! but I had to leave my cool zippy little car at the body shop for a while.
I just went to pick it up on […]
The Ugly Side of Pet Ownership
Monday, December 15th, 2008Check out these posters from the Snohomish County Surface Water Quality Division! Apparently they’ve decided to tackle the, er, “PET WASTE” problem head on by setting up a page with facts and by putting up posters that use slogans like “Dogs Don’t Have Opposable Thumbs” and “Poop Noir.” Here are some of their facts:
Dog waste […]
Easy Peasy Tip: Skip The Extras!
Saturday, December 13th, 2008TC reader Spurfer wrote in with a great Easy Peasy Tip: “When I get a soda fountain drink, I skip the lid and straw. Really, unless you’re leaving the restaurant with your drink (or a toddler is the drinker) why waste the extras? :) ”
Great idea, Spurfer! We can take this even further […]
NYC Subway Recycles
Monday, December 8th, 2008In the last couple of months I’ve noticed some big stickers on the garbage cans in the NYC subway system - pictured above - which say “Can it for Greener Planet… Subway Litter is Recycled after Collection” and it gave me significant pause. Like, I stopped and stared at the bins for a couple of […]
Using What I’ve Got
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008In these uncertain economic times there’s much talk of belt-tightening (when Starbucks starts losing money, you know Americans are rethinking their disposable income), but it’s not all doom and gloom– the idea of using what we’ve already got can be a way to appreciate the beauty and usefulness of the things we do have, instead […]
Thai Bottle Temple
Thursday, November 27th, 2008Hello, LOVE! Love love LOVE this. Love.
So, there were these Thai monks who wanted to build a new temple. They started collecting green and brown glass bottles with which to build– and check out this slideshow of their magnificent creation, containing over one million bottles. Their outhouse and crematorium are also made of […]
Lush - following through, being awesome, taking names
Monday, November 24th, 2008I posted over the summer that I’d heard a LUSH RUMOR: that they would be dropping the use of plastic bags all together. I think it’s really happened! I was gifted with a bag of soaps from Lush this weekend and the bright yellow bag itself had this written on it: “YELLOW BAG ASKS: ‘Is […]
Easy Peasy Tip: Drink Loose Tea!
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008If you’re a tea drinker, consider switching to loose-leaf tea instead of teabags. By making this small switch you’ll save:
Trees being chopped for the teabag paper, and the resulting paper being produced and shipped
Cotton being grown and sprayed for the string, and that cotten being bleached, manufactured into string, and shipped around
Trees being chopped and […]
The Story Of The Bulk Dish Soap
Thursday, November 6th, 2008I recently ran out of dish soap, and since I’m nowhere near as cool as Karina I’ve no plans to whip up a batch. But, I did think about how perfectly reusable the empty plastic bottle is, and what a damn shame it is that we toss out/downcycle so many perfectly reusable empty plastic bottles. […]
Trick or Treat!
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008I rarely get trick-or-treaters, and I’ve been known to kind of hide out at home in the past, but I do think of what kind of candy to buy for those costumed kids. You know. If I were to actually hand out candy. Now that it’s practically Halloween, and we probably have *just* enough […]
But what kind of reusable bag is best?
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008There was an article in the Wall Street Journal last week discussing the efficiencies of reusable bags. I was especially interested as I’ve found that a few of my non-woven plastic bags have developed big holes in them - ok, maybe I overload them, but my canvas totes don’t give me any problems!
According to the […]
Wal-Mart Thinks Americans Are Weaklings?
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008From Grist: “Wal-Mart aims to cut plastic-bag waste in its global operations by an average 33 percent over the next five years, the retail behemoth announced Thursday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. And if you ever doubted that Wal-Mart is big, consider this: The move is expected to eliminate some 9 […]
Heads up, Brooklyn!
Thursday, September 25th, 2008Mark your Calenders! We got the following information from the
The North Brooklyn Compost Project:
Please join us for a composting fund raiser event. Learn how to lower your urban-eco footprint, meet other folks in the community interested in composting, join our raffle to win prizes, bid on items for the silent auction, […]
Remember when conservation was patriotic?
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008This has been a week chock full of politics here at Tiny Choices! Here’s one mildly timely, and mildly political. Remember when conservation was patriotic? The American Legion has some truly amazing war-time posters linked on their homepage that bring back a simpler time, when conservation was patriotic and sweaters were practically standard issue.
For example, […]
Even MORE reasons not to drink bottled water
Monday, September 15th, 2008As if you needed it, I came across even more reasons not to drink bottled water! The National Geographic has a great page (ostensibly for kids) detailing the issues of water and plastic bottles it’s commonly bought in. Check out these two really illustrative examples of why NOT to drink bottled water:
But all those plastic […]