Recycling Glass

February 4, 2009 By 1 Comment

recyling glass

    Recycling glass is another way that we can go green in our homes. Over month, we may fill up a box of waste bottles that we used– jars, wine bottles, glass soda bottles and other containers that are made of glass. We can help reduce the amount of waste glass that is coming to our landfills by separating them and putting them in glass banks.
    We just have to separate the glass by color. The most common colors of glass are colorless, green and brown. The colorless glass are the our jars and soda bottles. Green glass bottles are the wine bottles. Brown glass bottles are the beer bottles.
    They can be broken down and turn into recycled glass. Glass can be recycled over and over again and less energy is needed to recycle glass than to make glass. It will also conserve our natural resources.
    Recycling glass can also mean using our waste glass for other purposes. We can re-use jars to store sugar or coffee. We can also re-use wine bottles as decors for our living rooms.
    Big companies who manufacture beer and wines are also being urged to re-fill used bottles. This is what many companies in the Philippines do. People collect waste bottles in the community, they clean the bottles and they sell it to the companies who own the bottles so that the company can use the bottles again.
    But majority of companies who use bottles for containers of their products still manufacture or buy new glass. We can reduce our national usage of our fuel if we encourage these companies to follow the other companies who refill their bottles.
Filed Under: Everyday Green, Green Homes, Green Tips, Recycling Tagged With: ,

Composting for a Green Earth

January 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

compost

    Compost is a natural soil fertilizer that is made from materials that were once living or parts of living things. The most common materials used for compost are the wastes from our kitchen and yard such as dead leaves. Compost used as fertilizer is not harmful to the environment and it reduces the waste that goes to our landfills. Composting is one simple way to contribute to the green revolution.
    Much of the work in composting is done by the environment. All you have to do is to separate the organic wastes and put them either in a compost bin or directly onto your garden soil. When you put the leaves and fruit peelings into the soil, the wastes will rot while the nutrients are being absorbed into the soil. This is a very basic explanation and I will elaborate on this on my next posts.
    We should encourage our communities and individuals to make compost in their homes. There are many mothers in the Philippines stay at home who can do this. It is aid that the wastes in our landfills are made up of 30% wastes from the kitchen. We can reduce our wastes by 30% and help make our country green if we make compost at home.
    If we don’t have any gardens, we can earn selling compost. Big companies who make chemical fertilizers can also gradually turn to organic fertilizers such as compost. Farmers and vegetable growers always need good soil for their produce and so there is always a demand for fertilizer. Composting is simple, green and can even be a good green business idea
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Filed Under: Everyday Green, Green Homes, Organic Gardening Tagged With:

Green Bath and Body Works Soap

January 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

organic soap

    When we lather our body with our favorite soap, do we know how many chemical ingredients in the soap that gets in contact with our skin and may enter our body through our skin’s pores? These are some of the ingredients used in making commercially bought soaps:
    -Coco Diethanol Amide
    -Sodium lauryl ether sulfate
    -Sodium silicate
    -Sodium tripolyphosphate
    -Caustic potash
    -Ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid
    -Sodium phosphate
    -Benzalkonium chloride
    -Glycerine
    -Carboxyl methy cellulose
    -Triethanol amine
    These are only some of the chemicals that are used in making soaps. They are needed to give the soap the quality of a soap: hard, produces bubbles and can clean oil and dirt in our body. If we use a soap that has added qualities such as a moisturizing soap or a soap that has a scent, then more chemicals are added in those soaps.
    Most of the chemicals found in our bath soaps are not harmful but they are still chemicals. They enter our body through our skin. When they enter our body, they become toxins that need to get out either through perspiration or peeing. When they don’t get out and they accumulate, they will cause illness including cancer.
    Good news is that today there are a lot of stores that are selling organic eco-friendly bath soaps. These soaps may be expensive but they are not made from chemicals. The ingredients are all natural meaning they are sourced from nature.  Using organic bath soaps helps in greening our planet because thsee soaps are not manufactured with chemicals in the factories that use up a lot of energy.
    When we use handmade soaps and organic soaps, we can help in reducing the air pollution that the factories of popular bath soaps emit in their factories. Besides, organic soaps are really good to out skin. They don’t cause skin irritation and dryness. THey can smell really good too when they are added with natural oils such as lavender and rosemary.
Filed Under: Conservation, Energy Saving, Everyday Green, Green Homes, Green Tips, Pollution, Toxic Wastes, Water Conservation, Water Resources Tagged With: ,

Green Hair Shampoo

December 29, 2008 By Leave a Comment

natural shampoo

    Have you ever thought about what our ancestors used as hair shampoo when there were still no factories and no electricity? When my grandmother was still alive, she used a natural hair cleanser: gugo. Gugo is a Tagalog word for this brown thing that looks like very small branches. I remember when I was a child, my grandmother used to use gugo on my hair. I can’t remember where she got it.
    I am looking at the back of the plastic bottle of my hair shampoo. It’s a popular brand name of hair shampoo that I bought in the grocery and these are the ingredients: Sodium Laureth Sulfide, Sodium Lauril Sulfate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Sodium Benzoate, Glycol Distearate, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium and a lot more listed.
    I didn’t know I put that long list of chemicals on my hair everyday whenever I shapoo. Maybe I should get back to the natural hair shampoo. There are some people who use mayonnaise and avocado instead of conditioners and their hair are really shiny and soft. My roommate in College use beer to soften her hair. It didn’t smell nice but it did look healthy though.
    Come to think of it, using the bounty of our earth to clean our hair is not a bad idea. Here in the Philippines, “lauat” is a very popular herb for treatment of hair loss and dry hair. Green hair shampoo saves a lot of plastic bottle packaging and not to mention that toxins and chemicals that are produced that are harmful to the environment and to our own health.
    Maybe it’s time to go back to the basics. I regret I didn’t ask my grandmother where she get her gugo.
Filed Under: Conservation, Energy Saving, Everyday Green, Green Homes, Green Tips, Pollution, Toxic Wastes, Water Conservation, Water Resources Tagged With: , ,

Top New Year Resolutions for Greener 2009

December 27, 2008 By Leave a Comment

green 2009
A new year brings with it new beginnings. It is a good opportunity to start all over again. Isn’t it great? Whatever we did this year, however bad we did them, there’s always the time to start all over again when the New Year comes. The New Year brings with it hope that this will be a better year and that everything we did badly last year, we can always put them correctly again. It gives us the gift of a fresh start and build from there.

So here are my New Year Resolutions for Greener 2009:

1. As much as I can, I will try to reduce my use of materials made of plastics and styrofoam. They are non-biodegradable materials and when they are torn and we don’t need them, they’ll be clogging the rivers and killing fishes and polluting the soil for thousands of years. Plastic bags and styrofoam food keepers are very convenient in the house but as much as I can, I’ll use the more earth-friendly alternatives such as biodegradable bags and ceramic plates.

2. I will conserve water and electricity around the house. I’ll turn off the lights and unplug electronic appliances before I go to sleep. I’ll shut down my computer even if I’ll be gone for only an hour. I’ll turn off the faucet when I’m not using the water. These are all little things but I believe they can make a difference.

3. I’ll continue on learning more and sharing more the little things that we can do to put our share in saving our seas, air and earth.

That’s it. It’s a short list but it’s a start. They’re simple, little ways but I believe that they will count. Welcome Greener 2009!

Filed Under: Conservation, Energy Saving, Everyday Green, Green Homes, Non-biodegradable Waste, Water Conservation, Water Resources Tagged With: ,
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