Wal-Mart math

Last night, I saw a commercial presumably co-sponsored by GE and Wal-Mart. The actress, dressed in "everyday mom" clothes, was holding up a compact fluorescent light bulb and saying that if all of the Wal-Mart shoppers out there ("All 200 million of us--") bought just one of these light bulbs, it would be the equivalent of taking 11 million cars off the roads.

I find this extremely hard to believe. That basically says that every 18.18 light bulbs equals one car. Cars don't seem quite that low-energy to me. Considering that cars themselves contain multiple light bulbs.

I'm sure there's some slippery math behind it all--such as "we didn't say the cars were driving, they were just parked on the road" or "we're saying over the life of the light bulb, you will save the power equivalent to running 1/18th of a car for two hours" or something along those lines.

I hate stuff like this. I think we need critical thinking classes in schools.

Green links

(I'm going to double-post this on both of my blogs.)

* I'm addicted to Catalog Choice. You register, then enter the name of a catalog plus some information off the mailing label, and they process your request to get off the mailing list. It's gotten so the catalogs are the first thing I pull out of the mailbox, just so I can run inside and get off the mailing lists. I can't think when I have ever even ordered something from a catalog, so I certainly don't need to be getting three or four a week.

* I recently signed up for GreenDimes, a service that goes even farther to stop your junkmail. The kit costs $15 (plus $1 per person to get off some big mailing list conglomerate) and they send you a bunch of pre-printed postcards to sign and mail out. Plus they plant ten trees for every order. This would be a great gift for the person who has everything.

* Tired of pre-approved credit card mailings? (They're also very handy for identity thieves.) Call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1 888 567 8688) and enter your information. It will be given to all three major credit bureaus and will prevent them from selling your information.

* Last but not least (because I am having a major cleanup day and I need every spare minute), I was recently alerted to the existence of GoodSearch, a search site that uses the Yahoo! search engine and donates (I'm pretty sure) one penny to the charity of your choice for each search. I still like Google for power searching, but if I know something is out there and just want to find the link, I'll use GoodSearch. (Safari users, don't bother with the AcidSearch toolbar thing... just drag the bookmark to your links bar and go to it manually.)

Have a great rest of your Saturday!

The big beautiful blue bin.

With all the fires and traffic and abuse of the foster care system and panther sightings, my estimation of the fair City of Angels has been rather trampled on this week.

But I'll say one thing for this city:

We sure can recycle!

Our big blue bin (30 gallons larger than our black trash bin) has a list of items printed on its lid, and I always thought the variety was pretty great. All types of paper, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, etc. We recycle as much as we can, including paper towels (which Winston then pulls out of the kitchen recycle bin and shreds, at which point they go back into the recycling bin).

But last week, I caught a glimpse of a notice on the side of a garbage truck that said plastic bags can now be recycled! This is very exciting to me, because I'm one of those people who saves every single plastic bag in hopes that I'll someday remember to take them to the store and shove them in the already-overstuffed bag recycling can. For two years, I have forgotten to do this. And now I find out that I can just put them in my own blue bin.

Heavenly.

Intrigued, I went to the LA City website and looked for a list of what is and isn't recyclable.

Here's the link. Styrofoam! And soup cans! And wire hangers! And laundry baskets, which puzzles me... who goes through laundry baskets that quickly?

So anyway, I'm happy because now LA has at least one checkmark in the plus column, which has been achingly empty this week (writers' strike... construction at every stage of my commute...).

I have to admit, I'm kind of obsessed with recycling. Throwing something away that could be recycled gives me the heebie-jeebies. And visiting other communities, where recycling isn't a part of the lifestyle, shocks me. If my cold conservative heart is weeping with every landfilled Dasani bottle, Al Gore must be a sobbing mess.

Happy Friday! TGIF, and I can't think of the last time I meant that so sincerely.

Oh! New Winston video up at Youtube:

Cloth napkins: the sordid truth.

No, just kidding. I just thought "Cloth napkins" by itself was kind of a boring name for a post.

A few months ago, I decided that I was tired of wasting paper towels. When we ate at the table, we'd grab one each, just to kind of have, and 90% of the time, it would go into the recycle bin with maybe a smudgy fingerprint on it. We use the kind that are cut into smaller sizes, so you can get a half a paper towel, but it still felt wasteful.

So next time I was at the fabric store, I found two gingham remnants (with different size checks, though you can't see it in the photo) and brought them home. Gradually, I sewed them all into cloth napkins, which I then stuck in a napkin holder and set next to the paper towels, like so:



The bin to the left is for dirty napkins, although the nice lady who cleans my house every two weeks thinks it is just a place to stash whatever weird stuff happens to be on the counter. Any time I'm doing a load of laundry (except whites), I grab the dirty napkins and toss them in.

I've found that we definitely use a lot fewer paper towels this way.

There's quite a variety of shapes and styles. At first, I ironed every hem, all the way around each napkin, but that got old really fast. Then I tried making a double-layered napkin, but that burned through the fabric too quickly (and now, using those as well as the single-layer ones, it's a level of protection I really don't need). Then I decided just to fold them hems as I sewed. Voila!

The sizes are varied, ranging from about 9" square, to the about 13" square (I like the bigger ones better). I just keep them all folded together and don't try to match up sizes or gingham square size when I pull them out to use.

Here's a top view:


Even though it's a napkin no-no, my gingham fabric is 100% polyester. Cotton would be more absorbent, to be sure, but for my casual crumb-catching use, the polyester works fine. Also, it doesn't wrinkle (like the single 100% cotton napkin I did make, which I always feel like I want to iron), and it doesn't attract lint in the dryer. Plus, it was half-price.

The husb and I are trying to take stock of our lifestyle and make little changes that we hope will add up. I recommend cloth napkins to anyone who finds themselves using a lot of paper goods and throwing them away barely-used.

Happy Tuesday!

PS - Stephanie contacted me and we really do think we want to start a "One Project From Every Book" mini-movement. So start browsing those pages! More info soon.