This morning the front page of the New York Times has an article by Leslie Kaufman on the ridiculous amount of boreal forest that is cut down every year to make toilet paper.  Brands such as Quilted Northern, Charmin Ultra and Cottonelle Ultra are made from up to 22% virgin tree stock, including some trees that are at least 200 years old.

It is sickening to think that old growth forests, which help clean our air and provide shelter to creatures great and small are literally being flushed down our toilets.

In the US, less than 2% of all TP sales are for recycled product.

In a happy confluence of events, TP made from 100% recycled paper is becoming cheaper and more readily available. If you are looking for things to ve happy about during this global recession, add the plummeting cost of recycled paper to your list.  The reduction in materials cost is making recycled TP price competitive with regular brands.  And new to the market are some brands that are completely normal looking, made from 100% recycled paper and that are not whitened with chlorine bleach, a known pollutant.

When we first made the switch to recycled TP, I set out figuring I would wind up with rolls of scratchy brown paper — it wasn’t that bad but it was far from great.  Our local Co-op stocked one brand.  Expensive, teeny little rolls and, um, linty.  Everyone here hated it.  Without getting too graphic, let’s just say that 7 people go through a lot of TP  and it was impossible to keep enough of the miniature rolls on hand to last between my weekly shopping trips.

It’s hard to feel good about making good environmental choices when you are trapped in the bathroom hollering for backup.

In the past month or so, our local grocery has started carrying the Marcal “Small Steps” product.  It looks, feels and lasts just like Scott,our former family favorite.  Surprisingly, it is a little cheaper, at least here in NH.  Another bonus is that there is no plastic used in the packaging, unlike the pricey shrink wrapped brand I was paying top dollar for at the Co-op.

In a company press release, James Dagosta, Senior Vice President of Sales Marcal Paper Products, LLC explains:  “this brand’s heritage is rooted in conserving resources, protecting our environment and keeping the air our families breathe cleaner and healthier.  Marcal has a longstanding history of addressing the issues of sustainability that face industry”.

A quick glance at the Marcal website promises papertowels, napkins and facial tissues, all made from recycled paper, not from trees.  And, according to the article in The Times, Tim Spring, the new CEO of Marcal is planning a $30 million advertising campaign to introduce it’s recycled line nationwide, and is committed to increasing consumer awareness. “Our idea is that you don’t have to spend extra money to save the Earth” he said.  “And people want to know what happens to the paper they recycle.  This will give them closure”.

Mr. Whipple would be proud.

Here is our house. Built around 1870, it is drafty and costs a fortune to heat. Even with the thermostats at a toasty 62 degrees, we are still paying $445 a month for natural gas on the budget plan. We added a woodstove last fall which keeps the kitchen at a temperature suited to sustaining human life, but other than that our house is c-o-l-d. Hoth cold.

I love to look at design websites and read about all of the nifty eco-vations that are available to new homebuyers, but not much attention has been paid to the retrofitting of older/antique homes. My assumption has been that in order to really tighten up our home we would destroy most of the charm — adding double paned windows, replacing the slate roof and cladding the exterior with insulated panels would reduce our energy consumption but at what aesthetic cost?

today as I was fooling around on the internet researching green trends I came across a reference to a Victorian home in England that has been totally greened up. Two women are in the process of retrofitting their brick town home to be as energy efficient as possible.  They have reduced their heating costs to something like $30 a month by making about 25 improvements, the biggest ones being the addition of a ton of insulation, a new roof (insulated with old newspapers) and a roof-mounted solar water heater.  They have further reduced their carbon footprint by adding a rainwater recovery system which funnels rainwater through copper pipes into a holding tank in the basement. The captured water is then used to fill the WC’s and to water the gardens, and the copper acts as a mild disinfectant, helpful given the source of the water.  The Guardian has a great tour of the home, and an interesting interview with the architects/homeowners, which you can link to here:  The Nottingham Ecohome.

I would love to find out what an energy audit of this house would reveal. It would be helpful to have a plan, even if it took us a decade to implement all of the suggested improvements. Heck, what’s a decade in the life of a home that is already nearly 140 years old?

Beth Terry of  Fake Plastic Fish got herself a Crock-pot. On Craig’s List.  For ten bucks.

She also got herself a load of criticism.

When she called for comments and recipes, I’m pretty sure she was prepared for a bunch of chili recipes.  Anger and superior tones, maybe not so much.

People seem to feel really strongly, shall we say, that using a slow cooker wastes more energy than making the same meal in the oven or on top of the stove.  However, according to The California Energy Commission, using a slow cooker for 7 hours uses about $.06 in electricity, based on a cost of $.08/kwh.

Using an electric oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees uses about $.16 in electricity.

OK so that dime isn’t going to save the world, but still, why do crock pots make people so angry?

Yes, they can be ugly, and, yes, they take up a lot of room on the counter, and, yes, I too have been given the heebie-jeebies at potluck parties by Crock-Pot meatballs drowning in grease.

But, if you can look past the bow-tied geese and be careful about what you choose to cook, marvelous things await. There is simply nothing better than cracking open the door at the end of a long day and being greeted by the delicious aroma of the dinner that has been simmering away unattended. For a moment, I am lost in a fantasy – I am Carol Brady and Alice has been slaving away in the kitchen while I’ve been helping Marcia get ready for cheer leading tryouts at Fillmore Junior High.

Here’s another consideration that far outweighs that slim dime of energy savings:  At the end of a busy day, when everyone (especially me) is tired and cranky I know that if I hadn’t taken 10 minutes in the morning to load the slow cooker, I’d be phoning in an order for take-out.

And take-out means excess calories, excess packaging and excess miles driven.

Not to mention that the $40 we’d spend at Taste of India could fill my slow cooker with a delicious, nutritious family meal at least 6 times.

So to all you haters out there, embrace your inner Alice, make some  Slow Cooked Chicken or some Tortellini Soup and be happy.

A few weeks ago we were reading The New York Times and came across these Eco-Buttons. Peter ordered one right up and jammed it into a usb port on his laptop. After using it for 3 weeks he’s saved $2.80 in electricity and 16.5 pounds of CO2. Better still, he’s more likely to power down his computer when he leaves his desk to pack a box or two. In fact, he liked it so much, we decided to stock them here on Greenpoma.com.

Why?

Because we are convinced that every little bit of energy saved is worth the trouble.

And by sitting on our desks all lit up, the eco-button jogs our aging brains into remembering to tap it to power down our computers when we leave. Another tap brings the screen right back up, no data lost, and battery life extended.

A nifty bonus that makes us feel all green and good, is the running tally it keeps of both electricity and CO2 savings which are displayed on the screen when you power back up. I’ve just plugged mine in today, but since I’m on my computer constantly, I’m sure I’ll quickly pass him. Not that we’re competitive or anything.

As a reward for reading this post we are offering my readers a coupon code for 10% off as many eco-buttons as you care to order. Just enter:EB0209 during check out. This code is valid for one use per registered customer. And please let us know what you think.

UPDATE: I just found an easy hack to make the eco-button much more versitile.  Take a peek at this post on Instructables.com:  How to hack the Eco-button.

Notice how even some of the greenest cleaning products come in plastic bottles?

I took this photo at the Concord Co-op, our best local source of green products, bulk food and fairly affordable organics.  I was paralyzed by the choices.  I don’t have a clue how to decide which products are worth buying and/or worth using.  I’m going to continue to try to scrub the bathrooms with baking soda but there are only so many hours in a day.

And I’m clearly not the only one struggling with the proper amount of plastic to let into my life:

Trine Tsourderos of The Chicago Tribune spent a week attempting to live plastic free. With a 7 month old son in diapers, a sippy cup wielding toddler and a husband. The good news is that she was so flummoxed as to what to eat that was not encased in plastic that she lost some weight. The bad news is that plastic is so pervasive in our world that she was unable to be plastic free for even one day.  

When she noted that her green-clean house smelled of salad dressing and Christmas I both laughed out loud and made a mental note to buy tea tree essential oil — the t.t.o. is allegedly antibacterial and doesn’t smell like Christmas. I guess our house will smell like salad dressing and…tea?

With the aforementioned 5 boys, that will be pretty good.