Safe Plastics

There is always something, isn't there? So now the big concern is BPA in plastics. Mostly this affects hard plastics like polypropalene (Nalgene bottles) and seems to be the most problematic when the plastics are heated (microwave or hot water in dishwasher). However, lots of kid food containers are plastic for their obvious non-breakable properties. What is wrong with BPA? Some sites say nothing, "The use of polycarbonate plastic for food contact applications continues to be recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Commission Scientific Committee on Food, the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency, the Japan Ministry for Health and Welfare and other regulatory authorities worldwide."(http://www.bisphenol-a.org) Other sites say link exposure to BPA to estrogen like properties in girls and boys.

I am not sure but there seems to be enough research to warrant limiting exposure. I am going to try to remove #3,6,7 plastics from our home, stop washing our nalgene bottles in the dishwasher and switch Josh & Mira to BPA free cups. Joshua is mostly switched as it is and I have already ordered a new bottle for Mira (she pretty much only uses one anyway).

Rice farms in America?

How novel! Check out this company: Lundberg Eco Farmed. They carry it on our local grocery store. Here is their website: http://www.lundberg.com/

Wash Away!

It is here! I chose the 300 NEXXT Series Washing Machine from Bosch purchased at Lowes. In the end I saved $242 off the price with coupons, rebates and sales. Wahoo! :-) I am going to try selling me old washer for $100 to offset the purchase even more

Now we wait 3 months to see how our water bill fairs.

non-stick

National Geographic has a website 'The Green Guide' out with lots of good stuff! I recently came across a non stick surface called thermolon, this is what they had to say about it:

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/ask/thermolon

Trash Day

Trash day was not quite as light as it has been the past few weeks. I guess all the cleanup from our trip paid it's toll in the trash we put out. I wasn't quite sure if there was a better place to throw the broken ice maker from our new fridge. Some of the items I know can be recycled... somewhere but nowhere convenient for us and I am not going to hold on to them in the meanwhile. It is a toss up. I found a place 30 min away that recycles #5 plastics but I need to determine if it is worthwhile to save them for when I am in that area. I wish they just recycled them locally. We use a lot with our yogurt and other containers. If I end up getting a yogurt maker as I would like (for my birthday :-)) then that will take care of some of our plastic excess.

The popsicle maker just can in the mail today and is filled and chilling in the freezer as I type. I am very excited about that since Joshua is very sensitive to sugar and it will be a good earth investment. 2 points! Yeah. So, I am finding that a lot of the decisions and changes we make for the earth are better for us, too. Go figure

I had a successful, I thought, trip to grocery store last night. I was able to get a number of organic items on sale so that they were the same price or cheaper than their non-organic counterparts. I am going to try shopping the sales more now so that I can afford to incorporate more organic items into our food shopping.

New Stuff

I found a website where you can go to look up recycling locations for all sorts of stuff earth911.org Finally I can figure out where to recycle #5 plastics!

Also, yet another great green website http://www.planetnatural.com/

I found that I can get local free range eggs for $.50 a carton cheaper at a farm stand than in the grocery store! Yeah!! :-) Still need to order the side o' beef. The resort we went to this past week had recycling bins in the rooms and was powered by wind energy. So cool!