Welcome to the Tuesday Eco-Elitist series. Today, I have 5 very easy tips that will help you do your part towards producing less trash and consequently creating a better, cleaner environment!
1.
Try the un-paper towel- check out
Athena Create's shop on
Etsy. She offers these wonderful fabric clothes that are absorbent and dry quickly. She explains that paper towels are terrible because trees are cut down and the pulp is then bleached (with nasty chemicals) to make something that you will use once and discard. The chemicals then leach into our ground water in the landfill. This is a habit that I also need to break. I do use many paper towels so I'm looking forward to receiving these and changing my bad habit also. You can also save money by adopting the
un-paper towel into your lifestyle.
See the towels
here:
2.
Switch to reusable coffee cup sleeves-Starbucks sometimes puts the corrugated cardboard sleeve on your coffee without asking. Give it back to them, send a message and use a reusable one. I just try to have one in my purse for when I get a coffee. There are so many fun ones on
Etsy. Try
Jenny Wanson's Shop, fabric one below:
Or, I love the "
burlappy" ones from
A Green Sleeve, also on
Etsy.
3.
Cut the picnic waste by: bringing reusable plates, cloth napkins, casual utensils and melamine cups to your outdoor picnic or concert at the park or day at the beach. There are so many fun melamine plates and cups that go straight in the dishwasher that there is really no need for paper / plastic utensils for a small gathering. We just received a bold and colorful picnic set from
French Bull which has everything you need. See picture above. We also sell great melamine plates from
Thomas Paul. We get compliments on these every time we use them. They are chic, useful and great for kids as they are shatterproof and quite durable. They clean in the dishwasher beautifully!
4.
Use reusable bags for your produce: I've talked about why plastic bags are so bad in other Eco-Elitist posts. Click on this link
here if you missed it.
Reusable Bags is a great website that provides excellent information on how you can do your part to help the environment and they sell wonderful products at great prices. This is an image from their site for produce bags. They are stronger and won't create moisture- they let the produce "breathe." Have you noticed the moisture that is created in your plastic bag of corn if you let it sit in the bag for a day- it's not nice. Give these bags a try! Just click on the photo.
5.
Extra Credit- use a reusable coffee mug: I know I just proclaimed the benefits of the coffee sleeve or cozy but if you are really ambitious and get your coffee at the same place everyday- then bring your own mug. You can buy travel coffee mugs in most coffee stores and grocery stores these days. Often corporations hand them out as gifts. This one below by
DCI is fun. It is a porcelain coffee cup made to look like a paper one. Quite clever! Just tell them to fill it up!
