Napkins

Seriously, buy cloth napkins! They look elegant, save money, and are reusable! Our family has had the same white cloth napkins for 6 years. They are a little ragged looking and we have some newer ones to use when company is around. Just think of all the napkins we've saved from going into the landfill over the years and the money we've saved by not buying single use napkins all the time!! They can be really cheap if you are a sewer like me and use all those scraps in your fabric bin to make up a bunch (plus you are keeping those scraps from going into the trash, if you can bear to get rid of them)! Use a nice heavy duty fabric for this and they'll last forever.

You are going to be washing towels and whites anyways so they won't use much more water and electricity. You can even use them multiple times before tossing them in the laundry, especially if they aren't heavily used at dinner time.

So that's at home, what about when you go out and get fast food. They always stuff loads of paper napkins into the bag. What then? Well, I certainly don't want to throw them away unused, so I keep them in the car in the console and hand them back to the kids if they spill a snack on themselves. That way you always have something to clean up a mess in a snap and you were going to have to do something with all of those napkins anyways. Also, if you are out eating at the restaurant, remember to only grab what you actually need. For our family of four we grab 2-3 napkins and share. If we need more we can always go back (and have done that before). NO! Leaving the extra on the table is NOT a good idea. The next people are NOT going to use them, do you?

Try encouraging your local eateries to switch to recycled, unbleached paper napkins if possible. Just mention how nice it would be to know that your favorite place thinks green and maybe it'll sink in!

Paper, some info.

Like with plastic, I wanted to give some quick information on paper before moving too heavily into tips. We currently live in a very disposable society where we use so many paper products that are thrown away. We use paper towels, paper plates, paper cups, paper tissues, paper boxes,paper diapers, paper everything!! Luckily paper is easily recyclable, all curbside services take it and finding PCW (post consumer waste) products is relatively easy. But just because it can be recycled or can be found in PCW form doesn't mean we should be so quick to mindlessly pick up paper products when we have a good alternative.

Here are a few facts about paper according to Earth 911:

• In 2006, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 357 pounds for each man, woman, and child in the United States
• Every ton of paper recycled saves more than 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space
• By 2012, the paper industry’s goal is to recover 55 percent of all the paper Americans consume for recycling, which is approximately 55 million tons of paper
• More than 37 percent of the fiber used to make new paper products in the United States comes from recycled sources

Recycling your paper is very important, and currently Americans are doing a fairly good job of this, according to paperrecycles.org:

In 2007, an all-time high 56 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling. The 54.3 million tons of paper recovered equal approximately 360 pounds for every man woman and child in America.

The paper industry has set a new goal of 60 percent recovery by 2012. We'll need your help to get there.

What does all this good news mean? Well, that we are well on our way to becoming a more green society and our awareness on this issue is heightened. However, we need to spend more time looking for PCW materials to "close the gap" in the paper products we do buy. If you can't find a product containing PCW material, then consider writing the company that makes your favorite product and let them know how important it is to you as a consumer that they use PCW products. Emails are very efficient for this and don't take very long since most companies have a website with a "Contact Us" area. How do you find PCW material? Well, this information from Earth 911 can help you with that:

Recycled

Also, make sure to look for the Recycled symbol which means that product is made out materials used before. There may be a statement next to this symbol that mentioning the percentage of recycled-content in the product.

Recyclable

Confused by this symbol? Don’t be. This one means a product can be recycled – not that it necessarily contains recycled content.

Now, if we are doing a better job of recycling paper and buying PCW paper, then why do we need to increase our awareness of paper products? Well, there are still many pitfalls in paper and many ways to decrease our usage of paper. One of the major pollution problems with papers are dioxins (link):

Dioxins and furans are some of the most toxic chemicals known to science. A draft report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had on public health in the 1960's. According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be no "safe" level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals have been found in the general US population that are "at or near levels associated with adverse health effects."

...Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills which use chlorine bleaching in their process...

Dioxin is released into our environment and makes it way into our food supply, we then ingest the dioxins and since they love fat they stick around in our body until they metabolize out. In order to decrease dioxin production we need to encourage paper mills to stop bleaching our paper products. Buying chlorine free paper (PCF) products (whether it's our paper towels or disposable diapers) is a good start. Again, contacting your favorite brand companies and requesting unbleached paper is another way to get the ball rolling. We need to start associating all that white paper with being unclean and toxic instead of the current psychology that all that white paper means clean and pristine.

A second factor in the problem with paper is the lost of our forests. Forests not only provide shade and habitat for animals, it also scrubs our air clean and provides oxygen for our planet. Deforestation is still a problem that many people ignore. This quote from National Geographic's Green Guide explains the issue:

Nearly half of the trees cut in North America are made into paper. Every year, from Washington state to Georgia, over 3.8 million acres of forest are clearcut, leaving wide swaths of stumps marking our insatiable demand. Nor does it stop at our borders; our wood pulp and virgin paper products are increasingly sourced from South America and China.

Trees are incredibly important for our health and the health of our planet. There are companies out there who are good stewards and farm trees in sustainable ways as well as provide PCF paper and they need to be encouraged in the marketplace. Even some of the more traditional paper manufacturers are getting into the game and they too need to be encouraged by buying their PCF and PCW products. There are, however, many ways in which to reduce your use of paper altogether and that will be the subject of my upcoming blogs. For now, I ask you to look for products that contain the previously shown "recycled" logo and look for unbleached or PCF products to replace existing paper products in your household.

Styrofoam!!

Seriously, stop using it if at all possible. There are so many recyclable alternatives to this product that we should be capable of discontinuing it's use. OK, so like everything, it does have it's advantages, it's lightweight so transporting is fairly easy and it's inexpensive. The problem comes in that it's typically not available for recycling, despite being easy to recycle back into it's original form (egg crates can be recycled back into egg crates), which is not true of other plastics. However, the fact that it is so lightweight does not make it a desirable good to recycle since recyclers can't make much money off of it. Also, it's lightweight nature makes it susceptible to fly off to various parts of our planet and polluting everywhere. According to Earth 911:

• Because it is so light (comprised of 98 percent air) it is easily carried by wind and water currents to all reaches of our planet. Its unsinkable nature makes it a main component of marine debris
• It is non-biodegradable and can remain as pollution in our environment for nearly 1,000 years

So to continue my one step at a time I'm going to focus on egg cartons. Pick eggs that come in paper cartons. These are easily recyclable as well as reusable, you can use them for crafts for your kids as well as to start seeds in and you can plant the container too! Even the clear plastic egg containers are preferable if your recycling center takes them.