I will admit it, I like to wear deodorant. ?There, I said it. ?I don’t like to smell bad. ?Quite the opposite really. ?I kinda like smelling pretty. ?I think it’s the smelling pretty that has everyone thinking that I’m a little less crunchy than I really am. ?Sure, I have an aversion to second hand clothing stores and I did diaper my child in disposable diapers, but hey, I was new. ?I didn’t know. ?I also buy paper towels (and not the Seventh Generation ones). ?I use Crest toothpaste and not Tom’s of Maine and we own two cars.
Ok, so I’m not totally granola-ed out. ?I elected to not attend the Evergreen State College* for a reason. ?However, in some parts of my life I am as crunchy as they come. ?That one area is chemicals. ?Plastic runs a close second, but I can’t seem to shirk that dependence yet.
3 years ago I banned all synthetic chemicals from our garden. ?Our whole yard is 100% organic. ?I still have a big container of Miracle Grow and a bottle of Weed-b-Gone, but I haven’t found a good way to dispose of them yet so they just sit on a shelf. ?Sure, I have a few (many) more weeds than the conventional garden, but I can lay in the grass with my son and not worry. ?I’ll take that over the biology altering synthetics any day.
The inside of our house is slowly becoming safer too. ?I started by making my own laundry detergent. ?I got the idea from Wendy and I was so impressed I started switching over some of our other household cleaners too. ?The next one was plain old household cleaner. ?The formula I use works 1000 times better than any cleaner I’ve ever found in the stores. ?Once I’m out of toilet bowl cleaner and Windex I’ll switch those too. ?Hardwood floor cleaner will take a little longer because I just bought a huge jug of floor cleaner concentrate. ?It will likely last me over a year.
Not only do my crunchy cleaners help save the environment they help save my wallet as well. ?A 100 oz. bottle of Seventh Generation laundry soap costs roughly $11.99. ?That bottle will last about 3-4 weeks in our house. ?Supposedly it washes 64 loads of laundry. ?If I did 4 loads a week that would be 16 weeks, but I sometimes forget laundry is in the wash and I have to re-run it a few times, or it’s towel and bedding week… you get the picture. ?$11.99 is a chunk of change. ?The ingredients for the soap I make costs $17.00 and makes a 3 gallon bucket. ?That bucket will last upwards of 6 months. ?MONTHS! ?That averages to be a $172 a year savings. ?Same kind of thing goes for other cleaners. ?I would rather buy a 1 gallon jug of vinegar for $2.89 at the grocery and make all kinds of cleaners with it rather than spend a ton of money for “convenience” sake.
So I might not have used disposable diapers, but at least I’m not contributing to 6 legged frogs.
—————————————–
*only people from the South Puget Sound area will really get that reference.
Will you divulge your household cleaner recipe please?
Vinegar beats every window cleaner out there and I can vouch that it will clean just about anything. Don’t like the smell? It dissipates quickly and actually acts as a deodorizer!
go on with your bad semi-crunchy self
Thanks for the shout out! Now if we could just figure out a non-toxicy way to get rid of fire ants I would be in heaven.
I’d be willing to take the chemical stuff off your hands” MiracleGro and Weed-B-Gone, at the very least if we don’t use it I can dispose of it at the landfill since I actually live in Tacoma 😉
Edit to the previous. By taking it to the landfill, I mean droping it off at the hazardous waste building.
I used vinegar and something on my bathtub once and it was the easiest clean I ever did on that thing (trust me-it’s not usually easy)! I need to remember what the heck it was I used……