Keepin’ the Feline Footsies Fresh
I’ve got two cats, and they’re pretty picky about how I (their servant) set up their litter box and how it’s maintained. Much like the three bears, if the litter is too soft, too dry, too dusty, too stinky, or too clumpy, they’re outta there, and I’m left holding, ahem, the crap bag. Thanks so much, kitties!
But I have to say, I’ve finally found the perfect cat litter. Not only do the cats like it, it’s also better for the planet.
Why, you ask, do we need to green-up the way our kitties poop? Here’s the scoop. First, clay litters are all bad. Made of a mineral, usually bentonite or attapulgite/montmorillonite, clay-based litters are eco-unfriendly from the get-go. They rely on unsustainable mining practices and are heavy to transport to boot, so their carbon footprint is sizeably larger than your feline’s paw prints.
Not only that, but clay litters tend to be unhealthy for kitties, adding silica dust to their lungs which can contribute to respiratory problems. Add to these problems that fact that there’s nothing to be done with used clay litter (especially the clumping variety) but to send it to the landfill where it can contaminate ground water and where it’ll sit without biodegrading for centuries, and you’ve got one solid, stinky mess. Apparently, we Americans throw away 2 million tons of kitty litter every year!
My new solution is this: Feline Fresh Natural Pine Cat Litter. It’s made from leftover wood material which means its biodegradable, so that’s an improvement. Additionally, when you’re done with it, you can put it in your compost pile (preferably one that’s not going to be used on your veggie garden) or employ it as mulch on flower beds and around trees. It’s low on odor, dust, and won’t track like clay litters, and it has no chemical additives, so it’s healthier for my kitties, too. I absolutely love this stuff!
- Lucy
The Green Challenge – Day 16
Join me on this Green Challenge – Thirty Days of Serious (and Silly) Green Commitments! Each day, I’ll challenge myself to introduce a new green thing in my life, and I invite you to get on the bandwagon to make a difference. If all goes well, we’ll be living a greener life that will continue well beyond this Earth Month!
It’s important to me that my children understand where food comes from. As a result, I make it a habit to take them with me to the farmer’s market so that they can mingle with the farmers, ask questions, and see food the way it actually looks when it comes out of the ground—a little dirt is a good sign, in my books. This year, I intend to do a little more, and it started this afternoon.
I am helping my kids develop their green thumbs this spring by having them plant a few seeds. I know, I know, the gardening experts out there are probably screaming at their screens that it’s a little late in the season, but nevertheless it is an important development, even if a bit late! We started with squash seeds and will keep them in the house for the next couple of weeks so that my kids can watch them sprout and grow. I know how much I enjoy the thrill of seeing new life pop out of the ground, so I look forward to watching my children’s reaction in the adventure as well.
Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.
– Kent Nerburn
- Lucy
The Green Challenge – Day 15
Join me on this Green Challenge – Thirty Days of Serious (and Silly) Green Commitments! Each day, I’ll challenge myself to introduce a new green thing in my life, and I invite you to get on the bandwagon to make a difference. If all goes well, we’ll be living a greener life that will continue well beyond this Earth Month!
I’m a big reader. These days, because I’m pressed for time, I often listen to recorded books. And although I’ve purchased some online, I don’t want to spend too much money on new items, and so I’ve been on a mission to find a greener, cheaper way to read.
Enter the library. I had no idea how many titles my local library has for recorded books! And, I discovered that there are many outlying libraries with which my library exchanges titles, and so the collection is essentially much larger! I pay $12/year for my membership and get unlimited books (printed and electronic) for that price. Plus, by sharing them with thousands of other people, we reduce resources.
The only hitch I can see is the transportation required to circulate the books, etc from one location to another… But then, I also noticed that they have a collection of online recorded books – ones I can download for a specified period of time! So I don’t even need to make a trip to the library and there are no greenhouse gas transport costs either. Nice!
- Lucy
The Green Challenge – Day 13
Join me on this Green Challenge – Thirty Days of Serious (and Silly) Green Commitments! Each day, I’ll challenge myself to introduce a new green thing in my life, and I invite you to get on the bandwagon to make a difference. If all goes well, we’ll be living a greener life that will continue well beyond this Earth Month!
In one of my evening no-TV reading sessions, as I looked at the back door, I noticed that there was a bit of light coming through below the door. “That can’t be good,” I thought. And no, it likely means that I’ve been losing heat all winter long and that I will lose cool air during the summer. Not good at all.
Weatherstripping to the rescue! I bought a simple, inexpensive (less than $5) package of foam insulating tape from the home improvement store, got down on my hands and knees, and applied that stuff so that I could no longer see the sunlight coming through. Take that, energy-wasting door! While I was at it, I took a look at all of the doors in my house (the external ones, at least) and found one more spot needing a bit of a patch. Other than buying the weatherstipping, it didn’t take more than about 30 minutes. Easy.
- Lucy
The Green Challenge – Day 10
Join me on this Green Challenge – Thirty Days of Serious (and Silly) Green Commitments! Each day, I’ll challenge myself to introduce a new green thing in my life, and I invite you to get on the bandwagon to make a difference. If all goes well, we’ll be living a greener life that will continue well beyond this Earth Month!
Food waste is a big problem these days. We compost our scraps, but given that I’m not supposed to put oily or cooked foods in with my worm bin, I find that leftovers sometimes go bad and then end up in the bin. When they go to the landfill, they contribute to climate change because they break down in an oxygen-deprived environment where they produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more powerful in its heat-trapping capabilities than carbon dioxide.
To combat this problem, I’ve instituted a “Leftovers Board” that hangs on the fridge. On that board, I write down all of the food that has been cooked but has yet to be eaten and how many portions of that meal there are remaining. That way, when someone needs a meal quickly, they can reach for what’s there and then erase that meal from the list. As with many green acts, it’s the remembering that will be a challenge.
Any other ideas of how to deal with leftovers and avoiding food spoilage?
“To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, that is to have succeeded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Lucy
The Green Challenge – Day 2
Join me on this Green Challenge – Thirty Days of Serious (and Silly) Green Commitments! Each day, I’ll challenge myself to introduce a new green thing in my life, and I invite you to get on the bandwagon to make a difference. If all goes well, we’ll be living a greener life that will continue well beyond this Earth Month!
We’ve got a couple of graceful, leafy trees in the backyard, and they create a heap load of fallen leaves in the fall. This past year, we gathered them all up and used them to mulch our flower beds and garden plot. Now that spring is here, we really need to do something with them.
My thinking is that in nature, leaves would get mixed into the soil and, presumably, would provide nutrients and organic matter. So why not do the same in my garden? I simply worked the leaves into the soil with a hoe and a rake. I broke up big clogs of the leaves to make it easier for the soil critters to break them down. I had a few extras in the flower beds, so I’m going to pile them up underneath the shrubs to provide some mulch. It won’t be enough, but it is a start.
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.
–Emily Bronte
- Lucy
Santa Monica Bag Monster: Mama gives free reusable tote bags
Make your pledge today to stop using one-use bags. Send us an email about your pledge along with your name, address, and email address to Book@MamasHealth.com and we will send you a reusable tote bag (while supplies last).
Stop the Aggravation! End the Junk Mail Onslaught
It was a shiny, happy afternoon when I went to my mailbox to retrieve the treasures left for me there. Hoping to see some exciting news from a friend or, heaven forbid, a check for free money, I was instead greeted with yet another direct mail solicitation for some company I’d never heard of.
Stomping my way back to the house, and aggravated that this seemingly innocuous piece of paper could have such an effect on me, I determined to take back my mailbox and do something about the amount of unwanted mail I’ve been receiving. These things seem to come in waves, and I’ve recently been hit with a particularly persistent wave with new pieces of junk mail filling my mailbox to overflowing almost daily. That’s enough, I say!
After some sleuthing over a hot cup of soothing chamomile tea, I’ve found some information that will hopefully help me in my fight against the junk mail machine. And in an effort to help you avoid the junk mail pain I’ve been feeling, I joyfully share with you what I’ve found:
- First and foremost, drop by the Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) website where you’ll be able to pay $1 to fill in a form that will register you with its Mail Preference Service. You’ll then be removed from the lists of over 3,600 DMA members who use their list services. Just remember to mark your calendar to repeat the process in five year’s time. Canadians: do the same through Canadian Marketing Association.
- Next, attack the beast by going for the throat. By this, I mean that as you receive unsolicited mail, you should use the phone number provided on the mailing or look it up online and then call them to demand that they remove you from their list. You can also use a paid service like Optoutprescreen, 41Pounds, Catalog Choice, or Precycle to do the job for you.
- And never, ever return a product warranty card unless it is absolutely required. Warranty cards are used to add your name to dozens of lists and provides to you very little value (if any at all!). Just keep them for your records with the warranty information in case you need it.
Here’s to a junk mail-free life!
- Lucy
