Green Week

Last week was "Green Week" at Noah's school. They spent a lot of time teaching the kids about the environment, recycling, saving water and electricity, keeping our air and water clean. Most every day he came home with a new tip for us like it was some great revalation!

Noah: Mom! Mom!

Mama: What, baby?

Noah: (Imagine his arms waving emphatically!) You know those lightbulbs?? The ones that look like a spiral?? You know those??

Mama: Yeah, honey, what about them?

Noah: (really, REALLY excited!) If you get those lightbulbs? ...and you put them in your lamps? ...someone will totally give you lots and lots of MONEY!!

Mama: WHOA!! Who??

(beat)

Noah: ... i dunno.

I had to sit him down and explain again about how the electric company makes us pay money for each bit of electricity we use, and how those spiral lightbulbs use less electricity. We then went on a little hunt around the house to see which lamps had those bulbs and which didn't.

To celebrate Green Week, Noah and I made a hat out of only recyclable materials!! The base was a milk jug, and on top of that was a styrofoam mushroom holder in which we stuck pieces of soda-12-pack boxes to look like hair. No hat is complete without eyeballs, right? So we used toilet paper rolls with pieces of cookie box cardboard glued to the ends, and purple granola box cardboard for the pupils. Noah liked that we made it look like a crazy monster.

Pretty great, eh? Ironically, those materials can no longer be recycled because the hat is so cool, we can't just dump it in the bin, now.

...sigh...

Over at Mommy Blogs Toronto, they are having a challenge to get rid of all those plastic grocery bags you have stored up in your kitchen cupboards. And to stop using them completely!

We have been working on this, buying a few reusable canvas bags which we keep in the car we usually take to the grocery. But I still have a stash (smaller,but a stash nonetheless) of plastic bags we get because I sometimes take the other car, forget to bring the reusable ones into the store, or we sometimes buy more food than we have bags for.

I could use some more reuseable bags! That way I could keep some in each car, and have enough for those big loads. That is why I am including this beautiful photo of one of my lovely trash cans. At Mommy Blogs Toronto, if I take a photo that shows how I deal with those plastic shopping bags I still have, I have a chance to WIN some really funky and cool reusable bags.

Yes, I spent ten minutes colorbalancing and framing a picture of my bathroom trashcan. I even placed it in attractive lighting!

So, here is how I am working the stash down... we use them in the bathroom trash cans so emptying the trash is a little neater and less yucky!

Keep your fingers crossed for me to win some new bags, courtesy of the lovely ladies at Green Mom Finds.