Costco Line of Green Cleaners

Costco  introduced a new line of environmentally friendly cleaning products.   It is their own Kirkland Brand – and it’s packaged in 70% recycled material.

The Line Includes:

Liquid Laundry Detergent
Dish Detergent
Automatic Dishwasher Detergent
All Purpose Cleaner

I’ve happily replaced my laundry detergent (method $12 + per 64 load ) with the Kirkland green brand, around $13 for 110 loads. – I like the fragrance, leaves the laundry with a light fresh smell – but not at all over powering.

For all purpose cleaner – I make my own for less than $1 per bottle – but I did buy a bottle to try. I’ll report back once I’ve used it.

The Automatic Dishwasher Detergent works equally well in my dishwasher as the Seventh Generation. The packaging doesn’t the little metal pour spout -which is greener, but I must confess I miss it. It won’t stop me from using this detergent.

Some reviews have said Kirkland Brand is not as green as brand like; Planet and Seventh Generation, but for those of you moving in the green direction it’s a much better alternative than conventional brands, a big step in the right direction by Costco. Not to mention being much kinder to our wallet that other green brands.

Green Your Toddlers: Easy ways to teach your child be green

The toddler years seem to be filled with waste.

I’m saddened by the food that we waste in our home daily. Did you know we throw out enough food to feed 49 million people every year? Not to mention water, supplies, diapers, birthdays and so on…

My children are toddlers, but we have started to teach them, begun to plant seeds of awareness.

Awareness that they shouldn’t be wasteful, awareness that what they do in their home impacts beyond them.

Opportunities for teaching children to conserve are endless and can be implemented throughout our daily lives as they arise and as is appropriate for the age of your child.

As I’ve searched for ideas to “green our toddlers” I’ve found many ideas and lots of cool lists. What I haven’t found as readily is what people are doing in their homes – real life experiences.

So this post talks about things that you can do with your child. When you finish reading the ideas – click through to find out how we work these ideas into our daily lives.

Take what works for you and build from there!

1. Water – teach them to use less.
2. Teach them to recycle.
3. Teach them not to be wasteful.
4. Buy quality and teach them to take care of what they have.
5. Teach them not to litter.
6. Drink water from a cup or reusable water container.
7. Turn off the lights, unplug the “stuff”
8. Donate – when you are done with something donate to a worthy organization
9. Waste free lunches.
10. Recycle your batteries safely and/or switch to rechargeable batteries.

Other places to look for ideas:

Kids National Geographic
Naturally Savvy

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Save at Whole Foods

Did you know that if you buy any product by the case at Whole Foods they will take 10% off.

Great to keep in mind for stock up items.

No coupon needed. How simple is that.

Bottled Water: Save Real Green

I’ve already written an article on why using a water filter is one of your best options for safe drinking water.  You may not be worried about the environmental impact of bottled water, that daily 60 million wattle bottles end up landfills – you’re just thirsty and want a drink of water. Let me appeal to the bottom line.

In this economy people are watching their budgets.

Let’s examine how much an average family of 4 is likely to spend annually on drinking water:
$ 200 – Using a water filtration system.
$ 520 – Home water cooler delivery.
$ 528 – 2 Gallon Jugs
$ 1755 – Drinking 3 bottles of water a day at a cost of .40 per bottle, 4 person family.

There are many cost variations. Clearly the brand you buy, how much you pay per bottle, how many bottles you drink each day… all of these factors will impact your annual cost. Use this link figure out how much your family is actually spending, this link also provided me figures that I used for the above calculations.

If you rent don’t despair, there are many portable water filtration systems available in the marketplace.

In some ways it is less convenient to use stainless steel, you have to keep the bottles clean, round them up, fill them up… but I’ve never been a fan of lugging heavy flats of water!

An average family of 4 can save $1555 per year eliminating bottled water. Add the dollar savings to the environmental impact of bottling plants, trucking, refrigeration, not to mention disposing of billions of bottles a year and perhaps you will reconsider grabbing that next plastic bottle of water.

CLICK HERE to see the great selection of stainless steel water bottles available at Amazon.

All Purpose Green Cleaner: Home Recipe

There are a ton of green cleaners on the market, but my favorite cleaners are the ones I make at home.
One thing you know for sure, when you make it – you know every ingredient.
You will also save a lot of money, the ingredients are so inexpensive, no wonder the companies that manufacture cleaning products have so much money to spend on advertising! It costs so little to make a batch – it’s crazy!

I make it in batches that make 4 28oz bottles.

13 1/4 cups of Water (1 hot)
1/4 Cup of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Liquid Soap

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– I like Citrus for the All Purpose Cleaner
1/4 Cup of Borax
1/4 Cup of Vinegar

Borax Free – The Vinegar & Baking Soda reaction is fun for kids!

NOTE – Cleaning with the following recipe requires rinsing.  I’m working on a reformulation and will leave this posted with this caveat until I have a borax free option that doesn’t require rinsing.

10 1/4 cups of water (5 hot)
1/4 Cup of Dr. Bronner’s Castile Liquid Soap

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– I still like Citrus for the All Purpose Cleaner.
1 1/2 cups of Baking Soda
3 cups of Vinegar

Mix the hot water with the borax or baking soda until it disolves.
Once dissolved pour into a bucket – make sure that you have a bigger bucket – the next step will give you a little foaming action!
Add the remaining water, vinegar & Castille Soap.

Use a funnel to pour the solution into the four bottles.

I used to use the Method Products, so I have reused the spray bottles & taken the labels off. Using the handy label maker, made my own labels so I know what’s in each bottle and it looks organized.

There are rumblings about the safety of Borax and while it certainly appears to be a better option than the chemicals in commercial cleaners, there are people who would prefer to avoid it.

Click here to read what they say at Chemistry.com.

I have posed the question about Borax to the EWG. I’ll be curious to hear their response.

Paperless Paper Towels

Instead of using paper towels for everyday spills and wipes – consider purchasing multi purpose clothes that you can keep on your counter to use instead.

A key for me was buying one type of cloth (I can’t keep whites white) so I opted for a easier color. They are kept on my counter folded in half in the lid of a rectangular basket, so they look neat and tidy.

Mine happened to come from Walmart – I paid under $3 for 12 of these moss green clothes. I use them to cover food in the microwave, clean up spills, wipe the kids, wipe the counters, basically any where I’d use a paper towel. Once they’ve been used – I have a bin under my sink they get put there while they wait a few days to be laundered.

I purchased 3 packs of the clothes and I have to wash them about once every 5 days.

Pictured is how they look in my home and where they are stored under my sink while they await laundering.

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