Suburban Seattleite going even more green

Two cool things I've discovered to help with our recycling goals.


OPTING OUT
Just recently, living in King County, they've made it a little easier to opt out of all the junk mail you receive (here). I'm pretty excited about this, we get an insane amount of junk mail. And college literature. Damn that smart teenager.


LUNCH FROM HOME
I'm pretty stoked about these all inclusive lunch boxes. I first came across the bento box style at Laptop Lunches. 

Though I totally love the idea, the price makes me shy away a bit, as well as the number of pieces (we don't ALWAYS get the containers back when the tween takes them to school). I love that they all fit nicely in the box though, and it's a great style for the older of us in the house (me, hubs, teen). They have some really fun bag styles too.


I've been thinking about biting the bullet and purchasing one, but today I saw this post with a link to Go Green Lunch Box. The prices are a pretty similar, but mostly I love that the lunch container itself is one piece (as opposed to the several pieces in the bento box). Plus there is room for the (included with purchase) water bottle. Brilliant planning GGLB folks!!

There are different bag styles as well. I love their FAQ page, and the information about how much waste per school year it is for kids who bring lunch from home using plastic/disposable bags (yikes! 67 lbs a year?!!?!).


Overall, I think I am sold on the go green style for the tween and am excited to be cutting down EVEN MORE on our carbon footprint. I think this whole suburban Seattleite thing has finally kicked in. Next thing you know, we'll be buying a Prius.

Staying green at the movies

The tween and I love going to the movies in the park. There are a lot of them around here to chose from and we try to do at least one a week. It's our bonding time and I love it, one of the best parts of summer. Last night we went to see Shrek Forever After.

While are nestled into our beach chairs, reading our books, people watching and hanging out, they made an announcement that made me smile. This year, during the Bellevue Movies in the Park series, they are striving to be waste free. Rather than garbage cans spread around the area they had recycle and yard waste cans, as well as people manning each recycle station to help folks figure out which of the the four cans to put their items in.

Brilliant!

As a family trying to become more green, it fit in perfectly with our summer mission! And we didn't even have to think about it! So pass the word, and join us over the next few weeks as they wrap up their movies in the park season.

Wasting Less

It’s been a week since we officially kicked off our “Waste Less” recycling challenge (okay, it’s not really a challenge per se, but we are calling it that to make it competitive. That’s how we roll in our house). Last week I met with Tom and learned that, over all, we weren’t doing such a bad job of recycling. I caught a few tips from him though:

• To help reduce waste, it is helpful to actually eat the leftovers in our fridge rather than just store them in there for a time, then throw them out a few weeks later.
• On a similar note, if I only buy the fruits and veggies I know we will actually consume in a week, I will have less smelly garbage. I can’t tell you how much spinach we throw out. I always THINK I will want a salad, but I suppose it’s time to realize Costco may not be the best place to buy my greens.
• Microwave popcorn bags can’t be recycled or thrown in the yard waste because of a chemical in the bag. BUT you can make your own! How cool is that? Just put popcorn seeds in a lunch bag and seal it – it works just the same. And you can season it however you want! I love this plan; the summer movies-in-the-park-season is coming and popcorn is high on the packing list for these evenings out with the tween.

One of the cool things we got for taking part in this was a stainless steel, motion sensor recycling can that is divided into two sections; we use one side for garbage, the other for recycling. First I have to say how freaking cool the motion sensor thing is. We all play with it. You just wave your hands and the lid opens, it’s almost like magic if you forget about the four D-cell batteries it takes. It’s the toddlers favorite new toy.

I noticed at the beginning of the week the recycle side and the garbage side of the can filled about the same speed – we’d empty the bags at the same time. But as the week has progressed and we are all more aware of what we are throwing away, the recycling side fills up more quickly – right now it is full and the garbage side is only half full. Yeah us! Having a recycling can in the kitchen has made a HUGE difference because it’s easier for us. It’s all about convenience in this house – we’ll only save the earth if it works on our schedule.

The biggest thing to come out of this week though has been the compost bin. We never used the one we got from the garbage company (other than the first few days, when it was new and cool). But we decided to leave the new one on the counter and it has really helped us use it more. The food scraps go in there, we empty it every other day or so, and we are feeling like we are doing something towards our waste less goal. We have, however, decided to get a prettier one. Not so much loving the green plastic, but it is working for now.

So our garbage tally this week (ugh, what a weird thing to mention!) – the garbage can was only half full, the recycle bin was almost ¾ full and we had THREE yard waste bins (okay, we did some yard work that accounted for the majority of that, but it sounds like we are amazing. Or really bad at meal planning).

I’d count that as a win!

Becoming a greener family

Greener? More green? Hmmm, should probably work on that title.

Anyway, regardless of my poor grammar, I am super excited about this new program we are doing. I got a heads up about it a couple weeks ago via twitter (yeah for social networking!!). The basics of the program - since King County is one of the greenest counties in America, GLAD is teaming up with the blogging community and the city of Seattle for their "Waste Less" program.

The other day, I got a visit from the UPS man (not the hubs, note). He brought us all these boxes; a special delivery from GLAD to help us get started:

Once I could pry them away from the toddler, who was convinced they were her presents, we found a stainless steel, motion sensor recycling bin, a years supply of tall kitchen recycling bags, a compost bin and a years supply of liners for said bin. All this for agreeing to blog about something that I know our family will totally get behind. Pretty freakin' awesome!!

Tonight, Tom Watson, who runs the eco-consumer division of King County, will be coming by to discuss waste less tips and techniques, and how we can be more conscientious of what we recycle vs throw in the garbage. It's kind of exciting!

I thought this project was something we could all get behind as a family, something we could work on together. Especially because the teenager is very aware of recycling and has been trying to get us to be better at it, trying to get us to start composting (in general, telling us what we are doing wrong, as teenagers do). So, as a family, we are vowing to fill up our recycle and yard waste bins to the brim each week, and to waste less in the process. I'll keep you posted on how we are doing. Let me know in the comment section if any of y'all have tips for us!