areca palm

Recycling, Water Storage and Green Products

This month I will share a bid of my own passion with you about improving your family’s health by removing toxic substances from your home. Green Communities, our Best Practices Report for the month, inspires me to share with you my family’s personal struggle to remove toxins from our home.

Home changes also improve the quality of life, like removing toxic cleaners and vinyl from your home. Putting an areaca palm and a golden pothos ivy or two in each room greatly improves air quality, and putting a mother-in-laws tongue in the bedroom is a major health boost. (Proven by NASA scientists.)

For such a “green” city, Austin is really behind on a lot of things. We will finally getting single stream recycling this fall.

golden pothos

Single-stream recycling allows you to place all of your recyclables into one container rather than having to sort them out into multiple bins. In our case, we’ll be getting a 90-gallon cart. For my wife and I, that’s going to be really handy. We recycle pretty aggressively and I have to drive our four bins down our long, steep driveway to curb currently. Yes, Republicans do recycle.

But probably the best thing about the new program is that you can now recycle more items, including mixed paper – cereal boxes, soda/beer cartons and the like. Before we had to take that stuff downtown to Ecology Action.

This month’s Best Practices Report on Green Communities is a good one. There are things we can all do to move toward greening our lifestyles. Establishing recycling locations and routines are a good way to begin if you are not already recycling. Every home can make a difference, and with practice, we can begin

mother inlaws tongue

to remove exposure to styrofoam, vinyl and plastics in our homes, if not in our lives.

Using environmentally friendly cleaners is also something we can all do. Our own health will improve and we will live longer from it. Eliminate all cleaning products containing bleach, ammonia, chlorine, or any poisons. Trash the closed containers. Don’t pour them into the toilet and contaminate our water supply. (And never flush your meds.)

Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Oil Soap (gallon jugs) to refill hand soap dispensers and hand dish liquids. (Just sniff toddlers’ hands to see if they used the soap.) See How to Make a Non-Toxic Cleaning Kit.

Replace all vinyl in your home with non-toxic materials. Nylon shower curtains can be laundered and last longer. Wooden toilet seats are better than hard plastic or padded vinyl. Vinyl leaches toxic gases continuously, including vinyl flooring.

You’ll be surprised at the savings and how easily you can replace one product with another.
We’ve been trying to do this at home for more than a year now. We recently discovered South of France brand Shea Butter soap. Soooo moisturizing! Read about organic body care products here .

I highly recommend the Organic Consumer’s Buying Guide to find alternative products in every category.

CAI’s Best Practices Report – Green Communities

Such changes do not happen over night but must be considered long-term goals for improved longevity. Personal changes like avoiding sodas, including diet soda, all processed foods, especially chips, can improve your chances to avoid cancer, which is largely dietary. But not everyone can change their personal diet.

Of course, the best thing you can do for the planet is to stop eating beef, pork and chicken. The multitude of toxins from slaughterhouses is just as big a problem as gasoline polution, and cannot continue longterm.

Such changes cannot be made overnight, but smaller portions of meat and larger portions fresh fruits and vegetables is a good start. One easy way is to substitute organic bulgar for ground beef in your recipes. Bulgar is wheat grain that when soaked in an equal amount of hot water (15 min) turns into a substance that passes for ground beef.

Other health hazards to remove from your kitchens today: microwaves, teflon and anything aluminum.

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
– Albert Einstein