Saturday, October 20, 2007

If I were any greener, you'd be calling me Kermit!

I had to chuckle. Dude, if I were any greener, my name would be Kermit the Frog. Check out my green creds...

• The whole point of my business is to get people to buy decent, high-quality products that will not only meet their needs, but will last long enough for use with multiple children or resale afterwards, not just become broken plastic clutter headed for the landfill.
  
  


• I don't sell short-term items like the Bumbo, for example. Like you need a big hunk of plastic-covered foam to help your kid sit up for a few months. NOT! There are a million other solutions. Use the Boppy that you already have to support a new sitter. Or a pillow. Or wear your baby in a baby carrier if he wants to be upright and see what's going on. Think before you buy more crap that only works for a few weeks or months and then becomes clutter.
  
  


• I'm an ECOLOGY major, for crying out loud. I graduated in 1995, so this is not some new bandwagon I've just decided to jump on.
  
  


• I ship using USPS Cradle-to-Cradle Silver Certified packaging OR recycled boxes OR many times I ship a product right in its retail packaging. (I can't stand it when I order from Amazon and I get a product in a box, inside a MUCH BIGGER box filled with plastic bubble wrap. Who needs all those boxes? What is the point of that?) On very rare occasions I will actually use a standard new box, but I try not to.
  
  


• I Freecycle all of the usable boxes that are too big for me to re-use. People out there always need moving boxes, and why should they buy new boxes when there are a ton of perfectly good used boxes out there already?
  
  


• If there is a box that is too trashed to re-use or give away, then it gets broken down and recycled.
  
  


• I drive a used VW Passat station wagon that runs on 99% biodiesel and gets 35mpg. My husband drives a Honda Civic Hybrid that gets 45mpg. But both of us work from home, so we don't drive too much anyway.
  
  


• I have done EC with both of my kids, thereby saving not only lots and lots of poopy diaper changes (both kids have used the toilet for pooping about 90% of the time since they were 8 weeks old) but also saving a huge mountain of diapers from either going into the landfill or needing to be washed/dried. EC is awesome, you should try it if you haven't already done so.
  My baby wears bamboo training pants, and when I do need diapers for him I use gDiapers and compost them.
  
  


• We buy local organic produce and meats whenever humanly possible. In addition, we have a veggie garden and fruit trees, so no fuel used to transport any of that to our plates! I heart canning too...
  
  


• If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down. Our household motto. LOL.
  

I could probably do things more efficiently around here, but I think I'm off to a good start at running a green business.

posted by msLaura @ 11:39 AM