Posts Tagged ‘Green Living’

... on a brand new bike!

This past weekend, I made an exciting – and expensive! –purchase. I went out and bought myself a brand new bike.

My last bike was great. I had bought it used and rode it so so much. But it was a clunky, heavy mountain bike, and I decided it was time to get my hands on something lighter. This wasn't just an impromptu purchase, it was something I'd been thinking of doing for a while now. My good old bike did the trick - got me from point A to B without incident - but, I've signed myself up for (more...)

It's going to be a quick one today. I read in today's Globe and Mail (find the article here) that a major bottled-water company will be voluntarily implementing a 25-cent deposit on half-litre bottles in parts of Canada (B.C., Ontario and the Maritime provinces). According to the article, this secret company is responding to all the people who complain of those who litter and do not recycle the plastic bottles. This deposit will add a whopping $6 to a pack of 24 water bottles. I hope that's enough to make people stop buying bottled water in areas where the tap water is perfectly drinkable.

I must admit, I'm curious to see which "major" company is introducing the deposit.

Check out my previous post on bottles water here and here

Read more:
• 10 ways to conserve water in your home

I have to admit, being a renter and using a fridge that I don't own, green refrigeration hasn't doesn't cross my mind on a regular basis. However, that changed when I was recently invited to an event for Liebherr's domestic appliances and learned a whole lot about green refrigerators. According to Liebherr, the company meets and exceeds Energy Star's rating requirements. Here's Liebherr's impressive list of green initiatives:

• Liebherr was the first appliance manufacturer worldwide to remove CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) completely from the production process in 1993;

• Since 2000, Liebherr’s considerable investment to ensure environmental compatibility has resulted in the reduced use of chemicals, solvents and energy consumption;

• Liebherr has established central waste and resource collection stations at their manufacturing facilities;

• The packaging materials on all products are 100 per cent recyclable;

• The water used in the production process is purified and pollution-free;

• The energy released during production is recovered and utilized again in heating the manufacturing environments.

Check out Liebherr's fridge's below. I've also included an image of the handsome wine unit, for all you wine aficionados.

For more information, visit the Liebherr website.

Have you gone green in the appliance department? How so? Fill us in and share your advice!

Read more:
• How saving water will save you money
• 8 ways to reduce light pollution
• Help the environment in just 10 minutes a day

A while ago, we featured a craft created by one of our readers. It's called Plastic bag craft: Two crocheted tote bags. This craft is a perfect way to use up old plastic shopping bags as you crochet them into useful, cute totes. One of our readers, Linda Steger from Prince George, B.C., loved the idea of recycling plastic bags (that would otherwise sit in landfills for years and years) and turning them into something useful.

Here's her plastic bag story:
"It started when a friend of mine who lives in Mackenzie, B.C. told me about the pattern. I thought it sounded like a great idea and she mailed me a copy.

After I had made my first bag, I made a posted a sign asking my neighbours if they wanted to help me go green and donate plastic bags. Also, searching on CanadianLiving.com, I found another lady asking for a copy of the pattern.

That was the beginning. And since then, I have had requests from what I refer to as my Bag Ladies Network (or BLN) from all over the world. Some days I answer requests for a couple of hours! It takes me so long because I chat with them and find out where they are from.

I have had a great time meeting women from England, Australia, South Africa, India, all over the United States and many, many from Canada. They have all promised to send pictures of their finished projects, with which I'm planning to make a scrapbook.

As for me, I called the head office for Additionelle and their store's customer service department is saving me bags. Their sister store Penningtons also phones me with two or three large bags full of bags that they get from returns. These are my prized possessions since they are very heavy plastic and come in dark grey, royal blue and shiny black bags with red writing. I also save shiny white Liquor Control Board bags (too bad I don't drink more!), Zellers red is cool, but their customer service says the staff take the bags home and use them for garbage and poop bags (and then throw them in a landfill? GASP!)

I'm overflowing with all the bags and am sorting and cutting them.

That's my story, maybe it'll be more interesting once BLN starts sending me pictures and we all have a few bags under our belts!"

Interesting story indeed! What a great way to use up those old plastic bags.

Here's a couple of photos of some of Linda's bags

And here's an image of a tote made by a BLN lady in Laval, Quebec

I love these bags and am (slowly) trying to make one. Admittedly, I'm not much of a crafter, but my sister taught my to crochet so I can make this.

Have you made this craft?  Let us know! Send an e-mail with a photo of your bag and a brief blurb about yourself to forums@canadianliving.com and we'll post a photo of your bag in the Green Living blogs!

If you want to try to make a plastic bag tote, here's the pattern.

Also, contragtulations to Angela who gave us some great green cleaning tips. She wins a copy of the book Green This! Greening Your Cleaning, by Deirdre Imus. Check out her tips here. Angela, send me a private message at forums@canadianliving.com with your information so I can send you your new book!

To all of those who live in and around the Greater Toronto Area should take a trip to Woodbridge this coming weekend to check out the 4th annual Green Home Show. The event will showcase the most innovative tools in home energy saving available today. The list includes solar, wind, green electricity, water, recyclables, and bed and bath products.

The show will be held this coming weekend, Saturday September 27 and Sunday September 28 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It takes place at Kortright at the Living City Campus at 9550 Pine Valley Drive in Woodbridge, Ontario. Admission for adults is $8, for student and seniors is $5 and kids under 15 get in for free.

The lucky attendees can get a tour of the Archetype Sustainable House (seen at the left) where they will be able to check out the latest energy devices in action – how cool is that? They're also welcome to participate in any of the seminars (visit www.kortright.org/ghs for info on the seminars) and are invited to take a hike on the Energy Trail where they will encounter wind turbines, grid connected photovoltaics and an energy self-sufficient cottage with a wood stove and a composting! There is also a kid's program that will educate your tots on all things energy related. Sounds like it's going to be an action-packed show!

For more information, visit www.kortright.org/ghs.

Also, don't forget to make a comment here, on Tuesday's blog post, to leave your best green cleaning tip. The person who shares the best green cleaning tip will win a copy of Green This! Greening Your Cleaning, by Deirdre Imus (I spoke about this book in a past post. Check out the book here). Simply leave a reply below! You have one week to leave you tip on this post, and I’ll announce the winner next Tuesday.

My partner and I are very active people so, admittedly, our shower gets lots of use. When I actually took a second to look at our tub the other day, I was appalled. It was stained with dirt, right where our feet go. It must be from all this summer trail running, which I've been abusing to the max. I decided yesterday, with great reluctance might I add, that it was time to get on bended knees and scrub that sucker until it shines like the Chrysler building.

Next step was selecting a cleaning product that would take on all that dirt. I made a mixture of water, vinegar, lemon and baking soda. Combined with a sponge and a little elbow grease, my tub was sparkling white in no time.

I found these products in my kitchen cupboard, they're super cheap, they didn't smell like they could kill someone and they cleaned my tub perfectly. Another green living success!!

Read more:
• Natural and cheap household cleaning products
• 44 things to do with vinigar
• 45 things to do with salt

I just read about Wild Dill on the blog Green Your Decor and thought I'd share the information with you. Wild Dill is an online store specializing in fair trade, sweatshop-free, natural and/or recycled product for your tots. They have really cute products - ranging from clothing to bedding to organic art kits.

My favourite item is the Roebuck Studio Chick Chair. It is made from local Baltic birch plywood, is painted with water based non-toxic paint and is complete with rounded edges for your child's safety.

I wish it came in a bigger size!

Read more:
• Raise your baby the eco-friendly way
• How to have a green baby
• Guide to organic and eco-friendly bedding

Today's Toronto Star ran an article (Green's carbon footprint) about the conundrums surrounding organic waste. Here in Toronto, we have a green bin program. Our green bins are meant for organic waste and are picked up from the curb once a week. It's a great program that has grown at a rapid pace (yearly, we toss 115,000 tonnes of organic waste into the green bin).

But because of this positive response from Toronto citizens, the program has begun to see some difficulties. Here are some of the problems: We use plastic bags to store the waste, so the green bin program contributes an obscenely large amount of bags to landfills. Also, because the program has grown so much and so quickly, our small organics processing facility cannot hold all the organic waste we produce. As a result, we've been transporting the spillover in diesel-burning trucks all the way to Quebec.

The City of Toronto website highlights how successful the project has been and how they're trying to implement organic waste options in multi-unit dwelling. There are currently 30 pilot projects under way. However, once buildings are able to separate organic waste from regular waste, our processing facility will be even more burdened than it already is.

It's no wonder this project is so overwhelmed - just look how much and how fast it's grown since its inception in 2002. I'm confident that Toronto will continue to work on ironing out all its kinks. Perhaps soon it will be mandatory to use biodegradable or paper bags on our green bins, just like they do in Durham and maybe the city will build more processing plants so we don't have to cart our waste to Quebec.

I can't wait to see what other incentives will be developed to help make our community greener

Read more:
• Canada's greenest communities
• How to start your own compost pile
• Guide to living greener

Something quite interesting came to my attention the other day. The InterContinental Toronto Yorkville (a downtown hotel) is featuring an EcoCab. They will be offering the service to their guests for trips in and around the downtown core. You can certainly be pedaled around Toronto in style in one of these babies.

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I was recently introduced to a great line of products. Origins Organics, a line of skin, body and hair care products, are all-natural products containing organic ingredients. They make a great massage oil called Body Pampering Massage Oil. Being a fairly active person, I require the odd massage (the at-home kind), and I was pleasantly surprised that this kind isn't super oily and it doesn't leave a sticky film on your skin like so many other massage oils and creams. It also has a really nice light and (more...)