Green is Fun?!?

Aloha,
so one of my goals in writing this blog is Fun. I want this to be and sound like an exciting adventure, not some "doomsday everything is bad" sort of extreme religion. There is plenty of that sort of thing out there/here in the cyber world.
My basic belief is that our PLANET is a great place and it is in, maybe not perfect but decent shape. I believe our PLANET will "heal" itself. Especially if we do our best and help it out. Perhaps a little naive sounding to some people but I truly think "MOTHER EARTH" is capable of handling her own wastes.

I think our "greening" efforts are mostly for the benefit of us (the human race). If we ever want this, our EARTH, to be a balanced place that can take care of all of humanity, it will greatly benefit us to begin a more sustainable lifestyle and clean up our own messes, literally and figuratively. Dumping our wastes and garbage in somebody else's lap DOES NOT constitute cleaning up our own mess. IE sending it all to the dump. Watching the youtube "www.storyofstuff.com/" really brings it home for me why I make an effort to use less, reuse more and recycle.Plus it is also a great reminder that stuff is just stuff (even when it's brand-spanking-shiny-new). Imagine if we could all reuse more than we throw away. What a Victory that would be for the human race! And a step in the right direction.

Look at all the amazing things that are being developed right now, like Fossil-free fuels, that in probably just the next 10 years will become the norm and will improve air quality both by being produced less and by not being used in most engines anymore!

Another cool local thing going on in Park City, Utah is what is commonly known as the "RECYCLE CENTER" where not only do they accept all plastics, glass, metal, batteries etc, for recycling, but also building materials and appliances that you can then buy for pennies on the dollar and re-use in your own project and at the same time - it stays out of the landfill!! You save money and less thrash - what I call a WIN-WIN for everyone. The people at the re-cycle center do receive some donations, but I believe the huge success of the place is thanks to some amazing efforts above and beyond what they are paid to do.

The Moral of this story to me is:
Do your best when it comes to living more sustainable ( every little thing counts - in a positive way).
Pat yourself on the back for the effort that you make whether large or small - IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Thank you for everything that you do to make this planet and your surroundings a better place!!!
Tack så mycket!
(thank you very much - in Swedish)

You win some. you loose some

So it has been a few days since my last entry. And I have had some time to really try some of these things.

The No-Pooh, really works so far, in the family 5 out of 6 are already converted. The only hold out haven't really given it a chance yet...pretty good results I think. Thumbs up.

The homemade laundry soap; 2 cups(1 bar) grated Dr. Bronners peppermint soap, 1 cup Borax, 1 cup super washing soda, 1 cup baking soda and 1/4 cup Oxy Clean, mixed well and add 2 T to each large load, 1/3- 1/2 of cup of white vinegar added to the rinse water. 1 Tennis ball with a couple of drops of essential oils added to the dryer and your load comes out almost as soft as with a dryer sheet and much friendlier to the environment and the clothes smell much nicer than with a dryer sheet or softener. The homemade laundry soap definetely thumbs up.

The homemade dish detergent; not so succesful. After trying 3 different recipes, 2 powdered and 1 liquid, I am back to my trusted and not so environmentally friendly Cascade. We have very hard water with lot's of minerals and for some reason not matter what else I have tried, nothing else gets my dishes clean...
The homemade dish detergent thumbs down.

Mixed reviews and not all sustainable.. So what do you do. Clean dishes or clean environment? My compromise is that I do more dishes by hand with my ECOVER dish soap that is good for the environment and do fewer dishwasher machine loads but with the "bad" but "good" Cascade soap...

So there you have the good, the bad and the ugly.

Hejdå tills nästa gång,

IKEA-MY GUILTY PLEASURE!

Ok, so I am a little bit of a hypocrite....But I can not to give up IKEA. Somehow that connection with Sweden is vital to me and I feel like I have a small piece of heaven when I walk in through the doors of IKEA, and see the Swedish furniture or smell the meatballs at their restaurant, even if some of their stuff isn't very friendly to our environment or if some of the food stuff is shipped way further than it shoud be, IKEA is still one of my guilty pleasures! And on the plus side they do carry a line of Organic sheets etc. and their packaging is often minimal so it's not so bad after all...right???

Hejdå,

P.S. The Homemade Powdered Laundry Detergent works Great! The clothes come out just as clean or cleaner and smell far nicer than with any other soap I've ever tried.