I came across a remarkably detailed post at The Thrift Store Cloth Diaper Project about how to make your own cloth diapers from thrift store finds and got to thinking about nappies, not a subject on my mind these days when grandparenthood is still off in the future. But as I wrote in a section on “Nappies” in The Green Home (1995), not long after I’d had babies wearing them:

When you have a leaky little one you get obsessed with nappies. Fathers swop notes on the best type, and friends report on which shop has your favourite brand at 50p off.

This lead me to a fascinating exchange about the introduction of disposable nappies, or diapers, in China, yet another of the environmental issues just coming to that vast population. Traditionally, Chinese babies wear no diapers at all, just little split trousers so they can do their business without getting undressed. I have no experience with the practical side of this but have seen plenty of children peeing outside with the help of a parent. Here’s the article about “‘Pampering’ Babies.”

And here’s how my section in The Green Home continues:

Of course I’m talking about disposable plastic and paper nappies, not the terry nappies our mothers or grandmothers boiled in a copper. 65% of babies are now put into disposable nappies and approximately nine million are used every day in Britain – used and discarded. But unfortunately, not disposed of. Disposable nappies simply are not disposable. They are non degradable, a potential health hazard, and they contribute to the depletion of limited timber and petroleum reserves. Anyone who has used disposables will remember how the dustbins were suddenly twice as full. It is estimated that four per cent of household solid waste is made up of soiled nappies. For every pound we spend on disposable nappies, taxpayers will spend 10p on disposal. (The issue does not involve only baby nappies. The Japanese, as well as the Americans, are concerned about the additional burden of disposable nappies worn by the incontinent aged, in an ageing society.)

I understand why people use disposables, and I have used them myself. After all, everyone else seems to, including the maternity ward at your local hospital. This tacit medical endorsement, fortified by the free samples given to new mothers, is enough to convince many parents that disposables are the correct thing to use. Because disposables save time and effort they can seem worth the expense, though it is considerable: some 1500 for a child potty trained by age two and a half. Read more »

[Note : I wrote these tips almost 20 years ago but they seem quite sensible today. Of course, now we're thinking even more about the challenge of climate change, so I'm planning to do some further writing that focuses on a cooler planet.]
Everybody knows that there are changes we can make at home to help protect the earth, but many of them seem complicated or daunting. Busy people don’t have time to make non-toxic paint out of burnt baked potatoes. As a mother who runs her own publishing business, I have little patience with some of the silly suggestions I’ve heard from environmentalists, and I look for things I can do that take as little time and money as possible while having the most impact on environmental problems.
1) Regulate your heating. The best way to save money on home heating, and reduce your energy consumption, is to heat the rooms you use, when you use them. Separate thermostats for different zones, timers, and radiator values can control heating, keeping you comfortable without wasting energy.
2) Insulate, to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Windows, floors, attics and doors can be made more energy-efficient. Insulation pays for itself faster than any other conservation measure.
3) Take advantage of solar energy. Leave curtains open throughout daylight hours but close them promptly when it gets dark. Plant trees that lose their leaves on the east and south sides of your home. Remember that dark colors absorb heat while light colors reflect it. Throw a dark blanket over a white couch to increase absorption from the sun.
4) Choose non-electrical equipment and appliances. Sturdy handheld equipment lasts longer and is often easier to use and wash, and requires only human energy to work. Examples are a mouli to grate cheese, a handheld can opener, a carpet sweeper for quick cleaning.
5) Clean out your cleaning cupboard. Most homes are overrun with cleaning products that have been used only once or twice. Give away what you don’t need, or take it to a toxic waste deposit (many towns have annual pickups). Most cleaning can be done with a few basic, non-toxic products – excellent commercial ones are available at wholefood stores, and there’s always good old baking soda, white vinegar, and borax. Tea tree oil cleaners are terrific as disinfectants.
6) Eat the unusual. Encourage biodiversity by choosing the newly available heirloom varieties of potatoes, tomatoes and apples. Shop at farmers’ markets, and buy brown eggs if white are common (the colors of eggs is determined by species, not rearing method), small plantains instead of large bananas, blue corn instead of yellow.
7) Buy old things. Antique furniture and household items, tag sale furniture to be refinished, and high-quality clothing from consignment shops are all ‘recycled’ items and thus reduce waste and do not place extra demand on natural sources.
Establish a donations center in your home. Don’t throw away things you no longer need or want. Schools, nonprofit organizations, and charities can make use of everything from excess building materials and computers to clothing and yoghurt cups.
9) Organize your errands. By making one trip instead of many, you can save time, and reduce your contribution to traffic congestion and pollution. The majority of trips we make are short ones which can often be done on foot or by bicycle.
10) Pay for labor. In ecological terms it makes sense to do certain jobs in a labor-intensive way – hand-weeding, for example, rather than using herbicides – so employ someone to do tasks which would otherwise require noisy, expensive and polluting equipment.
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This material comes from Karen Christensen’s Home Ecology (Fulcrum 1990), a guide to green living also published in London as The Green Home (2nd edition 1995). Home Ecology was endorsed by Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, who passes on its tips in her employees’ newsletter, and Alan Durning of the Worldwatch Institute says that Home Ecology is the pick of the environmental lifestyle titles. Sara Parkin, a leading European green spokesperson, writes,”Turning the favorite green slogan ‘act locally, think globally’ into a practical reality is our number one challenge. This book explains how change on a simple, personal level can literally make a world of difference. A must for every home.”

“Only 4 Percent of U.S. Adults Know That Buildings are Leading Source of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions” according to a recent survey. The press release is here, but not the full report. I’m a little hesitant about posting this – a press release isn’t verified data – but the topic is so relevant to the armchair environmentalist that I’m going ahead.

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — According to the American Institute of Architects (AIA), buildings are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but in a new poll conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK), only 4 percent of U.S. Adults were aware of this fact. Autodesk, a leader of design innovation software and technologies, is one of more than 1,000 companies coming together in Boston at the 2008 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo to raise awareness about this important issue and present solutions to help the building industry decrease carbon emissions.

Here’s an extract from my book Eco Living, published in 2000, on just this subject:

The Energy-Efficient Home

Our buildings are the most wasteful energy users in industrial countries. Turning down the heat and insulating the attic may seem mundane, but these steps are important and there are many others that you can take.
Architects are increasingly conscious of energy efficient design. There are a number of model building projects around the country where energy use is as little as a quarter of that in similar but conventionally built houses, thanks to advance insulation and materials and careful orientation. We can also choose energy efficient appliances and products.

Better home insulation led to awareness of the dangers of combustion by products, which include formaldehyde, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and a host of other vapours and gases, because in a well insulated house they invariably build up more than in a traditional draughty British home. Contrary to expectation, studies have found that colds and ’flu are less likely in draughty buildings. This may be because there is a build up of viruses in well-sealed buildings or because fresh air is needed to keep our immune systems functioning effectively (see also Chapter 4).

A high-tech super insulated building will need mechanical ventilation, and indoor air pollution control will be essential. Be especially careful to ensure that gas appliances have plenty of ventilation – to the outside! – while in operation. They must be correctly adjusted in order to burn efficiently. In the summer, a small ceiling fan helps to keep the place cool and in winter it circulates the warm air which would otherwise rise to the top of the room and stay there.

Tips for Reducing your Carbon Contribution

• Choose the smallest home that is reasonable for you or your family. Consider sharing or renting out excess space.
• Minimise your heating, cooling and hot water costs.
• Maintain efficient lighting and appliances.
• Use non-electrical equipment whenever possible.
• Buy certified organic produce (organic food is grown without energy-intensive chemicals).
• Plant trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetable (plants absorb carbon from the air).
• Use local shops and ask for locally grown products.
  Choose a power company that offer renewable energy – more options are coming and Friends of the Earth can help now with a list of greener electricity companies (see Resources).

I’ve long meant to try Freecycle, a forum set up to facilitate people’s giving things away rather than discarding them. Great idea, and as I move offices and change rooms at home I finally signed up for the western Mass group. Our old slow but working computers are far more popular than I ever dreamed, but I’m hoping the big old office desks will go!

Two lessons:
–There is a site called Freecycle.com (dot com not dot org) that tries to pull traffic
–People use sob stories to get free things that they then sell on eBay–I’m now cynical about the notes about “my dear old granddad who’s writing a book,” after being warned by the forum moderator to let him manage the computer giveaway

I’m trying this to get a new refrigerator now: “I’d love to find a home fridge in reasonable condition, left-opening preferred, to replace my leaking contributor to global warming (it’s ancient and you do *not* want it!). I have two smaller fridges I would be happy to exchange: one a dorm-size and the other about twice that big. I have some other things–office furniture, and perennial plants–that might also appeal to you. I’m in Great Barrington. Thanks.” A good experiment, for me and for the planet.

I happened to pick up a copy of Audubon magazine over the weekend. I admit that I’d thought of it as rather dull, a publication for retirees with too many pets and obsessed about animal protection above all other environmental concerns. But I was wrong. It was full of beautifully written articles about a wide range of ecological issues, with a strong science and ecology focus which fits well with my current work on sustainability. I happened to read an essay about fog that was so good I called my daughter Rachel to read a bit to her.

There were some fascinating little asides, too, that weren’t the usual obvious or trivial tips. One referred to research about the environmental effects of divorce, and another explained that human hair is the very best material for cleaning up oil spills–in a completely ecological process, or cycle. The hair is made into mats that mop up the oil, and the oil-soaked mats can in turn be composted. Salons are asked to donate hair to the program. I’ve already written the two salons I use to suggest this, and I hope you’ll do the same.

And here’s a PDF of the research about divorce.

I’ve never been big on product recommendations, not because I don’t like some products a lot but because I know I’m no expert on organic baby food or toilet paper. I tend more towards broad principles, because they’re easier to remember. Choose small things. Choose light things (concentrated products without much water, for example). But when I find myself going back to the same small northern California company to stock up on soap, for what must be 10 years now, it does seem time to recommend them. Especially since they are, in every way they can think of, a green company. They are called Simmons Naturals, and here’s what they say about their soaps:

Using the finest Handcrafted Soaps made from natural ingredients, Simmons soaps are handcrafted with care using the traditional cold process method. Carefully cured to perfection, then individually wrapped by hand in beautiful, ecological, handmade Thai papers and labeled with recycled paper, printed with soy-based inks.

We start with the finest natural oils of olive, palm, and coconut for our basic recipe. Organically grown herbs, grains, and pure botanical essences are added to make each variety unique. And we monitor each batch to ensure what we make and sell is the best.

I know that if I run out of their aloe vera with kelp soap (“The best of land and sea. Citrus scented complexion bar with skin softening kelp. Moisturizing.”), I find myself longing for it!

I can’t tell you how many times I have read this statement, about “How to Clean Windows with Vinegar”: “If cleaning with vinegar left streaks on your windows, it wasn’t the fault of the vinegar, it was a residue left from commercial products.” I may even have made this statement in one of my own books. It’s nonsense, I’m sorry to say, one of those blithe green clean facts written by people who are simply repeating a convenient untruth – one that might be true sometimes, but certainly doesn’t explain the fact that vinegar has its limitations! Since the biggest green cleaning expert I know of told me once that she never ever cleaned her house herself (she had a cleaning person now and then, I think, but there wasn’t much evidence of anyone doing any cleaning), I count this kind of thing with tips like those in a UK book of some years back called 1001 Ways to Save the Planet, which Penguin should be embarrassed to have published. Here’s my favorite: “Write small so you use less paper.” I quickly became a skeptic about the idea that vinegar and baking soda could do anything and everything (though in fact they are terrific for some purposes), and even more of a skeptic about the people turning out green copy. Maybe that’s why I don’t write much about cleaning: I can’t say that it occupies a lot of my time at the moment!

Honey isn’t just an alternative spermicide (see “honey cap” post) but is being experimented with as a way to deal with superbugs in hospitals, according to “Sticky solution: Honey may help in the battle against superbugs,” an article that appeared in the Economist last year:

Research in Australia and New Zealand suggests that honey heals because it attacks bacteria in several different ways at once. Because honey is composed of saturated sugars, it sucks up water, depriving bacteria of the liquid they need to survive and multiply. As bees make honey they secrete glucoseoxidase, an enzyme that releases the bleach hydrogen peroxide when it comes into contact with wound liquids. The low-level but frequent release of this chemical ensures regular anti-bacterial washes of the wound.

Although honey is not about to usurp antibiotics, Dr Simon thinks it should be brought back into conventional medicine—and not only to sugar the pill.

I use straw bales for insulation against the back of my house and then mulch with the damp, dark straw in the spring, but in a quest for mesclun seed, which I think I can still plant, I found an amazing account of gardening in and on straw bales–two seasons of vegetables on a very much raised bed. Not for city gardeners, but what a fascinating thing to try.

I have no right to be holier than thou and have never claimed to be a perfect when it comes to household matters, but I was a bit shocked by this story comparing Al Gore’s home to George W. Bush’s house in Texas. The excellent Urban Legends site, Scopes.com, says it’s true: http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp.