Eco tips for your greener home
Eco tips for your greener home
Good Tip:
Up your bike’s style quota and create a handy place for your things by adding a front basket. Use a wire bin, or remove the handles from a wicker basket or woven shopping or beach bag (the kind with firm, upright sides) and attach to the front of your bike with wire or leather straps. You could also use an old leather belt.
Pimp my ride
During summer’s pleasant weather, I’ve been cycling to work a bit more. I use Vaseline to protect my bike from the elements and make it really easy to clean. Use a rag (tear up an old towel or sheet), dip it in a pot of Vaseline and apply to all parts of your bike. Use a clean piece of rag to rub over everything again and your bike will look like new.
–Marjo Ermens
High tea
Keep a cup (an old one without a handle is fine) or other container by the kettle to collect used teabags. They make great compost, but they need to cool down or they’ll start everything fermenting in your compost bin!
–Hannah Starrett
Going potty
I’m in the habit of leaving pots of rice, quinoa or lentils simmering on the stovetop until the water’s gone and an awful burning smell permeates the house. A firefighter’s nightmare, it’s also a good way to ruin a pot.
Having struggled to clean my pots with wire scrubbers (which seem to take the bottom off the pot as well), I found the answer in my grandmother’s housekeeping lore: baking soda. Give the pot a scrub, cover the bottom with water, then tip in baking soda (it’s cheap, so don’t be stingy) and leave overnight. In the morning you can wipe the burned bottom clean. It’s truly miraculous!
–Amelia Keene
Smarter suds
4 cups of water
1/3 of a bar of soap, grated
1/2 cup of washing soda (not baking soda)
1/2 cup of borax
5-gallon bucket (or a large paint pail) for mixing
12 litres of water
Mix the grated soap with 4 cups of water in a saucepan and heat on low until the soap is completely dissolved. Then add the hot water and soap mixture to 12 litres of water in your large bucket. Stir in the washing soda and borax, and continue stirring until the mixture has thickened. Let it sit for 24 hours and voilà – home-made laundry detergent!
Total cost per load? Around 4 to 5 cents. Store-bought detergent, depending on what you buy and where you buy it, can cost upwards of about 36 cents per load. After washing loads of clothes with this home-made mix, I can’t tell the difference between store-bought and home-made detergent.
–Brian Nelson
We use a large plastic bowl that fits into the kitchen sink to wash our veggies and salads or even rinse some dishes. Then
I can water the veggie garden or our fruit trees – the garden soil from our veggies goes straight back into the garden so no loss there. I also reuse envelopes to collect my seeds.
–Ellen Schindler
