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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Back to toothpaste

As many of you may recall, I switched to a nasty tasting baking soda/glycerin/salt mix a few months back in order to get off the toothpaste waste train.  I got a number of emails from folks about Toms Of Maine toothpaste and how their tubes are recyclable. I checked into it and sure enough, if you take the plastic cap off, you can throw it in with your aluminum cans. Very cool.  That said, I knew I had a dentist appointment coming up (today in fact) and figured I'd stick with it until then to see if there was anything they noticed.  Well, i am happy to say that 2 months later I got the full clean bill of health.  While it's not a year or two, at least i know for the short term that other than intense, nausea, there's no major downside to using a homemade concoction like mine.


Having said all of that, tomorrow I jump back on the toothpaste wagon and can kiss the fear of brushing goodbye forever.  

On a final note, I'm picking up one of these little babies as well, a toothpaste squeezer. I figure if I'm going to head back to tubes, the least i can do is squeeze out every last bit right? I wonder if it comes with the press on nails or if I have to supply my own.?

Dave

POSTSCRIPt: See comments below but it makes more sense to just use a comb or the side of the sink to get every last bit out.

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Day 149 - Thursday 5/29/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 piece of used dental floss - garbage
  • 2 pairs of rubber gloves - repurposed for further use
  • 1 plastic cup - recycle
  • 1 plastic backed spit bib - garbage
  • 2 plastic nubs from dentists tools - garbage
  • 5 pieces of gauze - disposed of due to health reasons
  • 1 piece of gauze - garbage
  • 2 plastic backs from stickers - garbage
  • 1 plastic milk bottle ring - recycle

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Day 148 - Wednesday 5/28/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 cereal box - recycle
  • 1 cereal box bag - recycle
  • 2 plasticy peel off strips from sticker backing - garbage
  • 4 ounces of paper (mail, receipts, etc)

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Junk To Set Sail On June 1st

Click on flyer to enlarge

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Before and After

Doing some spring cleaning today and I came across this pic I snapped in a hotel room a few months back.  It's a bottle of Fiji water (I was in California) that sells for $7 next to a sample of water from the North Pacific Gyre which contains a bottle cap remarkably similar to the one on the bottle.  The irony is that 5 feet away there was a sink that i drank out of for free the entire time I was there.


Dave

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16 Year old Student May Solve Some Plastic Problems

Here's a cool little story about a high school kid who just won a bunch of awards for isolating the microorganisms that break down plastic bags. The hope is that if done on a large scale, this can help clean up some of the mess that is out there.

While I think this kind of research is a double edged sword, we need to stop using plastic bags, not give people a reason to think it's all going to be ok, I like the idea of how this came about. Here's a kid who got sick of opening the closet door and having all those bags come out on top of him. So he decided to do something. It's why I have faith in the fact that we are going to fix this whole mess, kids are black and white, they are smarter than us, and they don't like being told that they can't do something.

And he's got a cool haircut to boot!

Thanks to Nick for sending this in.

Dave

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John Mayer Feels Like Doing Nothing

Ok, I know this isn't the usual subject matter, but this has been really peeving me lately and I thought I'd throw it out there. I'm sure a large majority of you have heard the John Mayer song "Waiting on the World to Change", an infinitely catchy little ditty that sticks in your mind and is truly a great pop song. Well, if you are like me, you heard it the first time and thought 'hey, this is a good tune, and it has a really good message' and then you listened a little closer and realized what he was actually saying. Check out the lyrics below and you'll soon realize that this is not a call to action, but an excuse for inaction. AARRGGGHHH!!!!Basically what he has to say is that things are really bad, but until someone else does something about it, we should all just sit and drink lattes while someone else takes a stab at it (and he counts his millions). I even watched the video hoping for something I had missed and saw that it had even less inspiration than the song has.

Ghandi once said "You MUST be the change you wish to see in the world" not "Sit around and mope while the change you wish for hopefully happens on it own". I know the guy is only a pop singer but please, does he have to use his voice (I'm talking access and reach, not vocal abilities) to give this generation yet another reason to sit around and wallow in their own complacency?


OK, I'll jump down from my box now. Just glad that MLK, RFK, and so many like them didn't take this approach to things.

Back to the basement

Dave

Lyrics Courtesy of Completealbumlyrics.com (except some extras in red)

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it
(Sounds like a plan...pretty much how everyone in history has taken care of things...I wonder what's on Youtube)

So we keep waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

It's hard to beat the system
When we're standing at a distance
(Yeah, wouldn't want to get too close to that system, might get sucked in and have to do something, might actually have to get out there and make some noise, which seems like a lot of work...ooh, my latte is ready)
So we keep waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
Now if we had the power
To bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas
No more ribbons on their door
(If only we lived in a country where we could actually speak our minds and tell our elected officials what we think...then I'd...woa, Halo's up!)
And when you trust your television

What you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information, oh
They can bend it all they want
(Gosh, someday, someone will invent the technology so that anyone with something to say could broadcast it to the whole world, then I'd have another way to get info than that darn tv...ooh, American Idol is on)

That's why we're waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

It's not that we don't care,
We just know that the fight ain't fair
(So we'll do nothing, yeah, that'll show em, we care, we just don't want to waste our time trying cuz time is too important to...pizza is here)
So we keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

And we're still waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
(and we'll have no idea what to do other than sit on the couch and complain, but that should work right?)
So we keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Now we keep on waiting
(waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

Waiting on the world to change(x4)

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New Look

I had some free time today at work and boldly forayed into the world of html programming (ok so it was really cut and paste mixed with a ton of praying). Anyhoo, still working out some bugs (like the pic at the top of the page) but basically I'm pretty happy with how it looks. Anyone have any thoughts?

dave

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Day 147 - Tuesday 5/27/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 candy bar wrapper - garbage
  • 1 video tape wrapper - recycle
  • 1 apple juice concentrate container - recycle

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Day 146 - Monday 5/26/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 plastic cookie holder PETE 1 - recycle
  • 2 plastic chips bags - recycle
  • 1 glass cocktail mix bottle - recycle
  • 1 glass tequila bottle - recycle
  • 1 cardboard beer 6 pack case - recycle
  • 1 cardboard tofurkey dop wrapper - recycle
  • 1 plastic wrapper from tofurkey dogs - recycle
  • 1 plastic tortilla bag - recycle
  • 1 beer bottle w/top - recycle
  • 4 styrofoam packing inserts - recycle
  • 7 cardboard video tape backings - recycle
  • 7 plastic video tape packages - recycle
  • 2 paper bags from bakery rolls - worms


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Monday, May 26, 2008

Worm Info For Los Angeles...and beyond

Garth and Ildi Fout left the following comment that I thought was important enough to post as it's own post. If anyone is in Los Angeles, they have a great composting course they offer and if you're not in LA, call the city you live in and ask if they do, or might consider, offering something similar.

Great info and thanks for posting.

Dave

I have a bin that I got from the county of Los Angles smartgardening located at http://ladpw.org/epd/sg/ $50. got me everything I needed. On the info card it mentioned feeding the worms only at one end for a day or two to make the harvesting of the compost easier. They all flock to the food and leave all the other end free for the taking. And the tea...10 to 1 ratio for watering plants and full strength to kill the weeds.

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Week 20 Pics

AS you can see I finally got around to cleaning a bit. Lots of spiders but nothing really worse.

A number of folks have mentioned the preponderance of beer and alcohol bottles whihc got me to thinking. But then I realized it only seems like a lot because I don't drink anything else out of bottles/cans so thaat's all that ends up there. That's my story anyway and i'm sticking to it.
The new misc recyclables bin.
As you can see I've graduated aall the paper to the tall box in the back of this pic and cleaned up the cardboard box bag a bit. Worms are doing fine and munching along well.
I closed up my first garbage box and now have a bag up top for garbage. I'll find a suitable box soon but have been busy. Also, the bag o bags is now sitting on top of the haz/ewaste pile.

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Day 145 - Sunday 5/25/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 ticket - recycle
  • 1 plastic cup - recycle
  • 2 pastry wrappers - garbage
  • 1 plastic margarine tub HDPE2 - recycle

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Sunday, May 25, 2008

Day 144 - Saturday 5/24/08

Today's haul:

  • 5 plastic candy wrappers - garbage
  • 1 beer bottle w/top - recycle

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Day 143 - Friday 5/23/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 call sheet - worms
  • 1 local paper - recycle

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Day 142 - Thursday 5/22/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 set of film sides - worms
  • 1 staple from film sides - garbage
  • 1 vitamin bottle - repurpose
  • 1 paper soap wrapper - worms
  • 1 used cue tip - worms
  • 1 used dental floss - garbage
  • 1 shampoo bottle PETE5 - recycle

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Day 141 - Wednesday 5/21/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 school pass sticker - garbage
  • 1 school pass sticker back - garbage
  • 2 napkins - worms
  • 1 tinfoil felaffell wrapper - garbage
  • 1 styrofoam container - recycle
  • 1 cereal bag - recycle
  • 1 plastic pine nuts bag - recycle
  • 1 beer bottle w/top - recycle
  • 1 plastic plate - recycle

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Day 140 - Tuesday 5/20/08

Today's Haul:

  • 1 cardboard dog treat box - recycle
  • 1 cardboard couscous box - recycle
  • 1 plastic couscous bag - recycle
  • 1 torn plastic bag - recycle
  • 1 cardboard cereal box - recycle
  • 1 plastic cereal bag - recycle
  • 21 ozs misc paper (mail, receipts, etc) - worms/recycle
  • 1 beer bottle w/top - recycle
  • 1 plastic HPDE 2 juice bottle - recycle=

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