The Bathroom!! - & Some Evil Thoughts!! ;)

Today I bravely ventured where no man has gone before: Our Bathroom.

ugh!

Honestly, I was mostly using my own bathroom, because of so many iffy chemicals & suspicious-looking little bottles present in the main bathroom!

I mean, we're just an average family. Perhaps slightly health-conscious in some regards (at least the kitchen).

But until a while ago, we were just very average with regard to bathroom chemicals.

I did start a REVOLUTION in my own bathroom (where I had the liberty to do so!) - but The Main Bathroom is a different affair!

I'm perplexed by all the different contents and containers.. Very few are clearly labelled on all parts, & while some have the recycling sign or at least 'the green dot' - many are not labelled enough!

The forage was useful: now at least Mum doesn't think any more that The Green Dot is a recycling sign!!

Often, The Green Dot is very lonely though!!

Maybe she just has one friend, the PAO symbol which indicates best to use 'period after opening' (with written number of months or years).


She would be much happier with more of her friends, like this:


It would be GREAT if especially the resin identification code were always present!!

If they can put it on Tic Tac boxes, surely they could put it everywhere!!


Just 'The Green Dot' means very little! Only that a tiny fee has been paid by the manufacturer for another organisation to collect it. It doesn't guarantee that it will get recycled!
How could it get recycled if they don't know what it is?

But, I fear that currently there is little real interest in recycling more!
The company that collects packaging in Slovenia for recycling has put this on its website: they are asking for a 'temporary' change in legislation to allow 'waste to energy' as a priority ahead of recycling!! Grr!!
Just because of current temporary low prices of recyclables...
/I do wonder what other packaging recovery organisations are saying..?/

& why are little kiddies in schools still given containers for tetrapak recycling? Greenwashing, I guess!!

Does recycling still make sense then?
Well, I think if they are asking for this change that must mean that currently they are still obligated to sort for recycling! So yes, it does make sense.
It's also a message that we, people, want to recycle and don't want to just trash things!

But MINIMIZING is more and more important..

I'm still half-exasperated and I didn't even make it through 1/4 of our bathroom!!

/I remember I was equally - or more! - exasperated in my own bathroom, a while ago.. & it's pretty low-waste now.. So hopefully the main bathroom will be doable too!!/

Mum is willing to try washing her hair with the soapnuts, we'll see how it goes..

I finally told Dad about the zero waste week for Earthday, and he's not happy. Not at all. (And this is an understatement!)
Well, nobody was when I told them! Mum's gotten used to it by now, hopefully Sis & Dad will too-?!

I am not really sure if a 'full' zero waste week will be doable for Earth Day, but at least I'll try... Difficult to do it all by oneself though.. If packaging recovery organisations are not helping!! :(

I barely managed to convince Sis of importance of recycling, & now this - of course next thing I know some clearly-labelled packaging was in the trash again.. aagh! /&I couldn't keep quiet about it, sorry!!/

I wanted to ring the packaging recovery company up & ask about what is and isn't recyclable, but with these news, I'm not sure if they would tell me the truth??!!

Still, I can at least try..

On a happier note, garbage was in the news: an article saying 'Waste is gonna be EXPENSIVE'! So Mom came rushing up: "You could write an article & tell 'em to all go zero waste! And how to do it."

Yeah right. Like I can tell my own family - if even my Dad & Sis won't really participate fully..?!! hmm..!!
They say, 'We're much better than most other families anyway'. And they are right. We are. (Still, Sis saying that is a bit funny, she's sort of the 'main polluter', at least in the kitchen.:) And she's not willing to give up her bagged toast or other stuff. Though she was slightly shocked when I told her how much of the stuff was actually okay and reusable/recyclable, in the ideal climate.)

We're still left with quite a bit of cellophane (non-recyclable) & some other things. I also probably can't make Sis go to cloth pads or diva cup in a month, so let's keep fingers crossed it won't happen at that time!!
(Or can I just not count bathroom/toilet?!)

I even had an evil thought to just hide all bins and they can keep their garbage in their room if they wish!! /Is it too evil?? Or not?? ;)/

And when I started writing an article, it got really looong. So I wasn't sure which to focus on: the 'How?' or the 'Why?' - cause for me 'Why?' is even more important. It makes you wanna discover & DO the 'How'!!
But would they even publish the whole truth?! Hm!!

In fact, I'm a little bit burnt out. I may take it easy for a day or two and start saving the world on Monday. (?)

Zero Waste Report #3 - Mum almost fully on board!!:))

So, what can I say?

I started a blog in Slovenian (it's feeling very lonely still, & there's still more work to be done on it, but YAY!! I started it! :))
I also announced a 'zero waste week' around Earth Day on a Slovenian forum - some people may still be scared of it a bit? Hopefully at least a few will be intrigued to minimize their waste too..? :)
/I'm scared of it too, lol!! - but at least it will hopefully motivate me to do even better, even if we don't get to 'zero'!!/

Mum is now almost fully on board, and this is a great thing!!
/She has read my blog in Slovenian too, maybe it helped a bit! I asked her for input etc. I also tell her about stuff I find online, like the Biutiful Cauntri yesterday, and the poor sheep & cats../

She has now lectured cousin's wife & her mother-in-law (my aunt) extensively how it's bad to burn plastics at their farm!! (That's another set of relatives from what I wrote about before!) About the toxic gasses etc!
Mum told them to set up a mini-recycling station & she'll take the plastics etc to our recycling bins when we visit! :) YAY!! :)

Cousin's wife would even be interested in cloth diapers, but her husband wasn't enthusiastic about them! So more research into cloth diapers needed, I'll authorize Mum to take a look at some of the stuff I already found! :) /It seems real funny to send your own Mum e-mails! lol/ In any case, they can at least reduce the plastic ones and have some cloth, some others.. or maybe organic ones..

It would be ideal to have places or stores where a new Mum could go and 'test' some of these diapers (all that are available here), to find which would be best for the kiddie.. (as babies can be different & not all diapers may be appropriate for all babies)

As for Sis, she still likes to drink capuccino (in a million satchets!), even though she has bought zero waste (lower percentage) coffee mixed with fake coffee in a reusable glass container (I was impressed!), and could theoretically drink that! But she'd have to add sugar & with the little satchets, she has the impression it's no-sugar aka healthier! /faints/ It's also 'so good'!
I asked her if she'd drink capuccino from a zero waste container if I bought it & she seems open to that provided it tastes good -? (Now here's research! Any ideas?)

She has also bought non-eco bananas again, still puzzled about the peels /again/ :(
/Sis says I 'overthink' & 'exaggerate/over-react' to this! I told her some of her 'exaggerations' aren't fun for me either - she's allergic to dust and some other things, and we can't have flowers or cats in the house!! so at least we're at stalemate here. Probably if we splash out for eco bananas she'll eat them too, she prefers to buy cheaper on her own. Am not happy with plastic packaging for 'eco' bananas, so..? hm, what to do?/

I must also praise Sis (if I didn't before): she now puts empty tetrapaks on the counter for me to wash!! YAY!! :)
If they are fresh, they can be rinsed with water easily! & usually at least a spoon or two of yoghurt are still in them! (for me to lick)
/This is such an improvement, she just tossed them before..)

The yoghurt production has been started again, but Sis prefers to mix bought+homemade (don't ask!)

Dad has been away at relatives a lot, so didn't add much to the bin. Didn't eat much yoghurt either, so we may have too much of some!:)

Last week the bin did smell a bit, was still unsure what caused it to!
I talked to Mum about the importance of non-smelly bin, we'll see if it sticks? (Not sure if I talked to Sis about it, or if I dare to?;)

She's the one who has bought icky 'plastic' salamis and such before - they're both unhealthy and make bad waste.. (I'm really too disgusted to wash those!)
Hopefully 'real meat' can be substituted for that? (we still have some pretty much zero waste dried meats from Uncle.. not so totally healthy, but yummy!! I see she hasn't bought the iffy ones now..;) So probably the goal would be to always have some zero waste meat for snacks & suppers in the house..?)

Mum said we don't have so much waste & if it was all rolled up together it would be very little of it too - so the thing to work on would be the smell/food leftovers..
I told her at Clean Bin they wash the 'garbage' so it's clean and doesn't smell..
We developed a routine of washing up the dishes together after lunch - much quicker than just one person doing it, & it gives me a chance to brainwash inspire her with the zero waste superheroes & their daily adventures! :)

So, the key to a woman's heart may be through doing housework together.. (or whatever is very important to them..!) Also, she loves pictures & videos of kiddies! (like Little Miss Green!)
Some healthy competition with 'what other bloggers are doing' is quite helpful too! ;)

I'm also much happier to help now that Mum is on board with zero waste, so it's a double-win I guess?! :)

We still don't know many things..

How do you freeze rabbits zero waste? especially whole ones, to make 'em stuffed? (45 x 13 x 13cm or so) - I measured them & we'll look for any appropriate containers, if we find them.. for other parts they must be only 3 - 4cm high, and 10 x 19/20cm or 26 x 19cm or so otherwise.. Plastic bags used so far still.. :(

And what do you give to people as small thankyou gifts?
I used to give chocolate or such, do more zero waste little gifts exist?

& Mum's charity group will be giving gifts for the elderly again, for Easter - usually this meant (donated/sponsored) cookies or yuk! candies or coffee in (I think unrecyclable) plastic boxes/bags & such, also in plastic bags or unrecyclable gift paper bags (with a plastic layer).. both unhealthy AND not zero waste..
Have no idea what they could give that would be healthier, happily accepted by elderly people, AND zero waste?

Maybe to figure out until Christmas or next year, hopefully..?
(One year they gave oranges and they got bad before all of the gifts could be transported, stuff needs to be 'stable', so fresh fruit is out..)
So, more things to figure out & research..

Been also busy trying to organize myself, but that is stuff for a whole another blog post, I guess!! :) /phew/

Thank you for reading so far, if you managed to!! :) Any ideas or comments will be appreciated!! :)

GIFT for Little MissGreen!! :))

So, the other day Little Miss Green from MyZerowaste had birthday!



Her Mum, the ever-so-wonderful Mrs Green, asked us to give her a meaningful present!
Since I'm still too scared of helping my neighbours recycle (see previous posts!), and writing to manufacturers, I thought, 'What could I do?'

I mean, I must confess Little Miss Green is pretty much an inspiration for me! (& probably everyone around the world who knows her!)


I really started watching the Myzerowaste site regularly (& thinking, 'What else can I do?') after this wonderful declaration of hers!

So, I decided: I would NOT eat any more store-bought CHOCOLATE!! (for the week)
It seemed in theme with the birthday, and the zero waste thing!

And it wasn't just ANY week - it was 'that time of the month'!!
(when chocolate reserves at our house regularly get emptied!)

I will confess I have a shelf full of chocolate wrappers and such - some of them recyclable aluminum foil, some not!
And some luxury chocolates seriously over-packaged & over-glitzy!!

Apparently a chocolate addiction can be a sign of magnesium deficiency, so I had to come up with alternative ideas!

I decided to MAKE MY OWN CHOCOLATE!!

I did get a recipe from Mum's co-worker, but it was a very weird recipe with pulverized milk and water and such odd things.. (we disdain milk chocolate in our house, also The Book of Chocolate written by a Slovenian doctor says for adults a small amount of dark chocolate is supposed to be better!)
/Kids shouldn't eat or drink much chocolate anyway!:) as there's caffeine & theobromine and other slightly iffy stuff in there!
The milk in the chocolate is supposed to be of not much use anyway, so kids are better off with other sources of calcium!/

After some serious internet research including the awesome Wikipedia I came across the wonderful site of Chocolate Alchemy where the use of water is seriously snickered at!!

There are recipes & even a Chocolate Forum!

The Chocolate Alchemy site is about making chocolate 'from scratch' - i.e. from cocoa beans, and involves some complicated procedures like roasting and grinding the beans, conching and refining, and tempering the chocolate.

I had no cocoa beans, and no cocoa butter, so I had to experiment. (Of course!:)
I looked for specific recipes involving cocoa powder & coconut butter, but no luck!
So I just started to experiment & made an informed guess!

If the sites say to use whole beans (=cocoa powder+cocoa butter) and some sugar, and the odd recipe had cocoa powder, powder milk & margarine(vegetable fat), coconut butter should do just nicely.

I put a small pot into a 'water bath' (a slightly larger pot) and heated up the coconut butter, than added in the cocoa powder! This could be 'it', but it was terribly bitter! (adding a tiny bit of coconut flour & sprinkling with some white sugar didn't help much, and I couldn't find any brown sugar!) So I mixed in some honey, and it was totally delicious!

Unfortunately... There isn't almost any anymore!!
(I just did a tiny sample to test it all!)

Found a pretty leaf-shaped mold to put it in... But.. It was a slightly sucky day (before the rain?) and apparently, this was stronger than me!!
Must report the CHOCOLATE was YUMMY!!

Not sure if it will harden at all, & probably wasn't the most 'exact' procedure (more reading at that wonderful site of Chocolate Alchemy will be needed!)

Next time, I will try to make more chocolate, and actually let it harden (to see if this can be done without expensive & complicated equipment too!! :)

Ingredients used:
- zero waste organic cocoa powder (in reusable glass container; zero waste cocoa beans are available in a health food store too, but they looked very old and a bit, hmm, mouldy? so I stayed away this time, I had bought them in the past & just nibbled on them, but apparently roasting & such gives a much better taste! I may buy them again if I can find good ones!)
- zero waste coconut butter (in a reusable glass container)
- zero waste honey (from the neighbour's bees - in a reusable glass container of course!!) - I think true chocolatiers mostly use sugar (perhaps for a reason) but this was available & we'll see if it hardens proper
- a sprinkling of sugar & coconut flour - these were not in zero waste packinging, I'm afraid - but we had them at home anyway, and they need to be used up! (I think the coconut flour was due last August! still good though..)
...And no other iffy stuff!! (some chocolates are full of suspicious ingredients!!)
- (oh and tap water - for water bath)

I've come across raw chocolate before, which seems kinda intriguing to try sometime maybe.. though opinions on the chocolate forum about this vary (some preferring higher temperatures to kill any bacteria on cocoa beans) So while this is open to further research, I figured any cocoa already fit for drinking must be okay & didn't heat it much, just so the coconut butter melted & cocoa powder dissolved nicely..

Just checked results: it's almost hardened! Kinda like your basic dark chocolate/cake icing!:) YUM! (But will there be any left to see?! lol!)

This chocolate truly will be ZERO WASTE - as there's almost none left!! lol!

Making it did make my day, so I hope reading about it will cheer you up too, & maybe encourage you to do some fun experimenting? :)
/Not sure exactly how cost-effective or really 'zero waste' this would be as a large-scale operation, but in small amounts it's a fun & interesting experiment to do on a rainy-ish day!/
Also, you know exactly what's in it!! :)
And if all fails and world economy collapses, isn't it interesting to know you can make your own chocolate too?;)

Zero Waste report #2 - The Terrible Cold!! - Zero Waste Style!

Well, I wanted to give weekly reports like the lovely Chez Green family over at Myzerowaste have 'em, but last week couldn't think of anything to 'report'! hm!

Basically, I haven't been doing any new experiments! - although I think I MAY have found a potential useful use for one of the strangest 'leftovers' in the bathroom! lol!! /will post about it one of these days.../

My Dad can't be trusted upon to buy cheese 'the zero waste' way, so now Mum and I will try to do it whenever we can..

Also, I had a terrible cold (brought on by the damn incinerators, I think!! just reading about them makes me - ooh!!) Or the too many Amazon-books that I tried to cram all into my head. And Beppe Grillo totally scared me!! (I had nightmares of nanoparticelli coming in through the window from the next-door factory!!)
Or it was the donuts, and a few not-so-healthy days before that. (Carnival was here!) Or, my Sis brought it home. As we both got it at the same time.

My Sis took the Coldrex anti-cold med. I was tempted, very tempted.
But I looked at the box and thought, 'Is this zero waste?' uhm, not.
I couldn't help but feel guilty at the thought of having to throw away the pill cases. Also, when I read 'caffeine' - the stuff usually made me jiffy, even when not messed up!!

So, instead I took my trusty old Louise Hay into my hands, and looked for her words of wisdom. Of course she was spot on, as pretty much always.

"Your thinking has become narrow. Wish to run away. Leave me alone." LOL!! SO TRUE!!
So instead, the right mantra is to be: "I'm always completely safe. Love surrounds me and protects me. All is well." Hm!

When I actually focused on the lovely communities going the zero waste way (instead of trying to figure out the evil ways of the incinerators or if they are really so maybe-green as some say they are) it helped heaps too!!

Basically that's probably what Louise Hay has been saying all along: focus on the solution and not on the problem! Hm!

So, the good news: my gorgeous cousin has now signed up for an eco course at the Uni (after receiving a loong pep talk from me last weekend, lol!) - I wish those courses were just part of every curriculum, unfortunately they are completely optional mostly - but the good thing it's her assistant professor's favorite course!!

Some friends and acquaintances were vaguely interested too.. (or at least didn't run away screaming, as I had feared! though one has avoided me for more than 2 weeks on account of feeling guilty for the many non-eco diapers they throw away! she has a lovely baby boy!!)

There is a thin line between inspiration and completely terrifying someone (at times) and I'm not always sure of it!! lol (seems like Beppe Grillo may still have some problems with this too!:)
So, I am still looking for ways how to tell people about this without completely scaring them or making them go on the defensive or thinking I completely lost it! lol

My Mum is now interested to try washing her hair with the soap nuts too, as I told her how some people on the online forums are delighted with them & even have more hair volume this way!

I also suggested that cloth diapers might be recommended to a local 'mothers' home' (for mummies that need to get away for a while & stay in a place before going on their own.. they might be excited about cloth diapers there too & start using them on their own later on too? It would also be more cost-effective for the home..) We'll see what comes of this, but it's another 'seed' planted.. :)

Some Moms here in Slovenia seem quite happy with them, although there are many different varieties, and it also depends on the baby, as all are different..
Personally, I think if we could survive & prosper in cloth diapers (Mom said she washed every 2 or 3 days then too) babies today could too.. (especially as more modern varieties are around) My cousin's baby (that's another cousin!) couldn't stop wetting her pants (at 3 years old) until the doctor advised taking away the disposable diapers!!

Of course, another thing was tested this week: my resolution to stay with cloth cleenex!!
In fact, I must tell you I wasn't sure if I'd last myself.. but was immensely cheered up by the lovely cloth handkerchiefs with lovely little flowers and such! (They rock!) Only used up maybe 5 altogether, and still keeping 1 or 2 around 'just in case'...
They're a nice childhood memory as we always used them, as far as I remember.. before the paper hanky frenzy.. (I do admit a few tissues of - recycled! - toilet paper too, lol!)

Other than that, nothing much to report. I wish I were 'perfect', living the zero waste lifestyle already.. but it's a (sometimes slow) learning process.. I do wish more people here in Slovenia were 'on board'.. (still didn't dare talk to my neighbours! ough - & Of course I didn't want to give them any germs either!! Although I don't believe in this 'germs' stuff much, it much more depends on one's immune system.. but if the immune system is already low, well.. just heard one neighbour is still ill, mostly due to soda pop, his wife says - I said 'better not have any in the house then,' but his wife 'loves 'em soo much' too!! OoO - and then quickly changed the subject! hm! It's difficult to change habits, yeah, sometimes.. Still, I think health comes first.)

The number of allergies and illnesses here scares me too.. Not everyone is so lucky to get better with Louise Hay & cloth hankies alone.. (& some herbal tea & juicing of beetroot+carrot+apple - yum!)
And instead of campaigning heavily for healthy air - people just go buy drugs or ionizers (I was heavily tempted last week! still am!) & succomb to advertisements telling them to stay in and use drugs, ugh!!
I do think HEALTHY AIR is more important!! :)

Hopefully other people will start realizing it too.. Some already have.