What Ana Does

I've been looking around trying to pick a new sustainability project in my house. There's so much more I could do everywhere, but, at the same time, there's also only so much we can make fit into our lives. After a bit of pondering I came up with it ... my cleaning products! I've been trying to keep my cleaning products plant-based for the last few years, but through visitors or my own needs, harsh chemicals have tip-toed back in. We have a cleaning service that comes every other week, so our cleaning needs are really just touch-ups between their visits. Counters, bathrooms and glass cleaning really is the most important. And vacuuming. The service maintains the rest. So the cabinet under my sinks should be relatively sparse, but they are not. They are so not. So this weekend, I'm going to clean out each cabinet, moving the really toxic stuff into a garage cubby, for when dire needs present themselves. And all the random stuff (paint cans, for example) can m...

When returning from Paris, I wanted to think strategically about using less waste. I knew I was going to be focused on our house projects and I couldn't spend lots of time zeroing in on bulk stores or composting projects. So I picked a few everyday items to start. First, I found a coffee company that's zero-waste k-cups. (I love my French press but my mornings are busy with two trips out to the bus stop, so I'd rather use my Kerig machine, ya know?!) Faro is sold on Amazon and is completely compostable. Part of the cup is even made from coffee bean skins, a by-product of coffee production! Each morning, I toss the used pod into my little compost pot where it will eventually get added to my big bin the yard. The coffee packaging is all is reusable, too. Then, I considered toilet paper; I've been reading a lot about Who Gives a Crap , a tp company that uses 100% recycled paper or sustainable bamboo and wraps them in colorful paper instead of plastic. They also...

From the GreenPeace Article:    Every Single Piece of Plastic Ever Made Still Exists! It's been bugging my logical brain lately that we buy plastic toothbrushes that are made out of a material that is, while very cheap, meant to last a very long time. As in 400 years or more. And doesn't decompose. Just think, every plastic toothbrush you've used in your lifetime is going to out live you and the next four or more generations. Your great-great-great-great grandchildren will have to deal with your toothbrush. How insane is that? Meanwhile, we're only going to use that toothbrush for a few months. It sort of boggles the mind. So, I've been buying bamboo toothbrushes, which will decompose in about a year. Most can be tossed into your backyard composter. This makes way more logical sense to me. I'm only going to use it for a very limited time, why do I need something like that to outlive me? Image Source: HumbleBrush And here's the best part: w...

This week is Semaine du Climat in France ... or a week devoted to learning more about climate change and sustainable development. You know I'm completely on board with this! At the girls school, they're going to be encouraging sustainable practices with a daily theme. In case you're willing to play along, here's the schedule, how they described it and my (snarky) notes: Monday: A day without plastic straws.  They'll "promote reusable metal straws as a substitute to plastic." Or, hey guys, don't use any at all?! It's a straw, humans have been drinking just fine without them for centuries. Tuesday: A day without a plastic bottles. The school will "encourages students and staff to bring a reusable water bottle/flask to school to avoid consuming drinks in plastic bottles." Again, this really should be enforced every day. Wednesday: A day without packaging. They'll "encourages students to bring their own containers when purc...

This month we're home in our Illinois house for summer vacation and I'm literally surrounded by plastic and it's making my head spin. The thing is, our Paris apartment was a blank slate. And I knew as we were moving in that I wanted to focus on using less plastic -- getting creative and avoiding certain things that I've already detailed on earlier posts. (For example, not accepting plastic bags at stores and finding alternatives to the packaged food.) But now that I'm back in our home of seven years, it's full of plastic ... and the food we're used to is packaged. (Trader Joe's, damn you!) Luckily, it's summer so I have a weekly farmer's market I can shop plastic-free. But, otherwise, we're in plastic-packaged food wasteland. It's crazy. For example, I was carrying a bunch of spinach and carrots (because I forgot my reusable produce bags) and a helpful produce man ripped off a plastic bag and offered it to me. Argh. (I thanked...

Food waste is just another road I'm going down these days. Did you know the average American throws out on average 40% of the food they buy?!? That's a staggering amount! So, I'm trying to look at what we toss and what I can save. I don't have composting available in Paris -- at least, I don't think I do. I've read some big cities offer composting but my French is not quite up to asking around, ya know?! So, it's really up to me to buy and cook only what we'll eat. With kids and odd schedules, etc, this is a challenge, but it's certainly worth the attempt. In my research, I found some really good tips on wasting less food. Those tips include menu planning and shopping with a list (which I've been practicing at for years). And buying only what you intend to eat in the next few days -- instead of stockpiling. This is especially useful for produce that spoil fast here in France, because it's super-fresh. Then there's the idea of...

This week I've been thinking about the plastic-free swaps that are slowly getting added to our home. One thing I read a lot is the misconception that you need to "buy all this new stuff" to go plastic-free. And that's kinda silly. I mean, the idea of buying a lot to become sustainable is a little   contradictory, right? Chances are, you have a reusable water bottle and canvas shopping bag rattling around the house -- or you can probably ask a family member for one -- and you've just created a pretty good swap. While I DO like shopping, I'm also a touch frugal. So, I'm swapping out plastic items when they're ready to be replaced with more renewable versions. Here are my latest three: First up, replacing our plastic toothbrushes for bamboo.  I've been buying  Preserve toothbrushes , made of 100% recycled plastic, mostly yogurt cups, but wanted to switch to a sustainable material. Bamboo! This Bam and Boo company offers a 3-month subscription ...

Maybe one of the things I'm digging so much about this plastic-free venture is getting to be a little creative and crafty. It's a fun challenge to figure out the better choices and make them. When looking through the bathroom for easy swaps, I zeroed in on those little cotton pads I use to remove mascara and swipe on face toner.  Harvesting cotton, pressing it into little disks only for me to use it once and throw it away!? Plus, I'm spending 5€ for a plastic bag of them every few months? I can do better. A little Pinteresting found a quick step-by-step to make these reusable pads. You can find better direction here , but basically I.... 1 - traced circles in color flannel fabric using a water glass. 2 - Pinned three pieces together. 3 - Used a tight zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine to close up the edges. 4 - Last, I trimmed around the edges and repurposed a pickle jar to store them.  Nothing to it. I wash them with the kitchen rags on a hot water setting....

Wasting less plastic (and attempting to go close to zero-waste) in the kitchen also includes the cleaners that we use. Which, incidentally, will help rid us of a lot of the chemicals we don't actually want/need to clean with. But that's a whole other post. For now, I finally (happy dance) found a market nearby that has a laundry and dish detergent refill station! For the laundry detergent, the refillable bottle cost about 3€, and it looks like each refill will cost about 5€. If I'm reading the receipt correctly (which is debatable), that's LESS than what we usually spend. And I can continue to reuse that bottle! No more single-use plastic bottle. No waste! The same goes for the dish detergent, but I haven't run out of our current supply. These refill stations are a great solution for the problem of single-use plastic, don't you think? Imagine if we all just used the same jug again and again for detergent? And this market also had refill stations for liqu...

Let's get real about my ongoing goal of plastic reduction in the kitchen. Because, to be honest, it's NOT EASY. Markets basically plastic wrap ALL the food! So looking for items that we like to eat that isn't sold pre-packaged in plastic is a tall order. I'm doing my best. I'm pulling out recipes that don't rely on plastic-wrapped food -- which basically means grains and veggies. And baguettes. Oh, and eggs. You can always find eggs in paper cartons. But I do run into problems each week. So I try to limit where I can, but I need to be realistic. So, in the interest of full transparency, here's the plastic-wrapped items from my market run on Monday: Obviously, I'm Making Tacos for Dinner Tonight, And Couscous Salad Tomorrow Night (I'll caveat that in Paris, I hit the market a few times a week, depending on what's on the menu, so this might not be a good representation of "a week" of plastic purchased. But you get the idea.) N...

Have you seen the cover of National Geographic this month? Gah! It's such a kick in the pants. Here's the link to check out the articles and be completely devastated by the pictures. The thing about this plastic crisis is: it's something we can all get involved in and make a huge difference. There are some environmental causes, such endangered elephants and rising sea levels, that make us feel basically powerless to help out. (Unless we can send financial support or fly to Africa to volunteer.) I can buy a more fuel-efficient car and turn my lights off when I leave a room, but you don't really feel the connection, right? But with plastic ... just bringing reusable bags to the supermarket and that's less plastic right there. Done. And it eventually becomes this really simple habit. And then you start remembering your reusable water bottle or coffee mug when you head to work. And that becomes a habit. And just those two things is a WHOLE LOT LESS plastic. An...

I'm on this "journey" to make my kitchen very close to plastic-free. And the first step has turned into becoming more aware of the plastic I'm buying -- spoiler alert: it's a WHOLE LOT MORE than I thought. I didn't think it was going to be easy, but I didn't think I was buying as much plastic as I was. Yikes! So, now, while I'm out doing my shopping, I'm discovering so much by just being more aware. Here are some things I'm learning: Banana chips are basically free. Why didn't I know this? I can fill my 1 liter glass jar with banana chips for about 2€. That's crazy cheap. I'm now campaigning to get my kids addicted to banana chips. I'm also pushing dried fruit (apples are like candy) nuts and granola, staples from the bulk bins that are also inexpensive. Tip: nuts are cheaper if you get them in mixes ... I don't understand why. You'll find bulk bins in the least likely places. There's a chain of mainstream s...

I'm not doing this plastic-free kitchen thing on my own. I've been including the rest of the family and trying to gently bring them in on this plan with me. Because I'm the main food buyer, I have the most power, but when the kids are in the market with me, I ask them to help me choose the glass containers instead of the plastic. Last week, Alice and I stopped at the market after I picked her up from school for Nutella -- her favorite thing. So I asked her to find the glass container. The plastic containers were small ... and it just so happened the BIG jar was the glass jar. The Big Glass Nutella Jar This zero-waste transition is looking really good to her right about now. Related posts: More of my Sustainability stories

Last week I was all gung-ho about pushing my kitchen to be more plastic-free. I even had a plan . But here's the update: This is going to be a bigger challenge than I initially thought. I knew this change wasn't going to happen over night, but this is certainly going to take some serious doing. It's this new awareness that's surprising me most of all. I thought I had a good idea of the amount of plastic I bring into my kitchen. But once I really scrutinized what's at home and then the markets -- and what goes in my shopping cart -- I'm COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY. It's A LOT of plastic. Let's start with coffee . When we moved to France, I got a cute little Nespresso coffee machine that makes me cute little cappuccinos each morning ... with single-use plastic capsules. Yes! No! I guess I could clean each little capsule and recycle the plastic, but that's not really the point, is it? It's all about the swaps, right? So, the swap here is to t...

I finished the Bea Johnson book and have found a bunch of neat blogs about going zero-waste. I even started mining through Pinterest for ideas. Now, how can I get started? The key is to start slow and tackle the low-hanging fruit. I already bring reusable bags everywhere I go, and have been for years, so ...  Check! And we avoid buying plastic water bottles, instead using the assortment of reusable bottles we already own.  Check! So, I ask myself, what makes sense NEXT for my current household? The answer, I think, is reducing single-use plastic (including packaging) in the kitchen. Here's my game plan: Bulk Nuts and Chickpeas in  My Reusable Bags Buy Bulk!  I discovered two (maybe three) of my neighborhood markets have a bulk section, so I've been bringing home the granola, chickpeas, couscous, nuts, dried fruit to test on the family. Bonus, they happen to be healthy snacks and meal-building items! The prices? So far, they are the same or better ...

Lately, I've been brainstorming my 5-year goals (that post is forthcoming) and as part of this, I've been digging into topics that I get passionate about, and researching them for potential goals to add to my list. One topic I get super-jazzed about is the idea of living a "sustainable" or "plastic-free" or "waste-free" lifestyle. From early on, I've always felt guilty about what I'm throwing away, knowing that garbage dumps are just rotting piles of trash that grow, produce methane and will eventually take over the planet. It depresses me just thinking about it. And we're SUCH a single-use, throw away, consume more, throw away, world. And I've always tried to take steps to reuse and recycle as much as I can. (Like, in 2014, I talk about it  here  and I did a post about  what I reuse,  or  what I make from scratch .) But, there's so much more I can do. So, for the last few weeks I've been diving into this culture and t...

So lately I've been thinking about dog poop. My dog's poop, specifically. Since adopting Benny we've been collecting plastic bags to clean up after him on our neighborhood walks. And using plastic bags, or even having them, has never sat well with me. Plastic bags are kinda evil. For years we've been using less and less plastic bags, always bringing reusable bags to the grocery store and pulling out my little reusable tote (always stuffed into my purse) while shopping. But lately, now with the need for them, we've been more lax about accepting them at stores. And I don't like it. Then there's the landfill issue -- another sensitive subject with me. I'm overly-aware of what we throw out. Can I reuse it? Can I compost it? Can I recycle it? Those plastic bags of poop drop right into my trash bin and get taken to the landfill where they'll decompose very very very slowly. I read recently it takes over a 100 years for a plastic bag of dog poop to ...