Environmental Veni

Good morning, everyone! Right now it is 9:03 A.M. and I'm sitting at my husband's computer with a big cup of coffee. 2 raw sugars and some French Vanilla creamer from Kroger. Since I'm the only one who does dishes in our house, obviously I didn't stir my coffee with a spoon. No, I stirred it with a wooden dowel. No, no, no, there's not a giant wooden dowel in my cup. I'm talking about these. They're plain, tiny, wooden dowels from Walmart and they cost 94 cents for fifty of them. They DO come in a plastic bag, but it's much less plastic than you'll get when you purchase a box of plastic stirrers. You know the ones. They're black, they're almost split in the middle, they're plastic... Ring any bells? The ones we used to buy are a bit different, but they're the same thing. Tiny bits of plastic that you swirl in a hot beverage and then toss away after one use. If you're not a big coffee drinker, I'm sure it doesn'

I do believe that I got this idea from Pinterest? Or another similar website. Regardless, I always have a TON of extra shipping boxes for my Etsy account. And rather than have dozens of boxes in a closet, I figured I'd put them to good use. This image was my inspiration, but it was really just that. As you'll soon see, mine is much taller and a bit thinner. I really just used this for a general feel of the project and did my own thing from there. Mine is actually still not finished. Instead of four large drawers, I'll have the two big drawers on the right side, and then four smaller drawers going up the left side. Anyway, though, I'm going to sort of walk you through how I made my box and hopefully it gives you a bit of direction for making your own! Even though I used my own shipping boxes, you can take any kind of cardboard, really, and cut and tape it into the size that you need. THE SHELF            So, this is the first thing that I really did. I

          Cows release on average between 70 and 120 kg of methane per year. Methane is a greenhouse gas like Carbon Monoxide, but a much higher negative effect. The negative effect that methane has on the environment is roughly 23 times higher than the effect of CO2. The release of just 100kg by a cow per year is equivalent to 2300 kg of CO2 per year by a single cow. All ruminants (which are animals that regurgitate food and re-chew it (gross!)) on the world emit roughly two billion tons of CO2 per year. The clearing of forests for MORE grazing land and farming land is even responsible for 2.8 billion tons of CO2 emissions per year! The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that agriculture is responsible for 18% of the total release of greenhouse gases in the world. Cattle breeding is actually a major factor. "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to

I got the information for this article through various articles online, but I'll provide a link to the website when using direct quotes. (:           So, Pros and Cons of Recycling Aluminum Cans. We've all done it or most of us know someone who does it. I even remember my parents doing it when I was younger and my husband's mother does it. While we don't recycle our cans ourselves, there's a man who stands at the corner of my husband's job most days (the ENTIRE day), begging. He doesn't accept money from anyone, only aluminum cans. Everyone who knows him refers to him as "The Can Man." I don't have permission to share his name here, so I'll be leaving that out. Just about every day that my husband goes to work, he sees the Can Man standing on the corner. He can't stay ON Walmart property doing it, but he can stand by the street.           I've never put much thought into recycling cans for myself since it's never seemed

          I wanted to give everyone an idea of how long stuff sticks around the Earth after it's tossed into a landfill or the ocean/lakes. Most of the time we think it'll decompose soon enough, so it'll be fine in a landfill. In most cases, that's not how it works.  These are the estimated decomposition rates of COMMON MARINE DEBRIS ITEMS. That means this stuff is commonly found in or around the oceans. An apple core takes around 2 months to decompose. A foamed buoy takes around 50 years to decompose. Wool socks can take anywhere from 1 to 5 years to decompose. A styrofoam (wasn't the world recently having a hissy fit because McDonald's got rid of these?) lasts around 50 years.  A waxed carton (think milk or juice carton) sticks around for about three months before it starts to decompose. A newspaper lasts around 6 weeks. Plastic grocery bags last anywhere from 10-20 years. Plastic grocery bags were one of the worst inventions

If you're here, you're probably interested in going green (or you already are), seeing DIY projects for going/staying/being green, etc. All of this is great, but it can be difficult when you're living with others that aren't green or environmentally friendly. For me, I live with my husband and we rent out our third bedroom to a couple. Everyone isn't inherently opposed to the way I do things, but they don't do it themselves, if that makes sense. If you're living with people who aren't green (a husband, in-laws, tenants) then it can be difficult and often times annoying. But there are still some ways that everyone can live their own lives and you can still take part in extending the Earth's lifespan.           If you're like me, you use paper or cloth. In my case, the paper fits perfectly in the bathroom  trash can and is used for that purpose. But with others in the house who aren't green, a ton of plastic bags still find their w