Environmental Veni

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 ...

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...

It's an age old question (kidding, I know): Paper or plastic? If you've read my other posts, you'll have seen that my husband doesn't care for the paper bags as they're awkward to carry. For him this just means he can't carry all of the groceries to the house in one trip. Sometimes, though, you don't have an option. If you're like us, you forget your cloth bags on almost every single trip. I know we need to put them in the car, but we forget. Since we mostly shop at kroger, it's not usually an issue. On the rare occasion that we go to Walmart, we usually don't get enough to need bags. But if we do, I feel terrible. I recently saw a video, though, that makes me feel much less anxious about bringing home plastic bags. You'll really only need three things. *Scissors *A Clothing Iron *All the plastic bags *Parchment paper You'll notice that I have not used my own images. My camera is missing the cord and my husband refuses to let m...

I've been looking online at buying paper bags for our trash cans around the house. bathroom, kitchen, office, etc. Most of them come in plastic wrapping, though, which I'm trying to avoid. They're also usually really small. BUT!!  Last night my husband and I went to Kroger and I noticed that they provide paper shopping bags in self check out as an alternative to plastic. Realizing this, I forget about my quest for reasonably sized paper bags and get excited that now we don't have to bring home plastic bags! (I actually did find a reusable option for the bags, but that's for another post.) My husband wasn't thrilled, since paper bags ARE more difficult to carry and he can't take everything from the vehicle to the house in one trip. Anyway, back to shopping! We get home and I'm folding up the paper bags, trying to figure out a way to reuse them. Will I make paper? Shipping envelopes for my etsy?? No clue. But then it hits me that these bags might actuall...

Reduce, Reuse Recycle We've all seen those posters on the school walls, right? Is that still a thing? It was always reduce, reuse, recycle! It's the only way to save the Earth! ReDUCE, ReUSE, ReCYCLE. But... Did you know that some recycling is actually worse for the environment than not recycling at all? Think about it this way. You've got that plastic container in your hands (ice cream, yogurt, juice, whichever) and you're just about to toss it into your recycling bin. Why not, right? It's got the arrows, it goes in the bin. But not all plastics are the same. Glass, paper, aluminum, those are pretty simple. Not all of our plastics are made with the same materials, and that makes it a bit more complicated than tossing it in the bin and handing it off to the garbage man every Wednesday morning. To use a quote from here ( http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jul-aug/06-when-recycling-is-bad-for-the-environment ) " But not all plastic can be recycled, and ...

Hello, Earthlings! I want to begin by saying that I'm not a hippie (not that's there's anything wrong with being one!). But it seems like people think only hippies care about the environment or our impact on the Earth and that's not true at all. I'm quite Gothic in style and such, and it's always been a bit insulting to have people think I can't care about the environment because I'm not a hippie. So, that being said I'd like to tell you a bit about myself, what I do, and maybe why I've made this blog. (: First, my name is Raven Goldwood. (It's real, I swear!) My father in law gave me the nickname Veni, so there's that. (: Environmental Veni. I, Veni, am 22 years old and a native American/Czech female. I am married to a German male named Bryan. Does this matter? I dunno. Figured I'd include it! We got together in high school (2011) and got married this last October on Friday the 13th. We have three dogs together and I have a bea...