Green has many shades

I have always recycled my cans, paper and plastic. Even back in the early days when my dad, ever the skeptic, said that the garbage men just added it to the regular garbage, that there was no recycling facility!


I admit that I have dug something out of the garbage that another family member has thrown away because they were too lazy to walk out to the garage and put it in the bin. I also let these family members know that I don't like digging through the garbage and in the future either get off your lazy butt and walk it out to the garage or get a whole lot better at hiding it in the can, because I'm on to you.

Last year I decided to get a little more serious about my use of plastic and started making my own laundry soap.

Laundry Soap

Hot water
1/2 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
1/3 bar Soap (grated)


In a large pot, heat 3 pints of water. Add the grated bar soap and stir until melted. Then add the washing soda and borax. Stir until powder is dissolved, then remove from heat.
In a 2 gallon clean pail, pour 1 quart of hot water and add the heated soap mixture. Top pail with cold water and stir well.
Use 1/2 cup per load, stirring soap before each use (will gel).


It's been 5 months now, and for the most part, it's working quite well. It doesn't make suds and that was the hard part to get used to, because to me (and most people) suds means clean. I also found that it isn't quite cutting the dirt on my husbands work shirt collars. So I told him to start washing his neck better :) and then I found a recipe for a pre-treater/stain remover, so now we're good to go. I feel a little bit better that I am not putting any more of those big plastic soap containers in the land fills, plus the cost savings is a bonus, too.

Stain Remover/Pre-Treater

1 part rubbing alcohol
2 parts water

Combine the ingredients and spray on stains. Let the solution soak for a few minutes and then launder as usual.

I've also started making my own shower cleaner and window cleaner. I hate scrubbing the shower and absolutely loved it when they invented the stuff you spray after every shower. I never had to scrub again! I was in heaven! But I was also buying a bottle every other week and the cost and all that plastic, finally caught up with me.

And then last summer I got into composting. Because we have a septic tank and a garbage disposal, which some say is a no-no, I got to thinking, why am I not composting all the food scraps so I have some lovely compost for my garden?




I really tried to be diligent about it, every correct food scrap that should have gone into it, went into it, and I rolled it as I was instructed. After the whole summer I ended up with about a 5 gallon bucket of compost. My husband wasn't too impressed with that puny amount of compost. But I'm thinking I wasn't doing something right. I didn't have enough carbon. Or was it nitrogen? As you can see, I need to get serious about this and do some reading about it.