Monthly Archives: September 2010

How to Quit Using Paper Towels

Paper towels are almost ubiquitous these days in the United States. Most families use them because they’re just so convenient! No extra laundry, just use that quicker picker upper and throw it in the trash.

Only trouble is that it’s a bit wasteful. How wasteful depends on the source of your paper towels, whether they’re made of post consumer recycled materials and so forth, but overall, they’re probably on the wasteful side of things. At the very least you have to keep buying them.

But they’re so convenient, how do you quit?

1. Warn your family

Your spouse and children are the most likely to resist the switch. It can be a bit difficult to get buy-in on getting rid of paper towels, even if you’re the main one doing the laundry.

On the other hand, my oldest was delighted to see that a microfiber cleaning cloth was indeed as good at absorbing water as the one on the commercial. Made paper towels a bit less interesting.

2. Pick other cleaning cloths

You have a few options for other cleaning cloths. The most eco friendly is to use rags made of cloths you’d be throwing out otherwise. Think of bath towels that have gone bad and are ready to be torn into smaller pieces. Think of t-shirts with holes that really shouldn’t be worn anymore.

These are great, eco friendly and really kind to the budget.

But if you’d rather buy something, microfiber cleaning cloths are popular with good reason. They do an amazingly good job, and good quality ones last a long time.

They’re made of synthetic materials, so they aren’t perfectly environmentally friendly, but the good ones last very well and are strong enough to help you get surfaces clean even without conventional cleaners. I use vinegar and/or baking soda for much of my cleaning, and those products get along great with my microfiber cloths.

Microfiber cleaning cloths are soft, but are textured well enough to scrub. They can absorb a nice amount of liquid, so one cloth can go pretty far when you’re cleaning.

3. Finish off, store or give away your remaining paper towels

You have the paper towels, you may as well use them. You have a few options for what exactly you’re going to do with them.

You could just finish off what you have, trying to slow down their use rather than making the family go cold turkey on paper towel use.

If you have an emergency kit, you could put the rolls in there. You will need such convenient supplies if you ever have the sort of emergency where you need to use an emergency kit, so having paper towels in there is really not a bad thing.

You could also give your excess paper towels away. Just tell the people you’re giving them to what you’re up to. They might want to follow along eventually.

How to Entertain Your Kids Without Electronics

Most kids these days love their electronic toys. It starts with the toys they get as babies and keeps going on. It’s a tough habit to break, as many of their friends will be enjoying electronic toys too.

It’s good to teach your kids that they don’t need electronic gadgets and toys to have fun. There’s a lot more out there for them to do.

Why Bother?

As this can be a frustrating thing to do, a big question may be why you should bother limiting your children’s use of electronics. Why not let them just go at it?

Much has to do with how children can become inactive due to their use of electronics, television, computers and video games in particular. Many kids spend several hours a day in front of one or another screen, rather than getting outside, playing and getting exercise and fresh air. It’s not healthy.

Board Games

While getting your kids to play outside is a good goal, there’s nothing wrong with playing a board game as a family, or even a more physically active classic game such as Twister.

Playing a game together as a family is a great way to spend time together. You can talk about whatever comes to mind, or just banter about the game. You can learn a lot about each other.

Send the Kids Outside

It’s best if you can get your kids to play outside every day. There’s a saying about how there’s no such thing as inappropriate weather, just inappropriate clothes. In other words, don’t worry about rain or snow. Dress the kids appropriately and let them have fun.

Do be careful about particularly hot days, of course, and use a safe sunscreen on your kids. Encourage them to wear hats outside as well to protect their skin. Have cold water ready for them to drink when they get thirsty.

You’ll have to be ready to deal with the mess of kids playing outside. Hot weather encourages the use of sprinklers and water toys, which can mean mud tracked in and water on the floor. So can rain and snow. Have towels ready to deal with the mess, and set limits about how much mess you can stand.

You can play games outside too. Teach your kids the classics, such as hide and go seek, Simon Says, Red Rover, tag and whatever else comes to mind. It’s good for you to get outside too.

How Do You Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change Without Scaring Them?

Climate change is one of those topics your kids are going to hear about eventually. If you think about it from a child’s perspective, it’s a kind of scary thing to think about. They take things such as the possibility that polar bears will go extinct due to melting ice in the Arctic very seriously and even personally.

It’s hard to balance protecting your kids with growing informed citizens who will care about the environment. Kids care almost too much for their own good.

Keep It Age Appropriate

It’s not always easy keeping talks about the environment and climate change age appropriate. Kids just have to catch a news story or educational program to start asking questions you aren’t sure how to answer.

My #1 rule has always been to keep it honest but age appropriate.

Try to focus on the things you can do as a family to help the environment. Discuss using less, recycling, driving less and so forth. Talk about why you make the choices you do.

As kids get old enough, start looking for appropriate volunteer opportunities. If your child has a particular interest, try to have the opportunity match it.

You can also help kids to learn the difference between climate and weather. This is one of those things it seems many adults have trouble with, but it could be an advantage in discussions if your kids do understand that weather is short term and climate is long term.

Get Into Nature

Kids will appreciate nature more if they see it in person. Not just the backyard or the local playground, go hiking and camping. If there are campgrounds in your area, you shouldn’t need to go far.

Try making hiking and camping a part of family vacations, especially if you travel to an unfamiliar place. Talk about how things change from place to place.

If you happen to know how climate change is impacting an area you’re in, you can talk about the evidence for it. It’s not always definite enough to blame changes on climate change, but other times you can see that the climate of an area is not what it used to be.

Talk About Local Issues

Climate change is not all about polar bears dying and glaciers melting. It’s also about what’s happening in your own area.

Is water becoming an issue? How has climate change effected winters in your area?

Find out together what’s going on with your local climate. If you don’t know much about the local situation already, you may learn some really interesting things yourself.

Read a Book Together

There are a range of books available that can help you to discuss climate change basics with your kids, all the way up to more advanced discussions. A good book can explain climate change in ways you probably won’t think of on your own. Here are some titles to consider buying or looking for at your local library:

The Magic School Bus And The Climate Challenge
A Kids’ Guide to Climate Change & Global Warming: How to Take Action!
How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming
Mission: Planet Earth: Our World and Its Climate–and How Humans Are Changing Them
Climate: Causes and Effects of Climate Change (Our Fragile Planet)