At risk of sounding like the birthday party grinch, I’d like to start a grass roots movement to stop the birthday party goody bag! One of my children came home from a party last week with a plastic bag filled with smarties, dum dums, a top, plastic jewelry, a whistle and a mini plastic bottle of bubbles. I know, I know, I have thrown my share of parties where one of the first thing out of the guests mouths was “do we get a present too?” I’d like to suggest we stop the madness. Our children are conditioned to come home with something, I never remember getting a gift at someone elses birthday, we’ve brought this upon ourselves.
I know most of you have heard of the “Great Pacific Garbags Patch” the size of Texas floating in the ocean, but I just always kind of assumed it was plastic baggies (go ReUsies!) and shopping bags. Interestingly, a Washington Post reporter (in explaining why he was writing about an environmental atrocity in a parenting letter) explains that, “what researchers recover from those albatross chicks and garbage gyres: Lego pieces, toy soldiers, bottle caps, beach balls, sandals, plastic dinosaurs, checkers. Sure, the junk that pervades the oceans and pollutes beach sand with plastic pellets comes from sources other than family consumption…but much of the debris is the stuff of our children’s closets and junk drawers”.
Let’s all think twice before we throw our next birthday party. Instead of buying dime-store junk, let’s stuff party goody bags with one toy worth keeping, not five that will get tossed the next day. How about a little paperback book or gift certificate for an ice cream cone at a neighborhood parlor. Better yet, let’s do away with this tradition all together!
Tags:goody bags·Pacific Garbage Patch·ReUsies
Introducing the ReUsies Drying Rack -
ReUsies Drying Rack
If you have ever been to my house you can see that I can’t stand a lot of clutter, so I was really hesitant to manufacture and sell this drying rack, one more thing to take up space on my sacred kitchen counter! I decided that I better at least use it for a couple of months to make sure it was functional and held up well and after the first week I was a sold. My partner needed to borrow it for a couple of days to take some photos for our website and I really missed having it!
If you are like us you currently have your ReUsies air drying all over the kitchen (draped off the ladles and butcher knife handles)! We’ve designed this little pine rack to serve as a convenient spot for you to dry your ReUsies (or even the occasional gallon size ZipLock I still use in the freezer – oh the shame:). This rack doesn’t take up much counter space and is a breeze to assemble. In fact, as you put it together you might have a little de ja vu’ back to childhood, we commissioned the same company that used to make Tinker Toys to manufacture them!
Tags:drying rack·ReUsies·Tinker Toys
I should have known better…we had an hour to kill between a play date and swim lessons and I made the mistake of taking my son to walk the aisles of Target. Has anyone ever gotten out of that place without spending money on things they never imagined needing until they went there??!!
As we walked like zombies up and down the aisles throwing things in the cart I stumbled upon, horror of horrors, THE BACK TO SCHOOL AISLE, it’s still July – come on, not yet! As we found ourselves being stared at by a shiny, plastic, big-eyed kitten notebook it reminded me of a local company called ReBinder. ReBinder makes all of the office supplies that it sells from recycled materials. Hmmmm rainbow pony princess binder or ReBinder? Maybe this year I’ll see if I can sell my kids on the idea of how cool it would be to carry “green” school supplies, there are some really fun things out there – check these links out:
www.ReUsies.com (come on you didn’t think I’d forget us:) - cutest reusable snack and sandwich bags on the market!
www.ReBinder.com sustainable office supplies
http://greenearthofficesupply.stores.yahoo.net pencils made of recycled blue jeans!
http://www.amazingrecycled.com recycled money rulers
Tags:back to school·eco-friendly·green school supplies·ReBinder·ReUsies
At risk of sounding like ”hey everyone I just discovered this great new thing called Facebook”, have you heard of Pandora? I just found out about it last week and LOVE it.
Let’s see how do I describe it…you set up an account (and it’s free!) and type in a song or artist that you like and it will play that for you – simple right? What makes it so great, however, is that it then analyzes a ton of other music and looks for certain qualities the song/artist you originally chose had and then it plays other things it thinks you would like. On their website they describe it as “… the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a crazy project started over ten years ago to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians”
I was listening last night and it was kind of freaky how I loved every song it played “just for me”…I encourage you to check it out!
Pandora is a new form of personalized internet radio that was designed to help you discover new music you’ll love, and enjoy music you already know.
Tags:Music·Music Genome·Pandora
So we’re doing our first “BIG” trade show right now, AmericasMart. As a small business it is a risk to head across the country to a trade show. The booth is expensive, the advertising is expensive, heck the airline ticket is expensive! But Becky, my fabulous, wonderful business partner (yes I am trying to make up for the fact I am not there!) dove into uncharted waters last week and headed to Atlanta, GA. We’ve been speaking every day and sounds like things are going great and it has really paid off for us. One of our goals this year has been to expand the wholesale side of our business and this is definitely the way to do it! If any of our readers are in Atlanta, stop by the ReUsies booth and say “hi”
Tags:AmericasMart·Atlanta·ReUsies·trade show
I knew that title would get your interest, it’s not that kind of Blog:)
As I sat at breakfast the other day explaining the BP Oil Spill to my 5 year old son as “a big screw going down into the bottom of the ocean” I realized I could use a little help putting such a complex problem into terms a child could understand. I did a little research and came across a great resource from the National Wildlife Federation (you know….Ranger Rick??). They have put together a great guide to help parents talk to kids about what happened. It is written in terms that they will understand and isn’t too scary or “doomsday”. There is even a section that tells kids what they can do to help (beyond just raising money and donating it). If you too are stumbling over the “giant screw cracking open the bottom of the ocean” metaphor it might be worth checking out!
Tags:BP Oil Spill·NWF·Ranger Rick
Do You Feel This Way Too!!
In case you can’t read the sign because the picture is too small it says: “Dear Bell and Yellow Pages, We all have a thing called The Internet, please stop wasting stuff!”
I just received my newest editions last week, is anyone happy to come home to see these on the front porch? I came across this picture on a funny site I check out from time to time when I need inspiration, jubbling.com you should pop over there and take a look. The guy that writes it has a great sense of humor and likes to focus on small changes (along the lines of choosing reusable items, taking mass transit, turning the thermostat down, composting, etc – things that seem pretty obvious) but he isn’t so “in your face” about the whole “Green Movement”. In fact, he pretty much hits the nail on the head when describing the Green Festival we were at a few weeks ago: “…something that you should know about Jubbling is that we try to avoid events with “green” in the name. Unlike Jubbling, green is such an overused term and often repels as many people as it attracts…” Sometimes, being in the industry we are in, we feel the same way. Isn’t there another not so over used term to replace being “green”, I kind of like the word “jubbling” instead!
Tags:green·jubbling
The typical school-age child that uses disposable items in his/her lunch creates an average of 67 pounds of garbage each year (more than the typical elementary school aged child weighs!) According to the EPA, the average sized elementary school generates 18,760 pounds of lunch waste per year. If those facts aren’t enough to get you on the “waste free lunch” bandwagon maybe I can speak to your wallet!
First and foremost we see ReUsies as a way to save thousand of plastic baggies from ending up in the landfills, but we don’t often focus on the other savings…money. There are tons of items out there to help you cut back on your waste but let’s just take a look at a couple:
- plastic bottles of water (@ $1.50 /1 per day) =$547.50
- alternative:reusable water bottle approx $10.oo
- savings: $537.50/year
- disposable plastic baggies (1 box of 50 ziplock bags costs approx. $4.00. If you use 3 per day for the year that is 1,095 bags) = $90.00/year
- alternative: 3 reusable ReUsies Snack and Sandwich Bags approx $20.00
- savings: $70.00/year
Oh, I forgot to mention the last bit of “savings” you can reap from choosing ReUsies. Saving your waistline! We all know that packing healthy snacks at home allows us to exercise portion control as well as controlling exactly what we eat. I am often amazed when we are out talking to people about our product how often I get the response “oh, my kids are grown I don’t pack food anymore”. I almost have to bite my tounge because I want to say “you should!” ReUsies aren’t only great for school/work lunches but equally as great if you are out at the shopping mall for the day (skip the Cinnabon), they are great if you are out playing 18 holes, skiing, hiking, biking, even taking your treat into the movie theater (shhhhhhhh…).
Tags:disposable·portion control·reusable·savings·waste free
I mentioned in an earlier post that my family owns a cabin on a lake about 80 miles from home. This cabin has a large gravel area for parking but no one bothered to lay down a weed barrier before they put the gravel down so it is a giant weed patch that we can’t mow. I know there a lot of you out there with your own giant weed patches wondering what to do and I am here to tell you I found the answer: Read below…
Of course my mom and dad think I should dump a few gallons of Round Up out there and call it a day (I think my mom’s exact words were “poison is good”). I can’t bring myself to do that since there are fish, salamanders, turtles, snakes, and more importantly my kids, that live in the water all summer long. The lake is about 50 feet from our weed patch and I might as well pour the Round Up directly into it. I did some research on-line and the only answers I found weren’t too helpful. There are two things that come up time and time again when you Google “natural weed killers”, the first is boiling water from a tea kettle. Really? Don’t you think if the patch was so small I could cover it with a tea kettle’s worth of water I would just yank the things out myself? The second option, which I have actually tried at home with limited success, was vinegar. Again, my area is just too big, even for the Costco sized vinegar bottle.
So here is what did work – a blow torch, or flame thrower if you prefer. I was talking to a friend whose neighbor chooses this type of weed control and so I took a chance and bought “The Inferno” at Lowes. I hooked this wand up to the propane tank from our gas grill and I was off. I must admit I felt a bit like Rambo out there burning all of the weeds up but it worked like a charm! A couple of caveats though: It is great for a big gravel parking lot, but not sure I’d use it around my home or anything else flammable. Also, choose your footwear wisely. In hindsight I guess Crocs probably weren’t the best choice. The soles now look like a piece of pizza covered with melted cheese. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this method – it was fairly inexpensive (about the same price as a big bottle of weedkiller), it was quick, it was easy, and it makes you feel really tough when you’re using your flame thrower:). Best of all though, was knowing that I wasn’t using any toxic products on the ground where my kids run barefoot or near the lake where we all play in the water.
OK, maybe a slight exaggeration....
Tags:natural lawn care·toxic products·weed killer
I just had to post this funny anecdote that happened today, it has nothing to do with my business, reusable snack bags, recycling, or anything green for that matter but I had to share! My daughter is a part of a choir group and today they had their “end of the year musical”. This much-anticipated event plays to packed pews in a neighborhood church. My husband, 5-year-old son, and I arrived early to get seats front and center and as soon as a hush fell over the audience my boy proclaimed (in a very loud voice) “MOM, LOOK AT GOD’S SIX-PACK ABS” as he stood pointing at the large statue of Jesus hanging on the cross (very thin, ribs showing, etc). Hmmmm, think I need to get my kids to church a bit more often? And who taught him “six-pack abs” anyways? - certainly not a term thrown around my own house very often!
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