Using Newspaper Around the House

To recycle is good; to reuse, divine. It’s great to recycle your newspaper, but if you can find a way to use it around your house, even better. Here are a few ideas for putting old newspapers to use:

1. Use them to wash windows. Make a spray of a 1/4 cup of vinegar and a quart or so of water, spray onto your windows or mirrors, and wipe with a sheet of crumpled newspaper. You’ll get a perfect, lint-free shine.

2. Packing material. If you are planning a move, or sending gifts through the mail, shred up some newspaper and use it as packing material in your boxes.

3. Add it to your compost pile. Newspaper counts as a “brown” in your compost pile. It adds carbon, and does a great job of drying out a compost pile that’s gotten a little too wet. Just rip it into strips and bury it in your pile. It will break down in no time.

4. Kill grass to make new garden beds. Simply lay three to four layers of newspaper over the grass, wet it down, and cover it with leaves, grass clippings, straw, compost or any other organic materials you have lying around. It will break down, kill the grass, and give you a perfect spot to plant. If you do this in the fall, you’ll have a bed ready for spring planting.

5. Use them to protect your tables when the kids work on craft projects. They’re free, absorbent, and plentiful—perfect if you have little crafters.

6. When hanging photos or artwork, make a template out of newspaper and tape it to the wall to get your placement right. This way, you won’t end up with a bunch of nail holes in your wall if you have to adjust the placement.

7. Use them as dropcloths when painting a room.

8. Wrap presents with them. If the recipient is into politics, or sports, or books, try using those particular pages of the newspaper to really personalize the wrapping.

9. Ball them up, and use them as filler in the bottom of large container plantings. It will save soil, make the container lighter and easier to move, and break down over time. Since it will settle, this is a better solution for containers that will be done in a season or so rather than a permanent planting.

10. Have a new puppy? ‘Nuff said.

There you have them: ten ideas for using old newspapers around the house!

Cold Water=Clean Laundry + Less Pollution

Wednesday is green:home day, when we offer simple tips to green up your home life.

Most Americans wash their clothing in warm water. The energy it takes to heat all of that water results in around 500 pounds of greenhouse gases per household being released into the atmosphere every year. And, it costs you money to heat all of that water! A better, and more Earth-friendly, option is to wash your clothing in cold water. Cold water will get your clothing perfectly clean, even without the addition of any special “cold water” detergents. Only items that are very dirty or grease-stained will need to be washed in warm water. For the vast majority of us, our daily lives don’t result in incredibly dirty laundry.

Another green point here is to only do laundry when you have a full load. This way you save water in addition to energy!

Kicking the Disposable Habit

Wednesdays are green:home day, where we bring you tips and ideas to make your home a greener place to live.

The deluge of disposable cleaning products in the marketplace has grown steadily over the last several years. You can’t turn on the television without seeing a commercial for Swiffer, Clorox Wipes, or Pledge disposable dusters. It all looks so easy: just clean and toss! No more cleaning after you’re done cleaning. It sounds great, but all of those disposables have to end up somewhere, and the more items we can keep out of our landfills, the better. Besides, how much sense does it make to spend good money on something you’re going to throw away?

To replace Swiffers:

Go back to using a normal broom and dustpan. Is it really that important to pick up every speck of dust on the floor? So the broom misses a teensy bit of dust….life’s too short.

If you have a dustmop around, these were the original Swiffers. They kind of look like mops on the end of a push broom. They’re perfect for dusting wood and tile floors.

If you already have a Swiffer, don’t toss it! You can wrap old t-shirts around the cleaning head, and continue using it. If you’re really crafty, you can hack your Swiffer ala Treehugger.

To replace disposable cleaning wipes:

My grandmothers always had old, ratty t-shirts and bath towels that they refused to throw away, because they were perfect for cleaning. My mother-in-law endlessly embarrasses her teenage son by keeping old (clean!) cotton underwear around for cleaning. My grandmothers did it out of frugality, which is a good enough reason—but it’s the epitome of earth-friendly, too. Buy or make eco-friendly spray cleaners, use your recycled cleaning clothes, and kiss disposables good-bye.

To replace disposable dusters:

Um. A duster. The non-disposable kind. One of your recycled rags will work, too.

There you have it, simple ideas to kick the disposable cleaning product habit. You’ll put less into the landfills, and you’ll save money too!