Tagged by Levi’s and Goodwill

I recently wrote about Levi’s Skinny Jeans made of organic denim. I also wrote about the importance of buying used clothing from thrift stores. I didn’t think these two topics would collide: Levi’s and Goodwill are joining forces with new tags encouraging consumers to donate her jeans to charity.  And they are using the environmental angle, “A care tag for our planet”, to reduce the number of clothes that end up in landfills every year. While this is fine and well…is it enough? Do people even READ the care tags on their jeans? Most people I know already donate their old clothes to charity, so would this even make much of a difference? Let us know what you think.

Wipey travel packs can be green! …and less expensive too!

If you are like me (and many other parents out there), you are probably easily persuaded to buy some nick nack or another that you see beautifully packaged in the stores.  It’s like a drug!  Well, one of the things that I always see people buying a ton of, is travel packs of wipes.  They are pretty handy since you can use the wipes for almost anything and they have resealable openings.   You can even find many different brands, including the “eco-friendly” brands like Earth’s Best, Seventh Generation etc.  But I have one big problem wit

h these: they are still small packs of wipes that are not easily refilled, and thus, end up creating more, unnecessary trash!

My solution: Make your own bag for travel wipes.

photo by: JAS Photography LLC at www.jasphotostudio.etsy.com

Here’s how: Get a quart sized resealable plastic bag (ziplock, glad – any brand works).  The zipper closure works better, longer than the press and seal type.  Then, take some wipes from your refill stash at home (you know, the big packs that you buy to refill your wipes at home) and put ‘em in the bag!  It’s that simple!  Fold the bag over and zip closed for an airtight seal that keeps the wipes fresh and  moist.  I use these EVERYWHERE.  I used to use this small hard box that I kept in my diaper bag, but it doesn’t fit that many wipes and it is not maleable when space is low in my diaper bag.  The plastic bag works great.    Even when I go on long vacations, I take a big pack of wipe refills from home, and keep refilling the plastic bag as I need.  I usually have a plastic grocery bag or two laying around somewhere, and I keep the open pack of wipe refills in there until I need them next.  They have never dried out on me.  I’ve been using the same plastic bag for several trips and on a day to day basis in my diaper bag without a problem!

Nothing comes for free: The one thing that is a little more difficult with this system, is taking out multiple wipes.  The store bought travel packs have a hard, small opening to take your wipes out of which keeps the rest of the wipes back and allows you to pull one wipe out at a time (keep in mind, this is more plastic that is wasted with each one you buy!).  The way I handle this is I take out 1 to 3 to whatever number of wipes I usually need before I get started, and then they are easy to access.  Makes me feel a lot better when I’m not throwing away those travel packs over and over again!  …and oh yeah…it’s a LOT cheaper too!

Any other ideas on how to save on resources?