I used to think sustainable living meant a Mason jar for every pantry good and a closet full of beige linen. Then I had a baby. Then I had two. The Mason jar dream got real comical real fast. So I stopped trying to be the Pinterest version of sustainable, and I started doing the…
The first time I made a batch of my new non-toxic disinfectant spray, my son pulled up a stool and watched the whole thing. “Mom, this looks like an alchemy lab.” He wasn’t wrong. He was five then. Now he’s 11 and can make a batch himself. What he was watching was a tiny capsule…
You don’t need a cabinet full of chemical sprays to keep bugs out of your house. Most conventional bug sprays contain organophosphates or pyrethroids, synthetic chemicals designed to attack the nervous systems of insects. The problem? They’re not great for human nervous systems either. The EPA has flagged several common pesticide ingredients for potential links…
We used to live in a city that took recycling seriously. Curbside compost. Color-coded bins. We separated everything, rinsed everything, felt good about everything. Then we moved to the mountains. There is no recycling here. No compost pickup. We load our trash into the truck and haul it to the local dump ourselves. When people…
Every year, the average American household throws away roughly 30 plastic cleaning product bottles. That’s just the bottles. Add in paper towels, disposable wipes, dryer sheets, sponges, and single-use refill cartridges, and the waste from cleaning alone is staggering. All of it to make your home clean. Which is ironic, if you think about it….
Eco-friendly living has an image problem. It looks expensive. It sounds judgmental. It feels like you have to overhaul everything at once and buy a bunch of bamboo products you didn’t need in the first place. The irony of “sustainable living” requiring a $200 shopping cart of new stuff is lost on nobody. Here’s what…
The biggest mistake people make when trying to reduce plastic kitchen waste: they throw everything away and buy all new stuff. Glass containers. Stainless steel straws. Silicone bags. Bamboo utensils. Beeswax wraps. All at once. That’s $100-$200 in “sustainable” products to replace things that still work perfectly fine. The plastic containers in your cabinet aren’t…