I know this isn’t pet related exactly, but it’s so exciting to see that brilliant ideas like this are being generated. Imagine if we could start building these sorts of roads right away! I know these sorts of things might be a ways off, but consider how much of an impact this plan could have. Real life Jetsons stuff!
Here’s a super easy thing to do to help clean up the oil spill – there is a great nonprofit organization called Matter of Trust that collects human and pet hair and old nylon stockings to make “hair booms” and hair mats that do a remarkable job of soaking up oil (right at the end of this video is a great demonstration of this). This is turning into a large-scale fiber recycling movement nationwide, and here are three easy ways for you to help.
First, contact your local human and pet salons and let them know how easy it is for them to make a difference – they just collect hair in a plastic bag lined boxes and ship it off to Matter of Trust to be made into booms. Did you know 300,000 pounds of hair are cut every day in the US? Combine that with the amount of pet hair that is cut and you have an amazing resource.
Second, you can collect your own pet’s hair and bring it to a salon that’s participating (their website has information on how to find salons in your area). In the Portland area, you can bring your hair to Pawsitively Clean on Hawthorne – they’ve been collecting hair for Matter of Trust since 2001!
Third, donate to Matter of Trust – $61 buys a 150 foot roll of the plastic netting that goes on the outside of the nylon booms that will be used to soak up oil.
It’s not uncommon for people to come into the store looking for ways to keep cats out of their flower beds. I myself have had a nasty experience or two in my own gardens, digging away, enjoying the feel of dirt between my fingers, and then coming up with something soft and smelly. Cat feces can also carry toxoplasmosis, to add to the fun of the experience. Not only that, but people complain when the sun hits the flowerbed under their open window, that the stench rises up and makes them miserable. I cringe when customers say their indoor outdoor cat doesn’t use a litter box – “they just go outside”. Meanwhile, their neighbors are cursing them and coming to our store looking for a magical spray that might repel cats from their nice garden filled with plants they might like to eat some day.
Trouble is, I’ve never really found a spray or powder that is all that effective at repelling cats, (or dogs that might want to dig in all that freshly turned soil). The worst part (more…)
I’ve often been frustrated when yet another phone directory is plonked onto my front porch. I don’t really use them any more – this computer here does a good job of finding things. Not only that, but there are multiple companies putting out yellow page type books, so volume after volume gets delivered, making me feel such sadness at the waste. This nonprofit org is working on changing all of this – even though there is no current mandatory opt out list available (like the National Do not Call list), they are advocating for making Yellow Page delivery optional: ‘I’ll order one if I want it’. This would be a huge step towards cutting the enormous waste in resources from making, shipping, and delivering these huge books that people might just be throwing away.
Here’s a link that helps you to opt out of Yellow page delivery if you so desire:
Times are tough and beds can be expensive. I found a couple of cute links for making pet beds out of things you might have lying around the house. Save money and recycle household items that might otherwise be landfilled.
Check out this link for how to make a cat bed out of an old sweater.
This is a very simple bed to make. It would be a perfect cover for an old bed pillow of your own that you’ve retired.
This link is for making a chew resistant dog bed out of old jeans
Check out this collection of links with other clever ideas such as using old suitcases and even an office chair turned into cat furniture.
Here’s a nifty You Tube video about how to make a simple pillow out of jeans legs
Here’s a dog bed with a bolster back
This is a great link to a site that illustrates the importance of cutting back the use of plastic bags globally. Great photos and quick facts – worth sharing this link with others! Portland is currently considering a measure banning or requiring a charge for plastic bags. If people are so intent on cutting our dependence on oil, they should support the ban on plastic shopping bags – according to this piece, China will save 37 million barrels of oil this year due to their ban of free plastic bags. When you visit the link, the scroll bar is alongside the pictures. Pass it along!
I just took a flight out to the east coast to visit friends and my folks. I was fairly shocked to realize that none of the 3 airlines I was on recycled their aluminum cans. It may seem like a little thing to worry about, but according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 780 million people took a flight in 2007. In looking around the plane, it seemed that about 75% of passengers used an aluminum can. When they come around to collect trash, it would be super easy to have two bags instead of one. The end result would be the same volume of refuse, but the can bags could be easily sent to recycling. The key to this equation, I believe, is that the airlines could be making money from this practice. I know that there are plenty of recycling companies that buy aluminum in large quantities, and will even pick them up. In these days of collapsing airlines due to financial constraints, wouldn’t it just make sense to be looking for ways to stretch their dollar? Couldn’t they also be using this practice as a PR move, showing us they’re getting in on the Green movement? (more…)
If you have pets that come in contact with your lawn, Beneficial Nematodes are an excellent weapon to use against fleas and their larvae. These Nematodes are microscopic and live below the soil surface. They like a moist environment, so our warm wet springs are a perfect time to apply them. As flea larvae emerge, they are eaten by hungry nematodes. Nematodes do not harm worms, birds, plants or the environment, in fact they are part of the environment and are found the world over.
Beneficial Nematodes are sold live on sponges that can be stored under refrigeration for a week or two before use. A few gallons of water is used as a carrying agent. This concentrate can be applied through a pump sprayer or with the use of a watering can. (more…)
Whoops! I’m coming in a bit late on this one, but there’s still time! From March 16th through Saturday March 22nd, The Tap Project (a UNICEF-founded project that started in NYC and now has spread to other cities across the nation) invites people to dine out at participating restaurants and donate as little as $1 for their glass of water. Money raised goes to providing safe drinking water to children in developing nations. Check out the website for the Tap Project and click on “restaurants” to see the cities and their participating restaurants. You can also donate on that website. One great thing to do even if you don’t plan on dining out: get this website into the hands of your favorite restaurant, and encourage them to participate next year.
For every dollar raised a child will have 40 days of safe drinking water. Having just done a posting on our country’s bottled water habit, I feel like this could be a bit of a way to make up for our wasteful ways. Being conscious of wastefulness when other people don’t have the luxury of being wasteful with their resources is a big step in the right direction for creating a sustainable lifestyle, don’t you agree?
It’s beginning to be outrageous to me that people are drinking so much bottled water without realizing its tremendous environmental impact. Though the nutritionally aware part of me is glad that people are drinking water instead of soda, the sheer volume of bottled water consumed has created a product with enormous impact. Though many other beverages also travel a great distance to consumer, these beverages do not flow from your home faucet nearly for free.
Things to consider:
You’re paying a huge amount of money for something that may or may not be as good for you as your tap water (and up to 40% of bottled water is simply tap water, bottled). If you’re worried about quality, you can buy a great faucet filter for not much money- if you add up what you’re paying per gallon of bottled water in a year ($1-$2 per bottle, vs. .0015 cents per gallon of tap water), you might be surprised at the total – what else could you have purchased with that money?
I love this quote from this fantastic article from Fastcompany.com : “In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It’s so good the EPA doesn’t require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.” (more…)
