Is Your Bathroom a Truck Stop on Route 17?

Route 17 comprises over 400 miles of well traveled road that extends from Northern NJ through Western New York State to the Pennsylvania border.  Thousands of trucks travel the road every day bringing goods and services to the region.  A businessman or a family that travels frequently gets to know which rest rooms are "safe" which is code for, "they clean the place regularly." The soap and paper dispensers have been refilled and the place smells of bleach and other chemicals.  Whoever cleans has to be quick and efficient and little thought is given to the cleaning product that is used. Still you're grateful that the restroom is in decent shape considering that hundreds of people march through there every day.
I thought about this scenario a few years ago when I was cleaning my own bathroom.  Before I began I opened the front door of the house, the slider going out to the deck and the window in the bathroom.  Sequentially I sprayed a myriad of products around this 6 ft by 5 ft space-shower cleaner, bowl cleaner, sink cleaner and floor cleaner. Halfway though the process I ran out of the room to breathe some fresh air because I was starting to get dizzy.  My head was pounding and the chemical smells were making me woozy.  That's when it hit me; "Why am I cleaning this bathroom like it's a truck stop on Route 17?  Two responsible adults are the primary users of this bathroom.  No child with bad aim has used the room in the past week and I'm cleaning the place as if were a public loo off the highway."  That was it for me.  My cleaning epiphany.  Like the rest of America I had been duped into thinking I needed a product for every surface.  The TV commercials and print ads had gotten to me.  I thought I needed a separate cleaner for the tub and another for the bowl and another for the floor.  And the products needed to be really strong to get the job done. Each product must have anti bacterial properties to work effectively.  And the lovely smell that's infused in each product-I needed that too.  Yes, lemony fresh  was the way to go.  Until I got dizzy and felt a migraine coming on.  That's when I realized there's was a better way to clean.  A new idea called green cleaning was hitting the industrial market.  New York State worried about the rise of asthma and respiratory related illnesses among school age children was about to pass legislation demanding that traditional cleaning products be replaced with less toxic cleaners that cleaned as effectively as conventional cleaners.  Well if its good enough for the kids at PS 19 then its good enough for me.  Out went the 5 cleaners I used for one small bathroom and in came a lightly scented multi purpose cleaner that had been manufactured to the new green standards.  I could throw away the face mask and haz mat suit.  I no longer had to throw open all the windows even if it was 30 degrees outside. My green cleaner cleaned and shined as well as the other products I had been using.  So unless you're hosting a longshoreman's convention in your house and your boss buys only traditional cleaners, take a tip from me and get rid of all those caustic chemicals and find yourself a good green cleaner.

Chubby Chemicals

Childhood obesity is talked about by everyone from the First Lady to your kid's teacher. Newspapers and magazine articles tell us that Americans are getting bigger by the minute.  Is it ALL because of poor diet choices and inactivity? Perhaps not.  In a report prepared by Erika Schreder of the Washington Toxics Coalition, Ms. Schreder makes the case for the link between chemicals and the obesity epidemic.  A growing body of research finds that toxic chemicals may be affecting our metabolism and making it hard to lose weight.

Many chemicals are known hormone disruptors.  Chemicals found in our food, home and at work, have been implicated in metabolic issues.  These chemicals include phthalates, bisphenol A, PCP's and chemicals used to make non-stick pans. This report was published by the very fine organization Safer Chemicals/Healthy Families. For a more detailed look at this study please go to http://www.saferchemicals.org/resources/obesity.html 

Wanna Be Green, Ask Your Grandmother OR Everything Old is New Again

A few months ago I was asked to speak to a group of seniors about going green. About 10 women with a median age of 80 greeted me and said earnestly,  "We're so happy you're here.  We really want to learn how to be green." 
And so I began my introduction; "How many of you have a garden?", "How many of you get your shoes re-soled instead of buying a new pair?", "How many of you keep an empty box to use for future mailings?", "Did your younger children wear the out-grown clothes of their older siblings?"  And so it went.  You get the gist of the conversation.  All these ladies were so excited to discover that they've been green for years.

A colleague recently commented that when people think about going green they think about installing solar panels on their house.  The notion of green confuses and scares them.  Who's got money to pay for solar panels these days? Well, here at snappy green, we're here to remind you that you've probably been green for years and maybe didn't realize it.

Take my mother for instance.  A practical woman if there ever was one. Like a lot of mothers on our block on Staten Island, she had a solar powered clothes dryer.  "Why waste electricity on such a beautiful day. I'll dry these sheets in God's sunshine and they'll be beautiful by Noon"  No argument there.  Who doesn't like the smell of line dryed sheets
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We were a family of 5 children but my mother, a child of the depression, cooked for 10.  Plus you never knew who might stop by.  Waste food-never.  She carefully wrapped left over food, placed it in the fridge and the next day announced "Repeat Performance Tonight."

My mother had a draw full of bakery string used for a myriad of purposes such as school projects, fixing the cookoo clock and pulling loose baby teeth. 

If she walked into a well-lit empty room she'd yell, "We don't have stock in Con Edison. Turn the lights off when you leave a room please."  Auto timers for room lights?  My mother would think that madness.  And she'd be right.  Why can't people turn off the light themselves? 

I don't believe my mother ever bought glass cleaner.  She cleaned the windows with vinegar and water wiped clean with balled-up newspaper.  And her windows sparkled.

So here's your tip for the day.  If you want to be green, go ask the original greenies, the children of the depression.  Go talk to your grandmother.

Have a tip you learned from one of the original greenies?  Post it here.  And turn those lights off-it looks like luna park in here!