Today we have a special treat to help prepare us all for spring. Insects are pesky creatures, but if you're like me you don't really want to go around squishing them and killing them all day. Insects do serve a purpose on this earth, so repeling them naturally with earth-friendly materials is healthy for both your body and the earth. Here are a few different ways to repels pests using environmentally friendly items, thanks to a guest post from Bailey Harris who typically writes for car insurance, but also cares about the earth and it's health. Take it away, Bailey!
Commercial pest repellants can work very well when it comes to keeping pests away. But if you would rather not spray toxins on your skin or release chemicals into the air, there are more eco-friendly ways of getting rid of pests inside and outside your home. With a few simple and inexpensive ingredients, you can create your own natural pest repellants.
Mosquito Repellants
One inexpensive way to keep mosquitoes away is to put vodka in a spray bottle and spritz your skin with it. If you don’t want to walk around smelling like alcohol--it will leave a slightly stale odor--you can cut the scent by adding a little essence of basil or some other scent you enjoy. The basil will enhance the repellent quality while improving the odor. You can also make a non-alcohol spray solution by steeping three teaspoons of dried feverfew in one cup of hot water. Allow the mixture to cool and spray it on your skin.
Burning a citronella candle also works well if you're outside. The pests will avoid the area as long as the candle continues to burn. Unfortunately, if you’re moving in and out of the area you won’t be protected, and applying citronella directly to the skin won’t keep mosquitoes away for long. You’ll have to reapply often. Some people consider citronella to be toxic. The EPA considers citronella safe, but if you have concerns you may opt for a citronella-free essential oil candle made from soy wax.
Moth Repellants
If moths are your concern, there are eco-friendly alternatives to chemical moth balls. The most common substitute is probably cedar chips. Cedar chests are used to store woolen clothing for a reason--cedar repels moths. Placing your cloths in a cedar chest or sprinkling cedar chips in the closet will keep moths at bay.
Rosemary, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorn, and thyme are herbs that not only add flavor to your meals but can do double duty as a control for pests. They can be combined and placed in a sachet, and then hung in the closet to keep pests away while making the room smell good
Lavender and mint are other eco-friendly ways to enhance the odor of a room while repelling moths. As with the cloves, cinnamon, peppercorn, rosemary, and thyme, lavender and mint are attractive odors and can be placed in a bag and hung in your closet to provide protection from moths.
General Pest Repellant
Basil is a natural repellent for bugs. If you sprinkle basil leaves around the bottom of the cupboard or put them in an open container inside the cupboard the scent will keep the pests like ants and roaches away. Basil also works to keep pests from entering a home. Try sprinkling basil leaves around the house and in cracks in the cement or wood. Fresh basil plants can have a similar effect if plants strategically around the house.
Guest post from Bailey Harris. Bailey writes on many topics, including car insurance for http://www.carinsurancequotes.net/.
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest post. Show all posts
4 easy ways your child can be eco-friendly too
Today's post is a guest post by Tara Miller, a fellow writer who enjoys writing on a variety of subjects, particularly on the subject of psychology. This post is about helping your kids to learn how to become earth-friendly in an age-appropriate way. If you enjoy what you read here, send her an email using her email address below or feel free to leave a comment! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!
Small children can't purchase organic foods or energy efficient appliances. They can't swap out the furnace filter or take a quick trip over to the recycling mill on their own. But they can do other simple eco-friendly tasks around the house and community that can help them sustain the environment. Instilling these following green practices at a very young age will undoubtedly help them on their way to becoming environmentally-conscious and energy conserving young adults.
Switch the Lights Off. As a parent, it's important that the first thing you teach your child is the importance of conserving electricity. Explain to them that leaving on a light when they are not in the room will not only drain your wallet, but it will also encourage the depletion of the earth's resources as well. It's equally important that you explain to your child that leaving appliances or cords plugged in an electrical outlet when it is not in use is also draining power—so unplugging video gaming systems, the computer and cell phone chargers when they are not using them is a must. To help get started them and to make this a habitual thing, why not turning it into some kind of game? Challenge your child to unplug all the appliances that are not being used and reward them with something small if they do a good job—just make sure you warn them to steer clear of the refrigerator and other appliances that need to be on at all times.
Conserving Water. Small children can also do wonders for the environment simply by decreasing their water usages. One of the more common things that children (and adults) do is let the water run while brushing their teeth or lather up soap to wash their face. Instead, encourage your child to only use the water to wet his or her tooth brush and then when he or she needs to rinse out his or her mouth.
To stress the importance, you could always explain that by letting the water run non-stop, an innocent fish or turtle may be drained of the water supply it needs to survive. Or, you can let them watch this short video named "Don't leave the water running". Equally important, you want to try and encourage your child to take showers rather than baths since showers use less water. But you might also want to tell them that singing in the shower and doing other activities in the shower while the water is running (playing with toys for example) is also wasting water.
Walk, Bike, Take the Bus or Carpool. How your child gets to school is usually up to the discretion of the parent, but if the school is close enough why don't you encourage your child to walk or take a bicycle to school? If your child is too young, you can make it a family ordeal and walk or ride your bike to school all together. Using this mode of transportation will heavily decrease the levels of carbon released into the atmosphere—even if your child walks to school only a few days out of the week. Taking the school bus or organizing a carpool can be equally as effective at reducing smog—it'll save you a bundle on gas money too.
Recycle Together. Lastly, if you recycle allow your child to participate. Small children love being included in everything from cooking, washing the car to yes, even recycling. Allow them to help by sorting the different materials and explaining why we recycle in the first place. This one should be a breeze since even someone as young as 5 years-old knows how to identify a can made for plastic bottles from the one made for paper.
This guest contribution was submitted by Tara Miller, who particularly enjoys writing about psychology degrees. She welcomes your comments and can be reached at: miller.tara23@gmail.com.
Small children can't purchase organic foods or energy efficient appliances. They can't swap out the furnace filter or take a quick trip over to the recycling mill on their own. But they can do other simple eco-friendly tasks around the house and community that can help them sustain the environment. Instilling these following green practices at a very young age will undoubtedly help them on their way to becoming environmentally-conscious and energy conserving young adults.
Switch the Lights Off. As a parent, it's important that the first thing you teach your child is the importance of conserving electricity. Explain to them that leaving on a light when they are not in the room will not only drain your wallet, but it will also encourage the depletion of the earth's resources as well. It's equally important that you explain to your child that leaving appliances or cords plugged in an electrical outlet when it is not in use is also draining power—so unplugging video gaming systems, the computer and cell phone chargers when they are not using them is a must. To help get started them and to make this a habitual thing, why not turning it into some kind of game? Challenge your child to unplug all the appliances that are not being used and reward them with something small if they do a good job—just make sure you warn them to steer clear of the refrigerator and other appliances that need to be on at all times.
Conserving Water. Small children can also do wonders for the environment simply by decreasing their water usages. One of the more common things that children (and adults) do is let the water run while brushing their teeth or lather up soap to wash their face. Instead, encourage your child to only use the water to wet his or her tooth brush and then when he or she needs to rinse out his or her mouth.
To stress the importance, you could always explain that by letting the water run non-stop, an innocent fish or turtle may be drained of the water supply it needs to survive. Or, you can let them watch this short video named "Don't leave the water running". Equally important, you want to try and encourage your child to take showers rather than baths since showers use less water. But you might also want to tell them that singing in the shower and doing other activities in the shower while the water is running (playing with toys for example) is also wasting water.
Walk, Bike, Take the Bus or Carpool. How your child gets to school is usually up to the discretion of the parent, but if the school is close enough why don't you encourage your child to walk or take a bicycle to school? If your child is too young, you can make it a family ordeal and walk or ride your bike to school all together. Using this mode of transportation will heavily decrease the levels of carbon released into the atmosphere—even if your child walks to school only a few days out of the week. Taking the school bus or organizing a carpool can be equally as effective at reducing smog—it'll save you a bundle on gas money too.
Recycle Together. Lastly, if you recycle allow your child to participate. Small children love being included in everything from cooking, washing the car to yes, even recycling. Allow them to help by sorting the different materials and explaining why we recycle in the first place. This one should be a breeze since even someone as young as 5 years-old knows how to identify a can made for plastic bottles from the one made for paper.
This guest contribution was submitted by Tara Miller, who particularly enjoys writing about psychology degrees. She welcomes your comments and can be reached at: miller.tara23@gmail.com.
Guest Post: Greening Your Closet the Frugal Way
The following post is from a wonderful woman named Lisa Shoreland who offered to write this very detailed and in depth article about clothing. She is an experienced writer who recently had an epiphany on her consumer-based lifestyle and has begun looking at her life differently. Help me to support her in this, and share any other tips you may have regarding this subject.
Green is the new black on the runway, but most of us can’t afford what we see within ten miles of a fashion show. There are cheap ways you can make your closet more eco-conscious, however, and here’s why you should.
Cotton Is Deadly
Over 60% of the clothes we buy are made of it, but 150g of pesticides and fertilizers goes into cultivating enough cotton for just one adult-sized t-shirt. More than 8,000 chemicals bleach and dye the cotton after cultivation before it hits stores. By the way, just one drop of the pesticides used in making this t-shirt in your blood stream would kill you.
It ends up killing lots of people, in fact—and not the buyers. Over 75% of our cotton is cultivated in developing countries where workers can’t afford safety equipment, which means 20,000 workers die annually from pesticides used in cotton production alone.
Sweatshops Are No Secrets
After cultivation, 20 million people (most of them underprivileged women and children who earn as little as 8 cents USD an hour) work to manufacture the cotton into clothing, towels, underwear, and the like. They have no access to education, they have a family to send money to, and they work in unhealthy and horrendous environments that frequently cause complications leading to death.
Reports were leaked in 2008 that Victoria’s Secret subcontracts a sweatshop in Jordan whose Bangledeshi workers were “slapped and beaten, not paid their full overtime pay and labored from 7 a.m. to as late as 10 p.m., seven days a week with one day off every three of four months.”
Sadly, Victoria’s Secret isn’t alone; almost everything sold in stores today are made in sweatshops with little better conditions. The average short-sleeve t-shirt from American Apparel, a company which manufactures its products in downtown L.A. by fairly paid workers, will generally set you back anywhere between $10 and $20. You can get three t-shirts from WalMart for that price. Add “organic cotton” to that fair trade t-shirt and you’re looking at a price between $15 and $30 per shirt. Small wonder why: safety and dignity cost money.
Consuming, Polluting, Wasting
With all the suffering that goes into one t-shirt, you’d think we’d treat our closet like gold. Both in 2009 and 2010, however, the average American spent over $1,000 on clothing. The average American also throws away about 70 lbs of clothing and textiles away annually.
The question, then, is this: how much suffering is your money worth?
Alternatively, how much would you pay to destroy the ecosystem? By throwing away 70 lbs of non-organic fabric clothing in landfills annually, we are polluting the soil and our water systems with the very same toxins that go into them during the manufacturing process.
The Alternative
But enough with the drama. Many people simply don’t know about the chemical processes of the clothing industry and that children not much older than our own are working day and night so they can eat. Others don’t care.
I was such a person up until this year (really). I used to shrug and say, “If not them, then who? Somebody’s got to do it.”
That changed when I heard not long after New Year’s 2010 that my underwear and clothing godsend Victoria’s Secret was responsible for the abuse of hundreds of underprivileged workers. This was around the same time that I watched the BBC series “Blood, Sweat, and T-Shirts” on the Web. The two forces effectively K.O.-ed my spending habits. It dawned on me that my closet was full of biologically and ecologically harmful chemicals and the blood, sweat, and tears of disadvantaged people. I was a cog in the clothing industry’s machine, a useful tool in the perpetuation of profit and misery.
I was done. I am proud to say that I donated all clothes I would have otherwise thrown away and spent a total of $10 in 2010 on apparel (it was spent in a CVS of all places, when my two-year old pair of sandals finally broke and I was miles from home). Obviously, I can’t survive forever on the clothes I have now. I won’t be a size Small when I’m pregnant and I doubt I’ll be wearing sweater dresses and boots when I’m 80.
When I do get new clothes, however, I’ll be going down a different path this time.
Where Does the Frugal Part Come In?
Bio: Lisa Shoreland is currently a resident blogger at Go college, where recently she's been researching Nursing Scholarships and blogging about student life. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing and hogging her boyfriend’s PlayStation 3. To keep her sanity she enjoys practicing martial arts and bringing home abandon animals.
Did you like what you read here? Let me know, and I will pass it on to Lisa. If you have any other comments about clothing and it's effect on the world, please share them below. A huge thank you to Lisa for writing this very well-paced and well-informed piece.
Peace and serenity,
Simply Me
Green is the new black on the runway, but most of us can’t afford what we see within ten miles of a fashion show. There are cheap ways you can make your closet more eco-conscious, however, and here’s why you should.
Cotton Is Deadly
Over 60% of the clothes we buy are made of it, but 150g of pesticides and fertilizers goes into cultivating enough cotton for just one adult-sized t-shirt. More than 8,000 chemicals bleach and dye the cotton after cultivation before it hits stores. By the way, just one drop of the pesticides used in making this t-shirt in your blood stream would kill you.
It ends up killing lots of people, in fact—and not the buyers. Over 75% of our cotton is cultivated in developing countries where workers can’t afford safety equipment, which means 20,000 workers die annually from pesticides used in cotton production alone.
Sweatshops Are No Secrets
After cultivation, 20 million people (most of them underprivileged women and children who earn as little as 8 cents USD an hour) work to manufacture the cotton into clothing, towels, underwear, and the like. They have no access to education, they have a family to send money to, and they work in unhealthy and horrendous environments that frequently cause complications leading to death.
Reports were leaked in 2008 that Victoria’s Secret subcontracts a sweatshop in Jordan whose Bangledeshi workers were “slapped and beaten, not paid their full overtime pay and labored from 7 a.m. to as late as 10 p.m., seven days a week with one day off every three of four months.”
Sadly, Victoria’s Secret isn’t alone; almost everything sold in stores today are made in sweatshops with little better conditions. The average short-sleeve t-shirt from American Apparel, a company which manufactures its products in downtown L.A. by fairly paid workers, will generally set you back anywhere between $10 and $20. You can get three t-shirts from WalMart for that price. Add “organic cotton” to that fair trade t-shirt and you’re looking at a price between $15 and $30 per shirt. Small wonder why: safety and dignity cost money.
Consuming, Polluting, Wasting
With all the suffering that goes into one t-shirt, you’d think we’d treat our closet like gold. Both in 2009 and 2010, however, the average American spent over $1,000 on clothing. The average American also throws away about 70 lbs of clothing and textiles away annually.
The question, then, is this: how much suffering is your money worth?
Alternatively, how much would you pay to destroy the ecosystem? By throwing away 70 lbs of non-organic fabric clothing in landfills annually, we are polluting the soil and our water systems with the very same toxins that go into them during the manufacturing process.
The Alternative
But enough with the drama. Many people simply don’t know about the chemical processes of the clothing industry and that children not much older than our own are working day and night so they can eat. Others don’t care.
I was such a person up until this year (really). I used to shrug and say, “If not them, then who? Somebody’s got to do it.”
That changed when I heard not long after New Year’s 2010 that my underwear and clothing godsend Victoria’s Secret was responsible for the abuse of hundreds of underprivileged workers. This was around the same time that I watched the BBC series “Blood, Sweat, and T-Shirts” on the Web. The two forces effectively K.O.-ed my spending habits. It dawned on me that my closet was full of biologically and ecologically harmful chemicals and the blood, sweat, and tears of disadvantaged people. I was a cog in the clothing industry’s machine, a useful tool in the perpetuation of profit and misery.
I was done. I am proud to say that I donated all clothes I would have otherwise thrown away and spent a total of $10 in 2010 on apparel (it was spent in a CVS of all places, when my two-year old pair of sandals finally broke and I was miles from home). Obviously, I can’t survive forever on the clothes I have now. I won’t be a size Small when I’m pregnant and I doubt I’ll be wearing sweater dresses and boots when I’m 80.
When I do get new clothes, however, I’ll be going down a different path this time.
- Buy from secondhand stores like your local PTA Thrift Shop (but don’t support Salvation Army; see previous post for more). There’s no shame in going secondhand—it keeps old clothes in circulation, which means less chemicals in our earth. Plus, vintage is always in.
- If you must buy new, buy organic and fair trade. Look for the fair trade logo, and don’t cheap out on organic cotton if you've got a newborn baby in the house. A baby’s skin is much more sensitive than ours.
- Recycle old clothes or swap them with friends to add variety to your wardrobe. You can try your hand at DIY to remodel old clothes into new things, like a pair of underwear made out of your favorite old t-shirt , a cute bag made out of Dad’s old ties, or a reusable shopping bag made out of your hubby’s shirt. Remember, reuse, upcycle, and recycle are still keywords when it comes to your closet!
Where Does the Frugal Part Come In?
- Remember that if you document the prices clothing you donate, you can write it off your taxes.
- Buying vintage often means buying cheap.
- Swapping, recycling, and upcycling are free! These combined will more than make up for the monetary cost of buying organic.
Bio: Lisa Shoreland is currently a resident blogger at Go college, where recently she's been researching Nursing Scholarships and blogging about student life. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing and hogging her boyfriend’s PlayStation 3. To keep her sanity she enjoys practicing martial arts and bringing home abandon animals.
Did you like what you read here? Let me know, and I will pass it on to Lisa. If you have any other comments about clothing and it's effect on the world, please share them below. A huge thank you to Lisa for writing this very well-paced and well-informed piece.
Peace and serenity,
Simply Me
Guest Post: Seven Steps toward Greener Pets
In a first for Simply Green, we have a wonderful guest post from Jean Dion, a wonderful pet and animal lover who cares about the environment and compassion towards other living things. She loves animals and writing (much like me!) and has offered very sweetly to contribute this very insightful piece to those of you who enjoy reading my posts. So enjoy, let me know what you think, and if you love animals pop on over to her site and read her very helpful and insightful posts.
Having companion animals can be hard on the environment. Taking a few simple steps can help you reduce the impact of your pets.
All of the topics above were covered in more detail on my blog: dionjean.blogspot.com
Please visit to learn more about how to green up your pets, and to read the day's musings.
A big thank you to Jean Dion for this post, and I hope that the pet owners out there find it helpful! I personally have two pets and they are very near and dear to my heart. I appreciate that each person's opinion and method of caring for their pets in a responsible manner is their own to make, and I hope that these tips are helpful to those who are looking for more information.
If you want more information on homemade pet food, check out Beth Terry's method of making her own cat food with barely any plastic waste.
Of course, reduction may be more important to you in the reference of poop bags. If this is the case, reuse the bags you have or that your family may have collected. You can be sure that people without pets tend to hoard produce bags, bread bags, etc simply because they feel bad throwing them out. If you ask for them for your dog, I would say at least 90% of them would give them to you without blinking.
If you are trying to cut down on your clay consumption (cat litter) and don't want to contribute to non-nutritious forms of corn consumption (corn based cat litter) you could always try potty training your cat, like Mark and Melanie of NoNewPlastic.com
Have any other tips, tricks or ideas on keeping the planet healthy while enjoying the company of pets? Feel free to share them here, or if you don't want your words made public send me an e-mail (or click the Contact Me tab).
Peace and serenity,
Simply Me
Having companion animals can be hard on the environment. Taking a few simple steps can help you reduce the impact of your pets.
- Reduce your passive energy consumption. Look around your home for items you keep plugged in for your animals. I have removed an automatic scooping litter box, a kitty water fountain and an automatic pet feeder from the grid at my house. This means I must wash the pet dishes and clean out the cat box every day, and remember to feed my pets at the same time each day, but I have also reduced my drain on the grid.
- Spay and neuter your pets. Consider the number of animals that are euthanized every day at animal shelters or given away on Craigslist, Kijiji or even local newspaper classifieds. Most of these animals are adults, thrown away when they were no longer cute and cuddly babies. You can reduce this waste and cut down on pet overpopulation by making sure your own pets do not reproduce.
- Purchase environmentally friendly cat litter. Many commercial cat litters are made with sodium bentonite, which is harvested in disastrous ways. You can read more here. I have recently switched my cats to World's Best Cat Litter, made of corn. My cats are still transitioning to this cat litter, and it is a bit of a struggle, but the benefits are well worth the work.
- Purchase biodegradable pickup bags for your dog. It's always bothered me to see people placing a biodegradable substance (poop) in a perfect, plastic coffin. Biodegradable bags solve that problem. You can buy them here.
- Put a bell on your cats, if they go outside. Cats left outside can decimate local bird populations, and cats will kill birds regardless of the food you leave out for them. If it is at all possible, leave your cats indoors. (I do not advocate a cat-inside-only existence only because doing so would be hypocritical. I have three feral outdoor-only cats.)
- Purchase durable dog toys. Most dogs, if given half the chance, will rip the heads and arms right off a toy in order to get to the poly filling. Many owners will then toss these toys right in the landfill. Before buying a toy, try to pull it apart yourself. If your dog is a power chewer, only allow him to play with the toy for a short period of time before you remove the toy. My pug, Liam, loves to destroy toys. I repair them. This explains why his toys all look like mutants.
- Research your pet food. Look for food produced locally, to help cut down on energy costs used in shipping food. If at all possible, make your own food using local, organic ingredients. Do your research and consult with your veterinarian before taking this course, naturally.
Please visit to learn more about how to green up your pets, and to read the day's musings.
A big thank you to Jean Dion for this post, and I hope that the pet owners out there find it helpful! I personally have two pets and they are very near and dear to my heart. I appreciate that each person's opinion and method of caring for their pets in a responsible manner is their own to make, and I hope that these tips are helpful to those who are looking for more information.
If you want more information on homemade pet food, check out Beth Terry's method of making her own cat food with barely any plastic waste.
Of course, reduction may be more important to you in the reference of poop bags. If this is the case, reuse the bags you have or that your family may have collected. You can be sure that people without pets tend to hoard produce bags, bread bags, etc simply because they feel bad throwing them out. If you ask for them for your dog, I would say at least 90% of them would give them to you without blinking.
If you are trying to cut down on your clay consumption (cat litter) and don't want to contribute to non-nutritious forms of corn consumption (corn based cat litter) you could always try potty training your cat, like Mark and Melanie of NoNewPlastic.com
Have any other tips, tricks or ideas on keeping the planet healthy while enjoying the company of pets? Feel free to share them here, or if you don't want your words made public send me an e-mail (or click the Contact Me tab).
Peace and serenity,
Simply Me
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