BLULOW (All About Living Green)

After my last post on one year of using homemade laundry detergent, I was lambasted for the amount of water I use for washing clothes.

Mark found my water usage “repulsive,” while Dee Dee couldn’t figure out, ” what are you washing so much of?”

As I’ve said over and over again, living green is all about making choices one choice at a time. Part of my journey to green living is learning and incorporating new, greener habits. Converting from a top loading to a front loading washing machine not only cut down on my water usage, increased the laundry load size, but it also is an energy and detergent saver.

After seeing how other people are getting by with only four to six loads of laundry a week (for the life of me I don’t know how they do it), I decided to try an experiment. I’m going to do my best to reduce my laundry loads to four to six per week. I’m going in with an open mind and a closed nose.

I’ll turn my back on the mounting basketball practice and game jerseys. I’ll cover my nose at the football practice gear. I’ll also walk away from the pile of clothes dirtied from the construction job. All of the sweaty running gear will sit in a basket and wait until I’m ready to do the four to six loads. After all, what’s a little stink when you’re trying to live green?

Consider this post an open invitation for constructive tips on how to cut back on loads of laundry to a mere four to six times a week. Those four to six loads must incorporate all of the clothes, sheets, towels and any other washable items. I must stress, however, that I’m looking for constructive tips on how to accomplish this. Unfortunately, after viewing a few of yesterday’s posts which did not contribute to the discussion and brought nothing but unnecessary negativity and condemnation, I feel it’s necessary to request constructive and useful tips only.

I’m looking forward to your tips.

We are so accustomed to adding a cleaning additive to our water in order to clean anything. Have you ever tried cleaning your windows with just water first?

Just for grins, fill a spray bottle with water. Use it to clean your windows before you attempt to use a cleaning additive (even if the additive is vinegar). You’ll be pleasantly surprised that water can take care of most ordinary dirt on windows.

Of course, there are times when water just won’t cut it. Then you can escalate your cleaning efforts by adding vinegar.

I found out several years ago as the owner of a dog who, for one reason or the other, liked to lick our sliding glass door windows. For the life of me I couldn’t figure this little quirk out. Anyway, I couldn’t use the usual window cleaner for fear of poisoning my beautifully odd pup.

I took water, put it on a paper towel and cleaned the windows. I was surprised that it did a great job. The long and the short of it is, try water first. Oh, and the pup…he gave up licking windows. Now he just chews anything that is within his reach.

Rather cryptic title, but knowing that this blog is all about making green choices, you’ve gotta guess where I’m going with this entry. Yep, it’s all about water conservation and turning off the faucet in the morning when you brush your teeth and/or shave.

I’m not going to spout statistics of how many gallons of water you waste if you leave the faucet running while you brush and shave. No rant or tirade about water conservation. I’d like for you to see for yourself how much water you’re using and then you decide what to do.

Here’s a two-day experiment:

Day 1: Put a large bowl in your sink to catch all of the running water you normally use when you brush your teeth and shave. Don’t scrimp. Follow your usual water consumption pattern.

When you’re done, measure how much water you used. If you’re having a difficult time determining how much water you’ve used, pour the accumulated water into an old gallon sized milk container or some other container that will give you a true idea of how much water you use.

Day 2: Using the same large bowl you used on day one (after you’ve cleaned it out of course), brush your pearly whites and shave, but this time, only use the water when necessary. Don’t keep the water running while you’re doing your usual morning face check (you know the one where you check for wrinkles, moles and test out your latest top fashion model moves).

Just like on day 1, measure the amount of water you used.

The fun part

Ready for a little fun? Take the water measurement from day 1 and multiply it by 365. Do the same thing for day 2’s water measurement (in case you didn’t guess, 365 is for your morning water consumption each day of a non-leap year).

Subtract day 2’s water usage total from day 1’s total usage. The resulting number will give you the amount of water you will conserve each year by shutting off the water when you brush and shave. See, water conservation isn’t so difficult. All you have to do is continue to brush and shave as you did on day 2 of the experiment.

A phrase that I’ve come to love and hate is: “When you know better, you do better.”