Green Tips

Collect those bits and pieces of leftover soap. Heat water in a large pan and drop them in. Stir the mix till the pieces dissolve. Don’t put too many together as then they will not dissolve. Bottle the cooled mixture as a liquid hand soap. Vey useful in kitchens and bathrooms.
Alternatively put all the soap bits in a fine nylon mesh bag and tie it. You can now use it as a footscrub.

Chemical News on Chemical Use

This will be an ongoing list of websites and other resources on Chemicals of all types- use, misuse, pollution and other misscellaneous information you may like to find.

What you know, you cannot unknow and which of us will willingly poison our family and friends?
We can't deal with the chemical lobbies of the powerful governments. But we can stop using their products or atleast the most harmful of the substances.

This title will also contain several news about the effect of chemicals that scientists are just beginning to uncover.

pollutionissues.com  Especially see sections on Household pollutants, Indoor air pollution, Laws and regulations- Interantional, Carlson,Rachel Scientist and others

The A to Z of beauty baddies/George Blacksell in theecologist.org

reduce.org  see section Toxics at home -from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, provides some excellent information for all

Against Silencing Nature or Killing with Chemicals

They have been a part of our lives in many ways for the last century. They invade our homes, our bodies and now every part of the green planet. Much of the convenience of running our lives and our homes depend on chemical cleaning power. Crops depend on their killing power (of pests, etc.) But as we clean and kill our way through life, the Killer Chemicals are building up.

There is a lot of information out there on our use of chemicals and I will provide various links and cues for those who want ways to deal with this Frankenstein. Here, I give some excerpts from the introduction to the book.

She was one of the foremost environmentalist (yes, she was a woman)- Rachel Carlson. Few may be aware of her pioneering work back in the 1940s, USA. She launched a movement and was demonized by America’s chemical lobby. To put it in the words of Linda Lear who wrote the Introduction to the new edition of Carlson’s book, -

“In postwar America, science was God, science was male.

Carlson was an outsider who had never been part of the scientific establishment, first because she was a woman but also because of her chosen field, biology, was held in low esteem in the nuclear age….

In Carlson’s view, the postwar culture of science that arrogantly claimed dominion over nature was the philosophic root of the problem. (Isn’t it still!)

In 1962 however the multimillion dollar industrial chemical industry was not about to allow a former government editor, a female scientist without a PHD, or an industrial affiliation…..to undermine public confidence in its products or to question its integrity….She had overstepped the boundaries of her gender and her science. But just in case her claims did gain an audience, the industry spent a quarter of a million dollars (it was the 1940s, remember!) to discredit her research and malign her character….

Silent Spring compels each generation to re-evaluate its relationship to the natural world. In arguing that public health and the environment, human and natural, are inseparable, Rachel Carlson insisted that the role of the expert had to be limited by democratic access and must include public debate about the risks of hazardous technologies.”

Silent Spring has been published in its 40^th anniversary edition. Carlson’s other books include Under the Sea-wind, The Sea around us, The Edge of the Sea.

Her books do not provide dry facts but are a pleasure to read in their lyrical prose.

 Available from Flipkart and Amazon and various bookstores.

The Tailor’s Jacket - a recycling fable

A poor tailor was once given a bolt of cloth by a rich customer.
“You must use this for yourself,” said the customer. “You deserve a fine coat for the winter.”
The tailor was overjoyed. 

He set to work at once.
He measured and he cut.
He sewed and he sewed,
He sewed and he sewed…
And he made himself a fine new coat!
How the tailor loved that coat!
He wore that coat…
He wore that coat…
He wore that coat…
Until the coat was all worn out.

        

The tailor could see that, even though it was worn in places,
There was still enough material to …
Make a jacket!
So he measured and he cut.
He measured and he cut.
He sewed and he sewed.
He sewed and he sewed…
And he made a jacket!
The tailor was proud of his new jacket.
He wore that jacket everywhere.
He wore that jacket…
He wore that jacket…
He wore that jacket…
Until it was all worn out.
The tailor looked at the ragged jacket
He could see that, even though it was worn in place.
There was still enough material to..
Make a waistcoat!
So he measured and he cut
He measured ad he cut.
He sewed and he sewed …

And he made a waistcoat!

The tailor was proud of his new waistcoat.
He wore that waistcoat…
He wore that waistcoat…
He wore that waistcoat..
Until it was all worn out.

The tailor turned the waistcoat this was and that
He could see that, even though it was worn in places,
There was still enough material to …
Make a cap!

The tailor loved that cap!
He wore that cap everywhere
He wore that cap…
He wore that cap…
He wore that cap…
Until the cap was all worn out.

The tailor turned that cap around and around.
When he looked closely, he could see that, even though it was worn in places,
There was still just enough material left…
To make a button!

So he measured and he cut.
He measured and he cut.
He sewed and he sewed.
He sewed and he sewed…
And he made a button!

The tailor was proud of that button.
He wore that button everywhere.
He wore that button…
He wore that button …
He wore that button…
Until the button was all worn out.

The tailor was just about to throw the button away.
But he looked at it closely and saw…
There was just enough material there…

To make a STORY.

in Earthcare- world folktales to talk about by Margaret Read Macdonald

(image jewishpaintings.net)

World Environment Day

Convention says there must be an entry on this blog on World Environment Day. But is it really possible to make a change on something as all encompassing as the environment by devoting just a day to it?
Environ as the dictionary says is to encircle, surround. The environment surrounds and nurtures the earth. Without it there is no life and you don't need me to tell you about it. So devoting a day however well meant to spreading awareness is not enough.

Many are doing enough to reduce and recycle. But individual practices are swamped by commercial malpractices. Just think of any one super (and now you have hyper) markets. Do we really need that much of variety, that kind of choice between ten washing powders, thirty kind of soaps to name just a few? Is this reducing?

Reduce, reuse, recycle is the new mantra -of what use. We are not reducing anything -think of the number of clothes in our cupboards. Not that I am a saint, but I have learnt to give away stuff which I seldom use. And I do not replace it with others. There are favourites gracing the darkness of the cupboard for decades but they are now in single digits and not the double.

The same goes for our children's clothes. (Husbands and fathers normally have to be forced to buy their clothes on the eve of weddings and other crises). But children's clothes, including those of babies overflow; gifts, birthdays, outgrows all fight for space. No expense is spared when it comes to children's clothes.

My hearthcare and childcare consisted of buying my son just a minimum number of comfortable cotton clothes. Soon I stopped that too seeing that grandparents and aunts would forever supply necessary and unnecessary ones. So I started to tell them to buy only cotton and only filled in the gaps when he outgrew shorts and shirts.
With little girls the problem is multiplied a few times! Is this doing the environment much good when things still in wearable condition have to be thrown away? In India and other parts of Asia we give them away but the fact remains that there is a lot of clothes on this planet much of it not required. And urban children are being pampered to beyond anything that has happened before.
So if we all buy a little less we use a little less. Recycling can only work upto a point. The first part of the mantra is - REDUCE.
I call it Reductionist Hearthcare - you buy less, you waste less money; less clothes, less washing and laundry; less choice of what to wear, less bother.

Trees

Trees! Oh do we realize how much they are a part of our human psyche! Imagine a long road with large trees like protectors holding us in their embrace. Shade, fruit, medicine and oxygen. And we cut them down sometimes for slight discomforts.
India and Indian cities are being inexorably being converted into mini deserts. If a straight road is to be built atleast a few hundred trees are brought down. Of course then the 'Forest Department' plants some - normally thin twigs which die out in the summer heat. It seems there are no horticulturists and botanists in India - its not a fashionable profession to follow. And yes, we now have the date palms in place of large trees. The decorative kind.
It takes some trees thirty to forty years to grow. I have seen earlier shady roads replacing their trees with buildings. Would it be a great loss to have a little smaller house and a large tree shading it?
Like the legendary Kalidas, we are chopping the very branch on which we sit.

All cities should take a leaf from Singapore and the way it protects its green cover. Roads are a pleasure to walk on; apart from the convenience and the shopping malls it has large gardens, wetland conservation and trees lining almost every street large or small.
A treeless world is a bleak world, a hot world and a polluted world.

Click here to read more - http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles_various/man-and-trees-511.asp

 

Try using vinegar to remove grease. A 1:2 mix of vinegar and water put in a spraying can and sprayed onto glass and window surfaces is a very good grease remover. Spray onto the glass, then use old newspapers to rub dry. You can use the white chemical vinegar which is much cheaper than natural vinegars.

Calling all Carers - mothers and others

This site is from a homemaker and a hearthcarer to all the others out there, who care.

What we do in our homes affects what happens on earth. We care so much about our children's healths, their careers, should we not care about the world that they are going to live in, the one that they will inherit from us?

I intend to share with other hearth and earth carers my ideas, readings and impressions on my ways to care for the home and the earth. I believe cleaning the first should not pollute the second, savings in the home should translate into savings on the earth. And in the process I welcome ideas from all who care for their homes and for the earth.

In the globalised, commercialised and advertised world we live in 'green' is a fad, a selling point and sometimes a belief. Let's remember what we do today to the earth is what our children and our children's children will have to live with.

How much does the soap you use pollute the river. How best can we reduce our use of plastics - that horrible, unsightly stuff that litter the city and the countryside, that floats in the canal and the river.

Us homecarers believe in budgets, few of us can ignore rising prices. We need to get the most from our money and the most form the things we buy. Efficient running of the home, good food on the table, comfort and convenience for all - this is what we do and what we do well.

Consider how you housekeep, how you reduce wastage, how you make decisions as buyers. Then share these ideas with each other. Small ideas, little changes, a nip here and a tuck there can add up to bigger changes, make the earth a little cleaner, the air more breathable and the river with fewer plastics and pollutants in it.

We cannot halt global warming but we can share our hearth and earthcare ideas. Perhaps our children will then have a better earth; perhaps there will be time for someone to come up with a bigger solution.
For if we don't care for the future of the children who will? And there is nowhere else for to go.

Welcome

Home is where the hearth is.
From the beginnings, since we discovered fire the hearth has been the centre of the home. The hearth fire protected us from wild animals, cooked our foods and warmed us. Caring for the hearth was caring for the home.

Homes were built around hearths. And the words home and hearth were used together for a long time.

The Earth is our larger home - our only home. Early man worshipped her as a Goddess, ancient cultures still do.

Much of human existence was spent in controlling Nature and wresting a living from her. With today's technology we are not dependent on her as our forefathers were. We are proud of that. But the new ways of living with its technological successes allow us to wrest Nature's resources as never before.

But Nature takes only so much and the reactions are setting in. In a changing climate, in global warming, in the destruction of the earth's biodiversity.

Life in our cities and technological success makes us forget that we are part of this web - that all things are connected and what happens to the plants or animals today may happen to us in the coming years. Earth will adjust its balance give or take a million years. Evolution will probably let new species emerge.

But where will our children be in all this upheaval? Will our children survive? As carers of the hearth and home we need to become carers of the earth. We need to move from hearthcare to earthcare.