Lobbyists for a Day

Today we joined 600 other Wisconsinites at Conversation Lobby Day...here is what I said to Senator Risser.

Senator Risser, We brought our sons, Nate and Ben with us today, because conservation is about them and their future.

The highlight of our summer is our trip to the north woods to our grandparents' cabin on Lake Tippicanoe. Nate and Ben are two of the best froggers in Wisconsin. If there are frogs...they can find them. But each year it is harder and harder to find frogs. Each year, the level of our beloved Lake Tippicanoe is lower than the last. Water levels have fallen over 2 feet in the past few years. Folks who grew up on Lake Tippicanoe tell us what is used to be like..."so many frogs they kept you awake at night"...I don't want Nate and Ben to have to tell their children what Wisconsin "used to be like."

Senator Risser will you support legislation to protect all of Wisconsin's lakes, rivers and wetlands by basing ground water withdrawals on scientific standards and requiring a statewide water conservation program?

This is one of four conservation priorities that we presented to Senator Risser and Rep. Berceau's aid. Luckily for us, both our legislators have a strong committment to conservation and most of our job was to thank them for their work so far and urge them to continue.

After our long day as lobbyists...we treated ourselves to Coldstone Creamery ice cream. Treats are important to lobbyists.

What does 3 pounds look like?

Our trash weighed 3 lbs again this week. So our challenge for this last week of February is...can we get our trash below 3 pounds? Stay tuned......

Two Cool Resources

Recycle #5 plastic
Here's a new option to keep #5 plastic out of our landfills. It takes some effort, not all that convenient but it is better than what we had before...which was nothing. With Gimme 5 you can mail #5 plastic containers to Preserve to be recycled or drop them off at participating Whole Foods. Those of you in Madison WI...we are a participating site. Yea!! They also recycle Brita filters

Shopper's Peace of Mind
Each time we make a purchase..we vote with our dollars. Want to make sure you $$ is supporting responsible business..but don't have time to do the research. No problem...Responsible Shopper has done the work for us. You can search by company name and find out about their record related to human rights, social justice and environmental sustainability.

I'm going to lose 41 pounds this year!

The average amount of junk mail each of us gets each year is
..you guessed it..41 pounds.

41 pounds is also the name of an organization that will (for $41) stop your junk mail for 5 years (that's $8.50/year). If you have more than one person at your address....they will stop their junk mail too.

Mark and I decided this is a business we want to support. The registration was fast and easy.

I got six postcards that were pre-printed..all I had to do was sign, put postage on and mail them. I did have to go to the Direct Marketing Association Website and sign myself up for the do -not-mail database ( while I was there I signed up to get off email junk lists too!)

Here's to losing 41 pounds this year!!

Hat tip to my sister Beth for telling me about 41 pounds( and signing up before we did!)

Photo credit: Flickr viriyincy

Why I love Willy Street Coop

1.They have the biggest bulk section in Madison. I even bought baking powder in bulk.
2. They carry more local produce and products than any other store.
2. Everything is clearly labeled. You can see at a glance which products are local....the tags are purple.
4. They support the community through community grants and a community room for education and meetings.
5. The first part of their newsletter is questions and suggestions from shoppers. Each of which is answered. Whenever they can they add a product that is suggested. If they can't add it, they tell you why.
6. They research products and share the results. They researched mercury in tuna and told shoppers which products they thought had the least amount of mercury ( they actually said they would rather not carry tuna at all..but since there was demand...they wanted to help us make informed choices.)

If Willy Street was a little closer this would be the only place we would shop. As it is, we have made a commitment to shop there at least once a month. We have to support sustainable, community focused stores!!

In case you are wondering...Nate was so excited about chores this week..he took the trash out before we could weigh it. Now we will have to be in suspense another week before we find out how we are doing. Stay tuned........

Why I love Freecycle

You can post things you want to give away for free. For instance when we moved I had some bricks to get rid of ...and you can't put bricks in the trash. I posted a description on Freecycle...within hours I had multiple people who wanted them. By the next day..they were gone.

We adopted some pet rats this summer...we put a question out on Freecycle about a cage. Within the week...we had a cage ( it was even delivered to our door!!)

Want to know more...go to Freecycle.

Three Pounds

That is how much our trash weighed this week. One pound was the packaging from take out pizza from our celebration :( Here is what we learned.
1. We were very conscious of what we threw away this week.
2. Our heaviest trash is food waste. We don't have a disposal so we know when and how much food goes in the trash vs compost.
3. We asked the boys and their friends to be more conscious of taking only what they would eat. The kids really took this to heart.
4. Both Nate and Ben forgot to take silverware for their school lunch. Neither wanted to use plastic silverware from school ..so both were creative about how they ate their lunch ( no photos of this.)

One question that came up...if we find trash outside and bring it home..does it get added to our weight. Decision: No. We don't want any incentive for not picking up trash we see outside.

Can We Fix It?

In case you have been wondering why we were taking appliances shopping....we weren't...we were taking them here- to Keifer's on Monona Drive, the only small appliance repair shop we could find in Madison. We brought our
1. Coffee grinder: still hums but no action
2. Hair trimmers: same story, hums no action
3. Food processor: missing a plastic piece so we can't grate cheese.

The sturdy looking woman behind the counter fixed the hair trimmers while we watched ( no charge). The coffee grinder she was confident about fixing ( est. cost $25..$15 for labor/ $10 for parts). The food processor she couldn't get the part for but suggested E-Bay. So looking good for at least 2 out of three!!

Getting Ready to Shop

Here is what the dining room table looked like Saturday morning. I set aside time to get ready and think through what we would need.
1. Containers for soap ( dish and cleaning)
2. Cloth bags: purchased and three I made)
3. Empty spice containers
4. Red mesh bags for veggies
5. Extra bags: plastic and wax paper in case we ran out of cloth.
6. Masking tape and marker in case we needed to label.
7. Small appliances to be repaired.
It took about 30 minutes to get this all together. The trick is to store it so it is easier and faster next time. I will make a list to help me remember what to bring ( and so others can help get ready.)

Two Cool Kids

When we had our family meeting to talk about our February action, we asked the boys what they could do to reduce trash. Nate offered to go with out hot lunch for the whole month. And Ben said he would too.

This is big deal because: hot lunch offers options we don't eat at home ( like chicken nuggets) and both boys make their own cold lunches ( so more work for them.)

I was really proud of both of them!!

February Action: Reduce Trash

Our focus this month is to reduce the amount we throw away.
We started out by weighing our trash so we would have a baseline.
Amount of trash we threw away this week: 7lbs.

January Celebration

Here we are celebrating our first month of taking action!! We ordered 2 large pizzas from Glass Nickle. Each boy got to pick a pizza!

Actions we will continue:
-bring cloth bags shopping and keep some in the car
-avoid plastic packaging when we shop
-shop bulk
-use re-usable water bottles
-pack lunches without plastic bags

Still to do:
Try compostable garbage bags
Use cloth bags when bulk shopping
Write Mayor Dave to suggest Madison go bag free

What do you....?

Here are some questions we have gotten this month.

What do you do about garbage? We have purchased compostable trash bags. We will try them out this month and see how they work.

What do you use when you shop in bulk?
We bought two cloth bags (organic cotton) and will try sewing a few of our own.

What do you do about the plastic bag your newspaper comes in? We are going to try giving up the newspaper for the month of February.