I ordered a bunch of products from Seventh Generation last week & I have to admit, I’m impressed. Here’s what I bought so far:

Toilet Paper - Made from 100% recycled paper with a minimum 80% post-consumer content
2-ply paper comes in large 500 count rolls
Bleached with environmentally safe sodium hydrosulfite and/or hydrogen peroxide
Septic-system safe

Paper Towels - Made with 100% Recycled Paper
Hypo-Allergenic
Whitened without Chlorine Bleach
Biodegradable

Trash Bags - Made from 100% recycled plastic with a minimum 30% post-consumer content.
Produced with 25% less energy and 90% less water than virgin plastic bags.

So far, I had no problems with these products. The Bride was a little hesitant about using the toilet paper, but I switched out an old roll with one of the new ones & she hasn’t complained yet. I’ll tell her once the roll is gone

We’ve had a lot of construction going on around the house in the last few years. I really wish I was as active in recycling & conservation as I am now when it was going on, because I probably would have been able to heat my house for a couple of years.

During the last project, I asked the guys to pile up all the scrap wood near my fire pit in the backyard so that we could burn it over the summer. But last week I got the idea to borrow a table saw & cut up a lot of it so that I could burn it in the house. After weeding thru the top of the pile (it’s a big pile) for things that I shouldn’t burn (stupid plastic) I skull dragged it up to the house & cut it into pieces that will fit into my fireplace. I ended up with just over 1/2 cord of wood.

Am I right in thinking that this is a form of recycling? I’ve always believed that the most basic form of recycling is finding another use for something that would usually only have one use. Of course, multiple uses would be better, but one extra use has to help things.

As far as the energy conservation angle, by using this free wood to hear my house, I’m cutting down on my gas bill.

I can’t believe that I did this, but I actually stopped recycling after two street magicians told me it was a bad idea. But I started back up a couple months ago & my family thinks I’m nuts every time they see me digging thru the garbage for things to put into my recycle bins.

I’m putting about 3 or 4 full recycle bins out to the curb each week. Last month, I noticed my garbage man putting all my recycling in with the regular garbage (the trucks have 3 bins on the front - 1 big one for garbage & 2 smaller ones for paper & containers) I called the garbage company to complain & when I told the lovely lady that answered the phone that the garbage man mixed my recycling in with the garbage, she promptly told me “No he didn’t.” I asked if she could see my house from her desk, which seemed to upset her. She told me she’d have a talk with him when he got back & then hung up on me. I was livid! I instantly typed up a letter to the company and cc’d our small local paper as well as the town. 2 days later, the paper called & said they were going to print the article. The next day, the town supervisor called & informed me that I was not the only one that had noticed this. It seems my garbage company has “too much recycling” and not enough trucks, which is why they mix it in with the garbage from time to time. She agreed that this is completely unacceptable.

So now the garbage company is reviewing their recycling practices. Whoever was in charge got fired (I sorta feel bad, but not that much) They are looking into creating an incentive based recycling program where we’d get a large bin that’s for nothing but recycling. It’d have en electronic control panel on it & they’d weigh it before it was put into the truck. The more weight you recycle, the more reward points you get for discounts & whatnot at local merchants. We shall see.