Make your home more energy efficient & stay warm this winter

Visit Efficiency NB for tips on ways to keep your home cozy and save money, including rebate programs.

Every fall when the temperature dips and the house starts to feel a little chilly we start to think about new ways to keep our house cozy. We don’t want to spend more than necessary to stay warm, and we don’t want to waste energy. Heating can account for up to 60% of your home energy bill and most of a home’s carbon footprint so our goal is to search out the most efficient tools and tweaks for the winter months. 

This year’s wish list – a wall mounted air-to-air heat pump for the bedroom area of our home, the chilliest part of our house.

Why bottled water is bad

Carbonate your own tap water and
say good bye to bottled water, forever.

The other day in Costco I saw a couple pushing a cart that was filled to the brim with cases of bottled water. My first thought was “What a pain” to have to deal with all of that lugging. Then I thought “Why would you buy a pile of bottled water when you can drink the water out of your tap?” Then I thought, “May be they’re on a well and having water issues”.

There are loads of reasons why someone would choose to buy bottled water. There are many more reasons why tap water is a better choice.

Food waste - how not to throw money in the garbage



Storing food in clear containers helps you keep track of leftovers in your fridge 

I have an obsession with leftovers. I hate to see good food go to waste so over the years have honed my skill at using them up in all sorts of creative ways. That’s why a recent article about food waste caught my eye.  Titled “Don’t toss your cookies”, the article suggests that food waste is one of the greatest challenges facing our food system today; more worrisome than spiralling food costs and extreme weather.

Why? It’s estimated that 40% of all food goes uneaten.

Greener cleaning - safe and effective household cleaners

I have never been a clean freak and although we have a clean-enough house you won’t find any of the typical household cleaners under our sinks or in our broom closet. Typical household cleaners make me uncomfortable, and I fear them more than I fear household germs.

Most cleaners on the market (including many that are marketed as “green”) are quite toxic. Deep down I think that we all know this but people tend to trust their favourite brands and depend on them to keep their house feeling sparkling clean.

Making back-to-school eco-friendly

Whether or not you have kids heading back to school in September there is a good chance you’re stocking up on school or home office supplies now that it’s the end of the summer.

I used to love new school supplies and looked forward to opening new scribblers and buying fun pens, pencils and erasers. My kids are the same. But before we go out and buy new things we take inventory of what’s left over from last year. There are always duotangs, scribblers and binders that didn’t get used and our cupboard is full of perfectly good pens and pencils. By the time we check off what we already have at home we have usually made a good dent in assembling our kids’ supplies for the new school year.

(Rewind to June, a lot of very re-usable stuff often gets tossed at the end of the school year. I know it’s a bit of a pain to sort through stuffed knapsacks on the last day of school, but if you do a basic sort then, it isn’t as daunting to organize the reusable items come August. )

Reusing some of last year’s school supplies means that we can usually get our kids set for the new school year a little faster, and a lot more cheaply, than if we had to tackle the entire list from new. Plus, our kids still get to enjoy some brand new supplies and the excitement that comes with choosing them.

Another thing we have learned is that when it comes to knap sacs, you get what you pay for. We have gone through very inexpensive knap sacs in less than a year but have managed to hang onto knapsacks from L.L. Bean and Mountain Equipment Co-op for a few years now. If you find a durable brand it’s worth investing a bit.

When buying new items, there are ways to make back-to-school shopping a little more eco-friendly:

Look for pencils made from recycled newspaper rather than wood and pens made from recycled plastic (or refillable).

Look for PVC-free binders. (You’ll recognize PVC by its shower-curtain smell.) PVC off-gasses for ages and that unpleasant smell is toxic. Look for binders made from reinforced cardboard or kraft paper, or PVC-free polypropylene.

Crayola products get a good eco rating. They’re non-toxic, made in North America and the Crayola Company has been lauded for its use of solar and wind power at its production facilities.

Beware of Dollar Store crayons, markers and paints. Made off-shore, there are concerns with chemicals used to make these products, especially the chemicals used to formulate the colours.

Avoid any products that glow in the dark. The Toy Industry Association warns that the chemicals used to make things glow are known to be toxic.

Look for paper products made from post-consumer recycled content. From computer paper to loose leaf and scribblers, it’s getting easier to find materials with this kind of recycled symbol.  Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) paper products are your next best choice.

Choosing sustainable seafood, these helpful tools make it easier

Use this helpful guide to find healthy seafood


We eat a lot of seafood in our house and let me tell you, it isn’t easy being green. Finding sustainable seafood is my greatest eco food challenge, week after week.

Thankfully there are some helpful pocket guides and apps available that provide direction on the best fish and seafood to buy. Seachoice.org created a great tool for choosing ocean-friendly seafood that categorizes fish choices by colour (green, yellow, red) making it easy to identify seafood that is best to eat, and that which is fished or farmed in environmentally damaging ways. It also lists the fish that you should be wary of due to concerns about mercury or other contaminants.  Seafood Watch offers a similar guide. 

Marinated tomatoes - more reasons to buy local

Locally grown produce tastes better. Just ask a tomato...

This is a great time of year to get out of the grocery stores and into local markets. We’re well into the growing season now so there is a delicious variety and abundance of fresh local produce.

Just last weekend I came home from the Kingston Market with carrots, zucchini, garlic scapes, beets, beet greens, Swiss chard,cauliflower, strawberries and sugar snap peas. But I could also have bought broccoli, kale, numerous other greens, turnip, string beans, potatoes and fresh herbs. This weekend there will be tomatoes. There is fresh bread to be had,eggs, free range chicken, pork and beef, honey and jams.

And so it goes, week after week through our growing season. The better part of a grocery order, all grown or produced nearby.

You don`t have to go to the Kingston Peninsula to enjoy the local abundance. Local markets -- The Saint John City Market, Country Harvest, Cochran`s, Kredels and others -- buy directly from farmers this time of year. Thanks to these markets, supporting local farmers and growers is easy and convenient.

If you need more reasons to search out local produce, consider this: Locally grown food tastes better and is more nutritious than the grocery store variety because it`s picked ripe and gets to you within a couple of days. It isn`t gassed to ripen, fumigated to kill foreign pests, or coated with petroleum-based waxes to keep it from going bad. It’s fresh in the most delicious sense of the word.

Back to the taste, if you're not convinced that produce grown nearby tastes better than imported compare for yourself. Taste locally grown carrots and beans alongside those from the grocery store or Costco. Or better yet, compare a local, field-ripened tomato to a grocery store variety.

Our growing season is so short we should all enjoy these local flavours while we can. Here is my favourite way to eat local tomatoes:

Marinated tomatoes

6 medium tomatoes
2 Tbsp fresh herbs (oregano, basil, thyme)

Marinade:

• 2 tsp spice mix (see recipe below)
• 1 tsp molasses
• ½ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup cider vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Salt & pepper
•  

Spice mix

• 2 ½ tsp paprika
• ½ tsp smoked paprika
• ¼ – ½ tsp dried chipotle pepper or cayenne
• 1 tsp dried thyme

Slice the tomatoes and lay them in a dish that’s deep enough to accommodate the marinade without it dribbling over the sides.
Pour over the marinade and let the flavours blend for a couple of hours.
Sprinkle with herbs before serving.
If you’d like to make this a bit more substantial nestle some slabs of feta in among the tomatoes. Or you can serve grilled feta on the side.

Avoiding pesticides and maintaining your sanity in the produce section of the grocery store

The dirty dozen and clean fifteen help you reduce your exposure to pesticides on produce.

When you’re in the produce section at the grocery store do you look at the organic-labeled fruit and vegetables and wonder if you should be buying it? Here is a bit of information that will help you decide.

Environmental Working Group, a research organization based in the U.S. has released its annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, a list of produce ranked according to the amount of pesticide residue they contain by the time they reach your table. The guide is a helpful way to limit your pesticide exposure and manage your grocery budget while still eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

The Guide is comprised of two lists, the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. The Dirty Dozen are the 12 fruits and vegetables that have tested the highest for pesticide residue. To rank produce EWG takes into account how the food is usually prepared, ex. bananas are peeled and apples are washed but not peeled. Produce on this list is what you want to buy organic if possible, or you can limit your consumption.

The corresponding Clean 15 are the fruits and vegetables that have low or no pesticide residue so you don’t have to stress about finding it organically grown, and you don’t have to spend extra grocery dollars on the organic version. Since organic produce is more expensive it’s good to know when you should fork out the extra money.

Topping the Dirty Dozen list again this year are apples, followed by celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches, strawberries, nectarines (imported), grapes, spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, blueberries (domestic) and potatoes. EWG has also given green beans, kale and collards an honorable mention of sorts because of a specific insecticide that commonly contaminates these green veggies. It’s a known neurotoxin so is of special concern.

But the good news is that the Clean 15 includes a great variety of choices: onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, cabbage, sweet peas, asparagus, mangos, eggplant, kiwi, cantaloupe (domestic), sweet potatoes, grapefruit, watermelon and mushrooms.

A few highlights from this year’s report: at least one pesticide was found on 68 percent of the samples analyzed. 98 percent of the apple samples tested positive for pesticides and 96 percent of celery samples tested positive for pesticides, followed by potatoes at 91 percent.  As a category, grapes have more types of pesticides than any other produce (64 different types!|)

No single sample from the Clean Fifteen had more than 5 types of pesticides detected (this is a good thing) and more than 90 percent of cabbage, asparagus, sweet peas, eggplant and sweet potato samples had no more than one pesticide detected. (No samples of sweet corn and onions had more than one pesticide.)

The idea of ingesting chemicals when you`re just trying to have a healthy diet can be stressful. Just keep in mind that eating conventionally grown produce is still healthier than avoiding it for fear of pesticides and loading up on the Clean Fifteen give you the best of both worlds. Vist www.ewg.org/foodnews for the full report.

Eco-friendly lawn care

If hand-powered tools are too much for you to manage, cordless, Energy Star-certified tools are the next best thing.

Early in the season we’re always gung-ho with the loppers and garden shears. We have been happy to trim shrubs, clip tall weeds beside our stream and cut the high grass growing along the edge of the deck, all by hand using nothing but the most basic tools and elbow grease.

But after years of by-hand gardening in a fairly large yard using shears that never held an edge, left shrubs a little shaggy looking and made my wrists ache, we decided enough is enough and invested in a weed whacker and hedge trimmer.

Elbow grease is of course the greenest route to lawn care, but if it’s too daunting or too much work and you want powered yard tools, the next best choice is cordless instead of gas powered. We switched to a cordless lawn mower three summers ago and have been very pleased with our choice. There is a great variety of cordless tools available, with good battery life, easy recharging and no extension cord to haul around.

Cordless tools are 90% less polluting that the standard two-stroke engine and at least 20% more efficient than a four-stroke engine.  (If you mix oil and gas together to run your lawn mower, it’s a two-stroke engine. If your oil and gas is separate, it’s a four-stroke.)

If you need more convincing to move away from gas-powered lawn care tools (including mowers) consider this: according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a new gas powered mower pollutes as much in an hour of mowing as 8 new cars driving on the highway for an hour (two-stroke engine). And there are ground level emissions that you’re inhaling as you mow or trim. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one gas mower spews 120 lbs. of CO2 and other pollutants into the air every year. There is no data for other gas-powered lawn care tools. With smaller engines the emissions are lower but add up over the growing season nonetheless.

Another reason to switch from gas-powered: the EPA also estimates that over 17 million gallons of fuel (mostly gasoline) is spilled each year while refueling lawn equipment. These spills work their way into groundwater and also emit volatile organic compounds that are harmful if inhaled.

An often overlooked perk of cordless lawn care equipment is the peace and quiet of yard work. While battery operated equipment isn’t quite early-morning quiet, it is quieter than your regular gas-powered equipment.

If you’re looking for cordless equipment choose Energy Star certified models. To receive the certification, lawn mowers, string trimmers, shears, and other cordless yard care tools must use at least 35% less energy than non-certified models, a requirement set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Our mower is Earthwise brand from Kent and our new trimmers are Ryobi from Home Depot (an Eco Option). Canadian Tire carries a selection of tools as does Home Hardware so you won’t have to go out of your way to make an eco-friendly choice. 

Safe & effective sunscreen

I bet there were a lot of sunburns as a result of our beautiful Victoria Day weekend. Sometimes it takes a few sunny days to get back into the habit of wearing sunscreen and safely enjoying summer-like weather.  We had to dig around for last summer’s sunscreen leftovers and rummage in the basement for sun hats. In the end we had what we needed to safely enjoy the sunny weekend but this week we were back to square one researching sunscreen for this summer.

Fortunately Environmental Working Group (EWG) has just released its latest sunscreen report, making it easy to search out the safest and most effective sunscreens available this year.  

But before you run to the drugstore (or download EWG’s sunscreen app) remember there’s more to sun safety than just wearing sunscreen. The first line of defense is to cover up with wide-brimmed hats and light coloured clothing. Finding shade and staying out of the noontime sun are important too but easier said than done on sunny weekends during our too-short summers.

Sunscreen should be your last line of defense for a couple of reasons. First, it appears that there is no consensus on whether or not sunscreen actually reduces incidences of melanoma, and many sunscreens are much less effective than they claim. That’s no reason to stop using it though, just a reminder that you need to do your research before stocking up for the summer.

Based on its research EWG found that a lot of sunscreens on the shelf exaggerate claims of UV protection and many are unstable, breaking down in sunlight.

As well, there is no evidence that sunscreens with SPF ratings higher than 50 are any more effective but they do carry a higher concentration of chemicals that soak into your skin. The US FDA is considering prohibiting the sale of these products because those who use them tend to stay in the sun longer. They may not burn but their skin is damaged in other ways.

Some sunscreen ingredients react to the sun’s rays, making them more toxic. Retinyl palmitate, a form of vitamin A, can actually promote the development of tumours.  

Based on EWG’s research, mineral-based sunscreens offer the safest and best protection. They are stable in sunlight and don’t penetrate the skin. If you can’t find mineral-based sunscreen or prefer a formula that’s easier to apply EWG recommends choosing sunscreens with avobenzone (3 percent for the best UVA protection) and without the hormone disrupter oxybenzone. Confusing but just remember “oxy” is bad.  

A few more tips:

Avoid spray on or powder sunscreens since they coat your lungs and your skin, and don’t buy sunscreen with added insect repellant. This year we’ll be buying Green Beaver mineral-based sunscreen and Coppertone Kids Pure and Simple (if I can find it). Coppertone Sensitive Skin sunscreens get a good rating as well, but the other Coppertone products don’t.

View the full report at www.ewg.org.