The REALLY Scary Part of October 31

Since I began the zero waste journey, I have come to see everything, really everything, with new eyes. Waste generation seems to be embedded in virtually every phase of daily life, and while sometimes identifying the trouble spots and making changes are easy things to do, often they are at best hard to see, and at worst, seemingly insurmountable.

Halloween is mostly fun! But there are a few stressors, such as all of the artificial dyes and high fructose corn syrup. While those are of concern to me, they aren't my fight.  (By the way, I'm really glad that they are somebody's fight!) What keeps me up at night is thinking about all of those candy wrappers in the landfill.

To that end, I would like to urge everyone to partake in the FREE services of TerraCycle.

TerraCycle is generally speaking a really neat service, and one that we use weekly via our SPUD subscription, as you can see in my earlier post here.  TerraCycle offers a Candy Wrapper Brigade, specifically targeted to reduce waste produced by candy wrappers.



Learn more about the TerraCycle Candy Wrapper Brigade at the TerraCycle Website

And yes, this year, I am going to trick-or-treat with my kids dressed as a landfill. What kind of zero waste mom would I be if I didn't? I promise to take a photo.

Plan Toys

I just love Plan Toys!  If I had the means, I would shop exclusively at Plan Toys for children's toys.  We are so fortunate to have a retail location close by in Palo Alto.

Plan Toys: Sustainable Play

Not only is the manufacturing process sustainable, and the packing minimal and 100% recyclable, but the toys themselves are wonderfully engaging for all ages.  We really enjoy playing with them alongside our kids!

We recently bought the following from Plan Toys:

1. Cone Sorting

2. Pets and Accessories

3. Cars

Such a breath of fresh air from the plastic, licensed character abyss that seems to dominate the children's toy market.

Diaper Safari

For all the years that Ruby's little bottom needed diapers, we used Econobums with cloth prefold inserts.  But, after three years of hard wear, the Econobums limped across the finish line.  We tried to use them with Romeo, but they just didn't hold up - lots of little leaks with every wear.  We spent $100 on the Econobum covers and got 3+ years of use out of them.  One point for Team Zero Waste.

So, we recently found ourselves in need of new reusable diapers.  We are still using Bambo and Eco Genesis compostable diapers and wipes for nighttime and outings, but the rest of the time, Romeo is cushioned in reusable luxury.  We found some awesome replacements for the tired Econobums: Diaper Safari.  We have been using Diaper Safari covers for a couple of months now and they are awesome.  Superficially, I like that they come in a variety of colors, whereas Econobums only come in white.  And more substantially, I like that the prefold stays folded up and held in place with POCKETS on either end of the cover. Two points for Team Zero Waste.

I ordered these on Amazon and was mildly horrified when they arrived and I discovered that, ironically, reusable diapers came packaged in single use plastic.  You win some, you lose some. Overall, definitely more of a win.