-
Best and Worst Sustainable Products 2024
As an environmentalist, I’m always looking for ways I can reduce my impact either through behavioral changes, lifestyle changes, or even product swaps. If you’re looking to make sustainable swaps in 2024 to help reduce your impact, here are my best and worst product recommendations. Best TruEarth Laundry Strips and Wool Dryer Balls After moving into a cargo trailer full time in 2022, I needed a space saving and sensitive skin friendly option for my laundry. I didn’t love the plastic coating in pods, so I decided to give laundry strips a try and these are now my favorite go-to laundry detergent. Space saving, and better yet, no plastic jug…
-
The Christmas Tree Debate
The Christmas Tree is a staple home décor item during the holiday season (even if you’re not religious like me). And while the classic coniferous trees aren’t available in all parts of the country, they grow abundantly in my home state of Maine. So depending on where you live, you might have the option to have a real tree, or a fake tree. Growing up my family and I went to a Christmas tree farm every year, walked the groves of conifers, and picked out a tree that was just right to cut down and bring home. Cookies and hot chocolate were complimentary, and pictures of the previous year’s customers…
-
What You Need To Know About “Natural” Products
What Are “Natural” Products To get right to the point, no one really knows. And that’s because there’s no regulatory definition for what “natural” is, which also means there’s no certification process or standardization for products claiming to be natural. Compare this with organic products, which must meet a certain set of criteria in order to receive USDA certification. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the agency responsible for “ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” And while there are still tens of…
-
10 Small Sustainable Swaps for 2021
I’m not big on new year’s resolutions. Don’t get me wrong, I love goal setting, and have vision boards and lists galore. But I prefer to tackle things in smaller increments whether that be scale or time frame for what I’m trying to accomplish. So I’ve decided to share my top 10 small yet attainable, sustainable swaps I’ll be continuing or adding in 2021. Reusable produce bags (continued) I started using reusable produce bags in 2019 after buying some on amazon. They worked pretty well but I had misplaced most of them and recently rediscovered my bags last month. It’s so fun to whip out my reusable produce bags at…
-
Let’s Talk About: Leaving the Leaves
What’s all the fuss about? A beautiful yard full of luscious green grass with a white picket fence is often included in the description of the American Dream, a little piece of land to call your own. And to many, having a meticulously manicured lawn is still important to them. Personally, I can never figure out how to mow in a way that creates the baseball field patterns, and our grass grows so fast that at peak times, mowing it twice a week is a challenge enough. It boggles my grandmother’s mind that I don’t bag my grass clippings. And how many times have I heard other’s lament on a…
-
Now We’re Cooking With Fire
Happy Earth Day!!! Another Earth Day is upon us, marking the one year anniversary of The Sustainability Guide. Thank you to everyone who has viewed my website, read blog posts, or visited my Instagram for other more regular content. This year’s earth month and earth day activities are very different as the world collectively deals with COVID-19. Most universities and colleges in the United States have sent students home, uncertain of when they will be able to return to campus. As an alumni who worked in the sustainability office of my university, I was asked to participate in the annual “iCommit” pledges to help reduce energy consumption during the school’s…
-
What’s My Shoe Size? Calculating My Footprint
Calculating your “footprint” can be a great starting point to identify areas of your lifestyle where you consume the most amount of resources. But what’s the difference between and ecological and carbon footprint? Ecological footprint calculators are different from carbon footprint calculators in that they include more components of everyday lifestyle in more relative terms, whereas carbon footprint calculators are more specific to energy consumption but often allow for more precise responses. While I explore different footprint calculators and results in this post, this article is not a comparison between different tools. Instead, I will show you how I interpret the results and ways to implement changes to reduce my…
-
Growing Habitat from the Roots Up
Exploring Live Staking and Native Species Two years ago in the spring I was on the hunt for a very specific shrub. I wanted to grow shrubs along the roadside as a privacy screen, something native that also wouldn’t attract animals. I settled on downy serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea), a wide branching, broad leaved, shrub that can sometimes grow like a small tree, had beautiful orange foliage in the fall, and grew berries that typically only attracts birds. I visited a couple local greenhouses in search for my perfect shrub, only to find that I was only the second or third person to ask for that particular species in the last…
-
Signs of Spring
I live in central Maine, one of the northernmost states in the Continental United State, bordered only by New Hampshire, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the beginning of April and the snow in our yard has finally all melted, a sure sign of spring. Spring is often a sign of relief for most homeowners in New England as heating costs decline with warming temperatures, windows can be opened for fresh air, and people become more active outdoors. Classic New England weather consists of hot and humid summers, followed by brutally cold and snow filled winters. This can create quite the obstacle for home maintenance, particularly creating a comfortable indoor…
