Most toilets installed before 1980 use 5-7 gallons of water per flush. Toilets installed between 1980 and 1993 use 3.5 gallons per flush. Toilets installed since 1994 use 1.6 gallons.  Recycle and save water at the same time! Fill a plastic, one liter to a quart-sized bottle with water and put it in your toilet tank, safely away from the other moving parts. The jug can displace up to 10 gallons or more of water a day, depending on how much your family flushes. It is not recommended that you use a brick to displace the water; bricks eventually disintegrate in water and can jam plumbing lines. Also be careful not to place the bottles where they will obstruct the flushing mechanism, and make sure your setup doesn’t displace so much water that you have to double-flush. Double flushing wastes even more water than you would save.

Yet another way to conserve water in your pre-1994 toilet you can install an early closing toilet flapper, which are available at participating local hardware stores. Request a coupon from the store clerk and get a $4.00 rebate on your water bill. If you are considering replacing your toilet, use a WaterSense-certified high efficiency toilet (HET) that use 1.3 gallons per flush. Also, check out the 2008 Maximum Performance Testing of Popular Toilet Models and the Toilets Conservationists Like Best. The Toilet Training Tutorial has tips on fixing leaky toilets as well as a schedule of repair demonstrations.

When you calculate how much water costs per gallon in this day and time, it doesn’t take much to realize the savings this can mean for ant household, as well as the countless gallons of water saved from being wasted needlessly.

Now, this is not the complete scary monster some people would like you to think.  Even with the true dangers that the bags pose to the environment, there are more than a few myths and scare tactics bantered about that I found common enough to actually trouble me in their own right.  We will look at the real dangers first, before turning to the myths.

The first and largest problem that plastic bags, even in their compostable, recyclable and biodegradable forms they take today, is that less than 20% of them world wide actually GET recycled.  Most of the bags wind up in the trash, and is the second most common item in most landfills, seconded only by newspapers.  Yes, many people do use them to line their smaller trashcans, or as ‘lunch bags’, or to carry their changes of clothes to the gym as a second use and many people do this and think, ‘I’m reusing!  I’m a good and responsible person!’  Yes, you are reusing it…  Usually once and then where does it go?  It goes into the trash like it would have before.

Plastic bags that do not find their ways into landfills many times then work their way into our waterways and into the sea.  According to the World Wildlife Fund Report of 2005, nearly 200 different species of sea life including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles die due to plastic bags; they die after ingesting plastic bags, which they mistake for food.  Also, once into the water, they have an unobstructed view of the sun.  Plastic bags photo-degrade. Over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers, which are fatal to animals and plants alike. _{(CNN.com/tecnhology November 16, 2007)}

Now that we have looked at the major dangers that plastic bags do prove.  I would like to touch on some of the myths that one can find.  Reducing plastic bags will decrease foreign oil dependency. Well, considering that 90% of our oil goes to the fuel industry, this one is pretty well someone’s dream.  Compostable bags can degrade in backyard composts. Sorry, they have to be taken to an industrial composting facility for them to be broken down correctly.  Otherwise, they just sit there.  If you would like to read about many more of these myths, go to: http://www.plasticsindustry.org/files/about/fbf/myths+facts_grocerybags.pdf.

The time has now come for what can be done about all this.  The solution is quite simple really.  Dedicated, reusable grocery bags made from environmentally renewable resources.  The most common, and usually cheapest, place to do this today is at the grocery stores themselves.  Most sell very inexpensive branded reusable bags for 99 cents to $1.99.  As a note, do not be afraid to take a branded bag into another store.  (Can someone out there tell us what these bags are made from?  I have yet to find a source that is willing to say.)   Trust me, they are happy to have your money and many times do not look twice at what you are taking their wares home in.  If you shop at some higher end supermarkets, for a larger price, they will sometimes offer bags made form hemp, cotton or bamboo mesh.  These are many times made more attractive by portions of their price going to various environmental or feed-the-needy charities.

There are some that do not feel comfortable with using a bag that has some company’s logo emblazed on the side of it.  That is why there has been more than a few stores and web sites that cater to this and offer a wide selection of bags and other similar merchandise.

• http://www.reusablebags.com/
• http://www.ikea.com
• http://www.envirosax.com/
• and for other suggestions of places: http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2007/11/08/where-to-find-cheap-or-free-reusable-bags/

I will be trying to post at least once a week on some topic.  I welcome any and all comments on these postings.  If you have more to add, or if I have a fact wrong, please step forward!  Without such, we are all the poorer.

Peace and happiness to all,

Jeddar