Mother Earth Mama: Tips and Tricks for Reducing Your Impact

I have always been environmentally conscious and concerned with what my impact was doing to the larger world. As a kid, I collected aluminum cans (my hometown did not, and still has limited municipal recycling services) and, together with my dad, would take them to a recycling center. I recycled my own paper for my 8^th grade science fair project and spent nearly a year in college researching methods of plastic recycling (interesting stuff!). And, once I had kids, my interest and concern for reducing waste became even greater.

With Earth Day coming up towards the end of the month – April 22nd, to be exact – I thought I would share some tips and tricks for reducing your impact as a family.

Plastic Bags

There are few things on my dislike list – dishonest or fake people, scary movies, Marshmallow in Frozen (mainly because he freaks out my daughter), olives, and … plastic grocery bags. I positively detest plastic grocery bags. Enter the reusable shopping bag, of which I am a big fan. Some of my favorites are here and here – the ones that stuff inside themselves are super easy (and fun) to carry, and there are so many cute totes available that a plastic bag seems like a complete drag anyway.

I also have a love/hate relationship with the plastic grocery bag’s more durable cousin, the storage bag. I am known to wash and reuse them, but I also have some reusable snacks and zippered pouches, which have also become a go-to gift for friends with kids and help reduce waste.

Junk Mail 

If I thought that we received a lot of junk mail before kids, then I was wrong. The minute the universe figures out that you are pregnant, your mailbox suddenly becomes stuffed with ads, baby catalogs, coupons, and samples (okay, okay, I don’t mind the free samples).

Years ago, I would contact companies one by one and ask to be removed from their mailing lists. Now things are a little simpler. Much like the federal Do Not Call list, there is a Do Not Mail list, which allows you to opt-out of mailings that use the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service. I also use the PaperKarma app, in which you take a snapshot of the return address box of any unwanted mail, and they do the legwork for you.  Taking both of these steps has significantly reduced the number of credit card and New York Times subscription offers (you know what I’m talking about) that we receive.

Squeeze Pouches

• Fact 1: I once was disillusioned to think that my kids would never eat food from a pouch.
• Fact 2: I once was disillusioned that I would make my own food pouches, which has actually occurred almost never.
• Fact 3: Municipal recycling services may not accept the pouches, but recycling them is an option.

Through Terracycle, an international upcycling and recycling service in which many of the “brigades” are sponsored by the companies themselves, you can recycle squeeze pouches and a number of other products that are not normally accepted by your municipal recycling (look for the Terracycle logo). Simply find a “brigade” or start your own, collect your waste, and when you are ready to send it in, print a postage-paid shipping label and mail it to Terracycle. You can even earn points for upcycled goods like shopping bags or money towards a non-profit (I have a brigade set up and collect pouches on behalf of my daughter’s pre-school).

What are some ways that you and your family reduce your impact?