Attract butterflies with nectar-rich plant choices
Bees aren’t the only insects who help pollinate fruits, flowers and veggies. Butterflies are also an important part of the ecosystem. To help attract butterflies to your garden, avoid insecticides, which are obviously lethal to them. Fun fact: Butterflies aren’t attracted to flowers, but to flowering plants and bushes that are rich in nectar. Look for plants like milkweed, mint, zinnias, buddleia and heliotrope, which are all varieties butterflies love to drink from. Finally, filling a shallow dish with fresh water every day is a simple way to give them a place to drink, too.
LEAD PAINT
If you live in an older home that was painted with lead-based paints, don’t reach for the vacuum when paint begins to chip and peel off. While it may seem like a logical idea to use a vacuum to avoid touching the chips, contamination can occur when you open the vacuum to empty out the canister. Powerful vacuums can turn paint chips into dust, and when the canister is opened, those dust particles can contaminate the air in your home. Instead, clean up the lead-based chips using a dustpan and broom, then throw them away in the trash.
PLASTIC WRAP
Perhaps you’ve seen a product like this in the kitchen housewares aisle of your store: “eco-friendly” plastic wrap. It’s packaged in a recycled paperboard box and lists attributes like “natural value” and “PVC-free.” At the end of the day, it’s still single-use plastic. When it comes to shopping for eco-friendly products, be diligent about avoiding products that are marketed as eco-friendly but are far from it. Instead of a slightly greener plastic wrap, how about forgoing this unrecyclable, nonbiodegradable item altogether?
GIFT CARDS
Sure, you can donate lightly used clothes, kitchenware, books and other household items to Goodwill, but did you know you can also donate gift cards? Billions of dollars go unused every year on gift cards, so gather any cards with remaining balances (no matter how small the amount left) and donate them. The charity can look up the remaining balance on the cards and either resell them in stores or consolidate them through a third-party vendor who gives a percentage of the total balances to the charity.
THIRDHAND SMOKE
You’ve heard of secondhand smoke, but did you know there is also thirdhand smoking? The children’s health advocacy group Healthy Child Healthy World says thirdhand smoke is when a smoker leaves toxic residues on things like clothes, fabric, furnishings, walls, bedding and other porous surfaces in a room. While the simplest step to protect children is to avoid smokers altogether, that isn’t always possible. If you go into a room that has traces of smoke, open a window and use fans to circulate air. Ask smokers to change clothes and wash their hands before interacting with infants and children. The charity says to think of smoking as insecticide: Cigarette smoke has over 2,500 hazardous chemicals in it that no child should be exposed to.
WASHING MACHINES
According to The Sierra Club, front-loading washing machines are far more energy- and water-efficient than top-loading models. In fact, front-loading machines use up to half the water and energy of older models, making them truly a greener alternative. But the environmental organization makes a point that if your current washing machine works, use it. Just use cool or cold water versus warm or hot whenever possible, and choose the shortest cycle to make the machine a leaner, greener model.
PHOTO RECYCLING
Can you recycle old printed photographs with your scrap paper recycling? Yes and no. It all depends on how the photo was printed. If it was done in an old-fashioned chemical processing fashion, then no. If it was printed using modern digital technology, yes. How do you find out? Simply tear it. If the photograph rips with a very clean tear, it can be recycled; if it’s hard to tear and rips in layers and not so cleanly, you likely have a nonrecyclable photo that needs to be thrown into the trash, not the recycling bin.