The Green touch

Yoghurt is another of the dishes I started to make to reduce my own waste. As I like to have dessert after a meal, I was actually collecting more than enough yoghurt pots to make homemade soap ;) (if you don't understand this joke, see "how to make soap" articles ). Making yoghurt is quite simple and cheap. You don't even need a yoghurt-machine, you can use an oven. Regarding the ingredients, just milk, and a yoghurt that will ferment the milk and transform it into yoghurt. And also anything else to flavor it (honey and jam for example). Quality is important here, both for the milk and the yoghurt. Milk Choose full-cream milk. It doesn't need to be cow milk; it can be any other animal milk. Vegetal milk too. I tried with soya milk (Go green, I haven't tried with Alpro) and it works, but I hear that with other vegetal milk you need thickeners. Yoghurt as a "starter" First you will need to buy a yoghurt, and then you can reuse one of...

Just because I don't post anything doesn't mean I don't do environmental stuff. Most of the time I must say I'm just lazy: I have an article to write about homemade yogurt for example and I know this one will take time to write... So today I decided to write about small, easy, random (and short to write about) tricks I do all the time. Trick n°1: use reusable shopping bags France is terribly ahead of Norway in that matter. 10 years ago you could also get (free) plastic bags at the supermarkets. Non biodegradable bags were forbidden in 2005, but I discover now that only the law was voted in 2005, and the deadline was fixed in 2010. Free plastic bags actually disappeared from the great majority of supermarkets as early as 2006 it seems. Instead you could buy very solid plastic bags for 0,50 cts (right one on the picture). From then on people got used to carry their own bags when going shopping. But I remember a friend who kept forgetting in the beginning and who ha...

When you live alone, buying food tends to be more expensive - than when you're two or more - because you have to buy smaller format of everything. Not only the price is higher for an equivalent quantity of food but especially it produces more waste. On the other hand, if you buy larger amount, there is a risk that the food will go bad before you have time to eat it. One option is to buy - rather - large amount and to freeze what you're not going to eat right away. I do that especially for grated cheese: I saved 2-3 bags so I can divide my 500 g cheese and can eat it little by little. Same thing with bread, not that I don't know when i'm going to eat it (every morning, toasted) but it would get dry before I even have time to finish the whole loaf. This trick works pretty with anything you need to warm up anyway, and you don't even need to use the micro wave. One onion if often too much for me for one meal (but, hey, you can't buy smaller amou...

Read in that article : "While many champion recycling as an important means of fighting global warming (...) recycling is actually a carbon positive process because of the energy, emissions, and traffic generated throughout its operation." I'll never say this too much: no waste at all will always be better than a recycled waste. When I buy things, the (non)packaging is one of my criterias. I know I haven't posted in a while but I'm preparing a series of articles about how to make soap. Be patient!

Cotton growing is one of the most polluting cultivation in the world. 2,5 % of cultivated areas on earth are used in that purpose. It seems to be much but it is nothing compared to the quantity of pesticides used: 24% of all the pesticides used in the world , to which one may add herbicides and fertilizer. Because of this heavy ecological impact and human victims of cotton growing it is very important to look for alternatives for all throwable cotton-made items such as make-up pads, diapers, baby wipes, Q-tips, feminine protection and so on. Buying organic-cotton items is a good start but as any thowable items that need to be replaced again and again, it requires more and more ressources. I have already given reusable alternatives to sanitary towels and tampons and to Q-tips . Today is all about make-up pads. I made - or to be more precise I knitted - some pads for christmas to offer with home-made make-up remover. I used cotton yarn I had found in a second-hand...

I just wanted to show you the birthday present I offered my sister in law: - homemade soap wrapped in (reused) silk paper and yarn ; old postcards for the label - homemade make up remover in a glass container ; label stuck with milk - washable make up pads, knitted with second hand cotton or cut in second hand fleece

Here is a very smart tips from a friend of my mother's.   Source photo © La Fée Crochette Yoghurt is a product widely consumed in France, and sold in individual pots. Instead of just throwing them out after use (those small pots are not reclycled in France), she keeps them in a separate bag and when she has a certain number, she piles them up and then throw them away. By doing so, she saves space and uses fewer waste bags; it's important because in France, or at least where she lives, you have to pay extra taxes above a certain number of bags per month. Even if we don't pay extra taxes here and we can recycle yoghurt pots, it still has a great ecological interest: you can transport more yoghurt waste this way - fewer trucks are needed -, and then save petrol and carbon emissions. It's especially important since plastic collected in blue bags in Tromsø is send to Germany to be recycled ( more info here ). Think about it! *** F...

You have some bread left but it's a bit too dry for your taste. Just save it, and when you have enough you can make "pain perdu", which means "spoiled bread". For about 8 not-too-thick slices of dry bread 2 eggs 2 dl milk 3 tablespoon sugar butter (for the pan) 1 - Mix eggs, milk and sugar 2 - Put the bread slices in this mixture. 3 - When they have soften, melt some butter in the pan, and put the slices in it. When it's brown from both sides, it's ready! Eat them with extra sugar on top, or jam, or whatever you can think of. You can cook the rest of the mixture in the pan, as a sweet omelette. Bon appétit!

The honey jar is finished and what's left it's too sticky to collect (or even to wash). Why not pouring boiling water and infuse some tea in it? It will solve both these problems, and you won't waste a drop of honey!

EDIT November 30th, 2022: Hi there! I published a newer version of this article on my new blog, thegreentouch.net . Check it out!     Bonne année! Godt nytt år! A good resolution for 2012 would be to write more on this blog (and find a job, but that's another question), especially because I have many things in mind. A topic I should definitely develop is home made soap. Remember? I started in June because I was looking for laundry soap, ecological and palm oil free and I didn't find any in Norway; that's why I started to make my owns. And I liked it so much that I decided to make more, to use in the shower and to offer. Here are some of the soaps I gave away for Christmas. And speaking about, I whish I had had time in December to tell you about my Christmas philosophy. I know it's a bit late but it somehow applies to birthdays too. What I don't like about Christmas is that it is so materialistic! It's like you're forced t...

Initially published on 14/06/2011 Use soap! I mean soap in bar. Contrary to shower gel, soap often comes unpacked or with very few plastic or paper. So right from the start, soap produces less waste. And also, soap lasts much longer: one single soap is equivalent to at least 4 shower gel bottles! Not surprisingly, shower gels generates tons of waste a year! And soap is also cheaper in this regard. It is a bit harder to replace shampoo so I recommend The Body shop shampoo and gel since the try to produce package with as less plastic as possible. Their Rainforest label products are also biodegradable in water, which is not the case for most gels, contrary to soap. Think also about big bottles: in proportion it uses less plastic than small bottles. Drop throwable q-tips This kind of Q-tips is more about pushing the dirt further, according to me. That is why I rather use something to remove it. With this kind of thing you can (gently) scrape the inside of...

Initially published on 8/06/2011 Today I wanted to tell you about what helped me to reduce (or suppress) my biggest source of waste.  Each woman uses about 10 000 tampon or sanitary towels in her life. It's a lot of waste, of money but also of pollution if you include the production of those sanitary protections.  A menstrual cup or "menskopp" in Norwegian is a feminine protection that you place in your vagina so that it collect the menstruation blood. You just have to empty it -  which is not as disgusting as one could think - twice a day and reuse it again and again. Environmental-friendly  When I first heard about the menstrual cup, it was completely - accidentally - on a forum that was not even dedicated to it. I already cared about environment at the time but I had never really thought about this, or neither knew there were other solutions. I immediately liked the concept, especially because there was no waste anymore, at all! ...

Initially published on 24/05/2011 I usually bring food from home at work (not in matpakke paper which is a waste but in a plastic box). Not something I prepared on purpose but leftovers from the day before's dinner. Yep, inFrance, every meal is "middag", as I understood it meant "warm meal". I think I just found where I would buy my lunch in case of "no leftovers": Coop and Ica in Tromsø sentrum offer "salad bar". You take a (throwable plastic) box, fill it with whatever you like and then pay the price per (kilo)gram. The more you fill, the more you pay. It's 129 kr per kilo at Coop (the one by Stortorget) and 119 at Ica. Cheaper then, but not that different. The food is basically the same: paprika, pasta salad, corn, cucumber, ham cubes, feta (Oh yeah!!:)) and so on. The advantage when you are not a big eater is that you really eat what you want. I paid 30 kr which I think is quite cheap (I don't ...

Initially published on 12/05/11 Yes, I know that if you really want to "be green", the best you can do is to not fly. Of course you can compensate your carbon emissions (also said "carbon offset") by giving money to an association that will plant trees for you (or will set up solar panels in an african village) but this does not solve the problem; especially since it will take about ten years to your tree to actually absorb your carbon.  A way of getting a clean, not environment but conscience? Maybe, but it may be better than doing nothing at all; let's call it the "less worse solution". Some links from Grønn Hverdag: http://etiskforbruk.no/Mitt%20klima http://www.co2.klif.no/ So no, I do not have miracle solution to turn plane into an ecological transport means, but this article is mostly about not make it worse, and to adopt a responsible behavior in an airport. First of all, you don't need to print your el...

Very simple! Just put this sticker on your mailbox: You can find it on the environmental association Grønn Hverdag's  website . It's free but have to pay the shipping. Cheaper and more environmental-friendly, just come to their office. In Tromsø, it's located Skippergata 11 . You won't be bothered anymore with advertising papers.