This month our focus has been on reducing the paper waste in our house. If you take a look around, I am sure that you will find many paper products that could very easily be replaced with reusable items or eliminated all together. I love paper towels. And even though we compost them, I know that the idea isn’t really to recycle, but to try to reduce what we use so that it doesn’t have to be recycled in the first place. So, paper towels must go. In there place I bought a bundle or micro terry rags and put them in a basket on the counter for quick pick ups.
Next item on the list is sanitary napkins. Seems really gross at first, but if you install a handy dandy butt squirter like we have here in Thailand, it’s not too bad. My DH Google actually designed the pads and I sewed them out of left-over pvc material, flannel and old towels. I even have a little travel wet bag for when I am away from home. Takes a bit to get use to, but not too bad in the end. I am also making nursing pads right now because I tend to need them A LOT.
Oh the baby front, I have spent the month sewing cloth diapers for Pickles. Twenty of each size (nb, s,m.l) and about 20 liners. I also will be using handmade diaper wipes once again using some really cheap baby washcloths and a lovely Jungle Baby Bottom Spray I made.
To add to potty time fun, say goodbye to the TP! I figure if we can use reusable wipes for the baby (EWWWW) why not for our little ( or not so little) bottoms? We have the butt squirter, (so the yuck gets washed off) and here in Thailand we don’t flush the TP anyway, so why the heck not??? I got some lovely, soft, super cheap baby washcloths, cut them in half and put them in a nice little basket on the back of the potty. Add a nice covered can by the Boy is Baby Beans gonna love this when she gets here from the states in a few days!
If you have a baby and are already doing cloth diapers, this isn’t really any worse.
Check out Bonzi Aphrodite's Mission Last year to change to cloth TP too.
Some other things I am working on are home made cloth dinner napkins and placemats, reusable sandwich bags, Bento box lunches, and switching to small containers for condiments(instead of things like sugar packets.)
It took a little work, but what an easy change it was to make and I figure it will save us about 1200 baht ($40) a month. Yipee Ki Yah!!!!
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