Walnuts and pumice clean kitchen pots, flower pots and...feet!

In the world of natural products there are some surprising ingredient overlaps. The Goodbye Detergent! line of cleaning scrubs and pads has products that use walnut shells and pumice as gentle abrasives: the Kitchen Cleaning Pads for Enamel and for Anodized Aluminum, and the Outdoor Scouring Pad Soft. A favorite product of ours from the world of skin care also uses walnut shells and pumice: the Buffing Bar from Collective Wellbeing. It blends pure volcanic pumice and ground walnut shells in a gentle vegetable oil base, for a serious soap for smoothing thickened, rough skin on the feet. Goodbye Detergent's Kitchen Cleaning Pad for anodized aluminum has ground up walnut shells on the surface of the spongy pad that allow you to use less, or no detergent when washing pots and pans. The Kitchen Cleaning Pad for Enamel has a layer of pumice for cleaning needs that require a little more grit than walnut shells provide. The Outdoor Scouring Pad Soft is great for cleaning patio furniture and the outsides of flower pots. It gets stuff clean without detergents, and without leaving scratch marks like metal scouring pads. So, whether you're cleaning your body or your environment, pumice and walnut shells can get the job done; no chemicals needed.

Personally Green

Raise your hand if you’re green! OK, I see a virtual roomful of airborne hands. Jolly good.

Undoubtedly, each of you has your personal definition of the green lifestyle. We probably have a lot in common, but we each do some unique things.

I was reflecting on some of the quirky things I do. The more I thought, the more I realized they may be pretty nutty. Or not. So I’m sharing my green lifestyle to elicit comments about yours.

What offbeat things do you do? What have you struggled with recently? Let’s compare notes, shall we?

My personally green life:

If I buy something like packaged sushi for lunch, I’ll put the packaging in my car to recycle at home.

If I see a clean bottle or can on the top of a trash can, I’ll take it home for recycling. (This is the extent of my social recycling; I don’t dig deeper into trash cans and I don’t take anything other than clean bottles and cans.)

I’m a wild thing at the farmers market. My reusable canvas bags hold smaller reusable bags for cherry tomatoes, Persian cucumbers and other small things. Unruly, wet, dirty, earthy heads of lettuce, carrots, broccoli and everything else just goes in the canvas bags.

I recently went into a supermarket to buy stamps and ended up buying some other things, too. I didn’t want to go back to my car for my canvas bags and I refused to take a paper bag. Balancing things under my chin, I could barely carry all my purchases. I must have looked pretty funny.

I work part-time out of a small office where people often leave water bottles lying around after only taking a few sips. I pour the water on the lawn and bring the bottles home to recycle.

Per my post below, I’m just delighted with the Original Spaghetti Scrub. It’s perfect for dishes, but I’m still using an icky sponge to wipe down the countertops. Who has a better idea?

The aforementioned visit to the supermarket was weird and frustrating for me. I had to forage for food there and it was challenging to find things I’d want to eat. Normally I buy produce at farmers markets and I buy proteins in the most unexpected place: the freezer case at Smart & Final. It’s my secret go-to store for clean, convenient fish. They have individually frozen, boneless, skinless, wild-caught fillets at a great price. The one ingredient was fish, nothing added. Today I discovered a second ingredient in the salmon: sodium tripolyphosphate. Dangit. I just looked up what the #$%&!! sodium tripolyphosphate is and I doubt I’ll buy any more of this salmon. Well, at least the white fish is still unadulterated.