Over 6 years ago, we moved into our current house as a first time homeowner. It is a small, quaint 70s house with a septic system, something I never had to deal with in the past. For the first time in my life, I started thinking about our waste and what happens to it after it goes down our drain, through our pipes, into our septic tank, seeping throughout our drain field. We also do not have citywide garbage collection and must pay for our own services. Our service does not come with a recycling program and so, we had to devise an efficient system in our precious garage space to minimize our trips to the recycler. I began to question all my products – how much packaging I throw into our recycling bins and trash and the waste that ends up in our drain field that covers our backyard.
by Annie Berthold-Bond. It is more than just a book on “green cleaning” although that was my favorite section of the book. In addition to housekeeping, the book covers a wide variety of subjects such as skin care, gardening and pest control, home improvement, and hobbies. It is a good introductory book with lots of good ideas to try. The only recipes that I have not tried are those related to home improvement: caulks, masonary products, paints, sealants etc…Although it is an overall great book on green living, there are a few shortcomings that I should point out. After reading it in its entirety, I can now easily reference it but at first, I found that the book layout made it a little hard to follow: the font of the headings were much smaller than the subheadings, many of the recipes were repetitive and could have been grouped better. For her skin care section, I refer to it to get ideas on oil combination, but I have never had good success with her basic cream and lotion formulations. She uses only beeswax as the emulsifier which I’ve never had luck with unless I add a little bit of borax and soy lecithin. Also, it is unclear whether the measurements are by weight or volume and sometimes, the recipes clearly mixes the two system.
