The green socioverse has recently coined a new term — ‘precycling’ — but what does it really mean? Pre-recycling, right? Like… using a product? Before… cycling? The sci-fi mind in me goes into questions involving recycling, time and space, and DeLoreans.

But I’m crazy.

The real meaning behind precycling is much more forward thinking — towards waste reduction and making packaging that’s easier to recycle when the time comes. Precycling!

How can we precycle? Purchase products in bulk to reduce packaging, re-filling water bottles, re-using coffee containers to store things, etc.), canvas shopping bags, online flyers and catalogues instead of paper ones — say no to junk mail!

And now you we know!

Mold. At the first sign of it I tend to throw food out… unless I convince myself that I feel bad for letting it mold (beause it was either expensive or delicious), in which case I put it back in the fridge and hope that magic food fairies will come and fix it so that I can eat it and get my money’s worth.

On fridge clean out day, I always cringe at the sight of the half-full garbage bag filled with spoiled and unwanted food. Am I wasting food items that don’t necessarily need to be wasted?

This article on Boing Boing caught my eye: When is it OK to eat moldy food?

The USDA (that’s the United States Department of Agriculture, not the United Square Dancers of America, of course) recently did a study on moldy foods and released the Safe Food Handling fact sheet.

Surprise, surprise — in the end they do recommend throwing out most moldy foods. But the advice within the chart for how to salvage other foods is great!

Generally I live by the “if it smells bad or feels slimey, I won’t eat it” rule but after reading the chart I’ll never eat a moldy dollop of sour cream again. (Bleh!)

Be sure to check it out for yourself, you scrape-it-off-the-top types.

Putting pesicides on your lawn is bad because… pesticides are bad, right? I’ve known this for a long time because I remember seeing a ‘Keep off the Lawn!” pesticides warning on a neighbours lawn and asking my mother about it. All she could tell me, really, was that pesticides were poison. I remember being quite confused as to how pesticides could hurt me but not the plants/grass. Well, here’s some interesting little bit sized facts about lawn pesticides:

• Children who live in homes where lawn pesticides are used are twice as likely to develop brain cancer than children with pesticide-free yards. (via)
• People who work with pesticides (including pesticides used on lawns and in gardens) have an increased risk of fertility problems, such as an increase in spontaneous abortion and miscarriage as well as increased risk of having a baby with birth defects (such as cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, limb anomalies). (via)
• Workers exposed over a long period to pesticides have shown problems with information (ie. confusion) and have increased risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease.(via)
• In the womb and into early infancy is linked to increased risks of some cancers (particularly leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and neuroblastoma) and birth defects. (via)

So if all these terrible things are possible with pesticide use, why on earth do people use them? Is having a healthy lawn worth all the poison and risk?

Stay tuned to BambiGoesGreen for tips on how to keep your lawn healthy and happy naturally!

Garbage or trash is a major form of environment pollution these days. Each person produces about 4.3 pounds of trash a day.  Do you know where all your garbage goes? Many types of garbage take hundreds of years to properly decompose when thrown away.

Here are some facts about trash that’ll really make you think!

1. Banana peel decomposes in 2 to 10 days.
2. Sugarcane waste takes 30 to 60 days for decomposition.
3. Thread decomposes within 3 to 14 months.
4. Cotton decomposes within a month to 5 months.
5. Paper carry bags decompose in 2 to 5 months.
6. Rope takes 3 to 14 months for decomposition.
7. Orange peel decomposes within 6 months.
8. Cigarette takes a year to 12 years for decomposition.
9. Milk packet (Tetra) covers and cool drink packets decompose in 5 years.
10. Leather shoes decompose in 25 to 40 years.
11. Nylon clothes take 30 to 40 years for decomposition.
12. Plastic carry bags decompose in 15 to 1000 years.
13. Aluminum cans decompose in 80 to 100 years.
14. Sanitary napkins and children’s diapers take 500 to 800 years for decomposition.
15. Glass bottles decompose in 1,000,000 years.
16. Plastic bottles and cans never decompose.
17. About 90% of the contents of our bins could be reused or recycled. Think twice before throwing the trash into dustbin. You can reduce the use of some items, can reuse some of them like paper and cardboard and take some of them (cans, plastic, bottles etc) to recycle bin.