kim b.’s earthday pledge: time to clean the dishes
I’m not sure I thought I would ever go into panic mode over a dish sponge. But there I was, in Target, staring at sponges. I held a microfiber dish towel in one hand. It had a scrubby side and a normal side. It was washable. It was $6. Of course, I thought about the plastic used to manufacture said dishcloth and how Rubbermaid may not be the earth-friendliest company out there, being that they depend on plastic for 99% of their products.
In the other hand, I held a loofah. On my other blog, All That & A, I had asked readers about advice on dish scrubbers. I’d always used the disposable Dobies, until a recent switch to the soap dispensing kind. But I didn’t want a plastic one, that would only be thrown away in three months. I wanted something I could reuse over and over again, or at least was biodegradable. A reader said the Loofahs found in bath aisles were good. I’ve never used a loofah. A Goggle search told me that I should make sure the loofah was farm-raised, not plucked from the ocean. The tag said nothing about this. But it was on $1.50 and I’m not sure that price allows for divers in the ocean.
Click through to the next page to see what Kim chose.
Then there was packaging. There was considerably less packaging on the loofah. A plastic surround and a tag. The microfiber cloths had a big bunch of paper surrounding them.
I stood there for half an hour, debating. I listed pros and cons in my head. I searched other parts of the store for a better answer. My scrubber at home has turned a weird orangey-grey color and all the bristles were squashed so there was no more time to hold off. I promised myself at the beginning of this project that I would find the least harmful necessary products. If you think only buying local food was hard, you’ve never thought about your everyday products. Your bath poof. Your toothbrush. Your kitchen cleaner. Your cat litter. My dish scrubber.
It sounds like a pain, but in all reality, my agonizing made me more conscious of what I was buying. Which one won? The microfiber cloth, which I figured would last for at least a year, if not longer, provided I switch between the two cloths. Walking out of Target with my new cloths (no plastic bag, please) I felt a little better. I made a decision and I made it for the better of the Earth. I had done my part for the day.
Now, I’m off to Home Depot to agonize over low-flow shower heads.
What changes could you easily make in your house, and what would you agonize over? If you’ve decided not to make changes in the daily products you use, why not?
Kim B., who lives on the Central Coast of California, runs All That and A and Decorazzi when she’s not trying to be an interior designer, chef, or prize-winning journalist. It’s time consuming.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Do the cloths work, though? They don’t seem as though they’d be scrubby enough.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Somebody was messing with your head. Loofahs come from gourds, not from the ocean. Natural sponges come from the ocean, but I don’t think they’d hold up well as scrubbers.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Oh, that’s a good idea. I hate how quickly my sponges wear out.
I just bought a low flow shower head, and I was really disappointed with the selection at Lowe’s. Few of them were labeled, and the lowest flow ones were 2.5 gpm. I ended up at Ace Hardware, and they had a couple of models with 1.5 gpm. I settled on a $12 model with a pause button. It’s excellent.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Kim, you should just grow your own loofa.
We are a sponge free house. We use towels and rags to wipe up spills. I guess that’s pretty weird in America these days.
May 4th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Julie, you’re right. I looked it up and stand corrected. Perhaps I was confusing my research between the two.
And I did think about growing my own, vespabelle, but my landlord pretty much runs the garden and I’m not sure how thrilled he would be with loofahs growing about. I thought there was a loofah farm nearby, but calls and e-mails went unanswered.
I do hope the cloths work. They seemed pretty scrubby, but we’ll see. They have the scrubby coating you see on sponges on one side…
May 4th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I was going to mention the loofah (not being from the ocean…)
here’s link with instructions…
http://groovygreen.com/groove/?p=689#more-689
May 4th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I switched last year to using small waffleweave cotton dishcloths (about the size of bath washcloths) for dishwashing instead of using sponges. I use a fresh one every day, rinse and hang up the previous one so it doesnt get stinky, and just wash them with my laundry. I thought about the sponge just sitting there day after day, and decided that the cloths would be more sanitary. And they have been very durable and “scrubby”
May 4th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I laughed. You sound exactly like what I do eveytime I got to target. Am I too consumerist for wanting that lamp? It has so much packaging. And Styrofoam. And and and….I can’t sit in the dark. I’ll buy the eco friendly bulb, but aside from avoiding as much packaging as I can, where can I get stuff, cheaply, that I need for everyday stuff?
My cleaning arsonel is completely green-friendly, so I have gotten very comfy grabbing what I already know b/c I did reserach 2 years ago when I got bunnies and realized I wanted no animal tested products in my home.
But man! The agony!
May 5th, 2007 at 4:21 am
I always have a plastic scrubbie, but only use it when I’m really scrubbing. Otherwise I just use dishclothes, again replacing every day. And for cleaning bathrooms/counters, etc. I use rags. My husband’s old t-shirts make great rags for cleaning!
May 6th, 2007 at 4:21 am
At one of the thrift shops in town, a little lady sells scrubby sponges she has crocheted. They are the best, and I can throw them in the dishwasher when they need to be refreshed. Check out your yarn shops, etc. to see if anyone is making them–I also use a potholder shaped cloth my friend crocheted for glasses, etc. this then goes in the laundry for it’s bath! Do things that make you feel good, not guilty–it’s usually the simple things that make the biggest difference.