Earth Day

When I wrote that post Every Day Is Earth Day I thought maybe later I’ll post some DIY recipes that I use all the time. So almost a year and a half has gone by… But today, I actually made a new batch of deodorant. I usually have to make it about 2 or 3 times a year. It’s pretty easy, after you gather the ingredients, and it only takes about 20 minutes. So I took photos. And here’s the recipe.

Homemade Deodorant

(This recipe is adapted from wellnessmama.com and almost the exact recipe is also here on Revive)

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp Coconut Oil

3 Tbsp Baking Soda

2 Tbsp Shea Butter

1-2 Tbsp grated Bees Wax

2 Tbsp Arrowroot or Cornstarch

Essential Oils (optional, but unless you are allergic to scents, please use them…)

Directions:

1. Melt Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Beeswax in a double boiler over medium heat until barely melted; OR use a can instead and place this in a small saucepan of water until melted. I save my can for every time I make deodorant–I store the bees wax chunk in it, and I don’t have to wash it out. When melted together, stir well. You want all the beeswax stirred into the other oils because the beeswax is what will keep it from melting in the heat of summer, or a hot bathroom. (I use a chopstick).

2. Remove from heat and add baking soda and arrowroot.

3. Mix well

4. Add a few drops of essential oil and pour into a glass container for storage. I use an old deodorant container, but be careful. The first time I tried this, I had two old deodorant containers–the first one worked fine and the second leaked out all over the counter. Old face cream jars or half-pint jelly jars work great too.

5. Some good essential oils to use for skin and deodorant purposes include: Tea Tree Oil (sometimes called Melaleuca); Grapefruit; Bergamot; Lavender; and Clary Sage. Some lists also include Rosemary, YlangYlang, and Cypress.

If you refrigerate the deodorant, it will firm up faster. After it is firm, it doesn’t have to be refrigerated.

Laundry Soap

Yep, I make my laundry soap too. I do have to add a caveat here: This laundry soap is not for extra dirty, or hard stained clothing. It works very well for regular wash, and old work clothes that already have paint stains and grease blotches. But on your nice clothes, bad stains have to be pre-treated with something else. Also, I have a top-loader with an agitator, so I can’t address how much soap to use if you have a front-loader.

Here is what you need:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

3/4 cup Castile soap

20 drops essential oils (lemon or other citrus, tea tree oil, lavender, and peppermint are all good)

2-gallon bucket, and cleaned out laundry soap containers or clean gallon jugs

Put the borax and washing soda in the gallon bucket and pour in up to a gallon of hot water to dissolve the powders. Stir around until it is all dissolved. The hotter the water, the faster the powders will dissolve.
It’s handy if your bucket has hash marks for how may quarts or gallons, but if not, add another half gallon of water and stir around.
Add the Castile soap at the end, otherwise it will foam too much. Stir gently to mix the soap in with the other liquid.
Add about 20 drops of your choice of essential oils and stir gently.
Use a measuring cup to carefully pour into your waiting laundry jugs.
(My original recipe called for using 2 gallons of water, but I’ve found that I prefer using less water. I usually end up with about a gallon and a half of liquid soap.) Be sure to shake well before adding to the washer. I usually use the cap of the container for a medium load. This is not a wild, soapy recipe–Castile soap is not known for its sudsiness.

All-purpose Spray Cleanser 1

If you’ve got the stuff for laundry soap, you can use this similar recipe for a spray cleaner…

Ingredients:

1 t. washing soda

2 t. Borax

1 T. Castile soap

2 cups very hot water

10 drops essential oil–Lemon, Orange, or Tea Tree, or a combination

Dissolve the powders in the hot water. Add the Castile soap and the essential oils and pour into a 16 ounce spray bottle.

Spray Cleanser and Degreaser 2

1 cup white vinegar

1 t. Castile soap

1 T. baking soda

3 cups warm water

15-20 drops essential oil–Lemon, Orange, or Tea Tree, or a combination

Mix together and pour into spray bottle. Do not use vinegar on marble. This is good for stovetops, range hoods, tile, sinks, and general cleaning. I have not had success on my oven door though. Nothing seems to clean my oven door….

Right now we are working on the laundry room, so I’m cleaning and reorganizing and throwing stuff out. It might be the last room in the house. Maybe it will be finished enough for photos in a couple of weeks…

And did you know that every Earth Day has a theme? According to earthday.org, this year’s theme is “Invest In Our Planet.” The mission is simple, “Get Inspired. Take Action. Be a part of the green revolution.”

So mostly to just feel like I’m taking action for the stewardship of this earth, last month I ordered a Zero Waste Box from TerraCycle for the food packaging waste that is 90% of our garbage. The company has recycling boxes for just about anything—beauty products, garage waste, batteries, drink bottles, styrofoam… You can check out their website here: https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/.

Our small rural recycling center is limited. They take only 1 & 2 plastics, tin cans, cardboard, and paper. No glass. No aluminum. We save the glass and make quarterly trips into a glass recycling place run by the Pennsylvania Resource Council. We bag up the aluminum and give it separately to the guys who drive our garbage truck. They told Mr. H.C. that they kept it separate and sell it to an aluminum buyer. We were desperate, so we believe them. I guess. Cardboard and paper we either burn or shred and use in the garden as mulch. Food scraps are composted. So that left food packaging, meat scraps, and 3 through 7 plastics that went into our garbage bags. Oh, and kitty litter. (If anyone has any good ideas on how to environmentally dispose of kitty litter, please tell me.)

I bought the Zero Waste Box because I was just disgusted at the amount of food packaging waste we had. Mr. H.C. was unhappy about the high price of the box. I get it. It was more than I would normally spend, so I told him it was an experiment. But at some point, we consumers have to admit that we are complicit in greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, the big oil and gas companies are the worst offenders, but “…45% of global greenhouse gas emissions comes solely from the production of things we use and buy every day.” That quote is from an article “How Buying Stuff Drives Climate Change” by Renee Cho. Here in rich first-world-America we are really guilty: yes, I’m trying to make you feel guilty and think about all that stuff you put in the trash. Think about where it ends up. And our grocery store shelves are filled with food wrapped in plastic and cellophane. We’d better start taking responsibility for it, hadn’t we?

I paid $124 for the small Zero Waste Box that is 11″ x 11″ x 20″. I’ve been cramming stuff in for 7 weeks now, and it is almost full. If I really wanted to, I could dump it out and compress the stuff down a little more and maybe get 8 weeks. That is $15.50/week, and the return mailing is post paid. That doesn’t seem outrageous to me. But even better, our local library has a similar box in their front lobby where I’m going to be taking my stuff after this box is full. They are collecting plastics to be made into an outside bench.

Consider what else you can do to “invest in our planet.” And if you have to pay a little bit more, then consider it your “tax” for earth stewardship. I’ve also recently given up buying plastic baggies. I tried it one other time with some wax covered cloths and bags and they kind of worked for awhile, but I needed large bags for freezing breads, so I succumbed. But this time, I’ve found the answer, I think. These are compostable, and they work in the freezer too. And when I finish with my Finish Powerball Quantum Dishwasher pods, I’m going to be trying out the no-waste packaging of Dropps Dishwasher Pods.

Here’s your Earth Month challenge: Do something to make a difference, and tell me about it in your comments. It can be planting trees, planting a garden, making your own toothpaste, laundry soap, deodorant, face cream. It could be carrying your own silverware around so you don’t have to use plastic utensils. It can be seeming like a weirdo to the check out people at Walmart when you say, “Could you please put everything in this bag? I’m trying to cut down on my plastic use.” The last two times I’ve done this, I’ve actually come away pleased that I started a good conversation about it.

And I’m working on that kitty litter…