Quick tip: wash those reusable bags

The August issue of Better Homes and Gardens published the statistic that 85% of people don't regularly launder their reusable grocery bags. They recommend cleaning bags in hot soapy water at least once a week. Upon reading that, I promptly threw mine in the wash and in the future will look out for bags that are easy to clean. Some of my plastic-y ones aren't easy to just throw in the washing machine.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by PedalFreak

L.A. City Passes Bag Ban

Yesterday, the LA City Council voted to ban single-use plastic bags in retail stores. The decision has been a long time in coming. I'm all for reusable bags and hope that the ban will have its intended effect, to reduce waste and pollution. Here's the LAist coverage, and here's my blog post on refusing plastic bags from August of last year.

One of my reusable bags.

For those of us who have been bringing bags with us as a habit won't have too much of a change in store (no pun intended). But there are many who never got on the reusable bag bandwagon, and they will need to incorporate reusable bags into their lifestyle if they want to avoid paying 10 cents for a paper bag every time they shop.

Some tips for remembering your reusable bags:

• Get the kind that zip up or stuff up inside themselves and keep several at the bottom of your purse.
• Stash bulkier canvas or vinyl bags in your trunk.
• Create a place by the front door to hang bags (Command hooks are great for this) so you can grab recently emptied ones on your way out the door to replenish your car stock.
• Always bring more bags in to a store than you think you will need, just in case you underestimate how much you will be purchasing.

Craigslist tips

It's kind of amazing the sheer volume of things you can find to buy on Craigslist. Almost anything you can think of, you can find someone offering for sale, especially if you live near a major city. In theory, I love the idea of buying used items that need a home for low prices, where the seller gets to free up space and recoup some of their investment, and the buyer gets to help reduce waste by diverting something that might go to a landfill and pick up something they need for little money. However, it can be a hassle to get all the stars to align when buying and selling on Craigslist, so here are some tips.

Tips for buying on Craigslist

• Never go to meet anyone to buy something by yourself, or at least let someone know the exact address of where you are going and call them when you have finished the transaction.
• Bring small denominations. You might find you want to negotiate further if the item isn't as you expected it to be.
• Ask a lot of questions before you drive to see an item. 
• Don't pursue an item if the seller gives you the creeps. Trust your instincts.

Tips for selling on Craigslist

• Ask a fair price. Whatever you think the item is worth, it's probably worth at least 25% less.
• Be careful when giving out your home address. Make sure you don't get a bad vibe from the person, and arrange to have someone be home at the same time you are going to make the transaction.
• Don't respond to emails that seem like spam or scams, because they probably are. Don't ever accept checks. Cash only.

Sometimes, it just isn't worth it. While there are a lot of people who buy and sell stuff on Craigslist every day, if you've tried to sell something and it's been sitting there for over a week, it probably isn't going to sell. Try offering it for free, use Freecycle or just donate it to your local Goodwill.

Goodwill Southern California

Last week, I went to the main campus of Goodwill Southern California with my NAPO Neighborhood Group. We spent an hour and a half touring the facility and learning about all the services that Goodwill offers. Goodwill's mission is Transforms Lives through the Power of Work, and that mission was clear through every aspect of their organization. As a professional organizer, it's always important to be able to communicate to clients exactly where their donated items will end up once they part with them and donate them to a charitable organization. Now I have a very clear picture of where items donated to any Goodwill Southern California location will go, and I feel extremely confident in recommending that my clients support this organization with their donations.

Our Goodwill tour group.

Some of things I learned on the tour:

• All e-waste that gets donated gets processed in an extremely secure part of the facility. Working electronics will get refurbished and sold, while everything else gets broken down into recyclable parts, hazardous waste, and recoverable materials that will get sold. They completely destroy any information left on a hard drive before selling it or stripping it.
• All shredding that gets brought to this particular facility is processed in a secure way that exceeds FBI standards. We got to see the floor where they shred (from behind a glass wall!) and watched the process at work. Fascinating.
• The people who work at the facility we toured are part of Goodwill's mission to train and find jobs for people with disabilities and disadvantages. They get job training and will eventually move on to jobs outside of Goodwill, or may stay on at Goodwill in a variety of capacities. 
• Over 90% of the profit realized by Goodwill from selling donated items either through their retail stores or by selling items in bulk goes into their education, job training and placement programs.
• Their long term goal is to have 0% of what gets donated to Goodwill end up in a landfill. For now, they keep millions of pounds out of landfills every year. Each item goes through many stages and has many opportunities to be resold, reused, or recycled before it gets taken to a landfill. 
• When you donate items in good condition, you are helping keep things out of landfills as well as supporting the service projects of the organization. They especially love to receive e-waste, books and clothes, shoes, etc. that are in good condition. Don't donate your trash, please, as that ends up by costing them money to process and dispose of.

I learned much more, so don't hesitate to ask if you have any burning questions about Goodwill!

The Refill Shoppe

There's a neat store in Ventura, CA, called The Refill Shoppe where they sell reusable items from grocery bags to water bottles and consumables like dish washing soap and shampoo in bulk containers that you fill up your small, reusable bottle from. The idea is that we don't need disposable packaging if there's a place to get refills of your favorite consumable items. I was fascinated by the fact that they sell actual handkerchiefs, especially as my household goes through at least a box of tissues a week.

I love the idea of reducing waste on the front end instead of just recycling all the plastic and glass bottles we get every day to hold single-use items.

Next time you are in the area, check them out. 1068 E Main St. Ventura, CA 93001 - Open Monday through Saturday 10am - 6pm. On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/therefillshoppe

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Wrapping paper leftovers

I love wrapping paper. I think beautifully wrapped gifts are one of life's great pleasures. But I feel wasteful when I buy expensive paper that just gets torn off and discarded. So most of my paper gets used over and over again. My family doesn't mind when I harvest the best scraps of leftover paper and save them for the next occasion. I tend to keep bits of ribbon, too, and am able to use them again and again. The paper can take on new and more beautiful forms after being wrinkled and folded and combined with different types of paper for different gifts. And when I use up a lot of paper all at once and need more, I turn to paper bags and other found wrapping papers. It makes me doubly happy to see a gift beautifully wrapped with reused and reusable paper!

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Katherine

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How to make grocery shopping less of a chore

I used to love grocery shopping. It was one of my favorite errands, making a list, checking things off, shopping smart with coupons and bringing my reusable bags. I used to live about a quarter of a mile from a big, shiny supermarket and a five minute drive from a Trader Joe's.

Now I live about an eighth of a mile from a medium-sized supermarket, five minutes from Trader Joe's, with a Whole Foods smack in between, and shopping threatens to become more of a chore than it should be. I still live by my list, but the problem is that I often have to go to at least two of those stores on any given trip in order to cross everything off. So I've tweaked my shopping style and have a few tips to help make the process more enjoyable:

• I keep a running list of items needed, then before I plan to go to the store, I check all the recipes I intend to make in the coming week and fill the list with needed items. I do a quick walkthrough of the house to make sure I'm not forgetting something like toothpaste. This cuts down on forgetting anything and decreases the frequency I need to shop.
• I've pretty much given up on coupons, unless I happen to come across one that is for something I already buy and use. I find that if it is for something I use, but a different brand, then the savings the coupon represents still don't make up for the price difference against the brand I usually buy, so I'm not really saving money. I also don't have to worry about remembering to take them with me or pull them out at checkout.
• Of course, I always bring my own bags. Remembering to do this every time is a point of pride with me, and I prefer my own sturdy and pretty bags to disposable ones anyway.
• I bring a bottle of water and stay hydrated. Especially if I'm going from store to store, I always get thirsty walking around with a cart, and drinking water helps me feel better and cuts down on impulse buys like expensive smoothie-type drinks.
• I try to time my shopping so when I arrive home laden with bags, my husband is home and available to help me unload. We live up two steep flights of stairs, and while the exercise is good, it's also nice to share the load.
• I stock up on dry staples wherever I can, so sometimes I can get away with a short, light shopping trip one week (fruits, veggies, milk) alternated with a staple-heavy trip the next.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by simiezzz

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Say no to every plastic bag

Local bans of plastic grocery bags have come into vogue. There's a good article in the Los Angeles Times on the plastic bag ban now being enacted in unincorporated parts of LA County. There are numerous reasons for avoiding the use of plastic bags, among them the environmental impact of manufacturing and distributing the bags, the problem of having such disposable products floating around our streets and waterways and the hazards these littered bags pose to animals. From an organizational perspective, plastic bags can quickly take over a pantry or closet. We see these convenient tools as being too good to throw away; they are usually strong and stand up to multiple uses, so we are loathe to trash them and we are uncertain about recycling them. In many places, they are not recyclable.

Tiny bag folded up.

Unfolded, it holds so much stuff, stylishly!

I am vehemently anti-plastic bags and I think the bans are a good thing. I always bring reusable bags when grocery shopping or even shopping at a mall. I never take a bag if the item I'm purchasing is small enough to stow in my purse or carry in my hand. I keep two collapsible bags in my purse at all times. If I must take a bag, I reuse it as many times as possible before recycling it.

To those who think they are incapable of remembering to bring bags with them, I say nonsense. Stash a few in your car, your glove box, your purse or backpack. Many businesses offer incentives for bringing your own bags - take advantage of this! Bulky canvas bags are super sturdy, but lightweight scrunch-style bags take up very little room. There's really no excuse. Get on the no-plastic-bag bandwagon!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.

Making do and making organized

While on my summer vacation I went up to Conrad and Brady, Montana, where I'm related to a sizable chunk of the population. At my cousins' farm I took some photos that illustrate how even when you have all the space in the world, you still have to organize in order to find stuff, and reusing things is a way of life.

Big sky country.

5 gallon buckets become parts holders in the garage.

Cubbyholes built in to the back wall of the garage contain small parts.

Old fence poles make perfect fireplace logs.

 

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com. Sign up for Lelah's News, a once-monthly newsletter.