Plymouth Green Team

We’ve had the new high efficiency washer and dryer for over a week now and we love them!  I can’t believe how little water the washer uses  - or how little detergent is needed.  Everything is so much cleaner.  I have to think there was a lot of soap residue left that was dulling our laundry.  Was that contributing to our allergies?

It usually takes soaking my son’s blue jeans with pre-treatment to get all the grease and grime out when he works on his truck.  But we didn’t use anything when he was home last weekend and it all came out!

I can’t wait to see our next water bill!

Our washer died last weekend before we had finished all the laundry.  While my husband took it apart and determined that it wasn’t worth fixing, I researched front load high efficiency washers on the Internet.  Then, I stopped by Nebraska Furniture Mart on my lunch hour and saw that they had a highly rated set on sale.  Oh, joy! 

Why didn’t I check anywhere else, you ask?  Every time I do, I still end up at Nebraska Furniture Mart when its time to buy.  I grew up near Omaha and my parents bought everything from Mrs. B.  She impressed me when I was a child - a tough little lady who was all about good customer service and great deals on quality products.  I sound like a commercial, I know.  But the point is, if you have a store you trust with prices you find acceptable, you might as well go straight there in the first place.  You save a lot of time running all over town and think of  the gas and resulting pollution you have saved! 

I, of course, consulted with my husband who said that since I had researched them I should get whatever I wanted.  I went back and, just  my luck, the sale sign was no longer there. 

When I asked the salesman, he said things go on and off sale all the time.  This was Lou, who had sold us our refrigerator a few months ago.  I usually don’t trust appliance salesmen, but Lou is a no-nonsense down-to-earth guy.  Kind of reminds me of Mrs. B.  He led me to a top-of-the-line floor model pair that had just been tagged for clearance so they could change their display.  It was a better set and, with the floor model discount, the price was less than the sale price of the other set!  And, they are a nice sage green with pedastels already attached.  

Now, I love floor model sales at Nebraska Furniture Mart because the appliances are new and they are deeply discounted.  Okay, our refrigerator had a couple of small dents, but that just meant I didn’t have to obsess over when someone would bang into it and make that first blemish!  The washer and dryer naturally have no dings or dents.  Figures, since they will be in the basement where nobody will see them!

I am now anxiously awaiting the delivery of my new high tech high efficiency laundry machines.   I can’t wait to do laundry knowing that I am saving energy, water, and detergent!   Stay tuned to see my report on how they perform!

Today I found out how to tell if your packing peanuts are styrofoam or biodegradable ones made of cornstarch.  You put one in water and if it dissolves, it’s biodegradable.  That makes sense if you think about it.  I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before.  

I decided I would send my excess styrofoam to Iowa Consign Online for reuse in shipping their eBay sales next time my husband goes there.  Then I won’t have to waste fuel making a separate trip.        

Our neighborhood recently received big beautiful blue single stream recycling bins!  I have never recycled so much!  Its so easy - no sorting or finding a place to collect the sorted items - they all go in the same bin. Way to go, Metro Waste Authority!

Since its been so cold and icy here, my husband wheeled the recycling bin right up by the front door for the time being.  My neighbors might not find it beautiful, but it sure is handy and I don’t have to risk life and limb every time I want to take something out.  It will go back by the garage soon.

I did a lot of my Christmas shopping online this year, so now I am getting rid of a lot of packaging.  I’m

• flattening out cardboard boxes that I can’t repurpose, 

• uncrumpling paper that was used as packing so it doesn’t take up so much space in the recycling bin, 

• saving bubble wrap to take to church to cushion the burnt out fluorescent light bulbs and tubes that Plymouth Green Team collects from the congregation and periodically takes to be recycled. 

Then there is that pesky bag of packing peanuts.  I’ve been told that some packaging stores will recycle them.  Will I find the time to investigate or will I get tired of them and just throw them in the garbage? 

Its not easy being green….Peggy       

The new year is a time of renewal and beginning fresh new things, so the first day of 2009 seems like a great time to launch a new feature of PlymouthGreen.org - our blog!

If you haven’t arrived here via the link on our website, first let me introduce Plymouth Green Team.  We are a group of people who are members of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Des Moines, Iowa who are concerned about how people have been abusing to our Earth in their haste to embrace new technologies and want to do something about it.  Some of us attended a workshop a couple of years ago called Cool Congregations - a program of Iowa Interfaith Power and Light.  Those folks put out a call to form a Cool Congregations group at Plymouth.  We took awhile to figure out just what we were doing and what would work with our 3,000 member congregation, but we now have a team of friends who work like a well-oiled machine to produce monthly programs to inform our congregation about changes each person, each household, can make in their own lives that will move us away from global warming toward a healthy environment.

Part of Plymouth Green Team’s mission is to share our own successes as well as trials and tribulations in our personal journeys toward becoming responsible stewards of our Earth.  So here we are starting a blog to do just that!

You are most welcome to comment on our posts and let us know how you are making changes in your own lifestyle, what problems or obstacles you may have encountered, or what ideas you might have to help us!