Here at EcoJoes, we’ve looked at styrofoam and paper disposable cups, and came to the not-so-stunning conclusion that it’s best to use reusable cups. Not only are reusable cups good for the environment, they can save you money at coffee shops! Hot diggity.

But for most people, every once in a while they forget their reusable mug, so they buy coffee in a disposable cup. Hopefully, it’s a compostable, paper, insulated cup from Repurpose.

I got to test out one of these bad boys today, and it worked great. The paper wall is sort of puffy, so it stays insulated without needing extra layers of paper or a paper sleeve, meaning it uses less paper than most other disposable cups. How about that.

I’ve had about 3 cups o’ coffee today in my cup, and it did great keeping the coffee warm (at least 15 minutes staying the perfect temperature). The cup’s still holding together fine, too. Your hands won’t get burnt either, even if the drink is piping hot.

The neatest part to me is that Repurpose claims these cups (and the lids) are compostable within 90 days. That doesn’t mean I can watch it compost in my home composter, though.

As the Repurpose Compostables C.M.O. points out,

Our cups compost in an industrial composter, not your home composter. So you won’t be able to watch them compost at home. The product needs the heat and humidity that only an industrial composter provides and then it turns on the break down like switch and it takes 45-90 days to finally compost. They are ASTM 6400 and BPI certified to do so.

Researchers are still working on viable home composting possibilities for single use products. The problem is that in order to withstand the heat and moisture of your cup of coffee, the cup has to have an integrity that makes the home composter not an option if that makes sense. If it composted at home in any conditions it wouldn’t be a very sturdy product.

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Cats. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. These fine feline friends are great pets, but when it comes to cleaning up their god dang litter, that is certainly not the cat’s meow.

Not only is cat litter not great fun to clean up (and buy), but most clay-based kitty litter is made from clay that is strip mined from the Earth, which is horrible for the environment. The U.S. Bureau of Mines estimates that in 1994 alone, approximately 1.5 million metric tons of clay was mined to make clay cat litter.

A good way to avoid clay litter, and to reuse, is to just use old newspapers as cat litter. Here’s how to make your cat(s) some homemade newspaper cat litter.

1) Sprinkle some baking soda on to the bottom of an empty litter box. This is optional, and helps absorb some of that atrocious cat pee smell.

2) Tear newspaper into narrow strips (less than an inch wide). Pro tip: It’s a lot easier to tear vertically than horizontally.

3) Use your hand muscles to tear those newspaper strips into pieces that are about half a foot long. Use a ruler if you want to, kitty will appreciate the extra precision.

4) Make it rain. Flutter, throw, or somehow get all that newspaper into the cat litter box. It should be over halfway full (it’ll flatten a lot when it gets wet).

Et voila, you are finished. It’s recommended to change the wet newspaper daily, or else it’ll stink up your house. Hopefully your cat will give the newspaper litter the ol’ thumbs up, and you’ll be on your way to a greener kitty litter box.

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The green movement is making inroads even in the lil’ town of Garner. I was in the library last week, lamenting my near-illiteracy while I looked for the picture book section, when I saw Read the rest of this entry »

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Phone books. You gotta love them. Tons o’ wood used to make tons of paper to be delivered to houses and immediately recycled (or thrown away). How to stop this growing menace?

I thought I’d opted out of phone book delivery last year, but just today I got “The Talking Phone Book” plopped on my front porch.

So, here’s a quick, easy way to stop getting “The Talking Phone Book” delivered to your casa. It takes about 3 minutes, so it’s a very easy way to save lots of paper, ink, and gas (for phone book delivery) from being wasted.

1. Click on the city nearest to you on this page.

2. Call the phone number.

3. Hit “0″ when the automated message starts.

4. Ax the operator to kindly stop delivering phone books to your house.

That’s it! Never again will you come home to find cruelly murdered trees in the form of a worthless book in front of your door again. Not on my watch.

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It’s always good to have a paper shredder, to get rid of all that “sensitive” information on bills and credit card offers. But how to do it without using precious electricity?

This hand-powered paper shredder takes care of that. I got it for free from BCBS, and it’s been useful for shredding paper, which can then be used to make some homemade paper. It works really easily too, and shreds CDs and credit cards.

So if you’re thinking about getting a paper shredder and don’t want to use electricity for it, go for the hand-powered kind. They work good, save money, and help conserve energy AND your identification. Truly a win-win situation.

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You know those lil’ paper cups of latte that you get from coffee shops? Think about how many people get one of those lattes every day. How much water does that take?

Welp, it turns out that to make each cup o’ latte, it takes 200 liters of water. That’s over 50 gallons of water for each latte!! Hot dang!

Besides just the water you see, lots of water is also used for the coffee production, milk, disposable cup and sleeve, lid, and sugar. Check out this here video from WWF for more information…

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“Paper… pure paper!” I think that crazy guy in the epic film “Waterworld” said it best when he uttered those immortal lines about paper. But how can the people in “Waterworld” make paper when there ain’t no trees? Easy. They recycle paper, and now you can to. Here’s how to recycle paper into homemade paper.

First, you gots to make your paper frame. Use some leftover wood and make a rectangle; whatever size this frame is is the size your homemade paper shall be.

Staple some old window screen across the frame, stretching it tightly. There, your frame be done. Now you’re ready to make you some homemade paper, hot dang!

First, get a bunch of scrap paper (some call it scratch paper, whatever floats your boat). Also, feel free to add some of the following:

• newspaper
• lint
• toilet paper (gently used)….. just kidding on that one!!
• paper bags

Remember, whatever you put in will affect the color and texture of your finished paper, so for the love of Pete, be careful in selecting your ingredients for your homemade paper.

Tear up the paper into lil’ pieces.

Put the torn-up paper into a blender, filling it about halfway. Fill the rest of the blender with warm water.

Blend the mess out of that paper, starting with short burts, and finishing with a 20-second blend that purees the paper into a pulpy soup.

Do this about three times, each time pouring the blended paper soup into a basin or tote.

Afterward, put in some more warm water, filling the basin about halfway. Add about two tablespoons of corn starch, too.

Stir the pulp around, then dip your wood frame into the pulp all the way to the bottom. Slowly raise it up, keeping it level. Your screen should be covered with pulp now.

Let it dry somewhere. Once the frame stops dripping, sort of peel the paper around the edges.

Next, gently peel the very wet paper away from the frame. Slap that bad boy on some felt. Fun fact: I got my felt for 20 cents, and it’s made from recycled plastic. Ta-dow.

Use a sponge and try to squish excess water out. Once you’ve done that, let it dry on the felt.

Let all the paper completely dry on the felt or some newspaper.

Voila, recycling old useless paper into new homemade paper is just that easy. If you want to get fancy (and these days, who doesn’t?), try embedding some crazy mess in your paper (feathers, leaves, pictures cut out of a newspaper). Your friends will be TOO jealous of your customized paper, maybe even jealous enough… to kill?

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