Omg. This would be a godsend. Wizard and I try to do let-it-mellow too, but sometimes the stank just destroys me. What’s the process you’re using with the citric acid powder?
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Life hack: drink so much water that your pee is clear and unstinky.
I may look into the citric acid for our house. We inconsistently mellow.
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It’s just in a shaker (like a coarse spice shaker bottle would work) and I shake it a couple of times after I pee.
I don’t know it’s my meds or what, but it seems that no matter how much water I drink these days, my pee stinks. Maybe it’s all the toxins in me 
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Ugh that sucks.
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This is wonderful. I’m going to look into getting some citric acid – the shop next door may carry it in bulk.
Medicine can do all sorts of weird things to your pee. (Maybe one of yours has asparagus in it? 
)
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I got a credit card offer in the mail. Noticed the opt-out info at the bottom of the page, so I called and opted out of prescreened offers for 5 years. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0148-prescreened-credit-and-insurance-offers
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I think I’m going to support this kickstarter. I know there are better solutions to plastic in the kitchen, laundry etc, but I think this has potential for mainstream acceptance which means I want to support it.
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Bought a bunch of cute cloth napkins today! Hoping to dramatically cut down paper towel use (I do use cloth rags, but don’t have enough to use some as napkins)
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I really like their model. In spread out places it’s too hard to make refill stations work for now. But the sachet idea can be adopted first, and then adapted to refill stations
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I also like that it assumes people will be lazy - which is accurate. Even if there’s a refill station nearby, a lot of people would probably prefer popping something in the mail; it’s usually easier.
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Lush does this. Any container of stuff you buy can be refilled with that same stuff. I will eventually start doing this, once I get over the cost of their products.
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Their shampoo bars really do last as long as 3 small shampoo bottles, which helps. But a lot of their stuff is heart attack prices
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ETA so I’m not just adding a bunch of posts –
I forgot to comment on that kickstarter, @HaH – I think it’s a great idea. Most of my coworkers now use subscription services for all their household goods - like Amazon Pantry, or through Walmart. This would make it easy for the average family to transition to a much better option!
I chatted a few weeks ago at our new zero waste store in town about the hypocrisy of buying newly produced items to replace plastic items, and that there is also some necessity to offering those things because those items are often the things that draw people’s attention in the first place - like produce bags, or flatware (this latter one especially drives me nuts when most people have extra flatware already).
Progress, though: They now have a whole section for sharing these types of goods - where you can take or bring in jars, flatware, old travel tumblers, food storage, etc and they will sterilize them and leave them in the container lending space. They also started a reusable cloth bag checkout program with bags made from scrap material.
My personal small thing: I stopped purchasing cashews after reading more about how they are harvested and processed. I don’t buy a lot of nuts/legumes anyway as I try to eat locally as much as possible, but they are officially on my Nope list now, along with almonds and a bunch of other random foods. Coffee beans and chocolate are going to end up on this list but that’s been harder for me to put into practice.
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What’s wrong with produce bags?
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Not the bags themselves, but using resources to make new items when a lot of times we can use things we already have. Admittedly, items that aren’t as appealing, or aren’t quite as useful.
That’s the catch, especially in a culture driven by social media marketing. It’s kind of like the whole Imperfect Produce trend - it’s a lot more beneficial to the entire food stream to encourage your local grocer to discount older produce, and even more so to minimize your own food waste - but who is going to think of that on their own? And how many average consumers are actually going to research a company like that to see that they weren’t actually all that sustainable (at first)? A lot of the items that have come out in the past few years aimed at eco-conscious consumers might not be that great for the environment after all but they are getting people to start thinking about their personal impact.
It was a really good conversation. That there’s always a balance between attracting new people to become more aware, and providing too much of an incentive to just buy and replace things as always, but on a different scale. Factors like potentially discontinuing carrying Keep cups or other tumblers, because the trendy brands change so often, and not wanting to inadvertently contribute to continuing a throwaway culture, that sort of thing.
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I guess I just meant, what do people normally already have laying around that work as produce bags? Sure I have a couple plastic ones, but those tear in like 2 uses. So what is a non purchase I could have used va buying the reusable produce bags?
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I tend to buy my produce loose and put them directly into my resuable sturdy grocery bags. This works fine for carrots, apples, onions, potatoes, etc. Although that probably wouldn’t work so well for salad mix or loose greens.
I’ve always thought old pillowcases might be a good replacement for mesh or plastic produce bags. Either old ones that are out of circulation or picked up from the thrift store.
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This is pretty sweet.
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Oh durrrr.
I also just purchase everything loose, even greens, and put em all in the same bag. Loose berries, cherry tomatoes, nuts, tea, and the like I put in jars, or if I’m at a store that doesn’t tare I’ll use old yogurt/cottage cheese containers.
Surprisingly even the biggest mainstream grocery store here is totally fine with everything being loose on the conveyor belt. I’ve seen them wipe it down frequently but I personally am not worried about it, as the produce itself is being handled by a bazillion people before then too.
I also keep thinking about using my old pillowcases cut in half and resewed but haven’t gotten around to it yet!
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Ah, see, since we walk to the store, it would drive me bonkers to have large containers like that. And most of the stores we go to regularly don’t tare. And I couldn’t handle having just like… a billion loose green beans and stuff at the bottom of a bag! I dunno, maybe I’m the odd one here, but I feel like everything would get crushed by heavier items. In which case, I’d need a seperate bag just for small produce which ah… is what the produce bags are doing, lol!
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