Reduce, REUSE, Recycle

This is a post concerning women issues...therefore, gents, consider yourselves forewarned.

Think about the waste each female produces on a yearly basis. Let's say you get your period when you're12 and experience menopause by the time you're 50...that is  38 fertile years, 456 cycles, (let's say on average a period lasts five days and the pads are changed three times a day) and 6840 pads that you are indirectly sending to the landfill each year! 

Multiply this by the number of fertile women in the world and that is a lot of pads! To give you an idea according to the 2010 census, there were 157 million women in the United States alone (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff05.html).

So if you have ever thought about ways of reducing your environmental impact or live by the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra you may find the topic of reusable homemade pads interesting.

Seamstress, Autumn Starnes at stuffyourfluff.etsy.com creates "handmade cloth diapers and other reusable baby and mamma products".

So I ordered some of her homemade pads and I had them sent to my work. So far I have not had to answer any, "so what's in the package?" questions, for which I am grateful because I already feel like a leper in office clothes.

Pineapple-weed

Common Name: Pineapple-weed
Scientific Name: Matricaria matricarioides
Description: A low-growing weed with light green feathery leaves and conical yellow flowers that when crushed emit a pineapple scent.
Flowers: June-October
Habitat: roadsides and disturbed areas
Use: The fresh or dried flowers are steeped in hot water to create a pineapple flavored tea.

I found pineapple-weed nestled in one of the medians of my work parking lot. My picture looks like this...











It's supposed to look like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matricaria_discoidea

I think I'm going to invest in a better camera...

If You Can't beat It, Eat It

                      

                      
If You Can't beat It, Eat it

Japanese Knotweed 
An invasive plant 
A pesky weed
A native species’ ultimate foe
It’s not enough to uproot this shoot
By tugging it to and fro

You’ll need
Herbicide
Pesticide
Rubber gloves and loppers
To waste away the underground rhizomes
That mysteriously beat the choppers

Cover your arms
Cover your legs
And cover your animals too
Cause while it’s fighting a battle underground
It’ll be poisoning you
Wash your clothes
Don’t touch your kids
And throw away your gloves
To protect yourself from these potent chemicals
That ultimately destroys the shrubs

You may pollute the waters
You may infect the ground
But at least your lawn will look beautiful
To everyone around

Or you could just eat it.