Cool Product - Ecotraction

I first learned about Ecotraction last year from one of my colleagues. He saw it on the TV show Dragons Den and decided to check it out. What is it exactly? It is a green alternative to sand, salt and de-icer. That means you have all the benefits of a slip free walkway/driveway this winter and you don't have to worry about your impact on the environment.

Sand is not a great option because it gets into the waterways and degrades the water quality thereby preventing sunlight from getting to the plant and marine life.

Salt also gets into our waterways and adds to the salinity of the water. This can lead to loss of plant and marine life. And lets face it no one likes walking on the large salt bits or the lovely white ring it leaves on the bottom of your pants.

Ecotraction works by absorbing the layer of water that is on top of the ice and providing traction by creating a sandpaper like texture. It acts as a de-icer by attacting an increased amount of sunlight and allowing the snow/ice to melt at a fast rate. For more information check this out. All this and it doesn't have a negative impact on our waterways (or our pants).

Come springtime all you have to do is sweep Ecotraction up and you can reuse it on your lawn or in your garden or in your catbox. That's right...it is reuseable. I guess you could do that with salt too. One day on your driveway, the next on the rim of you margarita glass.

We will be using Ecotraction this winter and I look forward to seeing this production in action (from the comfort of my living room :) ).

So where can you find this cool product? Find a retailer near you and help green your winter snow removal practices.

Tip of the Day - Bubble Wrap Your Windows

I came across this article on using bubble wrap to insulate your windows for winter. It looks like it could be a really great way to keep your home warm over the bitter cold winters. As you may have read we are currently working on winterizing our home and I think I am going to try bubble wrapping a few of our windows to see what it is like.

Now how do I keep myself from popping the bubbles????

Related Posts - Check them out
Weekly Eco-Challenge - Preparing for Winter
Winterizing your Home

Weekly Eco-Challenge - Preparing for Winter

Time to prepare the igloo and dogsled for winter.

Having been here for a few winters now we know where the problems are and what we need to do to cut down on our energy losses over those cold cold months.


This week we will be focusing on winterizing our home. We plan to do the following:

- plastic over the windows in the nursery, master bedroom, office, family room, dining room, kitchen
- new filter for our furnace
- new weather stripping for the front door and the garage door
- curtains with a lining for the living room and dining room (these are the biggest rooms and windows in our home. They cost us the most to heat.)
- re-caulking windows where required

We can compare the results to how much natural gas we used last year to heat our home. I will just have to normalize the numbers based on the outdoor temperature.

Related Posts - Check them out
Winterizing Your Home

Weekly Eco-Challenge - Battery Round-Up

This weeks Eco-Challenge was to take inventory of everything we have in the house that uses batteries and what size they require. We could then make decisions on what kind of rechargeable to get.

We already have a charger that will handle up to 4AA batteries. From looking at what we have in the house I think that this will be enough. We mostly have things powered by AA batteries. We just need to get more rechargeable batteries that will work with our charger. Right now we have 8 AA batteries that are rechargeable.

We currently use: 26 AA, 10 C, 2 D, 1 watch battery, 9 equipment specific batteries (already rechargeable).

I am actually kind of surprised. I did not think that we had 26AA in use in the house. Some things we use daily and others maybe once or twice a year but still 26 is a lot. I don't think we will be buying another 18 rechargeable AA batteries but I think we will invest in another 8 to cover off all the items that we use on a regular basis.

In the meantime we will be be collecting the batteries as they die and then taking all of them to the hazardous waste facility when they have household hazardous waste day in the spring.

Related Posts - Check them out
Weekly Eco-Challenge: Waste Streams
e-Waste
Weekly Eco-Challenge: Standby Power

Recycling is Confusing

I will never understand why recycling isn't consistent between municipalities. We used to live in the Halton Region and could recycle just about everything. When we moved to the Waterloo Region I was surprised at the number of things we couldn't recycle.

I know that recycling plants are built and set up differently and therefore can handle different items but it just seems that there are too many differences. It is too bad that it isn't consistent so that people don't get confused and frustrated when they move to a new region. When we first moved here we got lots of those lovely little sticky notes on our recycling bin. Styrofoam - sorry we don't take that (but if you want to drive to our recycling plant we will take it off your hands). Tinfoil - I don't think so. Why not roll it into balls and let your cat play with it. Although I now see that we can recycle tinfoil - wonder when that happened.

I will take a sticky note over what happened a few months ago when we put out some cardboard. We had followed the rules and broken the boxes down. The recycling truck decided not to take it and left it at our curb. I watched as the garbage truck pulled up and threw the cardboard in the back. I didn't make it outside in time (I was 41 weeks pregnant) to tell them not to take it. Why not leave a note for the cardboard?

I totally understand why people get so confused and just give up recycling all together. Let's just wait and see how the confusion grows when the green box program is rolled out.

Name that Volt

Do you remember when the names for colours were simple? Red, blue, green, yellow. Now we have indian summer, ocean surf, olive juice and rustic corn. Okay I don't know if those are real names of colours or not but I bet you thought they were!

GM has opened up a contest for fans of the new Volt to name the first colour that will be made available.

Check out this site for more information on the contest and for the pictures of the colour that needs a name. To enter your name email me and I will enter it on your behalf ;) No seriously, just go to the Volt site and enter in your name suggestion.

350 - What Can You Do. Part 1

Here are some bigger things you can do to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions you and your family are producing.


Hybrid Car
Do you ever think about buying a hybrid to reduce your carbon footprint? I know I do. Our next vehicle will most definitly be one. I would get one now but it doesn't make sense to buy one when our current vehicle is still relatively new and in fantastic condition. Really when you think about it, that would be worse for the environment because we would be getting rid of a perfectly good car and having all the energy expended to make a new one for us. So we will wait...and I will continue to hope that Mazda will get their act together and design a hybrid otherwise Toyota here we come.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling
One day we would like to buy a piece of property and build a house. If we do I would love to install geothermal heating and cooling. It is expensive and the pay back is ridiculously long but I believe it would be worth it. If you haven't heard of geothermal heating and cooling before check it out.

Solar Heating
We have talked about putting a pool in. If (or as Joe says when) we do we will also be installing solar panels to heat it. My dad did this on their pool when we were kids and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had no idea that it would end up being trendy. If your roof is the right size and pitch for solar panels it is a great way to save some money and also heat a pool or even power part or all of your house.