Ah, I remember the good times when my trick-or-treating gang would dump out our loot and trade the candy we didn’t want. “I’ll trade you one Milky Way for two Blow Pops” was the kind of wheeling and dealing going on. Everyone won, and it was a thing of beauty. No one ever wanted those little boxes of raisins though.
Trick-or-treating days are long gone, but that old rush has a chance to come back even stronger–just with with the more grownup goodies of books in place of candy. Thanks to my book-loving eco-maven friend Bridget, I found out about PaperBackSwap. PaperBackSwap is an ingenious idea: You register, send in some books, earn “credits” for those books, and then use the credits to have the books of your choice sent to you. It’s the kind of reuse synchronicity that only the web can bring. Check out this video where Bridget explains how it works really well.
But oh no, it doesn’t stop at just books. There’s also SwapaCD and SwapaDVD, which work in the same way as PaperBackSwap. All of these services not only can save you a ton of money, but they promote not accumlating more stuff, and consequently conserving natural resources and energy.
I’ve been hearing about other swapping opportunities too, like clothing or household goods swap parties. I once had a spa party and everyone brought unwanted make-up, lotions, etc. that were perfectly good but just weren’t getting used. It was so fun to get some new products and see friends excited about things that I wanted to give away!
Although I’ve given away and even sold books online in the past, I still have a lot of them piling up on our sagging bookshelves. So now, I just have to let go of my unidentifiable need to hold onto them. Some of course are worth keeping, but do I really need to keep so many old books that I’ll most likely never look at again? No. Definitely not.
When it comes to cleaning, I think I’m in pretty decent eco-shape. The general rule is minimal toxics and waste. For laundry, I use unscented, concentrated detergent (always an environmentally-friendly brand), wash mostly in cold, only wash full loads and run shorter cycles.
These are made from cloth, have no chemicals and are supposed to soften clothes and remove static cling. One cloth lasts up to 500 loads, which if they work, is awesome. They don’t provide a scent, but I used unscented dryer sheets and don’t care about fragrance anyway. (If you do want fragrance, a good tip I found is to make a little sachet of lavender and throw it in the dryer.) I read the positive reviews on Amazon and found recommendations on environmental websites, so I figured I’d give it a try. I orderered a pair and they should be on the way. I’ll report the results!
