Camp like a (green) champ

Ah, camping. That coveted chance to head to the woods and get away from it all - to get off the computer, enjoy being with nature and drink a few cold ones on a lake. Unfortunately, sometimes "getting away from it all" also means buying a pile of unnecessary stuff, creating a bunch of garbage, and, in a few select cases, burning entire trees on a fiery inferno started with gasoline (guys on the east side of Harrison Lake, I'm looking at you).

But, that doesn't always have to be the case. Here are some tips on how to enjoy staying in the great outdoors without being a jerk to the earth:

Photo by Thruhike98 on Flickr

Easy ways to cut down on food waste

I've always felt guilty about throwing out food - and we eat so many vegetables in our house that it ends up being 3/4 of our weekly garbage (living in an apartment means no city food scraps pickup). I'd had a compost for a while, but was still throwing out fruits and veggies every week, much to my frustration. Finally, the kick in the ass I needed to start getting creative came in book form: American Wasteland by food journalist Jonathan Bloom. The stats are shocking (almost 1/2 of all food produced in the US ends up in the landfill), but some of his big- and small-picture ideas on what we can do to change it are pretty inspiring.

Here are some of the simple ways I've been able to cut down on food waste over the last few months:

Homemade green cleaner

I've always been a bit wary of household cleaners. I bought Comet because my mom had always used Comet, but the smell alone always made me wonder if I was giving myself some kind of chemical-induced asthma. But I kept using it, mostly because there weren't any "green" alternatives on the market yet. Then P moved in with me and brought an industrial-sized box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers with him (courtesy of his mom). I'd never used them before, and was amazed at how freakin' well they worked. I was seriously impressed by the innocent-looking little pads. At least until when, despite my protests, P decided to use one to clean something off my arm - which quickly resulted in a nice raw chemical burn on my flesh. I decided then and there I'd rather use some elbow grease and plain vinegar if I had to than wipe something that would burn my flesh all over the house.

When my friend Tracey posted an easy recipe on her blog, I had no more excuses.

I tested it out on the bathroom today and it works like a charm. Took about 3 minutes to make, gets rid of the grime and best of all - no chance of chemical burns in the forecast! Sweet. You can get the recipe over on Tracey's blog, Short + Sweet.

Reclaimed light fixture

Look out - I'm getting artsy. This usually doesn't work out well. But fingers crossed.

I got this idea from the latest issue of Sunset magazine, which had a feature on using recycled materials in the garden, including an old glass light fixture-turned-planter:

Low-impact landscaping

Now that we've (mostly) cleared out the garden, it's time to figure out what the hell we're gonna do with it. Luckily, my aunt just happens to be a landscaper (and a rad person to boot). She came by to help us come up with a plan that fits in with our goal of creating an awesome outdoor space - without buying a bunch of new stuff and creating a ton of waste in the process. Basically, we're aiming to:

- use second-hand material as much as we can (tools, plants, compost, containers, etc.)
- recycle all garden waste
- collect rainwater to use for watering
- plant and grow some veggies, reducing the amount we buy at the store