Our old clunker of a washing machine came with our house.  A typical top-loader from the 1970s or ‘80s, it probably used about forty gallons of water per load.  Another downside of this appliance is that it did not even get the clothes clean.  Dark clothes (i.e., all my clothes) came out with streaks of lint, clumps of detergent, and the dirt and grime they had before “washing” them.

A positive pregnancy test motivated me to replace my washing machine.  I wanted to try cloth diapers and figured pre-baby was the ideal time to switch.  I knew a good front loader used just ten gallons of water per load, but I was disappointed that they cost so much more than top-loaders.  The cheapest one I saw advertised was $800.  Knowing I could save hundreds of gallons of water, not to mention all the energy used to heat the water, I convinced myself it would be worth it.

Then a weird thing happened: we got the washer for far less than we’d budgeted.  First, we just so happened to show up on a store-wide 10% discount day.  Also, the washer in question turned out to be on sale.  And, we got a tax credit and some sort of energy credit.  Ask around–someone may want to pay you for selecting an energy-conscious option.  To top it all off, the store offered a rebate on the delivery charge.  The strangest thing was, we did not ask about any of this stuff–the guy at Sears just kept handing us forms and coupons.  Our Kenmore washer–listed at $800 in the Sunday paper–cost us just $350 including delivery!  That’s about the same price as a standard water-guzzling top-loader.

I love my front-loading machine.  All of my clothes come out clean and fresh-smelling and take less time to dry due to the extra-fast spin cycle.  This machine has made cloth-diapering much more efficient.  I wash diapers every four days on the heavy cycle–no extra rinses and no wet pail.  This means I am able to use just 900 gallons of water a year washing cloth diapers.  I also use a third of the detergent I’d use with a top-loader.  Compare that to someone who uses a top-loader every four days: they’ll use 3600 gallons a year!  Add in extra rinse cycles, more frequent washes, and wet pails and they could be wasting as much as 10,000 gallons of water a year on their cloth diaper laundry alone.

My washer has already paid for itself and will continue to save water and energy years after my daughter is out of diapers.  If you are in the market for a new machine, hunt around for special discounts and tax credits.  You may find, as I did, that a new high efficiency machine is well within your reach.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Now we’ve written about avoiding plastics in baby care products, teethers, and toys.  Parents left and right are freaking out about all the possible health risks associated with some plastics.  You may be one of them.  I try not to freak out over everything I read, but I have become more aware of the preponderance of plastic in my life.  I even have a kind of hazy goal involving eliminating plastic from my house entirely.  But where do I even start? 

Okay, so purging the house of plastic may sound overwhelming, but there are little things you can do to start replacing it with other materials.  I try to limit my plastic consumption one step at a time.  When I needed new food storage containers, for example, I opted for glass.  (Stay tuned for yet another installment in my plastic saga: Eliminating Plastic Containers.)

I’ve also started figuring out which plastics are “bad” and which ones are okay.  National Geographic’s Green Guide has an article about how to tell the good plastics (numbers 1, 2, 4, 5) from the bad: numbers 3, 6, and 7.  They also have a down-loadable “Smart Shoppers’ Plastic Picks” card available through the above link.

Glad freezer and sandwich bags are phthalate-free

I’ve been using ceramic or glass to microwave foods for a while now.  Freezing and microwaving causes phthalates to leach into foods.  “Microwave Safe” only means the plastic won’t melt–it does not necessarily mean it’s “safe” to eat foods microwaved in them.  Softer plastics such as Ziplock bags are more likely to be phthalate-free than harder plastics, so freezing in bags may be a better choice than freezing in plastic containers.  According to this website, Ziploc regular and freezer bags, Glad sandwich and freezer bags, Hefty OneZip bags, Glad Cling, and Saran Cling Plus are all phthalate-free.

One day I’m sure I’ll have that beautiful, plastic-free house of my dreams.  All of my storage containers will be glass.  All of my furniture will be wooden (yes, I have plastic furniture–it was free!).  And I will hand-carve all of my daughter’s toys out of twigs that have fallen to the ground.  Until that day, though, I will just take it one step at a time. 

Ever since Audrey started on solid foods at six months, she’s loved oatmeal. We spoon-fed oatmeal to her for months, and now she asks for her “oats” and feeds herself. I was happy to find a cheaper, more nutritious alternative to the typical rice cereal, which many parents are now avoiding as a first food. (Read an article about how to choose baby and kid cereals here. Learn more about the oat porridge I made Audrey in the early months here.)

I had a harder time finding a dry cereal that Audrey could enjoy as finger food. Cheerios, a common baby finger food, contain both wheat and sugar–two ingredients doctors say to avoid during baby’s first year. Plus, they’re not organic. My neighborhood stores offered plenty of organic Cheerio-like cereals, but almost all of them also contained wheat and sugar (sometimes disguised as organic cane syrup). 

Finally I found the perfect solution: puffs. Both Nature Valley and Arrowhead Mills make puffed grain cereals that are perfect for babies. The only ingredient is the grain itself–no sugar, no salt, no additives or preservatives. I’ve seen puffed corn, rice, millet, wheat, and kamut. Kamut is the preferred puff in our household. Although it is a larger relative of wheat, many people with wheat allergies or intolerances can digest kamut. If you are really worried about introducing wheat or its cousins, I’d recommend the corn puffs instead.

What about the price? I try to buy the six-ounce bags when they are on sale for $1.50 ($4/pound), but the regular price is $1.90 ($5.06/pound). Yes, this is more expensive than a jumbo-box of Cheerios, which can be had for 22.2 cents an ounce ($3.55/pound). However, I think the extra price for an organic, whole-grain cereal is worth it. And most importantly, kamut puffs are one of Audrey’s favorite foods!

This week’s Works for Me Wednesday is all about what doesn’t work for you.  Cheerios weren’t working for me, so I’m glad I found an alternative.  For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Right around when Joy wrote her post about diaper-friendly detergent I was in the process of phasing out my conventional laundry soap. I hadn’t switched over to an eco-friendly brand because I kept getting hung up on the price. Imagine my shock when I discovered that eco-friendly detergent can be cheaper than conventional detergent! I no longer have any reason to use a mainstream brand.

Laundry Detergent–from cheapest to most expensive

T.J.’s powder  / $5.49 / 40 loads / $.137 per load

Biokleen powder  / $13.99 / 100 loads / $.139 per load  BEST DEAL

T.J.’s liquid HE  / $8.99 / 64 loads / $.14 per load

All (not eco-friendly)  / $14.00 / 96 loads / $.145 per load

Biokleen liquid  / $9.49 / 64 loads /$.148 per load

T.J.’s powder  / $10.00 / 64 loads / $.156 per load

Biokleen powder / $8.29 / 50 loads / $.165 per load

Planet  / $10.00 / 32 loads /  $.31 per load

Ecover  / $9.00 / 20 loads / $.45 per load

7^th Generation  / $8.00 / 16 loads / $.50 per load

Some Notes on the Eco-friendly Detergents

• Even though T.J.’s 40-load box is cheaper than Biokleen’s 100-load box, Biokleen gets the “Best Deal” award because it uses less packaging.
• Trader Joe’s larger box of detergent (64 loads) is a worse deal than their small box (40 loads).
• Biokleen is often on sale. I got my ten-pound box for $11.99 (.119 per load). Trader Joe’s prices stay constant.
• If you read the text on the Biokleen box, it says you’ll get 100 loads by using three-quarters of the scoop provided. With a high efficiency machine, the box recommends using just half a scoop. That means I’ll actually get 160 loads out of my Biokleen box. The actual price per load on my $11.99 sale box will be just $.074. That’s half the price of many other eco-friendly brands and the cheap conventional brand.
• The Ecover and 7^th Generation are bad deals. Not only do they cost a lot, they also come in plastic bottles that would have to be replaced frequently. (1 box of Biokleen = 10 plastic bottles of 7^th Generation!)

Some Notes on the Conventional Detergent

I wanted to see how eco-friendly brands compared to the cheapest conventional brand and was pleased to find that Biokleen powder is actually cheaper than All. Now, I’m sure you can find cheaper detergent at a big warehouse store, but I was looking only in the stores within walking distance of my house. One huge plastic container of All costs $14 ($.145/load). That’s almost twice as expensive as the Biokleen.

My frugal friend (we’ll call him Thrifty Bob) told me that he’d just found a container of All on sale for $9 ($.093/load). Not bad, Thrifty Bob! However, if you read the fine print on the container, it says you’ll get 96 loads if you fill the cup half-way full. If you have a top-loader, you may be filling the cup to the top, so you’d actually get just 48 loads out of the container. Thrifty Bob has a front-loader and admitted that he often filled the cup more than halfway full. Not only does this waste detergent, it may ruin a front-loading machine. The guy who delivered our front-loader warned me to never, ever, ever use more than a third-cup of detergent.

I will admit that before I found Biokleen, I was using All detergent, too. Now I’m kicking myself, because not only was I paying more, I was polluting the Earth with toxins and adding a huge hunk of plastic to the recycling bin. Even worse, I had to throw away three non-recyclable plastic parts of the container: the plastic cup, spout, and cap.

Another big advantage to green detergent is that it doesn’t contain chemicals that can cling to skin or petroleum-based oils that coat diapers and cause unpleasant smells. Thanks to Biokleen, I’ll be saving money, keeping toxins away from our bodies, and helping the planet.

I’d always heard that diapers needed to be washed in the hottest water possible.  After two years of washing diapers in hot water, a post on Treehugging Family made me think about whether I could wash diapers in cold.  Peggy writes about saving 72 pounds of carbon dioxide in one month just by washing four out of five loads in cold water.  Keep that up for an entire year and you’ll save $60-100 on your energy bill. 

But doesn’t washing in hot water kill germs and bacteria?  Everything I read said no–unless your washer has a built-in heater, the hot water in your machine does not get hot enough to kill anything.  Most water heaters are set to 120 degrees.  You’d need a temperature of 160 to kill anything and 212 to actually sanitize your laundry.  Jennifer (Peggy’s co-blogger on Treehugging Family) pointed out that the dryer does get hot enough to kill bacteria.

Armed with all this information, I figured it was worth a try.  I loaded the diapers in the machine and set the knob to “cold.”  At the last minute, I almost turned the knob back to hot.  After years of believing the hot water I was using was beneficial–no, necessary–to the cloth diapering process, it was hard to make the change, even for investigative purposes.  Then, in one of the most daring moves of my cloth-diapering career, I pressed the start button and let the cold water gush into the machine.

Now that you are all on the edges of your seats, I’ll break this amazing news: the diapers came out of the dryer white, clean, and fresh-smelling.  Now, if anyone has some scientific evidence in favor of the hot-wash, please post a comment.  Until I hear advice to the contrary, I am going to wash diapers in cold water.  I just wish I’d had the gumption to take the plunge years ago!