Lydia Likes It

Refillable cleaning products

Why not make a new year's resolution (it's not too late) to take better care of our planet? Good Filling helps you do your part, by providing an easy way to refill your own containers with dish soap, hand soap, laundry detergent and all-purpose cleaner from on-site sanitization stations (there's one in my building). Products are supplied from eco-friendly companies like Seventh Generation, Puracy and The Unscented Company. You save approximately 20 percent over the retail cost, and you won't be purchasing any single-use plastics. If you can't find a filling station near you, you can order their products from the web site. We've refilled our grocery store dish soap container three times, and we'll keep using it until it wears out.

Seeing in color {green}

Trust a LEED Gold building to feature eco-friendly art in its lobby. The Living Green Wall, which reflects my apartment building's commitment to a sustainable environment, combines jade pothos, philodendron brasil, and neon pothos plants. It offers a range of benefits, including natural air filtration, VOC (volatile organic compounds) removal, stress relief, and assistance in the building's thermal regulation, and it brings the vibrancy of nature inside. 

Fog

Can you see it, the 50-story office building towering over downtown Boston? No? Living in a high-rise apartment in a coastal city, I have learned to love the fog. Some mornings, I wake up to a blanket so thick that I can't see the John Hancock building or the weather beacon, the Charles River or Back Bay or Beacon Hill or Cambridge, or the building next door. When I lived on the ground, I didn't appreciate the fog in quite the same way. Up here, up high, it's a treat.

Billboards, repurposed

In my front hall closet and the trunk of the car, you'll find at least half a dozen bags made from repurposed billboards. Four cooler bags like this one (two are smaller, two larger), and some capacious tote bags, hold a ton of groceries or everything you need for a day at the beach or dinner outside on the deck. Rareform fashions totes, duffels, and a host of smaller accessories out of rescued billboards, keeping them out of landfills, and each is one of a kind. They're water-resistant and easy to clean, and quite sturdy. Sometimes you can guess the product or event that was publicized on the billboard. The Maya Crossbody Tote that holds my art supplies, for example, most definitely started as an advertisement for the TV show Better Call Saul, so I that's what I call the bag. As in, "Is the tape measure in Better Call Saul?" Stock up when there's a sale; these bags make great house gifts.

Too Good to Go

Save food, save money, save the planet. How can you beat that? Welcome to our world, Too Good To Go. We dream of a planet with no food waste, and this is one direct way we can help make that a reality. Just download the app on your phone, log on, and connect to surplus food from local stores and restaurants. For only one-third of the retail cost, you can snag a bag of unsold baked goods, groceries, or a meal to go (pizza, Mediterranean, Mexican, sushi and more). Order and pay through the app, show up at the pickup time, flash the receipt on your phone, and walk away with a bag of food that will be a most delicious bargain -- and a total surprise, because you never know exactly what you'll get. Find Too Good to Go in Boston, New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Chicago; if you'd like to see the program expand to your area, check the web site for how-to information. Support local businesses, care for the Earth, eat well, and have fun.