Green and Organic Savings Friday: Coffee, Water Bottles and Phthalate-Free Bath Toys
Welcome back to Green and Organic Savings Friday at OrganicMania! Sorry for getting this post up a little bit later than usual this morning, but with two sickos in the house (DH and Big Boy), things are not going exactly according to plan! I’m sure all of you can relate.
Last Friday, we focused on organic tea. This week, the coffee drinkers get equal time. OrganicMania has blogged here about the fabulous biodynamic espresso beans and coffee available via mail order from Café Altura. It’s a great buy at $11 a pound, including shipping. We splurge on this coffee because DH is a coffee snob. (And I admit I’ve become one too).
But for some folks, coffee is coffee is coffee. They want Fair Trade coffee, but $11 a pound is too expensive. Well, how about $5.88 per pound? I haven’t actually tried this Sam’s Club Fair Trade coffee, but I haven’t seen a better deal. If any of you OrganicManiacs™ out there have tried it, please leave a comment and tell us what you thought! I found this on a scouting expedition the other week to check out Walmart’s organic lines, which have been getting a lot of press. (Yes, if you ever see a Mom with two kids and a Treo snapping pictures in your local store, that’s me! Say hello!) I also reviewed Walmart’s display of Clorox Green Works products during that same trip, check that out here.
Of course, there’s been a huge amount of press lately about the BPA and phthalates leaching into plastic bottles, sending Moms out to the stores in droves looking for eco-friendly green alternatives. The problem is that doing the research to replace your existing water bottles and bath toys can seem like a nearly full time job! If I can save any of you some time with these tips, it would make me very happy!
If you’re anything like my family, you had about 30 or 40 little plastic bath toys floating around your bath tub. They were so cheap, they seemed to invade the house. Well, one advantage to replacing the Cheap Plastic Crap bath toys with phthalate-free bath toys, is that they’re so much more expensive, you won’t have a boatload of them invading your house! But don’t make the same mistake OrganicMania did initially, and buy them separately for $5 to $15 a pop (ouch!) Instead, you can find reasonably priced tubes or boxes of Safari phthalate-free bath toys for around $8 to $10 for 10 to 12 bath toys. Here‘s one spot you can order them – and they’re on sale. Or, if you happen to be at the Delaware beaches, check out Big Boy’s favorite bookstore, Browseabout, which has a great selection of Safari toys – that’s where Big Boy scored his new bath toys.
And finding that perfect BPA-free water bottle? Well, I haven’t found one yet that’s priced right. So in the spirit of reduce, reuse, recycle, here’s what I’m doing….reusing a glass Honest Tea bottle.
Did you find any great deals on green and organic products this week? Leave a comment and share!
COMMENT NOTES – NEW COMMENT FORM EXPLANATION: (Sorry for caps!) I’m experimenting with a new program from Mr. Linky. If you are a blogger and want to link to this post from your blog and show a link back from OrganicMania (which Technorati will count), please leave a comment in the box marked comments and when it asks for URL, leave your URL post where you will link to this post.
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Sorry for any confusion – first time through with new technology!
Lynn
Copyright 2008 OrganicMania
8 Responses to “Green and Organic Savings Friday: Coffee, Water Bottles and Phthalate-Free Bath Toys”
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Great information on going green.
I’ve yet to find and organic coffee which I really like so I’m going to give that one a try.
Thank you for a very informative post. I like the idea of fair trade and I am involved in a business that sells eco gifts and eco products that is sold under the fair trade products banner. Now, I only drink fair trade coffee. I am not really a tea kind of person I need the extra zoom that coffee brings. The Sam’s Club Coffee is okay, it’s not great but its okay. I tried it once and it didn’t really give me the same satisfaction as the more expensive ones do. I haven’t tried Café Altura but I trust your judgment and I will go ahead and try it. If I like it I’ll add it to my upcoming Christmas list as a FairGift (sorry I know I plan my Christmas list too early)
Thanks for stopping by! Let me know what you think of Cafe Altura! And I do my shopping early too! I’m never in the stores in December! — Lynn
[…] How to Save on Organic Coffee, Phthalate Free Bath Toys, and BPA-Free, Safe Water Bottles […]
Hello:
Just stumbled upon your site here as I was looking for alternatives to juice boxes and plastic bottles for my 5 year olds daily lunch box. Thinking I was being a “green-ish” mom I bought a 6 pack of Motts 6 oz apple juice bottles and have been reusing them day after day and week after week for my son. Yikes, come to find out I am poisoning him! No Mother of the Year Award for me AGAIN!
I have found the superhero thermal thermoses at Target for $16.00- are you nuts!!!
I bought a few small rubbermaid brand “juice box looking” straw bottles but those leak like a cheap diaper.
Any other suggestions of what parents are using to avoid juiceboxes, $$$ thermoses, and leaky rubbermaid containers? Thanks!
Love this site! Nice work!
[…] only two of us had even tread foot inside a Walmart. But as I’ve blogged here, here, and here, I actually do shop in Walmart from time to time, and I’ve eagerly cheered them on as […]
Is Sams choice coffee really that good? I keep meaning to try it, but I am too scared I won’t like it.
Great blog post, it was very informative. I really enjoyed all of your information on going green! I use a Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottle; it’s very trustworthy. No BPA, super durable, and I’m sure it will last me a lifetime. A great green choice!
Thanks for posting! :).