Okay, let’s face it: recycled toilet paper sucks. It’s too thin, too rough, and rips too easily. That’s because each time paper is recycled, the fibers get shorter and shorter. I’ve tried different brands over the years and always gone back to Cottonelle (partially because Jason insists he has a sensitive bum).

But it seems ridiculous to cut down a tree for the express purpose of wiping your ass. So after reading this article on Grist, we decided to do our own experiments. We picked up a few different brands that were carried in our regular stores: Seventh Generation, Green Forest, and the Whole Foods brand.

Green Forest was by far the best. It even met with Jason’s approval. And, I found out after the fact, it has the most post-consumer content of any toilet paper: 90%. So says the Natural Resources Defense Council. I think that’s the best I’m going to find, at least until I get a bidet.

The winner!

Yes, it’s thinner than Cottonelle, and the rolls don’t last as long, but you know that the paper has had some sort of life outside of your toilet. I can only find it at Harvest and some Whole Foods, so when I go I’ll stock up. The difference really is that big. So tell me: What’s the best recycled toilet paper that you’ve found?

We were feeding the worms this week when I noticed something awesome—baby worms! There were tons of the little buggers, as well as a bunch of cocoons.

Isn't it adorable?

I find this reassuring, because it means that their environment is good enough for them to reproduce; it’s not too wet or too dry, the castings to paper ratio isn’t too high, and there’s enough food. In fact, I think they can handle even more garbage than what we’ve been giving them, since everything but the hardest veggies (cabbage leaves, celery) is completely unrecognizable by the time we feed them again.

You can tell this one is about to hatch because of the reddish-brown color.

These worms are so much more efficient than the first batch that I feel we really must have mistreated the first ones (before we killed them). We didn’t know that much about worms when we started out, just what we’d found out from some online research. At the time, I thought they were working out okay. They ate our garbage and they reproduced, but they did both very slowly compared to the new ones.

And the parents. Aren't they huge?

I think our problems were:

1. We used regular paper instead of newspaper. Apparently, the newspaper absorbs more water, and I’m told soy-based ink (Boston Globe, New York Times) is less toxic to them than regular ink.
2. We didn’t let it get wet enough. We knew moisture could be a problem, because if it got too wet they’d make a break for it. But we didn’t know that they needed a certain amount of moisture to allow them to breath through their skin. I think we slowly suffocated them.
3. We let their poo build up too much. We didn’t know exactly what finished compost should look like, so we waited and waited until it looked like potting soil. Unfortunately, that meant that they were living in way too much of their own filth, and that’s what eventually killed them. This is actually a legitimate way to compost, if you’re looking for castings to add to your potted plants and don’t care if your worms survive.

This time, determined to do it right, we read a book on the subject (Worms Eat My Garbage) and went to a (free) class at the Somerville Community Growing Center (a great place—you should check it out). Now we’ve got a second bin all set up to transfer most of our worms into when this compost is almost done, and it seems like it’ll only be a few more weeks. These guys work fast!

One pound of worms eat a half pound of garbage per day, but they can only do so much. Dairy products (and meat) make the bin smell and attract bugs. Some things, like melon rind, celery, and avocado skin, take so long to break down that they’re not worth the bother. And too much garlic, onion, and citrus can apparently be toxic to the poor worms.

What we need is a regular compost bin, where the temperatures get so high that everything breaks down. But we don’t have space for an outdoor bin. Luckily there are other options around.

The City of Cambridge offers compost drop off at the DPW lot Tuesday and Thursday nights from 4:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., and Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. That time frame can be a little tight for us, though.

The DPW has also partnered with the Whole Foods on Prospect Street. We can drop off food waste in the toter at the back of the parking lot every day from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. And unlike our worm bin, this compost can include meat and dairy products—even greasy pizza boxes.

They're pretty clear about what can and can't go in, too.

We used to collect our scraps in a pretty Williams Sonoma compost bucket, but it tended to smell and collect flies. So now we use a couple of large Tupperware containers (with tight covers) and store them in the refrigerator. It’s kind of funny when we haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while to look in there and see more garbage than food!

As part of the sustainability committee at my workplace, Berkee College of Music, I’ve started conducting interviews with employees who are doing something at home to try to make their lives more sustainable. The first was about biking to work and the most recent has to do with the Boston Organics delivery service.

Chelsea Sebastian was nice enough to share her Boston Organics experience with us.

It’s a very convenient service. The box is delivered right to your door, and always having fruit and vegetables on hand means that you eat more of them. And while Boston Organics focuses more on organic than local food—it’s in the name—its produce is usually at least more seasonal than the supermarket.

I’ve signed up for this twice. Both times, I cancelled mid-way through the winter because I was frustrated with the variety. (This is mostly my own fault, since I have an unreasonable dislike of root vegetables.) But during the summer, it’s a godsend. I consider it a “gateway” CSA, because it teaches you to be creative with food that’s given to you, rather than choosing it yourself, and it introduces you to weird new vegetables that you wouldn’t even consider at the store (hello, kohlrabi). Yet, at the same time, you still have the flexibility of changing it on a week-by-week basis. So if there’s something you absolutely cannot stand, it goes on your “do not send” list. Even if there’s something you’ve just had way too much of lately, you can put it on the no list and take it off later.

Once you get used to this, if you decide at some point that you want to take the next step and get a CSA with a local farm, it’s less of an adjustment to make.

Hmm… Maybe we should sign up with Boston Organics again once our CSA ends in October. Maybe we’ll actually make it through the winter this time.

I don’t eat meat, but Jason’s a pescetarian outside of our house, and he tries to order species that haven’t been overfished. The Monterey Bay Aquarium puts out a good, simple guide that they just updated this month. It’s a good idea to have it in your pocket or on your phone.

Jason uses the sushi guide the most.

A good rule of thumb (in fish as in everything) is to eat farther down the food chain. Large fish like tuna and swordfish are generally more overfished than, say, clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops. Smaller fish are also a good idea for pregnant women or anyone worried about mercury—since larger fish eat smaller fish, they collect and store higher levels of mercury.

But how they’re caught (or farmed) makes a huge difference in the environmental impact. Generally, American or Canadian fish are considered better than imported, in terms of best practices, as well as the obvious carbon footprint of shipping. Maybe they’re just easier to monitor.

Of course, the whole thing is far more complex than this. That’s why we need the Monterey Bay guide and the Marine Stewardship Council label. There’s no way of knowing the impact of every bit of fish you eat (unless you catch it yourself, I guess), but you do what you can.