Nicolas Hulot is part of our lives, my children dream of having his poster in their room, his portrait is in every class, and there is not a day that my children don’t remind me that we must save the planet. I resist the best I can to organic food, which for now would make us homeless, given its price. I hide my face and tell myself that even if there are toxic products in everything we eat, cooking kills germs and our body system will know how to adapt.
But yesterday, I saw Adeline. Adeline is who I would call an ecologist in the soul, not those who would raise goats in Larzac, but those who say that in ecology there is eco, and that it rhymes with economy; one can imagine being economical by being ecological, and that speaks to me. Adeline teaches me to be eco-friendly.
Today, on her advice, I made my detergent. The detergent I use is expensive; it's true, even though I've given up on branded detergents. When I unpack the pellet, I have one more piece of paper to throw away. And even if I use a tablet instead of 2 as recommended on the leaflet, at a rate of 3 detergents per day, it is a ruin.
The recipe is simple: 100g of grated Marseille soap, 2 tablespoons of soda crystals and 3.5l of boiling water. Shake, cool, and with 2 caps in the machine, and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar as a softener, the case is settled. So I go with my bike to look for the ingredients and here I am in my kitchen.
The 3.5-litre can, the 5-litre can of windshield wiper fluid that hangs around the balcony will do the trick, except that it's still half full, so I go through the parking lot to fill the car's windshield wiper tanks (a good thing, they've been empty for ages).
I picked up my carrot grater to grate the soap, convinced that from now on my carrots will taste like soap! I know, it's silly, but it's like using the same sponge to clean dishes and toilets. I take it upon myself, and at the risk of losing several fingers, my soap is grated. I transferred it to the can: yes, it has a hole big enough, but my funnel is too thin for the chips, in short I finished it by hand, and I put it everywhere.
I added the 3.5 liters of boiling water, the soda crystals, and I did shake it vigorously. And there, even if it turns out that I have more of a literary than a scientific brain, it is obvious that there is an important chemical reaction: the bottle swells under the effect of the foam that is created, revealing a small hole in the middle of the container through which foam geysers escapes under pressure that will make me want to wipe out all the cupboards in my kitchen.
I rushed to the balcony to drop off the mini bomb that I made and then go clean the laboratory. After cooling, I have at my disposal 3.5l of laundry detergent for the small sum of 0.60 Euros. My first laundry spins, I can't wait for it to finish because I'm waiting for a white laundry and it seems, according to Adeline, to revive the white, just put 3 drops of blue ink in the fabric softener.
She also told me about coffee grounds to revive the black colors, but I'll wait until she has finished her tests in her lab.
And besides, Eco rhymes with Hulot, doesn't it? Thank you Adeline!
